Echoes of Winter's Widow

Echoes of Winter's Widow

Black Widow is a clever ally for the Winter Soldier, allowing him to attack again with some of his best attacks. The "echoes" in this deck are represented by Regrouping Widow back to one's hand in order to re-use her ability multiple times in order to regularly have the right attack event available for the given situation. Winter, Widow, Soldier, Spy can be an especially attractive choice since it can put a preparation into play, such as Silent Infiltration or Rapid Response, and even immediately trigger it.

If you'd like to see a discussion of this deck, see the following video: Coming soon from http://www.youtube.com/@MCDeckDiscussions

VILLAINS TESTED AGAINST to refine the deck (in both standard and expert and UNDEFEATED: Klaw (with an expert house rule(1)); Black Widow; En Sabah Nur (Apocalypse); and Magneto.

Deck Refinements

• Removal(s):
  • Both copies of Command Team: I only used it once in 5 games, and I could have just played an ally instead.
• Addition(s):
  • Build Support: I wasn't getting Helicarrier into play as often as I would have liked. Whenever I did, it made a huge difference in the number of cards I could play.
  • Superpower Training: Winter Rifle also remained unplayed too frequently, yet it's such a huge asset.

NOTABLE ELEMENTS OF PLAY:

• Regrouping Black Widow: While Regroup can be used at any opportunity with any ally, using Regroup with Black Widow allows one to recur the right attack event at the right time. Very often that will be Winter, Widow, Soldier, Spy in order to also put a preparation back into play, but any of the other attack events could be a better choice in the moment. Black Widow can often stay in play until a Regroup is available.
  • With that in mind, players will often want to deal damage to the villain directly throughout the game, often leading to quicker victories than with other heroes. There often comes a turning point where one begins to ignore a lot of the thwarting and side schemes and just starts dealing heavy damage to the villain each turn.

• Squared Off: Be sure to know what minions could be put into play with this card. That will determine if any particular ally is a good option to use with Squared Off, though the following allies tend to be a good choice most of the time:
  • Nick Fury: If card draw is going to allow one to play another ally or an attack event, then that might the right choice for Nick's abilities; sometimes having Nick directly deal 4 damage is a better option. The goal is to allow Winter Solder to defeat the ally the majority of the time.
  • Black Widow can choose the best attack card for the minion that entered play.
  • Mockingbird can stun the minion so that it doesn't have to be defeated immediately.
  • For any other ally, be sure to know ahead of time if you're going to have enough attack damage to defeat the minion. It's important to take into account the cost discarding cards from the encounter deck and quickly gaining an acceleration token.

Conclusion:

With Echoes of Winter's Widow, Winter Soldier deals regular damage to the villain throughout the game, typically ending the game relatively quickly and efficiently. In each game, there eventually comes a time when one mostly ignores the side schemes and attacks the villain each turn head on, especially if the villain is confused for added scheming security. Black Widow facilitates this by bouncing back into one's hand to be played again, choosing the best attack event for the moment.

(1) Note on expert house rule for Klaw: This modification assures that expert Klaw makes for a consistently challenging villain during playtesting. After discarding cards at the beginning of the game and putting into play the first minion that is discarded from the encounter deck, if that minion is NOT a Masters of Evil minion, I search the encounter deck for a Masters of Evil minion and replace the original discarded minion with it. I then shuffle that original minion back into the deck.