Calm in a Crisis

What do you do when things get stressful? Do you take a break? Maybe a few deep breaths, or go someplace relaxing? Maybe you even call up some friends.

That's what Kitty does.

Shadowcat isn't easily flustered.

Stopping by Home, Meditating, and Asking for Help

Shadowcat is a very powerful hero with strong superpowers, and a hero ability that lets her ignore guard, crisis, patrol, and even damage at times. She also has in-kit ready and a pseudo-stun/confuse. She almost doesn't even need to flip down to alter-ego. Kitty's Room is actually a pretty good support though, with your choice of a draw or healing. So maybe we should spend a little more time at home.

If we're stopping by AE, confuse will help us to keep the villain from finishing the scheme without us. In addition to Phased and Confused, we have Sonic Rifle, Professor X, and Dazzler.

The down side is that all of these cards are kind of expensive. Fortunately, we can manifest what we need, through deep focus. Meditation will help us to play many of the expensive cards in our deck, like allies, Sonic Rifles* and Beat Cops. Since we often are not taking damage, we don't mind using the AE exhaustion on this. If we do need some recovery, Kitty's Room gives us that option. More often, it lets us draw a card.

Finally, plan out your turn before you flip back to Hero form, so you can ensure your mass form is on the right side. You want to end your turns in Phased as often as possible, as well as getting full value from cards like Phase Strike and Airwalk.

*Sonic Rifle can't be used in AE, but it can be played.

Feeling Refreshed and Getting Lots Done

When we do return to hero form, we can use Crisis Averted in conjunction with Overwatch for up to a massive 12 threat removal. In most cases she's ignoring Crisis and Patrol, so we never feel too pressured by schemes. In fact, we even bring some of our own!

It's generally assumed you're playing with someone who is bringing Specialized Training, otherwise you should drop Superpower Training for it. We mostly bring Superpower Training to support our teammates. In scenarios with lots of crisis or guard minions, it may be reasonable to pull Acute Control or Intangible Interference, but these are cheap to play and Phased and Confused is a valuable card, so it's not a terrible idea to use Superpower Training to pull one out of the discard.

Solo Adjustments

I designed and tested this deck primarily to fill a Thwart/Support role in multiplayer, but Shadowcat's kit is plenty strong and versatile enough to handle most scenarios by herself. Some minor adjustments:

Remove

• - Superpower Training
• -2 Crisis Averted

Add

• + Specialized Training - Consider using Combat Specialist
• +2 For Justice!

Additional Damage

Similarly, damage was not the focus of this deck, assuming someone else would be covering that. If you have enough thwart, but need more damage, Float Like a Butterfly is great because it benefits not just the hero, but allies as well. You can also give it to your damage dealing teammate in multiplayer. (With this in mind, I may even run 2 copies, making this a 41 card deck.)

Remove

• - Heroic Intuition

Add

• + Float Like a Butterfly

Stalwart Villain

Obviously, Confuse loses much of its power against Stalwart or Steady villains. These adjustments should help, and you'll just have to be a little more deliberate about your flip timing.

Remove

• -2 Sonic Rifle
• - Dazzler

Add

• + Under Surveillance
• + Counterintelligence
• + Spider-Man (Basic Miles Morales)

Kitty will appreciate a high damage dealing partner. She's pretty laid back, so she's well complemented by someone a bit more on edge. I saw great success running this with an always-ready, Three Sword Valkyrie 'Pool deck, which you can find here!