Liquid Shadow (Fluid Motion)

Card draw simulator

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VillainTheory · 23799


Liquid Shadow


Imagine a world where they release a hero with a turn 1 resource generator for attacks, takes care of their own defense by being practically indestructible, and comes with multiple readies that also serve as attacks to trigger Fluid Motion.

Now imagine Fluid Motion just sitting there, waiting to be loved.

Enter Shadowcat, who can help pay for attacks with her Solid form, ignore enemy attacks with Phased, and has Fluid Motion's favourite new friend: Shadowcat Surprise. Did I mention she can ignore crisis and patrol + has one of the best thwarting events in the game, to help control threat until you're all set up to deal immense damage?

P.S. She's the best user of Surprise Attack in the game!


If you like this deck, feel free to give it a ❤ ! Thank you!



Cat Nip Carnage


Once you have all three Fluid Motions in play along with Combat Training, that's potentially 6 ATK if you can play three attacks per turn.

...If you can play three attacks to activate your Fluid Motions (which this deck easily can, with many cheap attacks/attacks that draw cards), and ready twice, that's 18 damage from her basic ATKs alone!

And if you've played three attacks before your basic attacking? You're looking at roughly 9 damage from that alone!

All this means it's very easy to reach 15-30 damage every single turn!


Are You Ready to Rumble?


To benefit most from Fluid Motion, you need to start the turn ready and able to basic attack. Of course, if the villain attacks you want to block it - but this deck has many efficient ways to do so without even needing to exhaust!

Factoring in all copies, that is a potential of 13 blocked attacks per deck cycle on a regular villain. 10 against a Steady villain. And 7 against a Stalwart villain. Whatever way you cut it, Shadowcat is almost always going to be ready to dish out some pumped-up Fluid Motion damage!

Of course, the villain could activate again through an encounter card or exhaust you, so you want to be able to ready. Also? The more you can ready, the more times you benefit from some pumped-up Fluid Motion damage!

That's 6 readies, and Ready to Rumble is bankable - meaning you can play it one turn, then trigger it on a turn where you know you can activate all three Fluid Motions to maximize your damage!


Solo:


In solo, the ideal strategy with this deck is to begin the game by playing slow, building up your Fluid Motions and a Combat Training while keeping the threat under control with Airwalk, Lockheed and your basic THW. After a few turns, once you are reasonably well set up you can flip the switch and start to race down the villain! Slow to start, quick to finish.


Multiplayer:


In multiplayer, your primary job is to clear minions for multiple players. With this in mind, you can start to mix in more damage while you build, taking advantage of your upgrades much earlier. Once you have 2-3 boosts to your basic ATK and either Martial Prowess or Deft Focus on the board, you'll start to find damage just naturally overflows onto the villain.

You should also consider swapping 3x Press the Advantage for 3x One by One at 3-4 player, or at 2-player in minion-heavy scenarios!


Mulligan:


The ideal cards to have at the start of turn 1 are: Martial Prowess, Fluid Motion, Deft Focus and Combat Training.


Tips and Tricks


  • Solid form helps meet the physical requirement on Drop Kick and Surprise Attack. If you have one of these in hand, try to save Solid form's resource generator to use on them!

  • Fluid Motion's damage boost only lasts until the end of a phase! Don't use Surprise Attack on the villain phase unless you can dispatch a nasty minion before it gets to activate. (Or have to exhaust with no readies in hand.)

  • Solid form + Deft Focus + Martial Prowess = 5 effective resources set up to generate 3 resources toward attacks almost every turn. This is excellent value.

  • Drop Kick and Phased and Confused help prime villains for Press the Advantage. Press the Advantage is one of your best cards, being a cheap way to replenish your hand with more readies/attacks!

  • The best way to benefit from 3x Fluid Motion is to play 3 attacks every turn and ready as much as possible. The card draw from Quick Shift, Press the Advantage and Drop Kick is essential for fishing for more attacks/readies, allowing you to have HUGE damage turns!

  • Against Stalwart or Steady, you should bring Colossus instead of Mockingbird

  • Battle Fury and Energy are both great cards you could consider adding. The former is especially useful against minion-heavy scenarios.

    • The reason Energy is not already included is due to Shadowcat's low cost curve - 23 of her cards are 0-1 cost when including the discount from Deft Focus, and even more when you factor in Solid form and Martial Prowess. Quite often, you won't need to spend more than one resource from your hand to play a card. Ideal turns consist of playing your three cheapest attacks, then readying as much as possible!

Good luck, have fun! :D


5 comments

Oct 11, 2022 teamcanadahockey2002 · 6916

I love it. I'm always amazed you're always working on the same sorts of things as I am... not sure if this is the 'great minds think alike' or the 'fools seldom differ' part of the saying :)

My idea is almost the same decklist of cards, but a different strategy... I always exhaust to defend from Phased (unless I stunned the villain) and then use the many attack cards in the deck to guarantee a flip back to Phased. So because I expect to be exhausted, I don't run Fluid Motion... but instead use Plan of Attack to effectively play a 37 card deck and have the chance to search for Drop Kick or Press the Advantage. With the number of attack cards you can put into a Shadowcat deck, Plan of Attack is sort of like a Spiritual Meditation because it would be nearly impossible not to draw another Attack card with the 4 card search. Even with a 5 card hand, I've found it's usually typical to play 3 attack cards per turn with generators.

Anyways, just wanted to throw that out there for anyone looking for some other ideas here. Back to your deck... as always - you've created another great one. Kitty in Aggression is incredibly fun. A character that takes no damage and has a built in Attack resource is crazy to build for. Well done!

Oct 11, 2022 VillainTheory · 23799

@teamcanadahockey2002 Thank you! And wow, interesting we got to such similar deck lists with such different strategies. I built this deck from the ground up with 3x Fluid Motion in mind as the core build-around card. But both strategies are hungry for lots of attacks so it does make sense.

Let's go with "great fools think alike" ;D I do think she has some core cards she wants to run most of the time (Surprise Attack, Ready to Rumble, Martial Prowess, Deft Focus etc) that push decklists closer together.

Plan of Attack sounds fun with her. I like that card and run it with Miles Morales. Wish I could find more uses! Might have to try your variant too!

Dec 04, 2022 Alatreon · 88

I beat Expert Hood (with all 7 x-men modulars available by the time Storm released except Future Past) with this deck, playing alongside Phoenix Justice. It was a delight to play with how well balanced the costs. I hardly ever finished with more than 1 card from my hand unplayed. She really works well with the cheap attacks and Fluid Motion combo and even if you play the more expensive stuff like Drop Kick or Phased and Confused, you really get a lot of value out of your cards! I only wish this had a Helicarrier or X-jet so you could reliably play Drop Kick (with the kicker) regardless of your hand once you're fully built.

Jan 04, 2023 VillainTheory · 23799

@Alatreon Thanks for the kind words, glad your game went well! I originally had The X-Jet in this deck but found it was not necessary in my own testing - the deck already has a lot of physicals, and Martial Prowess and her Solid form upgrade help pay toward Drop Kick. It's easy enough to swap it in should you want to, though!

Jan 23, 2023 bigfomlof · 31

Hope you don't mind but I'm totally stealing this for the X-Men campaign I'm starting tonight. Thank you, thank you!!!