Shadowcat's Pirate Phase

TLDR for solo players: Deck is intended for multiplayer, but check out the solo version at the end of the article for a modified solo version!

The New Hotness

Gunboat Diplomacy is a card that's become very popular, especially after we got Children of the Atom. I think its a really Solid card, and its not just a passing Phase. But after playing with it now in over a dozen decks, I've noticed that it has a pretty common weakness. The damage and thwarting it does can be disrupted very easily. It's susceptible to stun, confuse, guard, patrol, AND crisis!

Here is where Shadowcat comes in. While in Phased form, we can just bypass guard, patrol, and crisis. And when you don't need to do that, we can play Gunboat Diplomacy for free in Solid form.

A Ghost Ship with No Crew

Okay, okay. That's all well and good, you say. But who's steering this damned ghost ship??? There's no allies besides ol' Lizardbreath here, and he barely passes as a powder monkey (no offense). Here's the thing. Gunboat Diplomacy is an Alliance card. The cost of these cards are intended to be shared by the group, as a team. Part of the cost of this card is exhausting the 2 characters. So we will be relying on other players here. Shadowcat doesn't need allies, and other heroes can get higher thwart numbers than her, so it only makes sense.

Finding that Crew

At the bare minimum, you just need an X-Men or X-Force teammate who is willing to contribute their basic activation for Gunboat. You can play CotA on them so that they can fit either role, and Heroic Intuition to boost their THW. Even better is if they have some X- allies too. That would mean that your basic activation is freed up, so you can defend for yourself in phased form, or use your activation to clear stun or confused. If anyone brings some allies for Gunboat, you can bring some Mission Trainings too. You may not even need the Children of the Atom if they are bringing an X-alliance deck.

Some stand out heroes that you want to play with include: Psylocke, Phoenix, Cable, Storm, Cyclops, Rogue, X-23, and Nightcrawler. The 3 Psionic heroes can each get to 3 THW, and have access to Cerebro to find more crew members. Storm and Cyclops decks tend to want more X-men allies, and they have a solid 2 THW. Rogue can replay Gunboat with Superpower Adaptation, and can get to 3 THW with Rogue's Jacket. X-23 and Nightcrawler have 2 THW and can easily ready their hero. The Rogue ally is also a fantastic target. I did a lot of my testing of this deck with my Psylocke deck, 5G Psionics, which is a VERY strong combo.

Wrapping Up

I did my testing against Stryfe and Project Wideawake, both expert. These are great match ups for the deck. They both have crisis icons, which Kitty was able to just ignore and still keep the main threat down. One Way or Another is great for getting more crisis side schemes in play, and Intangible Interference is a great card to deal with them. Even if the scenario doesn't have crisis icons, this deck is still worth running for her perfect defense while Phased form and ignoring any guard or patrol minions.

One issue with Gunboat in phased form is that since it is an attack, it flips you back to Solid. I haven't found this to be a big problem. You can either basic attack or use Shadowcat Surprise to go back to phased, or use Quick Shift. But on the other hand, when you don't need to bypass crisis, guard, or patrol; using Gunboat to go back to Phased is actually really nice.

Cut options:

• CotA can go down to 1 or 0 copies depending on what everyone is bringing.

• One Way or Another can go down to 2 or 1 copies depending on how many side schemes there are.

Add ons:

• Lay Down the Law is a nice one for Shadowcat, since you can trigger this any time you change your form card (even on the villain phase). You can add on top, or replace Clear the Area with this if you'd like.
• Mission Training if someone has good ally targets for Gunboat
• Honorary X-Men if there's a really good non mutant target around.
• A 3rd Skilled Investigator in a 3 or 4 player game, if you have room for it.

I made a solo version below, which works well, but I'm more excited about the multiplayer version. There's just something about going into a game with just me and my pet dragon, trying to recruit players at the table into my pirate crew.

Solo version works pretty well in general, and is especially strong if you are using the Hope Summers mod set. I tested this solo vs Stryfe and it did great.