Nightcrawler: The Boondock Saints

"And shepherds we shall be.

For Thee, my Lord, for Thee.

Power hath descended forth from Thy hand.

That our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command.

So we shall flow a river forth to Thee.

And Teeming with souls shall it ever be.

In Nomine Patris, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti."

In a discussion with my friend Ninedown about my last Nightcrawler deck Nightcrawler: Habeo gladios tres, a deck with a title and write-up that both heavily lean into Nightcrawler's staunch Catholicism, he made an offhand comment wondering if there had ever been a comic crossover with Nightcrawler and Daredevil, who is also very Catholic. Which immediately made me think of The Boondock Saints, and thus this ridiculous deck was born.

You want Justice ally Daredevil out as soon as possible so you can make him an Honorary X-Men and give him Mission Training. Chance Encounter can help a lot with this, and then once you have him out, both copies are still useful to grab Daytripper (or Daredevil if you had to sacrifice him for an emergency block). Command Center ups his damage for defeating side schemes, so there's five in the deck to choose from (Build Support, Generation X, Lay the Trap, Superpower Training, and Take Out the Guards).

Game Times and First Aids keep Daredevil alive and thwarting (or attacking in a pinch).

One of the jankiest parts of this deck is that Mutant Education is mostly meant to be used to keep cycling 'Port Away back into the deck because it's a crazy good card to have when you want to flip down to AE but don't want to stay there due to there being no confuse in this deck. This gives you a great opportunity to get some healing and card draw in as Nightcrawler and Daredevil take a moment to pray at Kurt's Chapel, and then flip right back up to into hero mode to continue judging evil-doers.

Children of the Atom gives you the ability to use Gunboat Diplomacy once Daredevil has his honorary X-Man status. It's the most involved card in this entire deck to use because it requires three specific cards to be played before it's even viable. But it does give access to a decent amount of threat removal and damage, and it's thematic, in a way.

Because this deck has so few cards that cost two or more resources, there are no doubles. The deck can be run through fairly quickly, though, especially if you're able to get Moira MacTaggert and the Chapel out to draw cards. And even if you drop to AE with full health, as long as you have Weapon X out you can always make sure you are able to do a basic heal to trigger the Chapel (not to mention it also running you through your deck by discarding cards to draw you an identity-specific card).

As with all of my decks, I wouldn't consider this powerful, but it's a lot of fun, a little thematic, and janky. Plus, you get to have some fun with an ally that doesn't see much love in the current era of the game due to the amount of choices available for allies now.