The first round of Solo Champion League's Season 12 is here, and it's got us taking She-Hulk against Taskmaster in Standard.

Campaign Upgrades: Basic Attack Upgrade and Tactical Scanner.

The main goal of this deck is to get a clean, easy turn 2 or 3 win. In basically all of my test games I was able to meet this goal with ease (save for one of my official games with a turn 4 win, because that's always how it goes).

Basic Strategy

Mulligan

For the mulligan, we want to try to mulligan HARD for Split Personality. Drawing into Split Personality in the first two turns is basically the only reliable way to snag a Turn 2 Victory due to the insane card draw and the extra 2 flip damage you get out of it. You also ALWAYS want to keep Vivian, Nick Fury, and Double Resources. If your initial hand has 2 or more Ready Events (Limitless Stamina or One-Two Punch), you should also keep 1 of those Ready Events.

Turn 1

If you do end up with Split Personality in your opening hand, be sure to SAVE IT for Turn 2.

If you end up with Vivian in your opening hand, definitely prioritize playing her on Turn 1, using her ability to blank Hydra Patrol, and then using her activation to clear it. Hooray for no Hydra Minion!

If you end up with Fury in your opening hand but NOT Vivian, play Fury before you flip, use him to clear off Hydra Patrol, pull a Hydra Regular (Incite is a reveal effect and won't trigger), and then use your flip damage to take the minion out.

Outside of these 3 cards, your main goal on Turn 1 is to deal as much damage a possible to Taskmaster WITHOUT ADVANCING HIM TO STAGE 2. You should also try to get a chump block or a stun out to prevent Taskmaster from taking the Power Stone back.

If you have to keep an extra card in your hand at the end of the round (outside of Split Personality), prioritize holding your ready events, One by One or Skilled Strike (in that order of priority). The latter two cards will give you the damage you need to get around the weird health breakpoints you generally run into when trying to advance Taskmaster to Stage 2.

Turn 2

Whether or not you’ve drawn Split Personality at the beginning of Round 2, be sure to begin the round by popping off Tactical Scanner to give yourself the best options and flexibility for the round, as doing so will give you the best chance at being able to finish the game off.

If you’ve drawn into Split Personality at this point, you have an extremely high chance of snagging a clean turn 2 victory! Between the 11 cards you draw and the extra 2 damage from flipping, you should be able to clear the remainder of his board and finish him off!

If you still haven't drawn into Split Personality, you might still be able to pull off a turn 2 victory if you have enough damage and at least 2 readies in your hand. Either way, you should try to do as much damage and clear as much of his board as possible, and then flip down to Alter Ego, as trying to keep him on Stage 1 at this point is absolutely not worth it in the slightest compared the amount of damage you would lose as a result.

Turn 3+

You should hopefully have him on the ropes at this point outside of some unlucky encounters. Just try to prioritize playing Allies and Endurance to finish off with a better hero score.

TIPS AND TRICKS

DON'T BE AFRAID TO USE SHE-HULK'S ACTIVATION TO THWART ONCE YOU HAVE THE POWER STONE, especially if you know you're going to have to take things to Round 3. Thwarting is much harder to come by in this deck than damage.

Don't be afraid to just straight up take a swing with Hulk. You're twice as likely to hit a Fist than a Science, so the average damage you're losing by NOT using his activation is just way too great.

Don't play Star-Lord unless you know you're gonna finish out the game this turn. He's really great to help you finish cleaning up threat on your last turn, but outside of that definitely isn't worth the extra encounter card you get from playing him.

Vivian's main use here is to blank out and clear Hydra Patrol in one turn, but don't hesitate to just clear Hydra Patrol using other means if don't draw her in the first 2 turns. Other good targets for her ability include Hydra Soldier, Taskmaster's Shield, and the ever-painful Photographic Reflexes.

Because Taskmaster's first stage has 13 health, you can often run into a weird health breakpoint where you would end up losing a ton of damage by sinking a basic attack into him to advance him to Stage 2. Throwing in a Skilled Strike on at least one of your first basic attacks against him is one way to get around this bottleneck, but an even better one comes in the form of One by One.

One by One is fantastic for a few reasons:

• Due to the wording on the card, and because a Villain is considered to be defeated by an attack when your reduce their first stage to 0, if this card is used to finish Taskmaster's first stage, the condition on the card will trigger allowing you to do an additional 2 damage to Taskmaster's second stage.

• The low health minions that pop up in this matchup are a pain to clear due to wasted damage from our high basic attack, and this is by far the most efficient way to remedy that pain point.

• This is by far the best way to clear off the most annoying encounter card in the deck, Photographic Reflexes.

Toss Focused Rage every time. It's an amazing card for She-Hulk in longer games, but it's literally impossible for you to break even on this card's value with how fast our games are going.

If you draw into Captured by Hydra, absolutely prioritize getting the threat off it cleared ASAP, even if it means using multiple She-Hulk activations to thwart. You'll need to clear it at some point for a decent score, and the Ally you get out of defeating it is just insane value.