You Spin Me-nions a-Round (Minion Slayer)

Howdy all! I hope everyone is enjoying the new villains and heroes from Sinister Motives. Typically when a new box comes in my buddies claim the new aspect cards to play with their favorites so I'm left seeing how to make the non-new aspects work with the newer heroes. This is deck list 1 of 2 (#2 coming later this week) that I played both 2-handed and 4-player (when a friend and I both played 2 heroes). In this write-up I'll take you through:

• the goal of my deck,
• some insane Miles combos,
• reasoning for the inclusion of each card, and
• some hot swaps and notes on cards use just for these campaign plays

This deck 2-handed did take down the expert sinister motives campaign with one loss so I'm pretty happy with where it sits.

Your Role

In multiplayer moreso than your aspect in Marvel Champions I think it's key to define the role you plan to play on the team. In this campaign Miles was assigned the role of Minion Slayer. He is going to seek out the deadliest baddies and wipe them off the board. There's been a lot of talk about minions being Miles biggest weakness. I think he's actually quite apt at defeating minions and we'll get into why in this write up. In this deck - we aren't going to seek out minions like Rocket Raccoon or Thor instead we are going to handle minions as they come out and make sure your team has a clear board to fulfill their jobs without worry of minions. On top of this Miles is going to deal out status conditions to allow allies to dodge attacks and flip down filling a small portion of the team Support role as well.

Key To Miles Play

The key to having Miles play this role is to learn the art of damage spread and minion control. Spider-Man has some pretty neat abilities to spread damage out to minions. Let's look at one of his signature cards Web-Shot.

On the surface this card looks pretty standard. 2 resources (3 ER) for 4 damage but the real money comes in from his hero ability Venom Blast. Venom Blast allows Miles to deal 2 damage to an enemy and stun that enemy. It's not required to be the enemy from Webshot... This is key! So, when we play Web-Shot we deal 4 damage to defeat one minion, then deal 2 to another and stun it so we can delay it's defeat for a round. Now, in an ideal world we would throw that Venom Blast on the villain, but in multiplayer they may already be stunned or you may have a The Power of Protection playing going first wanting to take an attack. I'd say it ends up being about 50/50 for me in this role between hitting my Venom Blast on the villain versus on another minion. Especially when they get swarming.

Throughout your play you'll need to make some calculated decisions on how to spread your damage and status conditions. Sometimes stunning a beefy minion one turn means we can use Arachnobatics to defeat it the next! Really - Miles minion control boils down to two things:

• accumulating many damage sources, (minions, jarnbjorn, cheap attacks, splitable attacks). You are really trying to make every turn like you played Melee 2-3 times but for a reasonable cost.
• stalling minions and deciding when a minion can stay on the board (status conditions, ally blocking, mitigating villain activations so that this is a valid choice)

Insane Combos

So we'll be spreading a lot of damage around with Spider-Man's signature cards an abilities. It's hard with event based heroes to see the right cards when you need them. Because of this we've included an entire web of other minion slicing cards. Cards like Plan of Attack and Press the Advantage help us cycle our deck and find the right events at the right time. Meanwhile we've got likes of medium damage amounts from Relentless Assault and Surprise Attack.

My favorite combo with this deck revolves around Double Life this card is pretty key to many of your combos. Often I will play Web-Shot then flip down with Double Life (shuffling the Web-Shot back in my deck). Sometimes with card draw you can even fish it out with Plan of Attack while flipped down and then bring it back to hand.

Recycling and using Double Life often is definitely key to success. In my 2-handed campaign I only spent 2 turns throughout the 5 scenarios where I ended in Alter-Ego form and that should be your goal. Use Double Life to safely use your recover, Plan of Attack and Hall of Heroes without risking any threat placement. Using this card Miles should be flipping and backflipping all around as he Web/Venom/Surprise punches minions into the Encounter Discard.

Another big combo piece is Jarnbjorn - Enhanced Physique is here basically just for this! With Jarnbjorn on the board you can play Web-Shot to deal 4, 2, and 2 with a stun damage to enemy characters and none of the damage sources need to his the same target!

Card-by-Card

I typically don't add a card-by-card play here but I decided to try this out as something new. Let's look at several cards and briefly discuss. Let’s begin with events.

Arachnobatics - This is your main face damage dealer. When minions aren't present you can support the direct damage role and pound the villain. Works specifically well with Spider-Girl for minion spot removal.

Double Life - We already mentioned this but if gives Miles amazing access to alter ego booster cards (looking at Plan of Attack. This is the crux of Miles kit and what makes him $really shine. You avoid being a threat sink for your team.

