Functionally Dysfunctional

Nightcrawler has been my favorite super hero since I saw the ancient X-Men show back in the 90s, and he proved to be hands-down my favorite Marvel Champions since he released. It took me lots of try-and-fail to get to where I felt good about how to play him, and it was once I saw that if you don't take allies he performs much better. I've been jamming this deck most of the time when I play him. I've ditched using Synch since Defensive Conditioning dropped, and later dropped all my Under Control, Change of Fortune, Dauntless, Superpower Training, and Angel's Aerie, instead adding in Ready for a Fight, Taunt, and Moira MacTaggert.

But I digress! Point is, I've been jamming no-ally Nightcrawler for a long while and it seems like I'm going to be jamming it a lot more in a month with all the cool no-ally cards on the way.

Before that happens, I wanted to push myself to lean into playing allies more, since I've been avoiding them since I found that as a "solution" to getting Nightrcawler to work. And when I realized Stronger Together works on consequential damage, everything came together.

Supercharging Adaptation

Rogue's ability is really awesome and unlocks some really crazy combinations. For example, I played alongside a Gunboat Diplomacy deck, stealing Psylocke's 3 THW and X-Force trait to more flexibly help that player trigger big value off of that card. That made me wonder if I could come up with a flexible solo-or-multiplayer protection-only deck with her. And that's when I remembered Stronger Together.

That card is a really awesome multiplayer card, but it works on any kind of damage. So I started looking at allies with big stats for Rogue to use as her batteries, which I'm sure others have done.

Why Nightcrawler makes such a good chassis for this is he doesn't need to chump, and not chumping is playing to his strengths, and also allowing Rogue to pop off and stick to the table. Stronger Together is flexible, used on Rogue's consequential damage (or one of the big allies that matches our trait, like Rockslide. Gambit, or Colossus. Med Team can also heal Rogue up once she's about to die, keeping her hale and ready to go. We also have a couple Protective Trainings so we can make Rogue have lots more HP, and we can also slap one on Colossus, Gambit, or Rockslide to extend the life of your battery.

We also have some spicy guest stars! Daredevil can have his THW stolen by Rogue and we can get the same value from his activation but only deal him one damage. Or, if needed, steal his powers and then have him activate, giving us close to event-level efficiency! Jocasta can fetch Tally Ho!, Jump Flip, or Side Step for us, and Daytripper is also there. Okay, that about...

Oh you saw that? Yeah, Dum Dum Dugan. Big Numbers! and Rogue can steal them, even better. Now we're thwarting or swinging for 5! Pretty great! He's a bit of a resource sink, but if you can get him down, he really gets rogue to pop off.

I went to make a partner Gunboat Diplomacy deck with the Justice player running Dum Dum Dugan, but it appears someone already made one! This would probably make for an amazing partner-deck for this one.

Now it's time to trauma bond, and there's no better way than to do it while beating down villains!