Schmendrix · 4947
When I first designed this Leadership/Protection build for Spider-Woman, I focused on draw volume - trying to get as many cards in hand as possible to maximize the chances of 4/4/4 stat lines. But playing the deck, and variations of it, for several weeks has taught me a few things.
- Quality of draw trumps quantity of draw. It's nice to get big fat hands, but what's even better is getting the one card you really need. Enter Brother Voodoo - the hero-mode tutor Spider-Woman needs to find the missing ingredient for a maximally impactful turn. There are two main targets for Brother Voodoo. First, in a fairly typical two-aspect-card hand, pull the most impactful third aspect card you can find to improve stats and manage the board state. For example, yank Venom Blast to clear a troublesome minion; Momentum Shift to heal; or, Morale Boost for a double stat boost that maximizes the impact of an off-aspect ready event (Earth's Mightiest Hero or Self-Propelled Glide). And that brings me to the second target - ready events. As an Avenger, Brother Voodoo is a very natural battery for Earth's Mightiest Heroes. When he arrives, he can pull Earth's Mightiest Hero for an instant double swing with Spider-Woman. Self Propelled-Glide is also fine, especially alongside Morale Boost, which is generally a resource cost Spider-Woman can handle.
- Readying trumps stats. This one's fairly obvious - 3/3/3 twice is better and much more achievable than 5/5/5 once. And, see above - Earth's Mightiest can be tutored by Brother Voodoo, and so needs to be included.
- Recursion trumps ... erm, everything. Recursion breaks games. Interestingly, Marvel Champions introduced it in the first year. Though the devs are now mitigating this by including "when played from hand" on allies' enter play effects, Brother Voodoo, Nick Fury and Maria Hill are all from the halcyon days where Rapid Response triggers their effects. The stable state for this deck is Brother Voodoo at one health with Rapid Response on the table; he thwarts for 2, takes two consequential, recurs, and enters play ready with one damage. You tutor Earth's Mightiest and use him to ready Spider-Woman, or a different event that accomplishes another goal. Then you let him chill until you pull your next Rapid Response. While you wait to hit Brother Voodoo, feel free to use Rapid Response on Maria Hill and Nick Fury to accelerate your progress to Brother Voodoo; you'll turn the deck and will see your Rapid Responses again. Credit to Staglore and his PHIL MFing COULSON deck for inspiring this recursion focus (https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/4631/phil-mfing-coulson-1.0).
- Thwarting and healing trumps defending. The original Jessica DRAW deck had Spider-Woman defending. But with Momentum Shift and Contaminant Immunity, this deck has 5x heals. Rather than defend, take damage or block with allies, and mitigate damage with Energy Barriers. Then heal and toughen. Use activations to thwart 2-3x/turn at 3+ per. Removing 6-9 threat with activations is far more value than defending. Spider-Woman is effectively our first 3 Thwart hero; she doesn't need to be built in Justice to manage a board.
Hope you all enjoy! It's been fun to iterate on this build and settle on something fun and effective. Spider-Woman - you're a special one. "Loving you is some strange voodoo."