Adam Warlock Home Rules

 Adam Warlock Home Rules

Here's my custom set for Adam Warlock.  Note that there are only a few hero decks which have major problems for me: Adam, Hulk, She Hulk, and Ms Marvel.  Finally, I'll probably make all the "team" cards discardable upgrades instead of unreliable events.

Implementing house rules was tricky, because there's really not enough room on Adam's hero card to write anything.  Adding the rules to cards which get shuffled into your deck is sketchy: you might not get them when you need them.  We're back to Adam's original problem --he needs certain cards, but he ends up discarding them, and can't get them back.  Instead, I added two rules on two cards in order to give him a better chance to start controlling his discard pile.  

The Karmic Staff and Warlock's Cape have new rules on them.  Originally, I made an extra hero card called "Counter-Earth" which had the extra two rules on it, but that felt weird giving him 16 hero cards.  I included it for a home-rule option, depending on how frustrated you are with Adam.  The Staff has the original home rule, (after you discard more than 3 cards from an effect, shuffle one of those cards back into your deck), but on the cape, I added another "Battlemage" ability for Alter Ego: discard a basic card to place a card from the discard pile on top of your deck.  And, of course, I made Quantum Magic an Upgrade, so if you get them in your opening hand, they aren't worthless.  This is a slightly different implementation of my home rules.  I stuck setup as a trait on Counter-Earth (setup is not an official trait) just to halfway show the option of adding it to your hand on setup.  That creates a fix for the discard problems from the opening hand.  Also I included the updated Cosmic Entities.  Since I was updating the cards to scale with player count, I updated the cost as well.  I think they'll get played more and have a much more "cosmic" feel.

1. Minimum upgrade: Home Rules added to Quantum Magic.
2. Moderate upgrade: Home Rules added to Karmic Staff, Adam Warlock's Cape, Quantum Magic.
3. Full Upgrade: Home Rules added to Karmic Staff, Adam Warlock's Cape, Quantum Magic, and all the Cosmic Entities.
4. Nuclear (newbie) Option:  Counter Earth is added to your hand on setup.  Home Rules added to Quantum Magic and all the Cosmic Entities.

Home brew ethical note: I've taken care to make the smallest changes I can while fixing the FUN aspect of each deck.  Adam is hopefully more playable and fun now.  I added shuffle rules on hero side to control the discard, and "place on top of your deck" to Alter Ego, because I didn't want to eclipse the power of Quantum Magic, while still gaining more control over the discard pile.  The goal was to have Adam's discard abilities (worst case) create a minor setback, rather than a major handicap.  For She Hulk and other decks, I've added the smallest changes I could think of to make the cards more playable and fun --without overpowering their decks.  Home Rules are optional, but hopefully these help --especially when your friends choose one of these decks to play on game night.

WHY?

Adam's deck has been a real pain.

Adam's deck is a very slow build.  Think of a less-reliable Iron Man.

Problem: 

• Adam is heavily reliant on upgrades to play competently.
• So many of his cards discard from your deck to have an effect.  
• Many of his important upgrades get discarded
• Quantum Magic seeks to help with this problem by getting cards out of the discard pile and placing them in your hand.
• Quantum Magic is an event which never turns up at the right time.

Consider the following:  

Opening hand: Quantum Magic and various events. 

Hard Mulligan: Quantum Magic and various events.

Next hand: Summoning Spell discards 5 upgrades.

Effect: Adam is now completely handicapped for the entire game.  Oh, he could get some upgrades out near the end, but then they might not be worth the expense.

Objection!  That is highly improbable!

Quantum Magic ALWAYS shows up in the opening hand.  For all my Adam Warlock plays, and deck fiddling, I have had extreme trouble getting to his upgrades, and I've yet to be able to use a single Quantum Magic to help.  QM has been 100% useless.

You've just been unlucky!  Keep playing and eventually, you will have a good game!

No.  Unreliable heroes are no fun.  It is way too easy for Adam to have a terrible game.  I bring all my heroes to the table on game night, and some love Adam Warlock.  He needs to be playable and fun, and I don't mind if he starts to get a little closer to Dr Strange in power...  For my money, these upgrades are NOT overpowered.  They give Adam no control over the deck, just some control over the discard pile.  He still has to draw his way through the deck.  Discarding is a little more powerful, because he can eventually get some cards back into his deck for later plays.  To mitigate this, I have his deck at a full 50 cards ==> he has 7 in each aspect, including basic.  He's different, and interesting, but now he's not randomly handicapped.  Rather, he's randomly delayed.  Eventually, he could get built out, and then recur some useful cards out of the discard pile.  Other heroes can do that.  I'm okay with that.  

What's fun about Adam?  

In Magic the Gathering, this is called a "discard / tutor" deck.  This just means he can discard cards to power other cards, then search through, or otherwise control his discard pile.  A player would say, "I tutored that card from the discard pile." The term "tutor" makes no sense in this context, so I just call it a "discard / search" deck.  Having played Bishop who has a similar mechanic (which actually works), I feel like his design is an apology for Adam.  Some people love this mechanic.  It looks like Magneto will also use this mechanic.  It seems popular.

The discard / search mechanic is not one which I'm usually fond of.  I know that it works, and it can be powerful, but it rips through a deck which you've carefully built.  You're carelessly discarding powerful cards to cheaply power other cards.  It has the feel of making a bunch of your well-chosen cards useless.  

Why not just add three of an important card?  Adam is forbidden to have more than one of each aspect card.  There's no way around this problem with Adam.  You're absolutely going to discard a bunch of very important cards, and that will usually create a powerful play, but most of those cards will be inaccessible until you shuffle.  The idea with Adam is that you can race through your deck to shuffle quickly (and to power Soul World).

Conclusion:  Adam needs some reliable control over his discard pile to be more consistently playable, vice the whole [lucky or handicapped] roller coaster.