Touchin’ Me, Touchin’ Blue

SWEET CAROLINE, BAH BAH BAH!

The concept here is to cheat allies into play with "put into play" effects to line up Touched for economy pieces. Mill effects set up combos in the discard to increase the efficacy of a trait-based strategy. Once her economy is sorted, Rogue can play multiple signature events per turn

• Mill cards using Summoning Spell, Weapon X, Gamora, Call for Aid!

• Get the milled cards into play with Superpower Adaptation, Make the Call, Across the Spider-Verse, Beast!

• Line up allies with matching economy cards! Use event tutoring cards to line up multiple card plays!

• Pay for her kit with any combination of economy upgrades/supports

• Lots of redundancy to increase the chances of getting out key pieces

Note: MarvelCDB counts Touched towards the deck size, this deck is actually 40 cards not 41 cards

Rogue Rouge | Rogue Jaune | Rogue Vert

How Rogue Works

Rogue's main gimmick is attaching Touched to a character in play, gaining their traits for the round and also a bonus from Touched depending on the type of card touched

FAQ:

• Overkill, retaliate, and stalwart are not traits so touching a character with those keywords, does not grant them. She must get them from the corresponding type of card on Touched or through other means
• The traits gained from the card stay on Rogue, even if Touched moves, the character leaves play, or Rogue flips to alter-ego
  • Note that she will lose aerial if she moves Touched off an ally, UNLESS that ally itself had aerial in which case she will gain that trait for the round
• Superpower Adaptation can only pull events of the same designation as the card that Touched is attached to
  • If Touched is attached to a basic ally, then you can get a basic event from the owner's discard pile; if attached to an aspect ally, then you can get an aspect event of matching color from the owner's discard pile; if attached to a signature ally, hero, or alter-ego, you can get a signature event from the owner's discard pile (she will not gain stalwart from touching an alter-ego)
  • Rogue can Make the Call allies from multiplayer discards, touch them, and use Superpower Adaptation to dig through the ally's owner's discard instead of her own
  • Longshot from Mojomania is owned by the scenario, and cannot be used with Superpower Adaptation
• "Put into play" is a unique mechanic from "playing" a card that ignores that card's play restrictions. Just like how "put into play" does not trigger the when revealed effects on encounter cards, Summoning Spell and Make the Call allow for playing Ghost-Spider and Gamora, even when their play restrictions are not met
• If Misled is coming up in the deck from Rogue's nemesis set, milling it off the deck with one of the many mill effects here will send it to the encounter discard without it ever triggering!

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Hands, Touching Hands

• Kaluu grants access to Summoning Spell recursion better than most mystics! With essentially 4 copies of Summoning Spell thanks to Superpower Adaptation, Rogue can easily get around the play restrictions on Gamora and Ghost-Spider, while also gaining economy and tempo when hitting Beast or Professor X
  • A key feature of the combo is that Kaluu into Summoning Spell is playable off a 5-card hand, and Kaluu can even grab Summoning Spell or Superpower Adaptation to get the combo started
  • Once Kaluu is out, he should basically stay out the entire game. Never chump with him, except if he's replayable; if he accidentally gets back in the shuffle, use Call for Aid to get him again. As long as Summoning Spell is in the discard, every copy of Superpower Adaptation becomes a copy of Summoning Spell, but Rogue needs to touch Kaluu to play it
  • This falters when having a specific trait card in hand, because of the rigid nature of Touched. Rogue needs to touch Kaluu to play Summoning Spell, which turns off the ability to play the trait card of the ally that Summoning Spell pulls, because Touched can't be moved to the new ally in an efficient way
  • For this reason, we have redundancy in the form of Make the Call!
• Early game Call for Aid or Weapon X dump allies into the discard! Follow up with Make the Call for the ally that matches whatever traited economy piece is in hand!
  • For example, if The Sorcerer Supreme is in hand, a Make the Call for Kaluu can play the in-hand The Sorcerer Supreme from a 5-card hero hand
  • Once economy pieces start coming into play, more expensive plays like Kaluu->Quincarrier become options, and things start to snowball from there

