Drawn to the Smell of Blood

Drawn to the Smell of Blood

Build Restriction(s): Ban all allies who draw cards; cannot stun the villain.

Goal: Draw a slew of cards and use the results to slay all enemies.

As the title of the deck alludes to, this is a card draw deck but mainly from the events and possibly the upgrade Blood Rage (and not from allies).

1st-Time Cards: The following cards are included in this deck that I've never included previously in a deck.

• "Bring It!"
• Hall of Heroes (removed from deck after 3 games)
• Aggressive Conditioning
• Blood Rage
• Aggressive Stance
• Moment of Triumph (removed from deck after 2 games)

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If you'd like to see a video discussion of this deck, check the following video: coming soon at ... http://www.youtube.com/@MCDeckDiscussions

• "Demo" video(s) that shows off some turns with the deck: Releasing on Thursday, December 11, 2025 Tigra Aggression Demo Play Vs. Iron Man

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VILLAINS TESTED AGAINST to refine the deck and/or game play strategies (in both standard and expert): Klaw (with an expert house rule(1)); Spider-Woman; Magneto; and Iron Man

Notable Results:

• Moved to the end of this description for those who wish to read it.

Deck Refinements:

Removal(s):

• Moment of Triumph: I barely used this in the first two games and for little gain and would rather increase the probability of drawing a more impactful card.
• Hall of Heroes: never played in 3 games.

Addition(s):

• One more copy of Aggressive Stance (for a total of 3): This was added after removing Hall of Heroes.

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  NOTABLE ELEMENTS:
  

Specific Purpose of Each Ally:

• Brawn: Relatively cheap ally for consistent damage and threat removal
• Bug: Cheap card that at times remained in play the entire game but almost always for at least a few turns.
• Professor X and Psylocke: To confuse the villain and allow Tigra to go to Alter-Ego to grab a Hunted the following round. Both are also excellent thwarters.
• Spider-Girl: Allows us to freely keep a minion in play in another round.
• Throg: Gives cheap protection for Tigra for two rounds.
• Two-Gun Kid: Can help defeat a minion with Hunted attached to ready Tigra, while either setting up another minion for defeat or adding more damage to the villain.
• Winter Soldier: Extra threat removal while damaging minions.
• Yellowjacket: To gain one of the many upgrades, also giving an additional chance to grab a Hunted

Events:

• Face the Past: A card that makes it easier to deal with nemesis minion, while also helping draw potential setup cards.
• "Bring It!": Drew anywhere from 1 to 4 cards each time it was played.
• Press the Advantage: Rarely had a time this didn't deal damage and draw a card, often readying Tigra as it defeated a minion.

Player Side Scheme:

• Keep Up the Pressure: Great for final burst damage, but in an emergency can get one out of a jam.

Supports:

• Quincarrier: A resource generator available in hero or alter-ego form.

Upgrades:

• Aggressive Conditioning: Extra hit points for survivability while also giving Tigra more flexibility and effectiveness with the extra damage when readying multiple times.
• Aggressive Stance: Extra chances to grab the most effective attack event needed at the time.
• Blood Rage: for additional, repeated card draw
• Deft Focus: Constantly facilitates playing an extra card, often used for Cat-Like Reflexes or Tooth and Claw.

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Conclusion:

This deck is at its most fun when you draw several cards with Tigra's ability and then do so again with "Bring It!" to set up the kit, play some allies, or launch a major attack with multiple copies of Tooth and Claw. The many allies and Press the Advantage also made it easy to ready Tigra multiple times by defeating minions with Hunted attached, while having plenty of resources to play multiple cards a turn. Almost every game ended with large bursts of damage, ranging anywhere from 30 to 43 points of damage. Note that Magneto is a particularly challenging villain to face (see the notes below), a battle not for the faint of heart. I definitely had the most fun facing the other villains, but Magneto pushed me to be more selective in my card play choices. For those who prefer 40-card decks, I could see removing Blood Rage and a copy of Aggressive Stance in solo play.

(1) Note on expert house rule for Klaw: This modification assures that expert Klaw makes for a consistently challenging villain during playtesting. After discarding cards at the beginning of the game and putting into play the first minion that is discarded from the encounter deck, if that minion is NOT a Masters of Evil minion, I search the encounter deck for a Masters of Evil minion and replace the original discarded minion with it. I then shuffle that original minion back into the deck.

Notable Gameplay Results:

• Versus Standard Captain Klaw: For the last 2 turns, we dealt 30 and 17 points of damage, respectively, not even bothering to clear The "Immortal" Klaw from the board.
• Versus Expert Klaw: Had complete control the entire game and dealt 43 points of damage on the final turn, 24 of that from all 3 copies of Tooth and Claw, 2 damage from Press the Advantage, 8 damage from Tigra's basic attacks, and the rest from allies.
• Versus Standard Spider-Woman: Nicely controlled once again, despite Spider-Woman drawing two Advances in her final turn. Dealt 23 points of damage on the turn after she went to State II (since none of the Leaders in Civil War can take damage when they first go to Stage II).
• Versus Expert Spider-Woman: Dominated and had 34 points of damage in the final turn, again playing all 3 copies of Tooth and Claw.
• Versus Standard Magneto: Lost the 1st game on 2 Masters of Magnetism in a row, the first one defeating stage II of the main scheme, the 2nd one defeating stage III. In the 2nd game, I used Hunted more conservatively, not bringing out a minion at every opportunity, though still using the card semi-regularly. The game was still a bit chaotic but won it with 23 points of damage on the final turn.
  • What makes Magneto especially challenging for Tigra is the combinations he has with his minions, including that all of them have deleterious "When Defeated" abilities. On top of that, he has 2 Magnetic Missile treacheries to go along with his 4 M-Type Sentinel minions, while the 5 Acolyte minions have Teamwork.
    
• Versus Expert Magneto: Lost the 1st game from damage on a Magnetic treachery and would have won following that. In the 2nd game, we dealt all 22 points of damage to Magneto to defeat him with 2 Sharp Claws attacks for a total of 8 damage, 8 damage from a Tooth and Claw, 2 damage from Press the Advantage, drawing a card, which allowed enough resources to finishe the villain with ally attacks.
• Versus Standard Iron Man: This game went back and forth a couple of times, and I would have genuinetly lost if it weren't for the 2 Cat-Like Reflexes cards saving me. I eventually won with 1 HP remaining, with Iron Man garnering 4 attachments.
• Versus Expert Iron Man: This game went much more smoothly, though Iron Man did try to "Bring It!" himself by attacking 3 times in his final turn, along with triggering an attack from all 3 minions in play; however, in our final turn, we finished him quickly with 2 Tooth and Claw attacks that dealt 10 damage each (enhanced by Keep Up the Pressure), with an additional 9 points of damage to the villain supplied by two of Tigra's basic attacks and a Two-Gun Kid attack.