Galaxies Most Wanted Playthrough (with some home rules)

Okay!  I've been deck testing for quite a while.  Usually when I play other villains, it's with our gaming group on game night.  Because we're testing villains now, I'm going to try to log what happens with their schemes and minions.  I've been avoiding Galaxies Most Wanted, except for Drang.  Well, we're going to try to play through this crazy mess of a campaign, and I'll be testing out the Gideon's Gaming home rules for this campaign.

Thor - Aggression + Rogue - Protection vs Drang (expert)

Drang:  I've played Drang before, so we tried expert.  Drang is straight forward.  No home rules here.  Some people use Drang as a test deck scenario, but it's too short to get your heroes built out. Thor got rid of Drang's spear on the first hand.  Man, Expert Drang hits plenty hard.  

Main Scheme: We didn't flip a lot, so Rogue was able to keep the main scheme from advancing past 1B.  She was thwarting and defending the whole game.  

Minions:  Those Assassins are brutal.  Expert Drang hits hard, but his minions can really overwhelm you.  At the end there were three minions out, and two of them were tough.

The Badoon Ship: Hit us three times.

The Milano: mostly we spent this for Thor to get two good plays (usually an upgrade and an event) every round.  Several times it was exhausted by a treachery card.

Thor:  Thor built quickly, and started throwing damage out.  He cleared the board once with a Honed Technique + Dive Bomb.  Everyone was happy with that.  At the end, Honed Technique + Browbeat did 9 damage to bring Drang down to 6 hp left.  We all liked the way HT worked.  It's expensive, and we all liked the trick with resource requirement.  It's so powerful and thematic, and it really feels like Thor arriving in Wakanda.  Ka-Smasha!  

Rogue: Okay she's always super fun for me to play.  Rockslide, Iceman, and cards like Mutant Defenders really saved the day for extra defending.  Anna Marie pulled Thor's Godlike Stamina to heal several times.  But...  At the end, after Thor's final attack...  Oh yes, I did it!  Rogue lifted Thor's hammer!  Actually I don't think this was quite legal, because Mjolnir was in Thor's play area.  I used Superpower Adaptation to look through Thor's discard pile, and there it was --I pulled Hammer Throw out of Thor's discard pile.  I was really looking for Dive Bomb (which I knew was there) to defeat Drang, but I just couldn't resist, and we thought it was more thematic.  The whole table really liked that move.  I think this was the premise of an episode of Marvel "What If," except in the episode, Thor died.  Anyway, big high fives all around.  Go Rogue!

Gamora - Aggression + Adam Warlock vs The Collector (I) with some home rules.

Home Rules: We did this accidentally.  Minions and schemes didn't go into the collection when we beat them.  We would have lost by a mile otherwise.  This had a good feel though.  Maybe that's how Collector is overdone.

The Collector I:  Super Hard Scenario.  We almost threated out like 4 times.  Both heroes got knocked down to 3 hp, but we couldn't flip. The minions are hard, the schemes are super hard.  This was using every ounce of Gamora and Adam's abilities.  We were completely on our heels for the the whole deck.  Once we finally cleared the schemes and minions, then we made some space to rock.  We were able to clear out half of the collection.  We took out the Badoon Headhunter, as well as the Challenge Side Scheme.  Last two rounds, Gamora and Adam really started showing off.  This was a big payoff.  I think you could rush him, he's not big on HP.  This was a control win.  With our home rule, the collection was a factor, but not as bad as the original.  Next go, I'm going to throw a Justice and Protection mix.

Main Scheme (The Collection):  No second B element, this is all or nothing.  You have threat, and the collection.  Tons of side schemes add acceleration and boosts.  All the side schemes have hinder.  It's a justice nightmare.  I might try this again with Miss Marvel and Dr Strange.

Gamora:  I picked her as a more event-driven hero.  Fewer contributions to the Collection.  She really pulled her weight.  Her hero power activates all the time -sometimes on the villain phase.  Lots of thwarting and damage.  Last round, she did over 30 damage.  Tons of thwarting here.  With Combat Training, Godslayer, and Fluid Motion, she was hitting for 6 with basic attacks, and adding 1 dmg + 1 thw for her attack events.

Adam Warlock:  He is definitely versatile.  Once again, the home rule with Counter Earth really helps him.  He used Battlemage almost every round in all 4 aspects.  Last round, he did over 20 damage.  He is still a slow builder.  Eventually he was able to handle minions and threat.  I think he's stronger when he can play allies, but we were trying to keep the collection down.  He defended every round, and eventually got Yondu out with the Energy Spear.  That's a great combo.

She Hulk - Justice + Black Panther - Protection vs Collector II

The Collector II:  I like this scenario.  It's different.  Major threat.  You can't win by killing the Collector.  You have to thwart three heavy schemes.  You can take an encounter card to thwart 5 off the main scheme once per round (during the Library phase).  Oh, and he confuses you like crazy, and the side schemes have crisis, and the minions have patrol.  It's insane.  Then when it's time to escape, everyone starts taking damage.  More moving parts here, but I like the feel.  They did flip Collector twice, but when you knock him out, he becomes immune to damage, and you get to thwart 3 per player.  

