Introduction

Natasha got a major glow-up in Cycle 9. Our goal is to showcase her new toys and kick Ebony Maw's butt. This deck is designed for a 4-player setting.

Gameplay notes

The timing between RFAF and Widowmaker is a bit complicated:

1. When the villain schemes, trigger RFAF.
2. Immediately after paying the cost for RFAF by discarding it, we may trigger Practiced Plan. But we haven't flipped to hero form yet, so it won't trigger Widowmaker.
3. Continue resolving RFAF. Flip to hero form and get attacked.
4. During the attack, we can optionally defend and trigger cards like Attacrobatics.
5. Once the attack is fully resolved, RFAF finishes resolving as well, which will trigger Widowmaker. We may optionally use Synth-Suit to ready.

Deckbuilding notes

We'll start with the core cards that we plan to showcase:

• Ready for a Fight allows us to flip frequently, getting full value out of Mission Prep, Widowmaker, and Alter-Ego supports.
• White Widow is practically immortal, staying on board all game long.
• Winter, Widow, Soldier, Spy is strong enough to justify its conditionality. It's mostly here for the fun factor.

Next we can take advantage of the new Tech cards for SHIELD:

• Jemma and Leo help us tutor and pay for our most important upgrades.
• Energy Barrier is a high-powered Tech card we can repeatedly cycle once our permanent upgrades are online.
• Spider-Byte will quickly become a 0-cost chump blocker, which is pretty strong.

Since we have a lot of potential to ping minions during the villain phase with Widowmaker and Energy Barrier, we'll also pack a copy of Change of Fortune. We only need to trigger it twice to profit. Just be careful to intentionally leave minions alive. Coordinate with your teammates!

Next we'll slot in some staples and preparations:

• Agent 13 nearly pays for herself by readying Leo, Jemma, or Safe House.
• Double resources help us pay for our many expensive cards.
• Practiced Plan allows us to copy whatever Preparation we need.
• Espionage is particularly consistent against Ebony Maw, generates positive value via Widowmaker, and effectively thins our deck.
• Quincarrier helps satisfy the resource requirement for RFAF.

We'll also sprinkle in a few cards to specifically deal with Ebony Maw's spells, although these are also staples in their own right:

• Iron Fist stuns Ebony Maw, which prevents spells from ticking down.
• Endurance gives us a bigger HP buffer to survive spells like Fireball.
• Dr. Sinclair helps heal heroes, which helps against unavoidable damage sources like Fireball and Rubblestorm.
• Night Nurse heals confuse and stun, which helps against Manipulation and Pacification.

Sideboard

• Armored Vest may be useful against villains with high ATK, although we do want to allow a little damage to trigger Energy Barriers.
• If the table has strong thwarters, consider Superpowered Training or Build Support to get key cards online more consistently.
• Target Acquired can cancel particularly nasty boost effects.

Special mentions

• Grant Ward is generally powerful if we need more thwarting.
• Ops Room can help with thwarting as well.
• Unflappable is viable depending on the scenario, especially once Synth-Suit gets online.
• Helicarrier has great synergy with Agent 13, but we can get similar effects with Jemma, Leo, or Safe House.
• With so many tech cards (especially Energy Barrier), Repurpose is worth considering.
• Med Team squeezes extra value out of allies, but Agent 13 is essentially our only target.
• Face the Past almost made the cut, but the boost effect is gnarly.