Suits and Ties

Suitable

Let's talk suits. There's quite a bit of suits to choose from at this point.

We've got:

• Built-in suit SP//dr Suit,
• Resource generating suit Biokinetic Polymer Suit,
• Healing suit Vibranium Suit,
• Upgrade suit Phoenix Suit

We've also got aspect suits too with Advanced Suit, Reinforced Suit, Symbiote Suit and a new way to Suit Up.

Tjjj and I tried to give ourselves a challenge - who's the hero who can take advantage of the most suits?

With Synth-Suit, Black Widow was the clear answer. This is what we came up with after some trial and error.

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Tied Down

I haven't been particularly keen on Suit Up. A 2 cost ally recursion card when leadership already has so many recursion options wasn't very appealing to me. The cost makes sense considering the powerful effect but using this to voltron allies seemed like a poor use of resources. For most heroes, your whole turn is:

1. Play Suit Up for 3 ER
2. Play ally and upgrade for 3/4 ER
3. Start next turn

Add into this that it's an alter-ego action and I just didn't see myself using this card at all, even if some deckbuilders have found some neat synergy.

Winter Soldier (and Rogue) started to make me think differently. Suddenly, I could spend 3ER to get a 2 ATK, 2 THW, 4 HP ally I can play for potentially 0 cost? That's not bad at all. Even if I don't have the board filled with preparation cards, I can use the upgrade grabbed from Suit Up as a resource if needed. Not a bad tradeoff!

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Strong Suit (Deck Strategy)

This deck was built to focus on suitmaxxing (that means getting a lot of suits for all of you old folk). By utilizing Black Widow's confuse options, Suit Up becomes extremely powerful for her, allowing Winter Soldier to be recurred regularly and played for essentially nothing.

There's a focus on card draw here and powerful ally recursion to maintain strong control on the board before you can put on your Symbiote Suit and Go All Out on the villain. You'll also utilize the neat Rapid Response and Synth-Suit combo in the player phase to make the most out of your post- Symbiote Suit activations.

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Birthday Suit (Deck Setup)

So many suits here, and I don't know what to wear! There's a general tempo for this deck that I try to follow. You have to get dressed one step at a time.

• Safe House #29 is an odd choice for a primary mulligan but is going to be incredibly important as we flip to alter-ego regularly and want to recur key cards. Ideally you can mulligan a preparation card, play this and grab the card you mulliganed turn 1
• Black Widow's Gauntlets are both helpful to be able to play preparation cards and get that extra card draw in alter-ego for doing so
• Any 2-cost ally is great turn 1 to use as a blocker, especially if there's card draw
• Covert Ops is great for scenarios that start out with side schemes in play to stay in alter-ego form and build.

As with any Black Widow build, preparations are always key! Adapt your priorities based off of the scenario, though Espionage and Rapid Response are generally the most important.

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Follow Suit

Early game I try to focus on getting out preparation cards and flipping regularly to cycle through the deck as fast as possible.

• Safe House #29 and Black Widow's Gauntlets are my main targets as I cycle through the deck to build up some economy
• Quincarrier isn't as high of a priority but can be played if you've got the resources and the board is relatively taken care of
• Play Covert Ops regularly to secure flips to alter-ego, use Safe House #29 to grab a preparation card from your discard, and play it using Black Widow's Gauntlet to draw another card
• Rapid Response isn't as important at this point, though you'll still want to be playing your low cost allies for card draw and blockers

Suit Up is perfect for turns where you start in alter-ego. We have two main targets. Note that while Reinforced Suit is in this deck, it should be used exclusively as a resource, as we gain benefits from allies leaving play via Rapid Response!

• Ant-Man can be grabbed with Reinforced Suit if you have little to no preparation cards on the board but need a blocker
  • He's got the same stats as Winter Soldier and variable health
  • Reinforced Suit guarantees you'll be able to play him, with the sweet spot being 2HP for one activation and a block
• Winter Soldier is our best target for when we have some preparation cards on the board, offering great stats and a lot of health
  • With all the flips to alter-ego, you won't be triggering the hero restricted preparation cards often enough to clear the board, so it's very common to have lots of preparation cards in play, letting you play him for 0 cost

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Ties that Bind

Synth-Suit's defense upgrade makes it clear that the intention behind this card is primarily to defend during the villain phase and trigger a preparation card to ready up for the player phase. However, that's not what we want to do here.

Rather, by having so many allies with low health, we can trigger Rapid Response in the player phase to ready up with Synth-Suit after our first activation. Ideally you can use your basic activation and also Go All Out after readying up.

Not all allies here are created equal and certain allies should remain as full blockers.

• Ant-Man should not be recurred because he immediately dies (you didn't overpay for the cost)
• Nick Fury can only be recurred during the player phase if you both ready him up with Command Team and a villain has retaliate. If you trigger Rapid Response during the villain phase, he'll still leave play at the end of the round. Last resort option if you really need the card draw
• Winter Soldier doesn't have enter play effects and best works as a target for Suit Up. Best to make the most out of his stats and let him block

Our best Rapid Response targets offer extremely powerful enter play effects that synergize with readying from Synth-Suit.

