Nein Freund

All by Myself

It's long been my opinion that Nightcrawler operates best without allies in protection. Many of the pain points I've heard about his lack of damage or Bamf! economy is solved by taking attacks intentionally and keeping your costs low, which is best achieved by forgoing allies altogether. Once you embrace this, I find him to be powerful in all player counts, and yes, even in solo. However, now that cards actually reward you for leaving allies in the organizer, his incentive to do so is even higher.

Standing Alone

Stand Alone is probably the biggest game changer there is for Nightcrawler. I've learned to play around the Bamf! economy pretty well, but now you don't really have to. For a long time I relied on The X-Jet, but now Stand Alone sort of solves this for you. How? By allowing you to leave Bamf! out when you need to, defend the villain, and, if you have a minion, ready. Then, you can either tank the minion hit and stay ready to thwart or attack, or defend it, if you want to, and the Bamf is still there for you to use with 'Port and Punch or Teleport Drop. This makes any exhaust boost effects less feels-bad, although Exhaustion is still there to keep you from feeling TOO good about yourself.

Getting in the Way

In Harm's Way is an absolute game changer. Full stop. Even if you just have Innate Reflexes, 4 damage and 4 threat is good value. And it only goes up from there as we build. I've found once built, even if you kill a 4 HP minion and defeat a 2 threat scheme, it's so worth it. And when you can pull off a huge threat/ attack play, it feels even better.

Pumping Numbers Up

For defense upgrades, we have:

• Armored Vest
• Defensive Conditioning
• Defense Specialist (from Specialized Training)
• Kurt's Cutlasses
• Innate Reflexes
• Ronin

This makes us what, an eight DEF hero? ...No, my friend. Nine!

And In Harm's Way goes crazy from there.

We could have more. The Best Offense... and Symbiote Suit could push us even higher, but I feel Symbiote is a huge tempo hit, even though the value is good. We want to set up quickly so we can start playing In Harm's Way for the value it's meant for. I've found The Best Offense... a bit unreliable. Sometimes it's great! Sometimes you are exhausted, even after using Bamf! and Stand Alone is already used, or you are statused for the stat you want to use. Even with Army of One, sometimes it just doesn't line up. I've found In Harm's Way to be more reliable, even though any status blocks it.

With Electrostatic Armor, we slap back for 3 after being attacked with Kurt's Cutlasses and Ronin, which is great!

Old Standbys

Jump Flip and Side Step remain our most effective minion defenses, as it lets us get extra value out of stopping damage and combos nicely with Prehensile Tail for the kicker. Unflappable is still our main source of card draw, X-Gene is still the GOAT for playing Tally Ho!.

Face the Past and Taunt are here to help accelerate our building. I don't think you need to play either of these every time you see them, but they can really help you build faster. Remember, with Face the Past you can defend Azazel's quickstrike or play Side Step to block his damage. If you have 2 retaliate, that's a dead nemesis!

I usually don't take doubles in decks like this, but In Harm's Way brings our 2-3 cost card count up to...say it with me...nine, so I put two in there. I chose Genius and Energy because we have a surplus of physical resources.

Plan of Action

The game plan hasn't really changed that much. We want to get to 6 DEF as fast as possible. Kurt can get a Bamf! from his deck in AE as an action, which means ideally we're either playing three one-cost upgrades and putting Bamf! on the villain, or two one-cost upgrades and one two-cost upgrade. The magical first hand would be getting to play Ronin, Kurt's Cutlasses, and Innate Reflexes. That turns us into a monster tank and makes In Harm's Way into a feels-good-to-play card.

So Where Do We Stand?

No friends doesn't mean we can't HAVE friends. This deck plays very well with others, can defend the table, and supplement damage or thwarting as needed. But it also plays well in solo! And Daytripper can come out every now and then. Just...make sure she leaves the board as soon as she's able.