Widow's Web - Black Widow Protection Heroic Deck!

This is an update to a previous deck (see: https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/1268/black-widow-solo-protection-heroic-1-1.0 ) on this week's Deck of the Week. A few show listeners have asked me to update my old Black Widow Protection deck with the cycle of Guardian's cards. I didn't realize how long it had been but I got to use a ton of tools from the Ant-Man to Wanda wave as well. As always an brief audio cast is available on the MCM feed.

Deck Overview

As most people who have attempted heroic know - it can be a very damning experience. Often the villain deck will throw multiple attacks at our heroes and thus it can be hard to play a control style deck in a heroic match. To be clear I've been running this deck on Heroic level 1 in multiplayer settings to much success. Black Widow is the top character when it comes to villain control so it makes sense that she's one of the few heroes that can take this role in heroic games. We are going to focus on getting set up to absorb 1-2 villain attacks per turn and we will do this through a plethora of tricks. Join me in the Widow's Web and let's discuss how.

The Essentials

You'll notice this deck is dirt cheap with over half the deck costing 1 or less we have to think quite a bit about what expensive cards to include and why they aren't allies. To begin with let's talk about the key to our combos. We have 3 primary ways to absorb 2 villain attacks in a turn.

1) Defend and play Never Back Down with Armored Vest and Synth-Suit we can get to a base 4 DEF. If we play Never Back Down on top of this we defend for 6 and hopefully stun the villain as well (soaking two activations). If all goes well you will be able to trigger Synthsuit and still ready which allows you to absorb a potential 3rd activation!

2) Flip up and play Perseverance. Face tank a hit and then defend for another player. Again the same combo exists with Synth-Suit meaning you could potentially absorb 3 attacks for your team!

3) This combo is in both of the above lists, but having many preparations down so you can defend and then trigger Synth-Suit to ready allows widow easy access to double defending. Note, the easiest way to do this is with Attacrobatics as often you can cancel the boost from your first defense to ensure no damage comes in.

All 3 of these combos use Synth-Suit and an Armored Vest is sure to make your defending more sustainable. We can always use allies to soak attacks but everyone has access to that so it's not discussed here.

Tips and Tricks

Because you are defending almost every round you are going to take some damage. Ideally not too much with the likes of Side Step and Energy Barrier but we've included one copy of Down Time. Natasha flips enough that you will get good use of this card and it makes your base REC very attractive (healing for over half of your max HP!)

Be sure to plan appropriately for your flips. In heroic games - sadly- flippy-floppy heroes like Black Widow and Ms. Marvel simply cannot afford to flip every round. Be sure to plan a flip after you've played Covert Ops or after you've stunned the villain so you are prepared to still help out the other players on defense while in alter-ego.

Make your DEF worthwhile. As a player I struggle to enjoy defending. Especially in heroic defending needs to be made worthwhile. If you are building to your 4 base DEF you'll be able to trigger Unflappable and Hard to Ignore fairly frequently. I considered Preemptive Strike which was in the original version of this deck but found it conflicted with Attacrobatics a bit too much!

Note we didn't use a ton of the Protection cards from the Guardians cycle as many don't fit this Natasha playstyle. Sadly True Grit just doesn't do enough for the cost in this Widow deck. I strongly considered Subdue which may still be a fine swap but decided I liked Never Back Down a bit better.

Setup

Early in the game you are going to want to mulligan hard for allies and Synth-Suit. You need to survive the first 2-3 turns to ensure Natasha has time to set up and then you can rock and roll.

Once you have. Synth-Suit, Armored Vest and Nerves of Steel you are ready to roll on the villains turn. But you'll likely want a pair of Black Widow's Gauntlets as well. Safe House #29 is surprisingly less useful in heroic because flipping takes such effort to recover from.

I hope you give this Black Widow deck a try. This deck heh and pretty much no decks are going to make heroic level Galaxy's Most Wanted a cake walk - but she takes good card of the Red Skull campaign and other scenario packs with an amazingly controlling play-style.