Rogue-Three Card Monte

Before you are three cards, touch the right one and you will be rewarded handsomely!

Hello everyone! Rogue has been a really exciting hero for me, mostly due to her having a completely unique event in the form of Superpower Absorbtion (SpA). With proper setup, this card is essentially a Make the Call but for events, granting you tons of versatility with the proper allies. This deck aims to always have the three different classifications of allies on board (Identity Specific, Basic, and Aspect) so that we can essentially always grab the event we want.

Shout out to VillianTheory on the Marvel Champions LCG Discord for suggesting a SiN build to really make this concept shine!

This deck comfortably beat Expert Sabretooth and Magneto in Solo with the default mods, as well as Ultron with Brothers Grimm in a two-player game with Gambit-Aggression. This deck is currently low player count focused, but I will suggest alternatives later to help in higher player counts and when paired with a certain awkward partner.

Card 1: Rogue

Rogue is decidedly an event based hero. She has 13 events, which her omnipresent upgrade Touched serves as a means of giving her unique characteristics like Retaliate, Aerial, and Overkill, and also lets her modulate the effects of her events. When touched is attached to the Gambit ally Rogue is able to use SpA to grab any of her effective events from the discard. Now, I know a big question is gonna be how you still use the status affliction parts of Rogue's events when you do this? The status affliction is definitely the eye-catching parts of Goin' Rogue and Southern Cross, and you can only Stun or Confuse when you have Retaliate, which comes from having Touched on the Villain. But we can work with that! Rouge's in kit Energy Transfer can be played to move Touched from Gambit to the Villain. With a single resource generator (we have several options in deck), we can play Energy Transfer and Going Rogue, and with two resource generators we can play Energy Transfer and Southern Cross. SpA is able to grab any of these events, so we're simply grabbing what we need to match what we already have. Energy Transfer itself is also just super good when resolved, especially with Rogue's Jacket! You might often still want to use SpA to grab Energy Transfer and put the Touched back on the villain anyway so that Bulletproof Belle is online. My final note on these is using SpA to grab an event and not having a way to move touched is still a great move pretty often, 4ER for 8 damage and 3ER for 5 threat removal are both great output. It is nice when Bulletproof Belle is able to be procced but it does not always need to be online when you throw out statuses and chump blocks as often as this deck does.

Card 2: Leadership

Now I know making decks that just add Strength In Numbers and are effective with that alone is nothing new. But this deck is encouraged to keep the board out even without SiN, and is very good at playing it in itself! Make the Call lets us grab whatever missing or removed allies we need to keep our Three-Card Monte. SiN is running well often with how stocked the board stays, and helps Rogue fill out economy when putting in late pieces of setup. Adam Warlock is one part of the Mystic Package and loves hanging around on the board for a while. Gaining his Aerial trait also can let us get multiple kickers from Rogues events if we use Energy Transfer after attaching to him. The second part of the Mystic package, Kaluu, is Rogue's biggest fan, definitely a mainstay for this Hero in Leadership. This deck plays 21 events and they're all amazing, so Kaluu's versatility in picking what we want helps with this decks philosophy. His effective cost is also very good to keep bringing back with Make the Call to chump block while still keeping a blue ally on board frequently. Summoning Spell is a little clunky in the early game(especially when compared to true Mystic heroes) but our recursion is good enough that we can bring it back in the mid and late game and still use it to it's full effect and then some. It works out spectacularly that putting touched on our blue Mystic allies can let us use SpA to grab Summoning Spell and still have the Mystic Trait to play it right away. Clarity of Purpose is going to be another Rogue mainstay in Leadership, she loves cheap economy options. Make sure to use it to pay for Bulletproof Belle so that you don't run into any awkwardness with the tough status.

Card 3: Basic

We have plenty of good cards to play with using The Power in All of US. Angel and [Colossus](/card/35021) both being healthy allies for their cost are great for maintaining board, Forge helps us move setup along. Nick Fury is going to be a great ally to cycle through the deck, is spectacular when hit off Summoning Spell, and is a super flexible option off Make the Call. Utopia is great with Rogue with how effective her stats can be with her Jacket, and The X-Jet gets us more of that valuable economy. Same reasoning for Deft Focus and X-Gene, as well as The Sorcerer Supreme which is helped tremendously by MtC keeping mystics in rotation frequently. The reward for the Monte with gray cards is Beauty and the Thief, which we will practically always have online as we're preserving and recurring Gambit diligently. BatT and Rogues effective events make responding to Minions, Side Schemes, and playing from behind super easy, and very satisfying!

Other Picks

Maria Hill is probably a surprising card to not see in a recursion heavy deck, but she is not a good Blue part of our Three-Card Monte since we cannot play a Summoning Spell from SpA if Touched is attached to her. I would definitely put her in for higher player count games, likely cutting a SiN which we can see often enough and is worse in the early game. Ironheart for Forge is also a good swap if you see your games going longer, since Forge will lose his effectiveness when Supports are all on board. Probably also a good decision in higher player count games when other players can help manage the early game as well. Finally, this deck is very different when playing with a Gambit hero! You'll obviously have to pivot to a Two-Card Monte here. I believe the deck should still function fine with just recurring BatT and your powerful blue cards often. However, with some experimentation and some modifications you can possibly include other powerful cards in the Basic part of the Monte. Iron Heart and another Basic Champion Ally make enough room to run Go for Champions! which can workout very well in multiplayer games. But that is currently only theory! Rogue has been super fun in testing, and I hope everyone who plays this list enjoys!