A Sort-of Hand Discard Deck--Baha78

Okay, here's an idea for a "control" type deck, one in which you keep making your opponent discard cards from his/her hand.  The basic deck setup looks like this:

4 Shadowcat

4 Banshee

4 Wolverine (3 drop)

4 Psylocke

4 Jean Grey (4 drop)

2 Storm

4 Professor X (5 drop)

4 Mystique (6 drop)

2 Rogue (6 drop)

4 Acrobatic Dodge

4 One-Two Punch

4 Flying Kick

4 Base of Operations

2 Danger Room

2 Muir Island

4 Dual Sidearms

4 Unstable Molecules

Psylocke, Professor X, and Mystique are the cards you'll use to make your opponent discard (Professor X when he first comes out, and whenever you activate him thereafter; Psylocke and Mystique whenever they do Breakthrough Endurance Loss).  Of the three, Mystique's power is the most useful, as you actually get to look at the opponent's hand and select which card goes; Professor X and Psylocke let your opponent make the choice.  Psylocke is fairly weak, however (especially in the later stages of the game), so you'll eventually want to give her equipment such as Dual Sidearms and/or use Flying Kick (the latter also allows her to attack the support row, which often contains weaker characters; the former gives her range, so you can just keep her safe in the support row).  When Banshee attacks a front row character, he can exhaust two support row characters; thus, he can help prevent your opponent's characters from being reinforced, which helps that BEL to get through.

Jean Grey is in here for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, she has decent stats for a 4 drop; secondly, she has a nifty combo with Base of Operations.  Use Base of Operations to look at the top card of your deck.  If it's a Plot Twist or Location, use Jean Grey's activated ability to replace one of your defunct Plot Twists with something more useful.  This has the added advantage that you'll run through the deck a little faster (which in turn makes it more likely to draw the cards you need).

Wolverine is here for a little extra muscle--use him as part of a team attack with Banshee or Jean Grey if the opponent has something big and nasty, or to knock out something not as big, but still too nasty for Psylocke to deal with.  Storm is here for the same reason, plus she can stop the opponent's characters from flying.  Rogue is in there for a *lot* of extra muscle.

Shadowcat and Unstable Molecules are here for the boosts to character defense.  Unstable Molecules gives a +1 defense as long as its equipped, and can be KO'd to give a temporary +3 defense bonus; Shadowcat's activated ability gives a defending X-Men character a +1 defense bonus.

Finally, One-Two punch is an all-around good card; it allows your characters to attack without as much fear of being stunned.  Acrobatic Dodge is good for the same reason, except that it applies to your defending characters.  Danger Room and Muir Island are also pretty good cards for an X-Men deck; Danger Room gives attack bonuses to front row characters and defense bonuses to support row characters, while Muir Island allows you to discard an X-men character (or two other cards) from your hand to recover a stunned character with a recruit cost of 4 or less.

I'll be the first to admit that this isn't a perfect deck.  For one thing, your opponent gets to draw two cards a turn, and he/she may be able to play them both before you have a chance to have them discarded.  For another, I haven't seen every card in this set, so there may be other cards that would make this deck more effective.    If you have any suggestions, feel free to email me.

Kyle

baha78@aol.com