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Reaching Out

There are a couple "pockets" of cards to reach into:

• Kaluu
  • Multi-trait allies are valuable to any trait-based strategy, and Kaluu is no exception with both Mystic and Avenger, granting us access to The Sorcerer Supreme, Quincarrier, and importantly Summoning Spell
  • Touching Kaluu turns Superpower Adaptation into Summoning Spell or Make the Call
  • Call for Aid is here to get Kaluu early, hopefully dumping Summoning Spell in the process. The best opening is Call for Aid->Kaluu->Summoning Spell to set up two allies with useful traits
• Gamora
  • Digs for Rogue's powerful events like Bulletproof Belle, Energy Transfer, and Superpower Adaptation
  • Playable off of Make the Call or Summoning Spell
  • Good source of mill
• Ghost-Spider
  • Grants access to Web-Warrior trait for extra resources and card plays in conjunction with Web of Life and Destiny and her interrupt
  • Every time she leaves play is another Superpower Adaptation->Summoning Spell play with Kaluu out; occasionally the timing works out for her to grab Bulletproof Belle, especially in multiplayer
  • A prime target for Make the Call, or her own cheaper signature version with Across the Spider-Verse, but can also be played normally once Web of Life and Destiny is in play (paying full cost, or touching Ghost-Spider to play it for free)
  • Touching Ghost-Spider turns Superpower Adaptation into Across the Spider-Verse, which is particularly useful when about to activate her for her last hp
• Beast
  • Pulls double-duty on being able to get resources and board control simultaneously, while giving access to the Genius trait for Ingenuity
  • Playing Ingenuity from hero form is unique to Rogue
• Gambit
  • Only way to recur her hero cards with Superpower Adaptation
  • Great vs tough, multiple enemies, or villain stages since his interrupt goes off before the attack resolves
  • Can grant the X-Men trait in alter-ego for The X-Jet
  • Is NOT able to recur Bulletproof Belle efficiently, unless Energy Transfer is available to move Touched to the villain (if Touched is on Gambit, Bulletproof Belle is unplayable)
  • Unfortunately, cannot be Touched to get back Beauty and the Thief because he is not a basic ally
• Professor X
  • Here for stability and is a good Summoning Spell target

Touching Me...TOUCHING YOOOOOUUUUUU

Unfortunately, Rogue's signature events split her kit focus by rewarding touching the villain every turn as retaliate is always the best keyword for them. Stun, confuse, and tough are all worth much more than "draw 1 card" or "deal 2 extra points of value". The drawn card is often dead in many cases!

• Bulletproof Belle is the real culprit that splits Rogue's kit. Easily her most effortlessly strong card, stopping 2 attacks any time it's played, and in multiplayer defending for multiple players since it can draw an attack away from another player. As a bonus, you'll get two pings of retaliate in most cases. The problem is: you never know when you will draw it! So often the best play just becomes: put Touched on the villain, status it with one event, and hope to draw into Bulletproof Belle, rinse and repeat. It's a pretty boring loop and can't even be manipulated with Superpower Adaptation since pulling it off Gambit leaves it unplayable, as Touched isn't on the villain!
• On the other hand, Energy Transfer is her most flexible card. Being able to move Touched lets her do both trait-oriented and signature-oriented plays in the same turn! Granted, she will need economy setup to support this, hence the object of the deck. Readying Rogue for 2/2 is very flexible, more so once Rogue's Jacket is out to make her 3 ATK (you'll likely not be damaging a friendly character other than Spider-Ham, so her 3-THW is inaccessible with Energy Transfer). The heal is much appreciated since she'll be taking attacks, and the free 2 damage really turns this into: "heal 2, deal 2, thwart 2", which is great value!
• Goin' Rogue is her next best event, able to target any scheme while still confusing the villain. Confuse helps her flip to alter-ego, granting her an additional card and a use of Weapon X, which is very key to her early game economy. Deft Focus and X-Gene are primarily here for these three events.
• Southern Cross is pretty limited unfortunately. It does very little to help maintain board state, as dealing 6-8 villain damage is very low priority. Needing to target the same enemy with its damage and stun effects makes this lesser than Goin' Rogue and a worse Web-Shot. Often times this amounts to 4ER for a stun, which Rogue just can't afford until the late game

