Always Be Ronin - Redux (Exp Magneto & VenomGoblin defeat)

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Derived from
Always be Ronin 1 2 0 1.0
Inspiration for
Always Be Ronin - tweaked 1 1 0 1.0

MisterAnderson71 · 262

Quicksilver-Ronin

I decided to test my Always Be Ronin deck on Expert Magneto and Expert Venom Goblin and ended up clowning them both after tweaking it to this new version. Im fairly confident that the result would be the same for Expert Ronan too but I have a game in progress with other characters so I wasn't able to test this deck out on him at the time of writing this.

NUMBER 1 PRIORITY You should mulligan hard for Friction Resistance during setup, only keeping DEF upgrades and a double resource. Then you'll off be and running down easy street soon after that. If you don't get it turn 1 you should still be OK - it might just take a little longer to get into your stride.

With 20(!) upgrades it should be fairly easy to build him up quickly straight out of the gate. Most of his Protection upgrades are cheap (1 cost) so its not unthinkable to have 3 down right away - in fact it might be hard to choose if you have a hand full of them! You'll have Innate Reflexes on turn 1 so its just about shaping what ever else you want. You'll barely take any damage even on turn 1 with a free defend in both Hero AND Villain phases.

I'd probably go with getting as much Retaliate damage out early so that you could get extra card draw from defeating minions with Change of Fortune and Unflappable once you have them on the table.

Adding some Ripostes and Desperate Defense works so well to trigger these and getting extra damage and readies on minions and whoever the main big bad is. And you can pay for them all with Friction Resistance! It's a thing of beauty!

Having a maximum 7 DEF and a 2 Retaliate (with an extra point of damage from Electrostatic Armor if you defend) once your fully built out makes you fairly invulnerable. It jumps out to 10 DEF if you've managed to play Maximum Velocity and The Best Offense...

Then you can hit or Thwart for 10 with Basic Actions

Then do another 10 damage and 10 thwart by playing a In Harms Way

And at that point it should be pretty much game over for the big bad!

I found against both these villains that I waited until I went through my deck once to then put Symbiote Suit out, as the extra encounters on Expert can be brutal until you've built your DEF up to at least 4 or 5.

EDIT: As pointed out by DMTIP, Stand Alone could be useful here which you could subout for the Dauntless card.

Another card Ive just realized that would work well here is the Specialized Training side scheme, which would bring Quicksilvers DEF out to 11 and give him a card draw on his first defense, so you could sub it in for Avengers Mansion.

END EDIT

I'm so enamoured with this deck that I'm going to try to 'speed run' true solo on Expert through ALL the scenarios! Wish me luck...

9 comments

Aug 02, 2026 eroush · 2992

Luck!

Aug 02, 2026 D.M.Tip · 4092

Nice! The Quicksilver deck I've been testing has the same name! Glad to see it working out against some tough scenarios. If you can get Friction Resistance early, it's over. But if it's at the bottom of the deck, it's a bit of a slow burn.

I got a lot of value out of Stand Alone, so I'm surprised to not see it here, at least for multiplayer/taunt.

Aug 02, 2026 MisterAnderson71 · 262

@D.M.Tip Thanks and it seems great minds think alike! Im so used to playing with 2 heros in games that I also gave Venom Goblin double HP. It took longer than Mags but I got him eventually.

I've been looking at Stand Alone in others decks and never thought to use it. I could sub it in for Avengers Mansion and see how it goes, but the Desperate Defenses give me a ready after defending too so I don't know often it would trigger. I guess it might be more helpful in the player phase as you say with a Taunt. I'll definitely give it a crack though!

@eroush Cheers! Its probably a bit crazy but what the heck :D

Aug 03, 2026 dr00 · 57989

amazing. i love it so much.

Aug 03, 2026 MisterAnderson71 · 262

@dr00 that is high praise indeed from a prolific deck builder! I'm glad you like it :)

Aug 03, 2026 Jumprman25 · 19

Cool deck name and idea! What about desperate defense in multiplayer?

Aug 03, 2026 MisterAnderson71 · 262

@Jumprman25 Thanks! What do you mean about desperate defense in mp? I have 3 copies of it in this deck already in case that's what you were asking. It's mainly there for early game when your DEF is still lowish for the Villain attacking.

Aug 03, 2026 Jumprman25 · 19

Oh yeah my bad. I meant for defending the table in 4p.

Aug 03, 2026 MisterAnderson71 · 262

Oh absolutely it's prime for that. Especially now more than ever.