Swing In - This is the thwarting version of Web-Shot. You can help manage threat and give yourself tough to ignore the villain attack (meaning you may be able to defend for someone else's minion and fill your role). Gaining tough and confusing is about as pushed as an event can be. Even though it doesn't suite your role play this often.

Web-Shot - This is our bread-and-butter for minion removal. Remember to spread damage ideally so your smaller (2-3) damage sources can finish things off.

Press the Advantage - This is sometimes considered just a rush card but here it's used to deck cycle. If you Venom Blast a minion you can finish them off with Press and draw. Also used for another damage source in a pinch.

Relentless Assault - Classic minion removal is classic. Another card that wants physical resources which we lack so you'll be using your Web-Shooter and Enhanced Physique on this card.

Surprise Attack - Another great 3-4 damage source. Ideally you'll use this card in the same turn as Double Life but can also be used to solve a mess as you come back from a traditional flip. I tried this as a 2 of but you really want it to combo with Double Life so you want more chance of drawing them together.

Plan of Attack - This is one of my favorite Miles cards. You can use it to dig for a card you need like Arachnobatics or Web-Shot often right after you shuffle them in. It can be used in a pinch for resource filtering in hero mode but a bit of a risk.

Next let’s look at allies…

Angela - I’m not super happy with Angela in this deck because you don’t need minions for this deck to function (outside of Relentless Assault. Ultimately I left her because she’s a 0 cost ally with little downside as you can often immediately remove the minion she pops out. Then she acts as a other spreadable damage source for a few rounds.

Hulk - Note we don’t have enough physical resources for Hulk to be an amazing attacker. Instead he’s in our minion control bucket. Much like a stun Hulk can keep minions occupied and often defend for 2-3 minion attacks giving Miles time to find the best solution.

Ironheart - Riri doesn’t need much explanation. A cheap blocker to help support the team while you find minion removal.

Wasp - Wasp is a bit of an odd duck here. Often Miles didn’t have to defend so she just became a good energy sink and damage source.

Spider-Girl - I can’t count the ways I love this ally. She is insane value for Miles setting up Arachnobatics as an 8 damage minion removal. Love it.

Ganke Lee is a reasonable priority drop. You really want the card advantage he offers with Double Life.

Hall of Heroes -This card slaps spins in this deck. The previous setback of villain scheme activations is removed. You can now flip with double life and draw 3-4 cards with Hall of Heroes and Ganke. Once you get rolling this card enables such fun play it’s always a blast.

Jarnbjorn This card is an enabler, really you optimize Miles as a Minion Slayer you want a ton of damage sources with just Jarnbjorn down a ready miles can deal damage sources of 4, 2, 2, 2, and 2. (Web-Shot, Venom Blast, Jarnbjorn, Base ATK, Jarnbjorn). That can just be 12 tk the villain and a stun or hit 5 different minions. Rad.

Martial Prowess is a bit of an odd duck. It doesn't help your kicker on Web-Shot but it does help pay for the attack still. Ultimately with 14 attack events I found the cost reduction worthwhile - especially with the Aggression event kickers. In my campaign I actually had this swapped out for a Combat Training I played on Ghostie. This ramp is kind of needed don't be fooled by this deck - it doesn't include any 3+ cost cards but a whooping 17 cards are 2 cost. So you'll really be counting on this and Web-Shooter to round out your curve. This is listed as combat training a mistake by me . :p

Enhanced Physique - This card is pretty polarizing. Really it’s here to ensure we have physical resources for Double Life, Relentless Assault and Jarnbjorn. You could swap this for The Power of Aggression but I found the slow drip really helps set up bursary turns when you need them. Invest when minions aren’t there - use later.

Hot Swaps

These are two swaps I've tried out that I've liked quite a bit.

Economy Swap With this set-up you drop 2 Enhanced Physique in favor of 2 The Power of Aggression. You'll have several targets for it and the wilds can act as Jarnbjorn triggers in a pinch.

Bug-Theme Team Drop 1 Relentless Assault, Martial Prowess, and 1 Plan of Attack for Bug, Energy Spear, and Combat Training. Keep this ally on the board with your autoattack and you have an additional 3 damage source each round. When you begin your damage-spreading, minion-murdering round with two 3-damage sources things get wild!

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If you try this deck out please let me know in the comments and tell me how it went! Check back later this week for a Ghost-Spider-Leadeship deck designed to play with this minion beat-down.