Honed Poker Skills

Honed Poker Skills

My take on a Honed Technique deck for Gambit, in which I try to play my Aggression Attack events with a for the Honed Technique buff AND spend some charges for the Throw de Card buff:

• One by One can potentially deal 6 (enough to take out most minions) and 6 damage [2+1+3]
• Precision Strike can potentially deal 6 damage (enough to take out most minions for the heal) [2+1+3]
• Relentless Assault can potentially deal 10 damage to a minion with Overkill [5+2+3]
• Into the Fray can potentially deal 12 damage to a minion with excess removing threat from the main [6+3+3] (but I almost never spend Charge counters with into the Fray unless there's a metric ton of threat on the main, so it more realistically deals 9 with "overthwart")

That said, you're not getting max damage out of these every time you play them. You may not have Honed Technique in play yet, and you may not have (or want to spend) 3 Charge counters.

There are several reasons you may not want to spend charges:

• You're saving them for Rogue (a free ally is always nice)
• You're saving them for a maximized Charged Card or Royal Flush
• You're building up for Natural Agility
• You don't need to spend three to knock out a minion (or 2)

That's Mental!

This deck isn't overflowing with resources, so Audacity, The Power of Aggression, and The X-Jet provide

Threat can be a problem

Gambit is most effective at thwarting while in Alter-Ego, so your allies need to help out while you're in here form.

• The only Thwart event in the deck (Creole Charmer) can only be played in Alter-Ego, so your allies will need to pull some of the weight there, ideally taking big schemes down to 3 so Creole Charmer can finish them off and get the Confuse.
• Into the Fray can be huge at the right time