So I have been playing a lot of solo games as my fiancé has been extremely busy with work.

I love tweaking and optimizing decks woth Netrunner, Arkham Horror, and L5R being some of the previous LCGs I’ve played. In my experience so far, a solo game averages around 15 minutes so I can usually get 3-5 games in an hour.

I’d love to share some of the decks that I’ve been tweaking. For the most part I’ve focus on Spider-Man and try to get 3 or 4 games against each villain (Expert Mode) in my experimentation.

Unfortunately currently we are very limited in card pool so there isn’t a lot to tweak.

Here is what I am currently at for Spider-Man (Leadership) for solo play: https://marvelcdb.com/deck/view/2730

Aside from the required cards, three copies of Inspired are added. It’s cheap and there are a lot of Allies to attach to really boosts effectiveness (Black Cat is nuts).

All of the available allies are used since this deck. Mocking Bird is pricey, but essentially provides two “blocks” and two thwart/attack so a cheaper “Webbed Up” with more utility. Hawkeye is golden against Minion heavy decks like Klaw or Ultron, but can clog up space on the bench, also sometimes make pulling off a Spider Tracker difficult. Maria Hill is a card draw and thwart 4 (or thwart 2 and a block) for two resources...not bad. Vision is very pricey and forces you to add extra energy resources to the deck when other cards may be better. But between his ability, get ready, inspired, and lead from the front he can get some insane turns. Nick Fury is difficult to keep in the deck with his price and you can’t keep him around with heals. Useful for a burst and a block, but he is definitely a flex card that could be dropped.

Helicarrier and Mansion are the only supports and only 1-of. You really don’t want to see more than one copy a game. Mansion is expensive, but useful to draw into cards and help fuel resources. However, this could be cut in favor of something else.

Emergency is not great and is primarily in here because it is cheap, provides an energy resource for Vision, and helps manage threat a bit. It is situational and could be subbed for Haymaker.

First Aid keeps Vision and Hawkeye in the fight. Three cards is too many and one card means you may not see it when you need it so two copies it is. Could also be used to patch up Spider-Man in a pinch.

Get Ready is fantastic and cheap. Goes great with Inspired and Lead from the Front.

Lead From the Front is a slightly high price with zero to one ally. But with Inspired and Get Ready it can be a game changer! Only two copies because of the cost and the situational use. Could possibly be a 1-of. Remember that the bonus also applies to the Hero and not just the allies.

Make the Call can be good, but it is basically an resource tax to play an ally from the discard. Can be very strong, but I’ve usually by the time I am ready to play it, I’m most of the way through my deck. Whenever I’ve had more than one copy they’ve been tossed into the bin for a resource early on in the game. Possibly worth a 2-of.

I am not a fan of the resource cards really....or at least having too many resource cards. The “Power of Blank” cards tend to just clutter the deck in my opinion and only be worth one energy. But with the limited card pool I don’t really have a better idea other than cramming in more energy resource cards to feed to vision.

Notable Exclusions:

The Triskellion: Not once have I run into a situation where I felt I have needed this. At best it thins the deck or provides an energy....but other cards do that and have a useful effect from the same price or lower.

I’ve found the Triskelion is best when you can develop a strong board and then draw into something like Nick Fury

FYI, Hawkeye's effect is a response, so you don't have to trigger it if you'd rather keep a minion around for some reason.

You are running max 6 allies and you dont want Nick or Maria in play long. Triskelion seems awful with the current pool.

Power of Leadership really only fuels a few cards (Maria, Vision, Hawkeye, and Lead from the Front - note it doesnt work with Make the Call), so I would imagine it depends on how many Lead from the Front you are running.

I cant see your deck list...curious as to how many cards you are running?

Once I started playing Klaw/MoE on expert (2 and 3 player) I opted against 40-card deck thinning as an early extra Encounter flip gets brutal quick. Klaw and searching for MoE Villains spins the Encounter deck plenty fast enough as it is in our plays. Although my experience may be different as I have been playing Tony/Leadership so far with my group.

All, sorry, my marvelcdb profile was set to private so the decklist didn't share.

12 hours ago, Derrault said:

I’ve found the Triskelion is best when you can develop a strong board and then draw into something like Nick Fury

I still haven't found much use for this at this point as I'm usually only at 2 Allies....or I can quickly get rid of someone like Maria Hill with a Thwart action and then drop Nick onto the board. Once more allies are available, Triskelion gets better. Right now I am only considering adding it in to thin the deck on future shuffles and clear a "Power of Leadership" out of the deck.

