Mutant Meat Shields

With new allies come new opportunities to hide behind them! There's no shame in hiding behind Blindfold or Professor X, is there...?

...Nah!

This deck is built around making the most of the Mutant Protectors card to defend for you alongside Hangar Bay.

Mutant Protectors costs 1, and using it means losing it and an ally from your hand. Overall, it's 3 "effective resources" spent when played. If you had 5 cards when you started (and no resource generators), you would end up with 2.

What this means is that, when playing Mutant Protectors, we want to aim for at least the same value as we could get from playing a 2-cost card. In this case, it means we want some amazing effects from the allies when they enter play - or allies that will actually survive taking the villain attack!

Fortunately, almost all the allies in this deck provide great value through using Mutant Protectors on the villain's attack. And those who don't, namely Pixie, provide great value elsewhere.

(Note that, in 3-4 player, you should swap a copy of Assess the Situation for an Armored Vest.)

The Basics:

At the start of the game, your mulligan targets are at least one of the following: The X-Jet, Helicarrier, Hangar Bay and Utopia. The X-Jet is your main target; using its resource to pay for Mutant Protectors leaves more cards in your hand, which means more flexibility in what you later play in reaction to your encounter cards.

Your alter-ego action, on Turn 1, should primarily be used to either grab Pinned Down to spend as a resource or Plan B to set up some reliable damage and excess-tactic disposal! Plan B functions very much like a weaker but cheaper Element Gun from Star-Lord.

Why do we want to spend Pinned Down early on? To get it into our discard pile. Then we can search for it with Tactical Brillance whenever we need it. And why would we need it? To set up a 0 ATK minion.

Cheating the System:

If you can attach Pinned Down to a 1-2 ATK minion, or Pinned Down + Practiced Defense (with Field Commander in play) on a 3 ATK, minion, what you have is a 0 ATK minion. And 0 ATK minions still attack.

Having a 0 ATK minion attacking means you can spend Mutant Protectors to put an ally in play, defend its pathetic attempts to damage you, and boom! You have an ally in play with full hp for cheap. With Hangar Bay, you can even ready it for immediate use.

Now, you can simply add 3x Pinned Down to the deck to increase the chance of simply drawing it at the right time, or attempt to use your alter-ego ability to find it at the right time, and both of those are valid strategies. But I have had my best results summoning it when needed from the discard pile.

With Mutant Protectors, you want to stay in hero form as much as possible when so that Mutant Protectors is playable when you draw it, and you want to free up as much of the deck as you can for great allies!

Tools of the Trade:

You might be looking at the decklist and thinking "why the heck has he put 3x Assess the Situation in here?!" and you would be right to wonder. While a good card in general and a handy Tactic for Tactical Brillance, what Assess the Situation's increased handsize does for us here is give us a better chance of drawing an X-Men ally and a copy of Mutant Protectors in the same hand.

You could just add more X-Men allies instead, but at the time of writing, these are the only ones that - in my opinion - reliably get you enough value to justify using them with Mutant Protectors on the villain's attack. And while the Pinned Down 0 ATK minion strategy is good, its effectiveness/ease to setup varies based on the scenario.

Forge can be a good addition, but once The X-Jet and Utopia are in play he loses a ton of value.

Most of the other upgrades are fairly self-explanatory. The X-Jet and Helicarrier increase your resource economy. Hangar Bay readies up allies that survive to increase their tempo. Utopia readies you and increases your ally limit. And Plan B gives you a consistent way to find damage and a place to put any excess tactic upgrades when you draw too many at once.

In multiplayer especially, Hangar Bay and Utopia come into their own. If you play this deck at 3-4 player, be sure to add Armored Vest and start defending with Cyclops! With one use of Mutant Protectors on an ally who gets a Tough, you can defend 4 times. (Defend with Cyclops, defend with an ally through Mutant Protectors, use Utopia to ready Cyclops and Hangar Bay to ready the ally, defend with both again.)

