Tony Danza - Wasp Aggression Supreme

I absolutely loved tinkering around with Ant-Man, so I've been really looking forward to Wasp. I've been thrilled with her ever since she came out.

I decided to go the Aggression route with Wasp because it honestly just seems like the best way to utilize her hero powers, plus she has a several attack events in her deck that become much easier to play with Martial Prowess. Her Giant form distributes damage (and thwart) however you please, so being able to raise that with Combat Training is good, and raising it further with Skilled Strike for bursts is even better. Her Tiny form only goes off if you can kill enemies or clear schemes, and killing enemies is usually the more common of the two to be able to do, so again aggression makes sense. I'll chat a bit about her cards first, then list off the cards I've chosen to include afterwords.

As a note, this deck is primarily meant to be played in a group. Were I to tune to to a solo deck further, I'd probably consider a little more threat management.

Just Wasp Things

I'll start with the Upgrades, because honestly they're kinda boring. Red Room Training is kinda pretty bad, since you don't really care enough about the Retaliate or the Piercing effect enough to want to spend 2 resources playing the thing. In the end, Wasp feels kinda resource starved, since you really want to be playing her events as soon as you draw them, and setting up better cards to help you survive and play said events is just a better use of your time. In an aggression deck, this is basically a resource card. Bio-Synthetic Wings is basically the same, since Aerial does absolutely nothing, and gaining one damage reduction on occasion just never felt worth the 2 cost.

Wasp's Helmet is also kinda mediocre, but is sometimes worth playing. Honestly, I really wish it was Attack in Giant and Thwart in Tiny, but it is what it is. With Combat Training, you can get to 3 attack in Tiny form, which is occasionally relevant.

Ant-Man is a fantastic Ally. Since he gets extra stats based on form, he's basically a 3/3/3 ally for 4, which is great value. You end up changing forms often enough that he'll have +1 in whichever stat you want him to on most turns. The only downside is that if you're playing with Ant-Man the hero, this card is just a Wild resource.

As I said earlier, Wasp's events are where she really kicks ass. Giant Help is probably the most boring card, but is a nice Oh Shit button if you need it. Rapid Growth is a great way to get back to Giant form after spinning down into Tiny for her Tiny-based events to be able to attack for a large amount (again, split however), and then potentially defend for a large amount afterwords. Wasp Sting is the lesser of the attack cards, and it's usually worth using in Tiny form, since 5 damage for 2 resources is better value than 4. Her best card by far is Pinpoint Strike, since it's 8 damage with overkill, and if you end up using that overkill, that's 1 more damage you get to do from Wasp's Tiny hero power. 9 damage and overkill is pretty nuts for 3 resources. The kicker here is that Giant Help, Wasp Sting, and Pinpoint Strike are all Science resources, so you can use Nadia's alt-ego ability to shuffle them back in as needed. It's not uncommon to play 5 Pinpoint Strikes per deck shuffle, with a potential for more.

Aggression is Key

I say that, but I'm going to talk about the neutral cards first, because I'm a dick. I Endurance is here because 3 HP is relevant sometimes, but could be swapped for something else. Down Time is actually a great card, because you want to swap to Nadia sometimes to shuffle your good cards back into your deck, and this gives you more value for doing so. I'm playing 1 copy of Target Acquired because sometimes it's just nice to have a little control over what the encounter deck is throwing you. Obviously I'm playing all 3 resource cards, HOWEVER. People will tell you that Pinpoint Strike is the best card in the deck, but I'm going to say that's not true. Genius is the best card in the deck. As noted above, Wasp is kind of resource starved, and seeing Genius early and shuffling it back in helps SO much with playing those chunky Pinpoints and Allies. With luck, you might play it 3 times in a shuffle, and that's pretty great. Finally, I am playing Quincarrier over Helicarrier because I like having the Wild resource for the cards in the deck that get bonuses for using as specific resource.

So I've chosen my Allies for these qualities: fairly cheap costs, chunky health pools for blocking, and Thor, because I just wanted to play the card. Hulk and Brawn are the chunky HP cards, and you just don't ever want to attack with Hulk. He'll just kill himself. However, 2 resources to block (probably) 2 attacks is good enough for me. The rest of the allies help control the field as well as block for me once their HP reaches 1.

As for events, I wanted to play Skilled Strike, because it was a free 2 attack card that made Giant Form even better, which is where you want to end most turns if you can. Surprise Attack is another no-brainer, since you shift hero forms so often -- playing events in Tiny form and going back to Giant form for the better attack and defense. This was another reason for Quincarrier, since a guaranteed 4 damage for 1 resource is great. Finally, a couple Moment of Triumphs lets you get some fairly large heals from the Pinpoint Strikes killing enemies (and yes, the Overkill damage onto the Villian does count as "excess damage" for purposes of the heal), which lets you stay in Hero form longer.

I used to be playing 2 Combat Training and 1 Martial Prowess, because they are both unique per character, and I wanted to get out Training early for the extra attack in order to help Giant form. After playing a few times, I realized how important lowering the cost of the Events in the deck was. Going up to 2 of each made the deck much smoother. Having the second copy be a dead card is completely fine; there's more than enough targets to use as resources.

Previous Iterations

I used to be playing 3 copies of Lie in Wait, but found that I rarely used them, and usually used them as a resource instead of taking the time to play one. I dropped down to 2 copies once I realized I was an idiot for not playing Martial Prowess. However, I still never used them, simply because the deck was so expensive to get going (and you really want to use as many of your damage events as you can, which gets pricey). At the time, I was also toying with Spider-Man instead of Brawn, since he's actually a really good ally. Because of this, I only had 6 real targets for Power of Aggression (the 4 Aggression allies, Martial Prowess, and the first copy of Combat Training, since the second is usually dead). Because of this, I was only playing 1 copy of Power of Aggression.

I was having a think about the deck one evening, and thought, "You know, Lie In Wait is a good card, but if I'm almost never playing them, they might as well be anything else. Plus, if I'm always using them as econ, the deck clearly needs more." So I took them out as well as beloved Spidey-Miles, replacing them with Brawn (it was either that or Tigra, and I decided against her because she's good to kill minions with, but I want to kill the minions) in order to get more targets for the second copy of Power of Aggression. Hall of Heroes is another consideration, since you want to kill minions and it draws you precious cards, plus it gives an 8th target for Power, but it's also expensive and requires a lot of setup to function (find it, be in a position where you don't mind spending 2 to play it, kill 3 minions once it's down). Into The Fray is a good card for Wasp (surprise, surprise, given that it's in her pre-built deck), but it costs 3, and ugh. Toe To Toe isn't a terrible idea either.

Thank You For Attending My Ted Talk

I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiments as well!