Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Thief

Among the cool new justice cards in the Psylocke pack are Float Like a Butterfly and Upside the Head. Float gives us an extra incentive to confuse the villain, and Upside the head doesn't become a dead card if the villain is already confused.

Black Widow has a great confuse card in her kit already in Covert Ops. She also has a multi-attack card in Dance of Death, which adds up to 9 total damage when Float is active. Additionally, Black widow wants to go alter ego frequently to use Safe House #29 and recur prep cards. This takes advantage of confuse, and thanks to Breaking and Entering she can still thwart a bit in alter ego.

Piloting the deck: Working backwards

This deck plays like a lot of other black widow decks; you need to get your engine set up to recur prep cards, then control the villain during their turn once you have all those preps on the table. For this reason, we are going to talk about how to play this deck in reverse order, starting with the fully set up state and working backwards for how to get there.

The knockout punch

Everything is great. Attacrobatics and Grappling Hook are on the board, the villain is confused, and Float Like a Butterfly is set up too. It's very hard for the villain to do much do you during their phase, and in fact you're probably doing 4-7 damage to them from Attacrobatics and your hero response, and cancelling their harmful treacheries. To get that lethal hit you are looking for:

• A free Winter Soldier, or other allies. Remember allies get their damage boosted by Float Like a Butterfly as well
• Dance of Death for 9 total villain damage
• any 1-3 icon boost cards to Attacrobatics. It's tempting to wait on only use it on 3 boosts, but it's easy to recur so use them for damage!
• In a pinch, Sonic Rifle can do that last little bit of damage if you need it to

Get that villain down for the count! What are you waiting for?

Closing in for the win

You don't have lethal quite yet. That's okay, we can get there. Use your preparation cards to control the board. Don't let them sit there, they are there to be used! If you have an Upside the Head in hand, make sure to save your basic activation so you can use it. In the hero phase, you probably want to flip every turn so that you can use Safe House #29 and Black Widow's Gauntlets to recur a preparation card and put it down for "free". Don't forget to draw that extra card in alter ego when you do! With resource generators set up, you should have the money to play every preparation card you draw and be ready to lock down the villain again.

Try to get a confuse on the villain as well, there are 8 cards in the deck that can do it, and Covert Ops even works in alter ego.

On the turns you end in alter ego, there is less control over the villain, but you still have Counterintelligence and Spycraft that can trigger. Don't be afraid to use them.

Gaining momentum

While you are partially set up, the name of the game is to stay alive and set up a flipping tempo. Crew Quarters and Endurance help mitigate Black Widow's low HP. If you need some chump blockers, there's a situational, but nice combo in using Eros to confuse a couple of minions and then playing Spider-Woman for cheaper. Cypher Is also a neat ally that comes out for cheap and can steal cards back from confused enemies.

You want to use your basic activation to trigger Upside the Head whenever you have it. In these cases Breaking and Entering is useful for a little thwart that doesn't take up your basic attack. Block widow can use it in both forms.

The transition point here is having Safe House #29 + 2 resource generators out, putting down Float Like a Butterfly when you have the tempo for it, plus about 4 preps on the table so you can get a free/cheap Winter Soldier. If you get to this point, victory is quite likely.

Starting the match

Hard Mulligan for Safe House #29. Safe house draws you a card every time your are in alter ego, PLUS the second card you draw from playing a preparation. Don't worry about Float Like a Butterfly on your first pass of the deck, you can get it later.

Choosing your early preparations will depend on the villain you are facing. Hard hitting attacker? put down Attacrobatics. Nasty treachery cards? Grappling Hook and Spycraft. Minions? Widow's Bite. You can tweak the deck to include more Target Acquired, or Counterintelligence cards if those fit the scenario (bearing in mind counterintelligence is limit 1 in play)

Use those early preps and your confuse cards to buy turns until you get down Safe House #29 the two Black Widow's Gauntlets, and Quincarrier if you can. I generally don't play Synth-Suit in this deck, but it doesn't hurt to have if it matches your style.

Weaknesses and substitutions

This deck can have trouble removing mid-high hp minions. Widow's Bite can help, but often isn't enough. In those cases I like to substitute in a Stealth Strike or three

Professor X also works great in this deck. The only reason I didn't include him is because he's great in every deck and I'm just tired of that guy.

For scenarios with a lot of surge, a couple of Espionage cards can be useful.

If you're playing against a villain with steady, it's more work to get the confuses on, but you can still do it. The deck is certainly weaker but still viable.

If you're playing against stalwart: don't use this deck. There are 6 cards that are dead against stalwart and 4 others that are less useful. With that many substitutions it's basically a different deck. There's no shame in not being able to handle every single scenario with one deck; and this deck certainly has a style that is fully negated by stalwart.

Ding Ding Ding! Let the match begin!

As always I hope you have fun with this deck. Leave a comment if you have a particular fun game or cool card substitution!