One, Touching One

We need some serious +1s, because Rogue has an economy problem, see caveats section down below. From experience, Rogue needs about two additional economy cards to start feeling like a normal hero, as a kit full of 2+ cost cards leads to turns of "play one card, make a basic action, and pass". It becomes very difficult to play trait-strategies when she can't line up allies and also play the trait-matching cards in the same turn

The goal here is to line up enough +1s to be able to start affording more card plays. Redundancies are in place to maximize the chances of propping up her economy, even if some of these are milled. Knowing what ally+economy trait combos are still left in the deck (or playable from discard) is very important to piloting this deck well or deciding when to Summoning Spell. All of these have pros and cons, but with enough overlap she can get her engine going!

• The X-Jet is expensive, but playable right away with the bonus of being useful in the villain phase for Bulletproof Belle, but the downside of being dead while in alter-ego
• Helicarrier is useful in both forms, but doesn't help with Make the Call or Bulletproof Belle
• Clarity of Purpose is cheap and unrestricted, but costs health and isn't usable in alter-ego. Energy Transfer can help heal off the accumulated damage
• Deft Focus works on 8 of Rogue's events, but not being usable on Bulletproof Belle is a drawback
• X-Gene is useful to pay for Bulletproof Belle in the villain phase, but being restricted to signature events and only being playable in alter-ego are HUGE drawbacks, so this should never be the primary economy option
• The Sorcerer Supreme grants card draw rather than resources, which is generally superior and can help keep Rogue in hero form. Its low-cost and ease of access with all the ways this deck recurs Kaluu makes it shine
• Quincarrier is easily the least restricted economy option, working on every card in the deck and being pretty easy to set up with continuous Kaluu access, but affording a 3-cost card from hero form can hold it back
• Ingenuity is another great unrestricted economy option that is cheaper than Quincarrier and also works with Bulletproof Belle. A 6 resource turn with both this and Beast (or Make the Call into Beast), can result in an instant Ingenuity off the double resource that Beast pulls, making this a go-to option. Beast's up-front cost makes this harder to set up than Kaluu in most other situations.
• Web of Life and Destiny is another source of card draw, the best exhaust target for Across the Spider-Verse, and grants access to playing Ghost-Spider normally (rather than "putting her into play"). It can be played for free once Ghost-Spider is out, but is limited to only granting resources on turns where she leaves play
• Weapon X is a key source of mill, but also gets Rogue's Jacket, Gambit, and Superpower Adaptation very reliably, the former are playable in alter-ego and the latter when flipping up. The damage can be healed off with Energy Transfer. The main drawback is being only playable from alter-ego

Note that in multiplayer, Rogue can touch a mutant alter-ego to be able to play X-Gene and Weapon X from hero form, making them much easier to get down

Good Times Never Seemed So Good

• Team Training extends the "good times" with our allies. An extra hp is an extra turn where Rogue can draw into the matching trait card. For example, after playing Beast, Rogue now gets 3 turns instead of 2 to draw into Ingenuity, a 50% odds increase!
  • Gamora draws one more time
  • Gambit swings one more time, and stays alive as her Superpower Adaptation battery
  • Importantly, an extra health can keep Kaluu out of the deck shuffle
• Rogue is going to be eating a lot of attacks, since chumping her allies means not using them for their traits. Extra ally hp means she can sometimes basic defend and still not have to worry about threat or damage thanks to allies taking care of it

Pour Some Sugah on our Multiplayer Partners!

