Wolverine - Big Berserker Energy

"Patience Isn't My Strongest Suit." - Logan

Hey, friends! I'm really enjoying the first half S.H.I.E.L.D. wave heroes and started tinkering with some of the new aspect cards.

With this deck, I wanted to try something that I haven't done before with Wolverine: stay in Hero form indefinitely to make use of Berserker Frenzy the entire game. So here's Wolverine coming at you with that Big Berserker Energy.

Energy Shield is a fantastic card on an ally to keep them in the game turn after turn, avoiding that pesky consequential damage. Amazingly, it can also go on the villain to fulfill those events that only work against enemies with upgrades (ala MrSelfDestruct).

But, we're going with the third option. It's going straight to Wolverine to keep his damage as minimal as possible while also getting extra cards from Berserker Frenzy. This might seem like the least impactful use of this new card, but I think it's worth it on Wolverine. More importantly, it's really fun!

Big Berserker

• Mulligan hard for Berserker Frenzy

• Adamantium Skeleton and Endurance beef up your offense and hit points

• Use your large HP pool to play your signature Attack events

• Power up your frenzy with "Come Get Me, Bub!" || +style points for theme

• Keep several minions engaged with you to feed your frenzy

• Throw down "I Got Better" when you can to keep you in a Frenzy longer and to protect you against those high damage villain turns

Big Energy

• Grab Energy Shield for Wolverine

• Absorb damage by spending plentiful for the shield

• Deflect excess damage with Energy Barrier

• Grab Northstar and, ideally, equip him with an Energy Shield to keep those heavy villain boost cards away

• Use Preemptive Strike to stop huge boost cards and/or to take a teammate's villain attack to feed your Big Berserker Energy Frenzy

• Stay healthy with Healing Factor, Regenerative Healing, Preservation, Med Team, and The Night Nurse

• Finish the game with Repurpose

Big Options

If the scenario requires more thwarting power, you've the flexibility to throw an Energy Shield on Gambit. Wolverine's basic activation can help with this too. It also doesn't hurt to throw Chuck into the mix.

If your teammates are playing a Voltron deck, feel free to support them via Med Team, or even a third copy of Energy Shield.

Ideally, you get X-Gene before you go into a Frenzy, but it can be used to fuel your Energy Shield or played later on if an encounter card forces you into AE.

The X-Jet can be vital to boost your economy here, because you can pay directly for Energy Shield, so you have just cause to make the case to your teammates if someone else is trying to use it. Or, you can just run Multiverse rules.

In multiplayer, don't sleep on Preemptive Strike being able to grab another player's villain attack, watered down without the boost damage so you can take the hit and draw another card with Berserker Frenzy. You can do this with a basic defense as well to help a teammate out.

Honorable Mentions

Some other cards you can consider depending on the situation/scenario

• Symbiote Suit for the extra health, stats, and hand size, and also the hazard icon which can get you more chances at minions to feed your frenzy. Great include for high player counts or longer games.

• A few copies of What Doesn't Kill Me can keep you healthy while also netting you more activations. I wanted to keep as much energy in the deck as possible to smooth out the uses of Energy Shield, so I left these out, initially, but if you are in a scenario that requires that much more healing, you could throw in a few copies and fuel them with The X-Jet.

• Defiance can be solid here. I played several games with it, and the timing just puts you in a tough spot sometimes where you discard a zero cost boost when you could have used that energy to prevent a damage. Still a solid card in scenarios where there are a lot of bad boost effects and you don't want to chance it. You can slot these in place of Preemptive Strike or just throw them on top.

• Edit Great feedback from a few folks about Superpower Training to grab Berserker Frenzy or "I Got Better" and Specialized Training for Front Line Specialist. Both of these are really strong on this deck, especially for certain scenarios and player counts. Superpower Training is easy to clear solo with Track by Scent, and Specialized Training can really benefit an entire team, especially if you have a dedicated thwarting player at your table.

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  Overall, I've piloted this deck in several multiplayer scenarios and had a blast. The most fun was with Mutagen Formula because you can really get that card draw engine going to cycle through your deck to your attack events and heals. Thunderbolts was also fun, but you have to adjust your strategy a bit since you aren't getting hit as often and are getting hit harder when you do.

I hope you enjoy this deck and if you give it a shot, let me know how it went!

Until next time,

Peace!