12 hours ago, PickleTheHutt said:

FYI, Hawkeye's effect is a response, so you don't have to trigger it if you'd rather keep a minion around for some reason.

Very good point! Spaced on this one.

9 hours ago, IceHot42 said:

You are running max 6 allies and you dont want Nick or Maria in play long. Triskelion seems awful with the current pool.

Power of Leadership really only fuels a few cards (Maria, Vision, Hawkeye, and Lead from the Front - note it doesnt work with Make the Call), so I would imagine it depends on how many Lead from the Front you are running.

I cant see your deck list...curious as to how many cards you are running?

Once I started playing Klaw/MoE on expert (2 and 3 player) I opted against 40-card deck thinning as an early extra Encounter flip gets brutal quick. Klaw and searching for MoE Villains spins the Encounter deck plenty fast enough as it is in our plays. Although my experience may be different as I have been playing Tony/Leadership so far with my group.

I updated the decklist permissions. I'm running 40 cards, the extra encounter card hasn't been too detrimental at this point. For "Make the Call" I could see this going both ways since "Make the Call". Paying the cost is very clear, 2 (Maria) or 4 (Vision). However "The Power of Leadership" does not specify that it applies to playing cards, just paying for Leadership cards, which both the characters and Make the Call are. It is also unclear on if the character cost is a modifier to Make the Call or standalone. This combo was also disccussed on BGG here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2300227/card-interaction-question-make-call-and-power-lead. I'm not 100% sure on this and will submit a rules question to FFG.

I did update the decklist here: I dropped the Mansion because I play it maybe once every two or three games due to cost. It always ends up being a "Well I have nothing better to do" card. I picked up an extra Make the Call because sometime I end up pitching allies for energy or to draw more cards because I couldn't afford them early on (Nick Fury, Mocking Bird, and Vision being culprits). I also switched Emergency for Haymaker because Emergency was too niche and I am rarely in alter ego form and Haymaker is still an energy resource. Finally, I am also heavily considering dropping one Power of Leadership just to thin the deck down on future shuffles since Power of Leadership tends to only be worth 1 resource anyway...and Triskelion is an energy resource so it can be fed to Vision.

Updated list: https://marvelcdb.com/deck/view/2730

4 minutes ago, nungunz said:

I still haven't found much use for this at this point as I'm usually only at 2 Allies....or I can quickly get rid of someone like Maria Hill with a Thwart action and then drop Nick onto the board. Once more allies are available, Triskelion gets better. Right now I am only considering adding it in to thin the deck on future shuffles and clear a "Power of Leadership" out of the deck.

Oh yeah, I agree that it’s easy to burn through them; but I tend to reserve my allies until they absolutely have to be used, like a break in case of emergencies button for when I can’t afford to change to alter-ego and need a block. Doing that, they tend to stack up. I’m guessing it’s going to get a lot better once Falcon and whoever else they put in (Winter Soldier?) are available.

I found now (after playing a bunch) the best use of Nick Fury is to dig deeper for cards that you need. Therefore he's best in Iron Man and Black Panther where you need to find stuff to set up as fast as possible, and both heroes have very decent economies to support playing 4 cost cards. In Spiderman I could see cutting him. He is a nice flexible play though and he's definitely worth his price regardless of what you use him for during the turn. Though 4 cost is definitely tough considering he'll probably be your whole turn. So you better be getting max benefit out of him.

Playing Mansion early is always a good play. Mid to late game it's a suspicious investment. So sometimes I play it and sometimes I don't depending on when it comes out and the circumstances of the board state. So while it doesn't always hit the board I do still auto include 1x copy in all my decks. I wanna have the possibility of playing it early, but I don't want a dead card in hand late game.

I cut Triskelion from my decks. I have never run into the issue of having too many allies out such that I am forced to discard one I want to play as a resource. When this game opens up more and we are compelled to include more allies I can definitely see including it. Power Of Leadership I kept in for paying for the allies. Lead From The Front is fine, but not exactly the most exciting card. Feels like the Thwart boost is better for heroes low on Thwart. For the damage to be worth it you gotta have a full board of characters I feel. At least you have the flexibility of choosing between the two for each character activation. Though sometimes I wanna save my characters activation so Lead From The Front comes up at a bad time for it to be an efficient play. Again if we get more of a Leadership ally flood deck then LftF will become more of a bomb card.