Main Schemes:  Tons of threat on here!  Each Scheme starts with 7-11 threat per player.  Brutal.

She Hulk: was fantastic.  She was able to keep up with both threat and minions.  She took at least 10 threat as damage with Great Responsibility, but never threw Gamma Slam because she had better thwarting options.  She saved the day twice stopping the main scheme from threating out.  She's such an all-around.  She does damage almost every round, she thwarts, she tanks damage, she heals.  She's power.  I loved that she was steady with Unshakable.  She got stunned and confused --no problem.  That card is so nice.

Black Panther: Wakanda!  Once he gets set up, he's so awesome.  He's super-supportive with extra resources and Med Teams.  He didn't have enough to do perfect defense, but that's the idea --with the Vibranium Suit, he needs to take damage, so he can heal and retaliate.  Super versatile.  These two together are just in control.  The only thing they lacked were more stuns and confuses.  

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Scarlet Witch - Justice + Spectrum - Protection vs Collector II

The Collector II:  I had to give this another go.  I thought the Justice + Protection paring was the best for this scenario.  Last game we ret-conned a play where the main scheme exactly threated out, but we realized we missed a play.  So I wanted to try again with a better knowledge of what was coming.  Still, he confused both heroes multiple times.  I missed She Hulk's Unshakable.

Main Schemes:  We planned these out better.  We got the first scheme very fast and got the Milano for resources.  That was super helpful.  Then we built out, while chipping away at the second scheme.  Third scheme, Wanda thwarted for 23.  That's like those big attack numbers at the end of the game for lots of heroes.  

Scarlet Witch: drew all her double-resource cards early.  It was weird.  She did play the Avenger's Mansion first round, so that was worth it.  Mid game, Hex Bolt confused the Collector a bunch of times.  Last round was a perfect storm.  She crushed it.  

Spectrum: So versatile.  She handled most of the minions, and her defense is great.  She has tons of resources.  She can defend for 5 if she needs to, with Soaring Acrobatics, Armored Vest, and Pulsar Form.  She helped with thwarting.  Ever Vigilant is so worth it in her deck.

Magneto - Leadership + Magik - Aggression vs Nebula

Nebula:  She is a pain!  I first tried this with Bishop and Iceman, and they were getting smashed --not out of contention, but I messed up on Bishop's hero power.  It wasn't very smooth, so I thought I'd try a different paring. Nebula's got stuns, confuses, endless surges (we house-rule only one surge per player per round), her techniques are plenty tough --especially when she makes you discard.  Basically, she prevents you from playing your hero.  You're always recovering, clearing a stun, losing cards, spending them to clear attachments, etc... Magneto and Magik did much better, in fact, this is the best pairing I've seen against Nebula.  The key here is to stun and confuse her as much as possible ==> minimize her activations.  Of course, Nebula gets steady with one of her techniques.  That happened twice.

Main Schemes:  This was never too problematic.  You have to discard two resources every two rounds (plus exhaust the Milano), otherwise the main scheme will go out of control.  Once again, Nebula slows you down.  We didn't get hit with too many side schemes.  The only ones which popped up had 4 threat.  No problem for these two.   

Magneto: I picked him because he can get steady, and for his allies (a way to still get actions if you're stunned or confused).  He can also get cards back when Nebula discards them, so that was a nice feature in this scenario.  He stunned Nebula three times, and he used Electromagnetic Blast to remove an attachment --Yes!  He took a stun at the end (blocked by Magneto's Helmet which adds steady).  Magneto did a lot of damage early on.   He stayed near max Hp the whole game thanks to Asteroid M. 

Magik: She got several confuses on Nebula.  Her allies weren't as big a factor until the end.  She got chipped down to 5hp early, and then recovered.  Magik was more playing confuse and thwart cards early, trying to keep more control on Nebula.  Nebula made them both discard cards, but these two handle it better.  She blocked a stun and a confuse with Magik's Crown to get steady.  Most of these niche abilities really came into play this game.  At the end, she got a few readies and started hitting for 4 with her basic attack, plus some of her allies were hitting for 4 with Bootcamp and Attack Training.

Cyclops - Leadership + Iceman - Aggression vs Ronan

Ronan: As usual, he won.  These two debuffed his attacks forever, but they couldn't survive the threat.  They thwarted early, but coudn't keep up.  They were pretty aggressive, and got him down to 6 hp before they lost.  It's a super fast game.  They also got unlucky that Ronan got the Universal Weapon back immediately after they shuffled it it.  

Main Scheme:  They had to flip and this went high --then a crisis side scheme came out --game over.

Cyclops: These two work well together.  Cyclops always had a upgrade out for his Visor.  He was able to keep allies coming out.  They didn't get hit too bad, because of all the debuffs on Ronan, but they couldn't keep up with the schemes.

Iceman:  This was a great pairing.  I they're powerful, and can really shut down an ordinary villain.  Shark Girl attacked for 8 due to all the upgrades on the villain.  That was cool.  I'd love to play Iceman in Protection, but he really likes to attack to get Frostbite on the villain.  This is an aggression ally deck, but he was slow getting allies out.