• Beast is easily the best target for Rapid Response.
  • He gives you a free double resource, perfect for Go All Out or playing another Rapid Response
  • He comes back in with only 2HP remaining and ready. You can use his activation again, putting him in range of triggering this combo again the next turn
  • If you can trigger this combo, you're getting 4 ATK/THW, helpful for getting schemes low enough to flip to AE or whittle down the villain's health
• Mockingbird can cycle together stuns for scenarios where status is more important
• Ironheart, Kaluu and Maria Hill all have strong stats and allow for card draw
  • Maria Hill is obviously a stronger target for multiplayer games, also having the best stats
  • Kaluu can be great to grab Go All Out specifically for once you ready from Synth-Suit

For the few allies with over 2 HP, Command Team lets us ready them so they can be defeated faster.

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Suit of Cards

The cost curve here can feel relatively high for a Black Widow build, so instead of focusing on multiple economy pieces, there's a lot of options here to draw cards. This will help you flood the board with preparation cards easily and cycle through your deck fast to secure flips to alter-ego with Covert Ops.

• Beast lets you grab a resource when he enters play. Grab from the discard whenever possible
  • The aforementioned Energy/The Power of Leadership for Go All Out and Rapid Response
• Ironheart and Maria Hill offer strong singular card draw, a blocker, and decent stats
• Nick Fury is the strongest card draw option, though you want to time this right so that you're staying in hero form at the end of the turn to take advantage of his blocking capabilities
• Kaluu can grab us an event, even though there's not many in the deck.
  • The response not being constrained to hero form means that you can end up grabbing Covert Ops or Suit Up and playing them in alter-ego
• Espionage is our only preparation card that lets us trigger from alter-ego and can help us draw even more cards in alter-ego!
  • Start the turn with 8 cards, use Safe House #29 to grab Espionage back in your hand and play it again to draw another card! Even better if you can play it using Black Widow's Gauntlet!

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White Tie

Now for the main event - getting all of our suits on.

The first 'suit' we want to get out is the Synth-Suit. Superpower Training essentially functions as a 'suit up' to grab Synth-Suit. With so many allies with strong stats, this side scheme isn't hard to clear!

After that, we want to get Symbiote Suit out and close the game. Beast recursion and all of our card draw helps us play this card easily. At this point, we aren't going to be flipping to alter-ego as much.

• Your hand size is increased
• This becomes riskier with the hazard icon
  • You may need to flip once/twice to recur Rapid Response with Safe House #29 to keep your combo going. Make sure it's on a turn where you aren't about to deck out and get another encounter card!

We also aren't necessarily using allies to chump block anymore with the massive health buff from Symbiote Suit.

• More hero activations with Symbiote Suit will be better than letting allies activate
• An ally in Rapid Response range during the player phase is more valuable than a blocker during the villain phase

While we'll be getting more encounter cards, we have ways to deal with them. Grappling Hook helps us cancel those extra encounter cards in hero form and gain benefits from doing so.

• Note that this cancels all effects! Keep in mind as you cancel cards like Under Fire
• Prioritize canceling cards that deal 1 damage to every character we control - this ruins some of the recursion tempo

To close out the game, we've got our main combo finished and we're dressed for success.

• Attack for 3 with Black Widow's basic attack
• Use Beast to attack for 2 and defeat himself with consequential damage
• Use Rapid Response to get him back into play, using Synth-Suit to ready Black Widow
• Grab Energy or The Power of Leadership with Beast's enter play ability to meet the requirement for Go All Out.
• Play Go All Out for 10 damage
  • Don't forget the slight stat buff from Synth-Suit to your defense!
• You've used only 1 card! in your hand for this combo. Use the rest of the cards to go to alter-ego if needed, play Rapid Response so you can trigger the combo next turn or play more allies

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Suit Yourself

This went through a lot of iterations with a few areas I was unwilling to compromise with. Feel free to switch out allies and preparation cards to your liking.

• Advanced Suit would be in here for the meme but I do not want to heal my allies and it only works on Beast
• Call for Backup was not getting played and thwart is not so fantastic in this deck to justify multiple player side schemes
• Captain Marvel is a really fun recursion target but is just too expensive for this deck and with a lack of resources didn't make the cut
• Clarity of Purpose was an upgrade to grab that was a neat idea but never got played because it was too risky on Black Widow and too inefficient on anyone else
• Earth's Mightiest Heroes was an idea I experimented with for a more Avengers heavy build to get the most out of Symbiote Suit but wasn't very efficient
• Helicarrier is a solid replacement for Quincarrier if you want, though Quincarrier can generate the required for Go All Out
• Professor X probably makes this deck play somewhat easier, though I'm trying really hard not to include him in all of my decks. Card draw is enough you'll see Covert Ops regularly. Probably worth including for some steady scenarios
• Squirrel Girl is another 2 cost ally that could easily be justified and can help trigger Rapid Response easily, though card draw was just more important
• Target Acquired is a good card generally, though there wasn't deck space and enough turns are being ended in alter-ego that being locked to hero response wasn't worth it

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Tying the knot

This is a fun deck and I enjoy it. I really dig the combo here and I think you actually need the main suits out to win, which was the idea here. Let me know if you give it a shot!