Multiplayer

Rogue excels most in multiplayer with multiple discard piles to tutor from. Unfortunately, most of the time her own events are better to grab than anything else, and being able to grab an event at a time that 1) it is playable and 2) she can afford it is very difficult to accomplish. Stalwart on command is also not beating out the status utility of putting Touched on the villain. If built with a specific partner in mind though, she can really shine! A Protection partner can pass her a Dauntless for instance!

I've put together a handy spreadsheet analyzing multiplayer partners for Rogue, primarily looking at:

1) What traits does the hero bring?

2) Does the hero have aerial access so she can get aerial+stalwart at the same time?

3) Noteworthy events in bold

4) Does the hero have a signature ally, and what traits does that ally provide?

5) Does the hero have superpowers in kit that Rogue can play with her own copy of Deft Focus (after taking them with Superpower Adaptation)?

From this analysis, and having run a few of the combinations I've come up with some ideal and not ideal pairings:

Top Characters Rogue Likes:

• Spider-Woman

  • Rogue gains access to events and traited allies from 2 aspects!
  • Plenty of superpowers!
  • Can ready SpW out of turn by stealing Self-Propelled Glide, even giving Rogue aerial!
  • Pheromones is a pretty darn good event to steal!

• Adam Warlock

  • Access to events and allies from all aspects!
  • Good superpower cards that even mill her deck!
  • Access to mystic events of all colors, that also mill her deck!
  • Superpower Adaptation->Quantum Magic->anything from her discard!

• Storm

  • Storm with her cape out and Hurricane in play means Rogue will simultaneously have retaliate, stalwart, and aerial for her events!
  • Stealing Storm's events can even trigger the special on her weather cards!

• Star-Lord

  • Ability to gain the guardian trait in addition to the trait on all of the allies he runs, basically turning any ally into a useful dual-trait ally!
  • Gaining the guardian trait is great for Blaze of Glory!

• Scarlet Witch

  • Despite competing for The Sorcerer Supreme, having 3 uses of Chaos Magic every deck cycle really helps Rogue's economy!
  • Warp Reality is one of the best cancels in the game!
  • Extra Hex Bolts are never bad! Bonus for being superpower!

• Honorable Mentions

  • Vision (through his signature ally) and Miles give her access to strong dual-traits! Rogue can even trigger the specials on Miles' identity with his events!
  • Gamora gives her access to events from multiple aspects!
  • Venom grants her strong events and Locked and Loaded that can tutor weapons in a weapon-based Rogue deck!
  • Doctor Strange is generically strong with good traits and Master of the Mystic Arts to trigger his Invocations!
  • Rogue can steal Defender of the Nine Realms to set up Get Over Here! here for a Thor partner!
  • Perhaps my personal fave: Rogue can use Parental Guidance to put Bulletproof Belle underneath George Stacy for Ghost-Spider!

Top Characters that Like Rogue:

• Groot

  • Rogue can place growth counters on Groot!
  • Rogue can then steal max strength Groot events!

• Nova

  • Rogue can play Unleash Nova Force for Nova!
  • Rogue recurs "Go for Champions!" for the both of them!

• Cyclops

  • Touched on the villain means Cyclops' Optic Blast is always active!
  • Rogue gets access to his Psionic traited ally and can also use his Tactical Brillance to grab tactics from her discard!

• Spider-Ham

  • Gains counters when Rogue touches him with Energy Transfer!
  • Ham has great events to steal after Energy Transfer!

• Ironheart

  • Rogue can place progress counters on Ironheart!
  • Rogue can recur "Go for Champions!" for the both of them!

Worst Rogue Pairings

• Hawkeye, Nebula, Ant-Man, and War Machine basically have no usable events for Superpower Adaptation, no superpower cards, no access to multiple traits
• Gambit takes away her ability to play her own Gambit ally, which means Rogue can no longer Superpower Adaptation her own cards
  • Gambit also loses access to his own Rogue ally, who is also very strong
  • Gambit's events aren't great to steal and he brings no new traits to the table. Really quite a disappoint that they don't work well together!