The X-Pendables:

And last but definitely not least, we have our expendable X-Men. While they should be played outside of Mutant Protectors too, I am going to break their value down based on Mutant Protectors given that it's the focus of this deck.

The general consensus among the community is that blocking a villain activation is roughly equivalent to 2 effective resources. And with Mutant Protectors costing 3 effective resources, we need to find the extra value from the allies' effects!

• Armor - With Toughess, she is guaranteed to survive an attack giving you two blocks! She is a prime target for Hangar Bay and is still great value if you immediately block with her again before using her ATK or THW.
• Beast - By grabbing you a double resource card, Beast + Mutant Protectors means you are almost entirely refunded, taking the total cost down from 3 cards to 1. Just try to make sure you have something to spend the resources on!
• Blindfold - While her value varies and sometimes misses, you can use her response to manipulate your upcoming encounter card. And the difference between pulling Shadow of the Past or giving the villain a Tough status card is enormous.
• Colossus - Like Armor, but better. You can use Hangar Bay to double-block with him too and still get good value - but you will get most value if you first attack and bring him down to 1 hp and block later.
• Dazzler - Blocking attacks is good, blocking the villain scheming is even better. By blocking an attack and confusing the villain, you are stopping two attacks and giving yourself safe access to alter-ego!
• Phoenix - When Phoenix enters play, she searches for a card. In a way, this is a 1 resource refund on Mutant Protectors and brings it in line. But in reality, finding a specific card is more valuable! She can find some of your best cards such as Priority Target, Tactical Brillance, and Full Blast!
• Pixie - This is the one ally you DON'T want to play through Mutant Protectors! Keep her in hand, play her from hand to trigger her ability, profit. She does nothing for Mutant Protectors but she's too good not to bring.
• Polaris - Like Colossus, but even better. You can put the Tough status card on her when Mutant Protectors brings her in against a villain attack to keep her alive, or on yourself when brought in against a 0 ATK minion.
• Professor X - Need there be any introduction? He is basically like Dazzler with Mutant Protectors in that he provides a confuse. Just avoid using him against a 0 ATK minion, he'll disappear at the end of the villain phase!
• Rockslide - A poor choice at his full cost, but he often provides two blocks with Mutant Protectors against the villain! Against a 0 ATK minion? He shines. Using his 3 ATK each turn makes him provide 9 damage for the 3 "effective resources" that Mutant Protectors took. And the Retaliate is a sweet bonus.
• Wolverine - And last but not least, Wolverine. His damage does wonders for this deck in solo play. Against a 2 ATK villain, he has a decent chance to survive when brought in with Mutant Protectors. If Practiced Defense or a 0 ATK minion is involved? He's easy to bring in! Even when damaged down to his last hp, he'll heal back up!

Alternative Cards:

• Mirage - When against a 1 SCH villain? Mirage's response works on them, and means she's worth taking.
• Sunfire - An amazing ally - but has no synergy with Mutant Protectors. Great to bring in solo play in an attachment-heavy scenario.
• Angel - A good ally. Is he good with Mutant Protectors? Not especially. But a 2-cost ally that can deal 4 damage and block? Still good and a great replacement if another ally is unavailable.
• Forge - As alluded to earlier, he's another chance to find your The X-Jet or Utopia sooner. The problem is, after Mutant Protectors, can you afford them? And after they're in play, he then becomes the worst ally in the deck.
• Jocasta - She can hold Mutant Protectors which ups its consistency and also gives you another use of it per deck cycle! Unfortunately, she won't trigger Utopia's ready and turns its increased ally limit off. Once Jocasta is in play and one of the longer-lasting allies (such as Wolverine or Polaris), the ally limit is just too tight for my liking.
• Bait and Switch - This card gives you another chance to use Mutant Protectors! Is it worth it? Probably not, except perhaps on 3-player without a Justice hero. But even then... It's biggest advantage is letting you use Mutant Protectors if you've drawn it while alter-ego.

Good luck and have fun! (And thanks to Tekromatic and journeyman2 for their help on the deck.)