Substitute Teacher

Pledge of Allegiance

Move over, Professor X. There's a new teacher in town.

It's time for Captain America to step up and fight for mutant rights, leading his own team of X-Men.

(Before you ask, yes it's legal to both play and use Danger Room as any alter-ego because having the mutant trait is not a cost. The last sentence just allows other mutant alter-ego players on the table to take advantage of this).

Pop-Quiz

Oh no! It's time for a pop-quiz!

1.Which basic power is Captain America encouraged to use the most?

• A) Attack
• B) Thwart
• C) Defend
• D) None of the above

C! Captain America wants to defend, with this being his highest stat and having retaliate.

2.Why is Captain America great in ally heavy builds?

• A) Living Legend allows for ally discounts
• B) Captain America's Shield encourages defending rather than chump blocking
• C) "I Can Do This All Day!" makes it much easier to justify using your basic defense if you need to
• D) All of the above

D! All of the above help encourage ally heavy builds.

3.Excluding trait cheating, which alter-ego has the most permanent resource generators available to use?

• A) Thor
• B) Captain America
• C) Psylocke
• D) Spider-Man

B! Every character aside from Captain America here has their resource generators limited to hero form.

Now that we've caught up on the basics, let's move on.

Lesson Plan (Deck Strategy)

The X-Men justice allies are fairly underrated, primarily because of some high cost and niche uses. Most of them can find a home away from home nicely under Captain America 's teaching.

This deck focuses on confuse-locking the villain and utilizing Float Like a Butterfly to steadily chip away at the villain. This centers around flipping regularly to take advantage of the ally discount from Living Legend as well as key alter-ego supports. You'll cycle these allies rather than keeping them alive (mostly) so you can continuously get them in play for cheap and get Training upgrades on them.

Roll Call

We've got a rambunctious group of students. With the proper leadership, their teamwork is unmatched.

• Banshee isn't our strongest student but he helps keep distractions under control
• Bishop is happy to watch his teacher take hit after hit, but he shows his true colors when it counts
• Chamber is one of those students that runs with the crowd, working best when everyone else is too
• I'm not sure who let Cypher in here, but he fits in well and is happy to help with some card draw
• Dazzler is a fine student, mostly because she helps other students function better
• Husk is the teacher's pet, getting more attention than all of the other students and shining as a result

Our students are at their best with the proper training, and the best way to train isn't always on the battlefield.

Excused Absence

You have a lot of different ways to pop a confuse on the villain to get to alter-ego.

• Dazzler's enter play ability
• 2 copies of Sonic Rifle
• 2 copies of Concussive Blow, paying for the kicker easily with Super-Soldier Serum

Once you're there, utilize Living Legend to get your allies on the battlefield quickly and Danger Room to get Training upgrades on them for free.

Because you're taking hits, remember to use Steve's Apartment to heal up!

What if you have a bunch of unspent resources in alter-ego? Our top student can help mitigate that.

• Husk can utilize both copies of Super-Soldier Serum and Quincarrier to continue activating because these are all resources not restricted to hero form!

Make-Up Exam

This is a pretty simple deck and most cards are pretty straightforward. There are only a few that you could experiment with.

• Chance Encounter was considered to loop key allies but with such a lack of focus on side schemes, it wasn't nearly reliable enough to maintain a spot
• Other X-Men justice allies Marvel Girl and Blindfold didn't synergize with the overall strategy and basic allies didn't work with The Power of Justice
• Upside the Head is actually worse than Concussive Blow here.
  • Requires a ready and an attack on the villain, removing versatility
  • If the attack is successful, you're dealing 2 damage
  • If you need to ready (which you often will need), you're discarding a card to ready and then spending a resource to play the card - this is 3 ER for 2 damage and a confuse compared to 3 ER for 3 damage and a confuse
• Utopia was interesting thematically but then I needed to justify Forge and it would still whiff early game. Better off to keep things simpler

Report Card

^ "Some of my best friends are people"

Truly an all time quote

I've found this really fun, though it is a bit slower than many Captain America decks. That said, I think it's one of the more unique hooks he has and offers a fun way to revisit an older hero. Let me know if you check it out!