Some Light Training (The Xpert-23 Project)

(The beginning of each of my X-23 decklist writeups are the same, if you want to read my writings specifically about this deck, skip ahead to the "Deck Strategy" segment)

What is the Xpert-23 Project?

Ever since X-23 was previewed I immediately was in love with the design. I said "this could be my favorite hero in the game", she just looked so powerful and fun to play, and capable of doing so much. As soon as her cards were spoiled online, I immediately made proxies so I could test her, and she was incredible. I then made the decision to start this project: take an X-23 deck in each of the four main aspects true solo against every villain in the game on expert mode, and track my progress, and eventually to have decklists to post for people. I was allowed to change cards in my decks, but not specifically to tech against any villain, in order to hone the decks to a point where I would be comfortable taking them against any villain in the game. It took 192 total games to achieve this, 28 losses. Interestingly it was also my first general attempts at true solo for the most part, which was also interesting to explore (my favorite way to play is two handed solo, and while I haven't tested it yet I think X-23 is a monster in two handed). So all of my writeup and takes on X-23 are based on true solo plays, but they should also be totally fine for multiplayer games.

But that wasn't the end, I kept getting drawn to play more, do more last minute testing, until now where I've had to force myself to put her down, pull her claws out of me for the moment, to do these writeups. What did I learn? Well, I learned that I was correct in my initial impressions of X-23. She is incredibly powerful, incredibly consistent, incredibly resilient, and one of the absolute strongest heroes in the game.

Aggression Leadership Protection

What makes X-23 so strong?

The initial concern that people had with X-23 is how often she'll have to flip to alter ego to recover. Your claws deal 20% of your starting life total to you each time you use them, but on the flip side you are always inclined to block when the villain attacks you, which cancels out the damage your claws deal to you. The turns of "I'll just take this villain hit to the face because I have to do stuff next turn" don't really exist with X-23, because her ability is once per phase instead of round. In fact when you defend you actually hope to take exactly one damage, that is ideal. Her ability seems good on paper, but in play it's just incredible how much you get to do. Cards like Assault are so much less devastating, because you often ready from the initial attack and can block again, and still ready again to do something in the next player phase. This is unreal efficiency, and makes X-23 a hero that is capable of dealing with any aspect of the game that she needs to do at the time. She thwarts well, she attacks incredibly, and she is no slouch at defending, especially against multiple things.

Tips to playing X-23

My number one tip for building and playing X-23 is to remember this statement: Honey Badger is NOT your hero. It's tempting to think of all the upside you can get if you put a bunch of cards into your deck to ready her over and over and boost her stats, and while this is exciting and will lead to some crazy turns and stories about how you readied X-23 6 times in one turn, it will also lead to your deck being way more inconsistent. X-23 does so much work by herself, so it's always best to focus on boosting X-23, and having Honey Badger there to help make her a bit better.

Through my games it became more and more evident that X-23 for the most part wants to play super low to the ground. She isn't a hero to build a large resource engine, her cards are all so cheap that it's better to try to lower the overall cost curve of your deck instead of trying to add in a bunch of resource generation. Just go cheap and X-23 will do the rest of the work.

Do not forget that X-23's alter ego ability draws you a card. I actually missed this for a lot of the games this project (I think I realized it during the Red Skull box), and it really changes gameplay decisions. As wild as this seems, there was a lot of times I chose to discard Honey Badger turn one to help play a setup card just so I could shuffle her back in to get a free card. If you count your cards ahead well enough you can flip and shuffle her or Sisterly Bond back in and guarantee you'll have it next turn. Although most of the time I would suggest waiting until the next turn to do it to go up to seven cards.

A big part of evaluating new heroes is how they interact with their obligation or their nemesis set. If you aren't going all in on Honey Badger, X-23 has maybe one of the least impactful obligations in the game. Self-Isolation takes Honey Badger and you have to make a basic recovery to discard the obligation and Honey Badger. You generally want to make basic recoveries already in the game, so you just naturally get rid of it and can immediately shuffle Honey Badger back into your deck to draw a card. It's a supremely inconsequential obligation depending on your deck build, the most annoying timing to draw it is when Honey Badger is in your hand, because then you lose a card. As far as her nemesis set goes, if it's mid to late game I just ignore Lady Deathstrike and the side scheme. You generally prefer to just leave Deathstrike out because it blanks Cyber Mods as well, although her 2 scheme does make it harder to flip. Hack n' Slash is supremely annoying, and Critical Would is a pretty messed up card, although I think that's more dangerous in multiplayer games than in solo, because if it hits a hero that can't ready that is low on life they're just dead. The side scheme is the biggest obstacle, especially if you hit it early, but late game you can use the retaliate to your advantage by popping your claws before your first attack and readying from the retaliate damage. In general the 6 threat on that scheme is a pain to deal with, and it's a good target for an Animal Instinct play.

You don't ALWAYS have to use your ability. You almost always do, but sometimes it's correct to just chill.

If your option is to discard Honey Badger or Pain Tolerance to pay for a card, choose to discard Honey Badger. Pain Tolerance is arguably your best long term investment, allowing you to stay alive and in hero mode for longer. Sisterhood is a harder choice, but I would still be inclined to play Pain Tolerance first, but less likely to discard Sisterhood as a resource for it.

You don't always have to use your allies to chump block. Sometimes you can just let them go to consequential damage, especially if they have a 2 stat! X-23 has a lot of reason to block herself, especially when you have Adamantium Lacing out and gain retaliate.

