Jessica Teaches Warlock Finesse

This is a deck that has been on my mind since Children of the Atom was first announced and I have been playing/tinkering with it off and on since. I really like Warlock as a character but he's awkward to play. Why would you want to spend a resource to keep a 1/1 character around especially in Protection where we can't voltron him. Luckily Jessica isn't inhibited by such problems with her deckbuilding flexibility. We can get Warlock up to 3/3 with the ability to keep him alive forever and numerous ways to ready. But since Jessica loves flexibility, we have added some other allies in who can take advantage of these perks as well.

Finesse

As the name implies, Finesse is the key card in this deck along with CoTa. Finesse generates a resource for an aspect card which is not limited to just paying for an ally or an event, we are going to use it to pay for allies who have abilities in their card text. Warlock heals 2 damage when we spend a resource so we can utilize Finesse to pay for this.

Kid Omega has a when enter play ability that allows you to choose to spend either a resource and remove 1 threat from each scheme or spend an resource to deal 1 damage to each enemy. Finesse will allow you to take advantage of either one.

Nightcrawler was a late addition to this deck but has been so impactful. We can use Finesse to pay for his ability which lets you spend an to to prevent all damage that would hit an X-Men character and return him to your hand. This allows you to continuously loop him to avoid damage and have a 6 card hand size in hero form.

Finess also allows you to hit the kicker for What Doesn't Kill Me which will heal Jessica for 2 and provide a ready.

Strategy

The idea is to get Finesse and CoTa out asap so that we have our resource generators and we can voltron our allies. To speed up getting them out we have a copy of Build Support and Superpower Training.

The 2 main allies we are going to focus on are Warlock and X-23. With CoTa they will now be able to have training upgrades attached since they are considered X-Men. We have 2 copies each of Protective Training and Danger Room Training as well as Inspired. Inspired was added to allows us to buff allies even if CoTa hasn't hit play yet.

X-23 with both trainings and inspired attached will have 7 health and be sitting at 2/5 with the ability to ready when she defeats an enemy.

Warlock will have 7 health as well along with being a 3/3 who can be continuously healed from Finesse.

Leadership Skill was also included to further boost their stats which fully set up would allow Warlock to thwart/attack for 4 and X-23 to thwart for 3 or attack for 6.

With trainings attached, we can use Game Time to heal a damage from them and get a ready.

We also have Get Ready in here which can be used on any ally at any time and boosts Jessica since it is an aspect card. This is also really nice if Captain Marvel is in play to get a second card draw from her ability.

We also have Phoenix who can ready an X-men ally and heal 1 damage from them when she enters play. With CoTa out, she would be able to ready either X-23 or Warlock.

Med Team is also included to heal in the event that we don't have Finesse out or as an emergency if we had to play other cards that turn using our resource generators.

Nightcrawler is not a part of the voltron package but once we have him out, we can use Finesse to pay for his ability and then play him again the next turn. This gives us another 2/2 ally every turn who also allows us to completely avoid damage.

You may be wondering how we are going to take advantage of Jessica's kit if we are looping Nightcrawler and using Finess for his ability as well as Warlock's. Well Warlock only takes 1 consequential per activation so we don't need to use Finesse for him every turn and with 2 copies of it out, we will have one to take advantage of still most turns.

We also have Clarity of Purpose which deals a damage to the attached character in this case Jessica to generate a resource meaning we have yet another resource generator to take advantage of. Most turns after looping Nightcrawler back to your hand you will have 6 cards in hand as well as 2 resource generators which is more than enough to still take advantage of her powerful events like Pheromones or Venom Blast.

Most turns Jessica will be a 3/3 or potentially higher which means that she has the flexibility to thwart or attack depending on what the board looks like.

Early game she's going to take hits before are set up which is why we have the 3 copies of WDKM to heal as well as get extra activations. Later game these are used to heal the damage from Clarity and provide the ready.

Polaris also provides an emergency tough when we are still getting set up.

Indomitable is also included for minion heavy scenarios so that if Nightcrawler has been looped already we can defend but still have activations for the hero phase.

Cards Considered

Northstar was in here for awhile and works really well with Protective Training but I dropped him in favor of Nightcrawler and have liked that better.

Utopia was in for awhile and works well with the Nightcrawler loop but I found myself not playing it as often in favor of aspect cards to boost Jessica.

Deft Focus was also considered as she has numerous superpower cards but I dropped in favor of Clarity as that is not limited to superpowers.

Cyclops was another solid ally for awhile but I dropped him in favor of X-23 to provide another voltron target for our upgrades.

Overall, I have really enjoyed this deck as it made a character that i really like viable and it performs well with the ability to handle problems. There is a ton of flexibility to it allowing Jessica to take advantage of boosting her stats while also making her allies stronger.

I would love to hear any feedback or experiences with the deck!