What are your thoughts on the best and worst Rogue partners?

Other Cards and What Not to Include

Various "40th cards" have cycled in and out over the months

• Team-Building Exercise is actually quite bad, as most trait-specific upgrades and supports don't actually have the related trait themselves. Already needing the trait in order to activate TBE, doesn't help very much and sacrifices the opportunity to put Touched on the villain
• Rapid Response can help keep Kaluu or a traited ally in play
• The Power Ofs help offset her economy
• Adam Warlock is another Mystic traited ally with a neat ability, but Kaluu's dual-traits, lower cost, easy access, and survivability lead to him being cut
• Maria Hill is a fine 40th, but isn't the best hit off Summoning Spell due to lack of good traits
• Black Panther is completely unnecessary thanks to Superpower Adaptation
• Spiritual Meditation should always be a consideration for a Mystic deck, but no basic mystic allies means that it can't be pulled from Superpower Adaptation
• Moon Girl is theoretically great if Rogue can ever get Ingenuity, Quincarrier, and The X-Jet in play at the same time, but requiring Beast to already be in play sinks her
• Honorary Guardian helps to play Gamora naturally and the extra health is appreciated when face tanking to save the allies, but needing Gamora to already be in play was too difficult and the opportunity cost of putting Touched on the villain or another ally was high
• Beauty and the Thief is hard to recur since it relies on having both Gambit and a basic ally out

Rogue Caveats

Skip straight to the comments if you want, the remainder is existential Rogue design analysis

I was so excited upon the Rogue reveal that she became the first hero I played on the same day as reveal. I was ready for Spider-Woman's reign at the top of my list to be seriously challenged by another hero with creative and free flowing deckbuilding. But Rogue has some serious shortcomings that will become more apparent once she becomes more widely available. Here are some takeaways of three months of testing with her:

• Rogue has the worst economy in the game (aside from arguably Hulk). Her kit is 31 total resource cost, or about 2 resources per card (I'm estimating Superpower Adaptation at being 2-cost most of the time), without any resource cards, abilities, or upgrades
  • For comparison, Hulk's kit costs a total of 30 and he has both a resource support and triple resources, though lacking in hand size. Still, not a great comparison for Rogue to have
• Not being able to move Touched except with Skin Contact or Energy Transfer is incredibly limiting. To make matters worse, Rogue's kit has more benefits for not touching friendly characters, splitting her focus. Rogue is often at odd with her own aspect cards, compared to a hero like Spider-Woman, who is incentivized to play her aspect cards

These two major shortcomings leave her actual play to leave something to be desired compared to her theory crafting. A severely restricted economy and split kit make running any trait-focused builds difficult

• For instance, a deck focusing on a single additional trait is usually inferior to running a hero that has that trait already, and makes multiplayer a fight over who gets to play the unique cards of that trait.

• On the other hand, a deck filled with multiple traits has difficulty lining up those traits with any consistency, drawing dead hands.

I ran into limitation after limitation after 50-something test plays across various decks, aspects, and traits; usually resulting in frustration and disappointment. The most success I've had with Rogue is to play her completely ignoring the only unique thing she brings to the table; statusing the villain like a discount Miles Morales and ready-stacking with 3-stats from Jacket, using Utopia and Ever Vigilant; while Dauntless gives her retaliate and Med Team Gambit gives her reliable event recursion in the same vein as Team Training Kaluu in this deck.

But not leveraging her trait ability in any way is not interesting to me. For me to be satisfied I need:

• A build that utilizes more than one trait (so as not to be inferior to a hero that naturally has that trait), but in a manner that is unique and successful to her

I'm presenting this deck as what I consider the best way to leverage her uniqueness for all you fellow Johnny players out there! Hope you fellows enjoy it and see you at the next convention!