Keep on top of threat. It might be tempting to go all in on damage, and you can get away with it to an extent, but you do like to flip down a couple times a game and it's best to make sure the main scheme is a clean slate when you do, just to be safe. You have a pretty good outlet with her 2 thwart, and since her attack isn't strong without her boost from the claws you are inclined to thwart for 2 then take the damage to ready a more powerful attack.

Deck Strategy: Justice

If you've looked at my other decks you might notice this deck has something none of the other ones do: it's a Danger Room deck! I decided I wanted to try this archetype, even though I am generally not a fan of cards that need other cards to be good. Because that is my approach to Champions I wasn't willing to go "all in" on training cards and Game Time at 3x, because I can just picture the dead hands that can lead to. It just made sense to have this be the deck to utilize Danger Room because of justice's access to confuse. The goal here is to consistently be able to flip to alter-ego, through a combination of a confused villain and/or Under Surveillance, to utilize your card advantage from X-Men supports, and buffing your allies with Mission Training. As you build your board you thwart well enough to keep the schemes clear as you build up critical mass to deal massive damage (in these cases it's nice to have a Mastery, a Game Time, and at least one copy of Adrenaline Rush). X-23 wants to be mainly focused on attacking almost the whole game.

Total Losses: 7 (Collector 1, Ronan x2, Thanos x2, Sinister Six, On the Run)

Card Choices

Allies: Obviously for a Danger Room deck I wanted all of my allies to have the X-Men trait for them. Bishop is actually my favorite non-Honey Badger ally to get a training on. It buffs him health wise, which keeps him in play long enough to charge up for a big 6 attack on his way out, which is very relevant. Forge has one main job, to fetch Danger Room (X-Mansion doesn't get played much, but allows Forge to get an extra card once you already have Danger Room in play. I ended up choosing Marvel Girl over Blindfold because that extra HP actually really matters. Because X-23 is good at blocking without losing momentum you're more likely to actually lose your allies to consequential damage, so I just prefer Marvel Girl. Plus she has a good target for her ability with Lady Deathstrike being a 2 thwart minion. IMPORTANT NOTE! Because you are not X-Men traited you will not get the discount on Angel or Colossus unless you are in alter-ego, which can sometimes be a hassle, but you are often pretty free to flip, and these allies being above 1 attack makes them a valuable addition to the deck to deal more damage.

Heroic Intuition/Upside the Head: X-23's flexibility allows her to really choose what she wants to do with her turns well. Sometimes Heroic Intuition is overkill when your Mission Trainings are popping, but other times an extra thwart on X-23 is game altering in scenarios that toss a lot of side schemes at you. Upside the Head can be tough for some heroes because they don't rely on basic attacks, but it's pretty easy here. Sometimes Upside the Head can be dead in a hand for heroes because it needs to be a basic attack that also damages the enemy, so a tough status can be a thorn in their side, but X-23 has readying and piercing.

Mission Training/Game Time: What can I say, when it works it works. I don't think 3 copies of either is right, although I'd be more inclined to play an extra Game Time than an extra Mission Training. I just think it's best to simplify decks a bit, keep your floor high as opposed to trying to raise the ceiling more. It is very satisfying to pull this off, but it does require some substantial build turns to get going, and X-23 runs best lean and mean.

Cards I Tested But Cut

Clear the Area/Making An Entrance: Clear the Area is a classic great card, and Making an Entrance seemed like a slam dunk for X-23. However, I often ended up with no threat out anyway due to my allies thwarting so well, blanking these cards.

Sonic Rifle/Float Like A Butterfly: This is going more all in on the confuse aspect of the deck, with Float Like A Butterfly seeming great since you want to attack multiple times per turn. This made its way out because this deck usually loses it's confuse tokens quickly, and sometimes you don't get them back right away. Even without Sonic Rifle there is still 5 cards in the deck to confuse the villain, and delving deeper always felt like overkill. Plus since the idea was I wanted to feel confident bringing the deck against any expert villain I didn't want 7 cards caring about confuse only when dealing with steady/stalwart villains. If you want to use these cards I would suggest cutting Marvel Girl and the two copies of Adrenaline Rush and add in Sonic Rifle, Float Like a Butterfly, and a copy of The Power of Justice.

One Way or Another: Another great card, but it lost its spot in the deck due to expert already putting enough pressure on you. This is a very reasonable include, but I didn't miss it from the moment I cut it.

Specialized Training: I think I said in another writeup that I didn't include this card and to be honest it's just a personal preference. I really don't like the design of this card, it feels lazy and generic. I like player side schemes, but I think what makes them interesting is they are very focused. X-23 can often clear a Specialized Training in a single turn, and giving X-23 an extra attack strength and access to an extra card every turn just has you run away with the game way too easily, it simply isn't an interesting card, although it's a very powerful card and if you really like it I would cut an Adrenaline Rush for it.

Conclusion

I was happy with this deck has a mini Game Time list. At first I didn't have all that stuff and was just playing a super generic Justice deck, and wasn't having that much fun with it (it was fun, but was the deck I looked forward to playing the least). When I made the changes to this deck it became a lot more exciting to play. You have a lot of game against every enemy, including steady/stalwart ones. Loki is probably your worst matchup, but its still not too bad, you just have to try to manipulate swapping out Lokis to find a non stalwart one, even if it's just for a single turn.