Lang Down the Law

PRELIMINARY NOTES: If you wish to get right down to the deck discussion, begin with the bold, all-caps writing below in purple.

1) Deck Request: Winning Hand Podcast requested I build an Ant-Man Justice deck using only cards up through Ant-Man's release (see his channel at https://www.youtube.com/@WinningHandPodcast). I highly recommend his All Hands on Decks! series.

2) Pack Filter Tip from Solo Marvel Champion: MarvelCDB has a great pack filter option under the "Build" tab that is in order of each pack/expansion's release. After posting my video on saving or creating decks in MarvelCDB, Solo Marvel Champion (https://www.youtube.com/@solomarvelchampion) pointed out that if you check ura box using the shift key, it unchecks everything but that pack.

3) Potential Deck Modifications Depending on the Villain: If you are playing against just one or two villains, I recommend players modify decks when a card is clearly going to be ineffective against that villain.

For instance, Master Mold has Stalwart and therefore cannot be stunned or confused, so replacing Mockingbird with another ally and Concussive Blow with a third copy of Stealth Strike should make the deck more effective.

Another example is when facing Project Wide Awake, which has the main scheme Night of the Sentinels. Under Surveillance has no impact on this scheme, so one possibility would be to replace it with a second copy of Counterintelligence.

VILLAINS TESTED AGAINST (until one victory for each villain in both standard and expert): Klaw; Rhino (with The Doomsday Chair encounter set, which includes MODOK); Mutant Genesis villains (Sabretooth, Project Wide Awake, Master Mold, Mansion Attack, and Magneto.

Results: One loss in Expert against Rhino, Mansion Attack, and Magneto, all of which were then followed by victories against said villains, so 14 victories in 17 games.

NOTABLE ELEMENTS OF PLAY:

THE GIGANTIC (though sometimes TINY) POWER OF ANT-MAN'S CARDS AND ABILITIES :

Because Ant-Man has some very strong cards and hero abilities with a more limited selection of packs, keeping the deck count to the minimum 40 cards allows those cards to be played as frequently as possible. When including his hero abilities, Ant-Man himself can deal either 3 or 4 damage every turn or remove 2 or 3 threat, and he has two powerful attack cards with Giant Stomp.

SHORING UP THE TINY THWARTING (WHILE INCREASING CARD DRAW):

Ant-Man only has one copy of his thwart event Hive Mind, however, which can be hit or miss with its effectiveness, and Lay Down the Law shores up this potential weakness significantly. Clear the Area complements this and often adds card draw. When Clear the Area is played with Ant-Man's identity-specific resource Pym Particles in Tiny form, one draws two cards to replace the ones just spent, essentially removing two threat for free, with an extra card draw on top of that from Ant-Man's Helmet if one just changed to Tiny hero form.

Stealth Strike also provided that little bit of threat removal while damaging minions. I found this card to be particularly effective when Ant-Man would change to hero form and plink a damage point. With careful planning, Stealth Strike often provided exactly the amount of damage necessary to remove a minion.

PRESERVING A GIANT AMOUNT OF HEALTH:

Seven allies generally proved sufficient to defend Ant-Man, especially with the addition of Stun from Mockingbird and the Wrist Gauntlets, while Ant-Man's Helmet continued to allow him to stay in hero form for a relatively long period of time despite the four hand-size in Giant hero form due to its health recovery and card draw, depending the hero form Ant-Man changed to.

THREAT PREVENTION:

Wrist Gauntlets also served to Confuse the villain fairly regularly; hence the reason for only one copy of Concussive Blow to assist with Confusing the villain and provide some extra damage, while Counterintelligence and Under Surveillance made it possible to go down to Alter-Ego side without necessarily having to spend resources to Confuse the villain -- or in the cases when it wasn't possible to do so.

Overall, I was impressed with Ant-Man's ability to handle a variety of challenging villains even with a limited a card pool. It speaks to the power of his own cards and abilities. Meanwhile, I saw the value of cards I hadn't really played in the past, such as Stealth Strike and Swarm Tactics, that I hadn't used in the past.

Especially if you are relatively new to the game, even just with six packs from the earlier releases of Marvel Champions, one can build a competitive Ant-Man deck in Justice to handle a wide array of villains.