Without a Trace

Spider-Man remains one of the most fun heroes to pull out of the core box. He has a lot of thematic and powerful cards, but a few have not aged well. Webbed Up could be argued as his weakest card because of how it conflicts with his hero ability, but I think Spider-Tracer is his weakest card. Spidey’s two major weaknesses are thwarting and killing minions, so requiring him to kill a minion to be able to thwart is a big conundrum. Fortunately, the release of the Iceman hero pack has opened up some new options for him to finally make Spider-Tracer shine.

I used this deck to take down expert Zola in solo, and it had no problem keeping the board clear of minions and thwart. It belongs in minion-heavy scenarios, though. It will probably start to stall out a bit if there are never minions on the board.

Gameplan:

Iceman’s pack introduced new options for attaching upgrades to minions and getting bonuses when those minions die. For upgrades in this deck, we have:

• Marked helps keeps our damage efficient when we swing at minions.
• Spider-Tracer is one of our two main ways of thwarting, outside of allies.
• Webbed Up is technically an upgrade you can attach to the villain, but I don’t think it synchronizes with rest of this deck on most turns. We’ll concentrate on the other two.

Once one of these upgrades is on a minion, we can play one of our special events that only triggers when one of these upgrades is on the table:

• Surprise Move will increase our basic attack to 4 (5 with Combat Training), which is a one shot for many minions, and readies him to swing again right after. This card is huge for giving the mid-level damage he needs to deal with minions.
• Take That! is just a solid 7 damage that can smash an elite minion or pair with marked to deal overkill damage to the villain.

Once his board is setup, Spidey draws into these upgrades most turns, allowing him to keep the board clear while he digs for Swinging Web Kick to kill the villain. Into the Fray does a beautiful job filling in the cracks, finishing off a minion or clearing the main scheme as needed.

Allies:

• Nick Fury as always, he’s here for flexibility and deck milling to get Spidey setup smoothly. Like most of the other allies here, he shores up Spidey’s weaknesses early game while he’s getting his board setup.
• Spider-Man is also here for flexibility. He can blast a side scheme or soften up a minion, and who doesn’t love a good Miles and Peter teamup?
• Psylocke confuses the villain for us so we can flip down to use Aunt May as needed. Don’t be afraid to emergency thwart with her as well.
• Sentry is a solid play early game when Spidey is still getting setup. He can fill in the gaps for several turns, just be wary of villains with particularly nasty encounter cards.
• Shark-Girl is here because she fits the theme of the deck. Her extra damage is nice, but Spidey rarely needs her to block and she usually is only getting a single damage boost per minion and never a boost on the villain. If Glob was allowed in this deck, I would swap him in.

Alternative Cards:

• Gatekeeper seems like it should belong in this deck, but I found that it’s just redundant with Spider-Tracer. When I tested it, I was frustrated that it only removed threat from the main scheme, and ultimately was more thwart than was necessary for solo. It might run differently in multiplayer.
• Clobber -> Into the fray improved this deck immensely in solo, but I think it could be swapped out for Clobber or some other solid attack event in multiplayer if you’re playing alongside a Justice player. You won’t feel as tied down to minions and can take more pot shots at the villain.
• Looking for Trouble would help find minions in scenarios with fewer minions, but I think the extra thwart off the main scheme is unnecessary in solo. It might work better in multiplayer, but multiplayer already tends to get more minions out.
• Angela would work well in scenarios with a few less minions to improve your consistency. I would probably swap out Shark-Girl.

This might not be the strongest deck for Spider-Man, but I had a lot of fun finally getting to run him in Aggression in a way that flowed with his kit. If you give this deck a try, let me know how it went.