Jessica Jones is the premiere thwart scaling ally. So let's make her an honorary pirate, and the captain of this Gunboat! Gunboat decks are already pretty heavy on set up, and then needing side schemes on top of it to power up Jones is a bit much. So that's why we are going with Jubilee here. With Shopping Spree, our side scheme is accounted for, and with Chance Encounter and One Way or Another, setting up everything else is a breeze.

The Crew

Jessica Jones is of course our captain, and the most important card in this deck. Make her Honorary X-Men and make sure she Knows the Mission. Now she just needs a first mate. This needs to be an X-Force member, so the options here are Deadpool or Wolfsbane.

Stock up the Ship

Captain Jones needs side schemes. In addition to Shopping Spree, you can use One Way or Another to get more in play. Crisis Averted will deal with any crisis icons on these cards, and can remove an extra 3 threat with Jubilee's Coat.

Set Sail on this Nuclear Sub.... I mean Pirate Ship

Mutant Education gives you the option to use Shopping Spree and then quickly get it right back in play, if you want. Otherwise, this can shuffle her events or double resources back in. Gunboat Diplomacy is both a Thwart and an Attack, so it can trigger both the Coat and Sunglasses. Though it's only +1 thwart and damage, this is still really nice for turns where you don't have anything else to trigger them.

When all built out, expect your gunboats to hit for at least 8 or 9 ATK/THW. In my 2 player games, my record was 11. You will likely see even higher numbers in a 4 player game. Make sure the encounter deck has a lot of side schemes, and choose mod sets that have a lot of them, like Galactic Artifacts or State of Emergency.

Maintaining the Schemes

We want to keep a lot of side schemes around. Based on how Gunboat Diplomacy is worded, you most likely have to remove the full X worth of threat, if possible. This can be tricky as it could force you to defeat side schemes if there isn't a lot of threat on the board. This isn't much of an issue, though. In 3-4 player games, there is so much threat on the table that you will always have enough to go around. In a 2 player game, you may need to defeat some side schemes, but it doesn't really matter. You are still getting that huge first gunboat and then by the time you do it again, the villain will be close to defeated anyway. This can also be alleviated by playing against villains with permanent side schemes.

Final Thoughts

I made this deck over a month ago, but I'm finally publishing it because I haven't seen any other decks using Jessica Jones with Gunboat. She is a really fun core box ally that doesn't get much love these days, and its a pretty strong combo! I am hoping to inspire others to make their own Captain Jones decks. The combo is just those two cards, feel free to try and make it work with other heroes. Cable, Rogue, Gambit, and Nightcrawler all seem like good alternatives.

Children of the Atom has opened up new possibilities for gunboat decks with Captain Jones. I didn't find it to be helpful for this particular deck, but it will allow you to pick both Jones and your hero as Gunboat targets. So this could be great with high THW X-Men and X-Force like Psylocke and Phoenix.