Secret Agent Ham

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet

dr00 · 48067

secret agent ham

There's a ham who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger

Secret aaagent man, secret aaaagent ham...


Agents of Shield is coming, and you know what that means: Nick Fury straight out a swimsuit catalogue, babee. It also means a new keyword: Vulnerable. According to the release article, vulnerable means a minion '[gets] discarded when they would be stunned or confused.' Importantly, this dodges when defeated effects. That's pretty cool right? Well, I guess we'll have to see, but one of the issues I've had with Thwip Thwip! (don't get me wrong here, I absolutely adore this card more than you know), but its power is really scenario dependent. You have a multi-villain scenario, stun 2 villains? Have a villain with Steady, well this one event just does it all for you. But when the villain has Stalwart? When you don't care about stunning that 1 ATK minion? Well, it kinda goes down a bit. So hopefully we'll see a bit more life in AoS box. And seriously though, it's a great card even without that, so you can even play this deck like right now even. It's been tested on existing scenarios, and it's just a ton of fun. Blah blah blah I know, let's get into it.

International Ham of Mystery

Spider-Ham's hero ability Spider-Nonsense gives him a toon counter every time he takes damage, and these counters can be spent as resources and to power up some of his cards. So to augment that as much as possible, we have a lot of self-damaging cards. Keep in mind that you only get 1 counter whenever you take damage, not 1 counter for each damage you take. Thankfully a lot of cards here will deal just 1 damage.

  • Rogue: works so well in this deck. Deals 1 damage to Ham to gain +2 THW and +1 ATK for the rest of the phase. Think of her as a 4-cost ally that thwarts for 4, attacks for 3, and generates a resource every single turn. She is quite possibly the strongest card in this deck. Wait, I thought Protection could thwart? Rogue's here to do a lot of heavy lifting to change that.
  • Petulant Pig & Taunt: take some damage, gain a toon counter, and draw some cards. Everything a growing pig needs to get stronger and smash evil.
  • Thwip Thwip!: what's better than stunning 2 enemies or fully stunning an enemy with Steady? Getting a toon counter at the same time, of course.
  • Spider-Tingle: this is a great card here. Get all of them as quickly as possible, and let the rain in. Draw extra cards with Symbiote Suit even. Keep in mind two things. One: you don't have to trigger them (you really should, but like... don't kill yourself), and two: if you draw a treachery and have multiple in play, you only have to lose one of them: a treachery that's already cancelled can't be cancelled again, so the ability doesn't fully resolve. And if it isn't obvious, deal the damage to Spider-Ham every time; he's kinda into it.

To help fuel this strategy, the deck includes Down Time and Symbiote Suit (I swear to god I tried to make it without the suit, but it's just so perfect; you get extra stats for your readies, more hitpoints to work with, more cards to trigger Spider-Tingle, drawing more cards, more healing, it quite literally does everything you want). There's also Med Team, but try to use it more for your allies. Speaking of allies, we've already mentioned Rogue being perhaps the best card in the entire deck, but the others are pretty great too.

  • Captain Americat: gets toon counters, shuffles your strongest cards back into your deck? Mandatory high-fives? What's not to love. Don't spend time healing him though; cats have many lives, so let him leave and come back as much as possible.
  • Siryn: who has decent stats, 3 HP, and only 1 consequential? Well, Rogue, but also Siryn! She can also help stun minions when she attacks. Take that, vulnerable bad dudes.
  • Spider-Man: no Across the Spider-Verse here to help you get him into play, but Spider-Ham's toon counters do just fine. He also has decent stats, only 1 consequential, and 3 hitpoints. What a crazy coincidence, eh?

Suit Up

There's a lot of economy here with toon counters, drawing cards from Petulant Pig and Taunt, but there's a few more:

  • Specialized Training: heck yeah, I love drawing cards. Why not draw cards when you draw cards? Front Line Specialist is generally the best option since you'll get more hitpoints and can usually trigger it the turn you get it with Petulant Pig/Taunt, but you can go for anything but the extra DEF to be honest.
  • Energy/Genius/Strength: why have doubles when you just generate so much economy printed directly on your hero? Well, you don't start the game with many counters, and trust me, you'll be spending them. This helps you set up those expensive allies and value engine pieces. You'll use them.
  • Avengers Mansion: it may seem weird not having Helicarrier in a deck prepared to rush into a S.H.I.E.L.D.-themed box, but I promise the extra resource is worth it since cards are so much more valuable than cost reductions when you have some much government funding anyway.
  • Helicarrier: oh wait, where did that come from? It's still a good card, and a decent target for Build Support. If you don't want to fit the theme and save ONE WHOLE RESOURCE (or no resources if you just grab it with Build Support), Team-Building Exercise is a good alternative cos every Spider-Ham card is a cartoon. But just go with the Heli.
  • The Daily Beagle: ya like dags? I mean toon counters? Yeah, those. I love toon counters. This gets your more of 'em. Neat.
  • Symbiote Suit: I swear I tried to make a deck withou- oh, I already said that. But seriously, it does everything, even draws you cards. Seriously what is not to love about this card?

Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?

International hams of mystery need all the best gadgets to... you know, eat hot dogs or whatever it is they do. You know, I don't really know? But here's some great gadgets nonetheless.

  • Astonishing X-Men: you will literally never trigger the response, but were you aware that you don't need to? Just thwart it for 5 my dude. Stun and Confuse E-VER-Y-THING. Great for just stabilising after a bit too much petulance and taunting.
  • Cartoon Physics: defy the physics of reality cos you're a cartoon and survive anything (assuming you have at least 2 HP remaining).
  • Huge Wooden Hammer: BONK
  • Organic Webbing: extra readies with Spider-Man. With your increases stats from everything, you'll get a lot of mileage out of it. Be sure to buy the warranty, but not the extended warranty; that's always a scam.

So that's it, that's the deck. Punch stuff. Get punched. Get paid. ??? Win. Then have a martini. You've earned it.

14 comments

Jan 16, 2025 boomguy · 2906

Using rogue to farm toon counters is a fun little combo

Jan 16, 2025 HeroicSkeleton · 1622

Always down for another fun way to use Rogue!

Jan 16, 2025 dr00 · 48067

the Rogue / toon counter interaction is really what started this deck concept off, so i'm glad people appreciate that haha. it feels so great to thwart for 4 and get paid for it

Jan 16, 2025 Castlefrank47 · 2360

Rogue is so good for interactions like that. I really like her in X-23 as another way to ready X and in Wolverine since he can heal it off anyway. Love the theme of the deck, if Spider-Pig was a Bond would his name be Pig Brosnan?

Jan 17, 2025 dr00 · 48067

@Castlefrank47 indeed. she's such a great ally. 'Brosnan, Pig Brosnan...' does have a nice ring to it lol

Jan 17, 2025 Swarles90 · 2

I've not played Spider-Ham yet as I've never found a deck that's made me want to give him a go .... until now! This looks like a lot of fun, thanks for sharing!

Jan 17, 2025 andyr · 10945

Hot Dog!! Johnny Rivers!!! That is a blast from the past! Cool combos and plays with Rogue and spider cards!

Jan 17, 2025 Daring Lime · 3991

This deck looks really fun. Mentioning that you can thwart Astonishing X-Men instead of just using the response is cool! Rogue + Ham is great. It feels like the protection version of Clarity of Purpose with a great ally to add to it!

Jan 18, 2025 dr00 · 48067

@Swarles90 always happy to help spread the love of the ham. hope you enjoy it!

@andyr it was not not playing in my head on repeat while doing this write-up

@Daring Lime thanks for the comment! yeah, i feel like people overlook that you can just thwart Astonishing normally lol. and Rogue Ham is hilarious. sounds like something you'd find at a gas station meat counter that's been under a hot light for several hours. yeah, feels really good to ditch the blue and avoid clarity haha, but we can't avoid getting paid to punch ourselves

Jan 18, 2025 Goatzilla · 280

Oh Devo... I'm stuck with that earworm now! Cool deck, nice synergy between lots of cards and interesting take on upcoming keywords. I'll give this a try for sure!

Seeeeeecret, aaagent Ham...

Jan 18, 2025 teamcanadahockey2002 · 10336

You mention the Med Teams are mainly for healing allies, Rogue most likely. Any thoughts on what Elixir, Protective Training or Render Medical Aid could do to help on that front?

Jan 18, 2025 dr00 · 48067

@Goatzilla muahahaha :P

@teamcanadahockey2002 yeah, every ally worth keeping around has 3 HP and only 1 consequential (which has been sorely lacking in Protection for a long time), so i did like Protective Training, but it wasn't necessary (and Med Teams last longer, and Ham doesn't struggle to play them). the final issue was it doesn't help Spider-Man, only Rogue and Siryn (i was testing Gambit for a while too, and it worked on him as well ofc). but Med Team helps all of them and doesn't need any help to do it

he can't play Elixir unfortunately since it's trait-locked. as for Render Medical Aid, it could definitely work. tbh, i didn't even consider it. i think for me a lot of the time, it's a PSS that sits around until you want to clear it by having the damage to heal, so it's very reactive, whereas most other PSSs are proactive. i think definitely give it a try though!

Jan 22, 2025 mv2392 · 116

My big problem with this deck was in the write-up you have a category called Suit Up, and I was sure this was a protection deck!

I like protection ham a lot, but haven't even tried it since Rogue. What a great idea.

And I never realized you could trigger more than one Spider Tingle per card. And I usually would have at least two on the board. What an over site!

Really feel it's time to revisit him now. Great job as always.

Jan 22, 2025 dr00 · 48067

@mv2392 i like to keep people on their toes :P

and yeah, Spider-Tingle is a really underrated i feel, but has some special fun shenanigans here