I feel often that the best way to get to know a Main Character's strengths and weaknesses is look through every card and figure out how the card could help advance your game plan. We have to figure out a baseline of what possible game plans there are first, then find the most efficient way to carry out those plans. Starting off with playing mono faction decks can help you understand a Main Character's strengths and weaknesses.
Yesterday we took a look at the Wolverine MC and how he has a pretty one dimensional aggressive strategy that requires him to hit fast and hard with stuns due to his XP requirement of getting stuns with Solo Attacks.
X-Men Faction
The Marvel Battles Set: X-Men Faction
Deadpool (MC Level 1)
Deadpool (MC Level 2)
- Professor X (MC Level 1)
- Professor X (MC Level 2)
- Storm (MC Level 1)
- Storm (MC Level 2)
- Wolverine (MC Level 1)
- Wolverine (MC Level 2)
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Iceman
- Magik
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Cyclops - Hope Summers
- Namor
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Deadpool - Gambit
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Beast - Storm
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Cable - Wolverine
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Colossus - Emma Frost
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Professor X
The Marvel Battles - Generic Cards
The Marvel Battles Set: Generic Cards
As far as cards that both decks passed up that were available to use, we have Magik, Cyclops, Gambit, Emma Frost, Professor X and Uncanny Defense.
Magik is a good 3 attack character but Iceman is just better in this deck because of Freeze. Magik's ability wouldn't do much and neither of the following decks use 
Cyclops is great for team attacking and taking out large threats because of leader and can use his 
ability to switch someone's spot in your formation. However in this deck all the early 's need to go to Wolverine MC and the late reds are more efficient to use on Cable or Wolverine MC.
Gambit is a nice agressive attacker and his 
ability can shut down a cosmo that is locking down your Wolverine. You could use 2 Gambit in the first list instead of beast but it is just a judgement call based on preference at that point but Beast's 2 health and Genius are also very good.
By the time you would get up to Emma Frost or Professor X's recruit cost, the game should be just about over. Also Professor X is useless without and you aren't likely to have many cards in your hand at this point of the game. You also wouldn't want to use Emma on your opponent so they can find something to stop you and run you out of gas. Uncanny Defense isn't really in the theme of the deck and it would rarely be helpful unless you were already ahead on board state. The lack of flying characters in this build means it would likely not help much anyways as if you could Uncanny Defense to your back row to save a stun on Wolverine MC, a flier with 4 attack would likely be able to get to him on the next attack. We want to stay as aggressive as possible and Uncanny Defense doesn't fit that bill. Neither do the other plot generic plot twists that I'll just skip over for the same reasons.
Let's look at this "The Marvel Battles" set mono faction deck and what it looks like. This is similar to what Keith McGee Jr. ran at the GenCon 2015 10k VS2PCG tournament that he did pretty well at. This will be a good base for a decent Wolverine deck that only runs off the first set for someone just getting into the game.
Wolverine - Mono X-Men - The Marvel Battles Only
Deck Archetype: Wolverine AggroDeck Author: PauperTim
Main Characters
Supporting Characters (32)
Plot Twists (12)
Locations (16)
This deck uses a good amount of aggressive plot twists and a good base location count. On average you should be hitting a decent number of location drops. The locations will mostly be used and saved for Wolverine MC other than the Laboratory cards which will be used for Storm. You may want to occasionally deviate from that if the situation is needed of course.
Wolverine depends on early on especially in this version of the deck to level up but Cable is in there to clear the way if needed. I wouldn't recruit Cable until his power was immediately needed. Colossus is there mainly to give a character flying to get in the final wound on the opponents MC but his 
super power does pack a punch. You will have to use it wisely as Wolverine will desperately need to use Healing Factor each turn after he levels up.
The characters are all pretty aggressive except Cable and Cable without usually won't help much. It is a weakness that the other 5 drop is Wolverine so it is a bit of a hole in your curve. Wolverine SC can only be used in this deck to pump up Wolverine MC unless you decide to run Gambit which will give you another outlet to use it for. Most people play an off team 5 drop in place of Cable but as this is a specific mono team only build, it is the only way to deal with a very large counter stacked character for the faction.
Iceman and Hope Summers are known to be a great little combo in this game and they are the only defensive type cards in there trying to delay incoming wounds to Wolverine MC other than trying to tuck Wolverine MC into the back row which isn't suggested unless you are going to be KO'd otherwise.
Moving on to Expansion Card Options
First we have a few extra available additions to the pool of cards that we could use.
General Cards
VS System 2PCG: General Cards-
Best Offense is a Good Defense
- Find Cover
- Let's Rock
- Loyal Soldiers
- Main Strength
- Open Fire
- Savage Surprise
- Shock to the System
There are 2 spicy cards we could add in Loyal Solders and Main Strength. I also added in Call as it can be considered as a generic power up. The rest of the cards are mostly defensive so we will take a pass on those. This updated deck looks a bit different to account for the additional cards including the locations.
Wolverine - Mono X-Men - Loyal Soldiers Updated
Deck Archetype: Wolverine AggroDeck Author: PauperTim
Main Characters
Supporting Characters (27)
Plot Twists (20)
Locations (12)
I am a huge proponent of running 16 or more locations because I absolutely hate not hitting location drops but a similar deck also by Keith McGee Jr. did well in the GenCon 2016 10k. His did have some differences and an off team character but we are sticking just with the basics here. Note we are down to 12 locations and they are for the most part just for Wolverine MC.
Storm and Laboratory got switched out for more offensive pumps. The reason for this is that it takes a character plus an activation of her super power to get up to what would almost be equivalent to Loyal Soldiers. There are positives and negatives of comparing them to each other but overall Loyal Soldiers is better. The reason it is better is that Dagger SC is sometimes played in Captain Marvel decks which would completely negate Storm's ability. Also it takes up more space and we would rather be more aggressive anyways.
In addition to Loyal Soldiers which is another nice pump for Wolverine to try to make certain he will get the early stuns he needs to level.
I also added 2 copies of Call which while not on faction help out more that Wolverine SC would. Technically it can be argued that we aren't staying 100% mono at this point but I will be writing these Mono Deck articles for other MC's that really benefit from Call and I would never really recruit her in this deck unless it was a dire need. She is in here just for powering up characters. If you want to be a purist you can easily swap her out for 2 copies of Wolverine SC.
Overall the first deck is pretty good but the second one is a little better. Splashing for a few different aggressive cards and abilities to help Wolverine get to a juicy target would help tremendously. We will take a look at what other teams have to off Wolverine another day.
About the Author
PauperTim is this websites owner and has always been into games of all sorts. He is a founder of the Pauper format for Magic: The Gathering. You can find him on facebook, twitter or OCTGN as PauperTim or as TheOrangeMitten on Magic Online.