F’n Magneto - How Does He Work?

First published deck!

*disclaimer - I’m not nearly as smart or nuanced as the heavy hitters around here, so constructive criticism is welcome. What I lack in smarts I’ve made up for with hundreds of solo rounds. This particular deck ran through Age of Apocolypse on Expert with Standard III.

Overview

This is a very fun and powerful deck that makes full use of both deck and discard pile. Lots of allies, lots of resources, and a few events to take advantage of that strategy. I was concerned at first that Magneto might play a bit too similarly to Bishop, but this felt like a totally different experience.

Magnetic Pull:

Discarding cards every turn means that we had to include Digging Deep and White Fox. Free resources and a free ally is very nice. Domino is in there to help manipulate what is on top of the deck - you can potentially swap Digging Deep or White Fox for discarding purposes.

Events:

I wanted to make sure that I used a new card in this deck and found Last Stand to be really fun. This particular deck runs a ton of allies and wants to cycle them quickly. After having it in a deck I can’t imagine many leadership decks running without it, especially if we’re running a bunch of allies. On top of it being awesome, it's stackable. Could Squirrel Girl deal 10 damage on her final hit? She most certainly could. It's amazing.

Make the Call is because our discard pile is always going to have allies in it. Depending on the situation, any of the allies can be incredibly useful but I found myself grabbing Professor X quite a bit since it’s the only viable way to confuse the villain. Magneto benefits from flipping down and solo flipping is usually a no-no if your villain isn’t confused.

Lead from the Front is the event I’m least excited about, but it came in handy. I feel like this could potentially be replaced with something else, but this deck functioned so well that I never really bothered switching it up.

Upgrades and Supports:

NONE! Pretty sure this is my first deck I’ve ever ran without adding anything. Small confession: Due to heavy discard from Magnetic Pull, I really thought Magneto would benefit running 50 cards so the original version of this had The Triskelion, The X-Jet, Avengers Mansion and a bunch of other supports and upgrades, but I found that he doesn’t really need it. Once I thinned it out to 40 by removing all of the supports and upgrades, it ran 10x better. This deck is resource heavy and Magneto was doing something every turn and able to afford it all easily.

Resources:

8 is quite a few but the Digging Deeps often come for free. Thanks to lots of allies and Make the Call, I didn’t have any turns where I felt like I was loaded up with resources and nothing to spend them on.

Allies:

Quick rundown on why I chose each one:

Cyclops: Extra damage is incredibly useful in this deck, plus it’s thematic to have him in here.

Legion: The discard could grab us a Digging Deep or White Fox.

Maria Hill: One of my leadership crutches. Cheap and draw.

Mockingbird & Nick Fury: Crutches also, though I will say that most of my decks don’t include them now. BUT, they both work really well in this deck, especially when they can be snagged out of the discard pile when they are needed.

Phoenix: Mainly thematic, but the ready helps a ton.

Professor X: Our one way to confuse, probably the most important Ally in the deck. Plus, how are you going to have a Magneto deck without Professor X in it?

Squirrel Girl & White Tiger: More crutches for the aspect. They are so good.

White Fox: Free if discarded. Very important.

Domino: For manipulating your hand to benefit Magnetic Pull.

Notable in his absence: Lockjaw: He was in the original version and I never found myself needing or grabbing him, so though he is a good boy, he got the boot.

Magneto's Kit:

I'm actually surprised at how much I enjoyed this deck given that I'm very meh on a good portion of Magneto's kit. Asteroid M isn't very useful in this deck because Magneto is hardly ever taking damage. Wrapped in Metal and Magnetic Missile are great thematically and super fun when the combo naturally happens, but is limited by needing to be sequential and it only working on non-elite minions. I don't feel like non-elite minions are enough of a threat to build a deck around these cards, so they are mostly just there to spend or to use it if it naturally happens through gameplay. I'm also not super hot on Magneto's Helmet for the same reason that I didn't include supports and upgrades - Magneto doesn't really need extra resources in this deck, so to spend three to gain one resource per round and steady doesn't feel worth it.

Definitely prioritize Magneto's Cape and Magneto's Armor, and always get your Magnetic Bubble out. Electromagnetic Blast is also a no brainer when it comes up.

If You Want it to Be More Thematic:

I chose to go for function over theme, but if you want this to be more thematic, get rid of all of the non-X-men allies and replace them with X-Men. I think it still will run incredibly well.

Only Somewhat Related:

This deck couldn't have arrived at a better time. I've been on a journey reading through all of the essential Marvel comics from beginning to end. Over the last year I've made it from 1961 (Fantastic Four #1) up to 1981. Magneto debuted in 1963 and up until X-Men #150 in 1981, he's very much a "muahaha I'm evil" type of villain. 150 is the very first time that he starts showing some humanity underneath all of his other wonderfully redeeming traits. Here he accidentally attacks Kitty Pryde, who at the time had just joined the X-Men , is 13 years old and goes by Sprite.