Canceler of Encounters - Natasha Says No

Do you want to be a provider of unique solutions using an archetype Black Widow was made for?

Do you want to experience new layers of cooperation other than hit, thwart, and defend?

Let me introduce --

Natasha of House Romanoff, First of Her Name, Canceler of Encounters. Master Manipulator, Warden of Justice, Queen of Preparations, Handler of Obligations.

Knowledge is Power

Intelligence is such a powerful card. In a 4-player game, it lets you swap 5 encounters minimum (even more if players deck out or there are additional encounter icons). Some possible uses for Intelligence:

• Stack all the stuns on the primary thwarter
• Stack all the confuses on the primary damage dealer
• Give players their own obligations so they don't receive an additional encounter on top
• Give minions to the player who favors minions
• Prevent the primary damage dealer from having a minion with guard
• Prevent the primary thwarter from having a minion with patrol
• Move an encounter that causes the villain to attack to the protection player or player with the highest health

Grappling Hooks over the course of the game will definitely lessen the impact and number of encounters your team is affected by.

Spycraft is a cheaper, more flexible Grappling Hook -- the only con being the player has to draw a new encounter card (and it could be worse -- unless you plan for it with gathered Intelligence). Some possible uses for Spycraft:

• Got that one player whose nemesis nobody wants? Discard
• Obligations? Become everyone's favorite secretary and discard
  • Business obligations? Family problems? "Taken care of."
• The villain about to attack an already-exhausted hero? Discard
• Side schemes starting to pile up? Discard
• Nasty elite minions? Discard
• A minion with quickstrike about to come for your friend with 2hp? Discard

Intelligence also allows you to choose more accurately which encounters are worth using your Grappling Hooks and Spycrafts for.

Judge, Jury, and Executioner

The Raft allows you to send 3 minions to jail indefinitely. But its real power and synergy shines when you start periodically releasing one of its prisoners to their executioner. It becomes a revolving door of minion fodder for any player who might favor minions (ie. Thor, Rocket Raccoon, etc). It can also be good for heroes that work off of facedown encounters like Star-Lord. You can also instantly execute or weaken the minions with Widow's Bite and/or Prism Dust. Also, every minion you send here removes a little bit of thwart from any scheme according to their printed SCH. Such a valuable addition to Justice supports!

Priorities

• Safe House #29 / Leo Fitz
• Black Widow's Gauntlets
• Jemma Simmons
• Synth-Suit
• Helicarrier / Quincarrier / Avengers Mansion

Miscellaneous

A comment left under Counterintelligence shifted my perspective entirely. Instead of viewing it as mediocre threat removal that would hold my Safe House and Gauntlets hostage indefinitely, I now view it as a deck thinner and a failsafe, similar to Under Surveillance, that can be saved for when a player needs to flip into alter-ego or if we risk losing to scheme.

All Ways to Thwart Still

• Covert Ops to remove threat and confuse the villain
• Spam Counterintelligence with Safe House #29 and your Gauntlets
• Save Attacrobatics for boost cards drawn when the villain schemes
• Discard side schemes or encounters that make the villain scheme
• Lock up minions and remove threat with Raft

Practiced Plan allows reusing vital preparations that weren't drawn. Also, being a 0-cost preparation adds flexibility, as we can use Safe House to recur 0-, 1-, or 2-cost preparations, depending on any left over resources we may have.

Handling Boost Cards

• Attacrobatics to prevent 2-3 damage/scheme and deal 2-3 damage
• Target Acquired to prevent boost effects (most commonly those that stun, confuse, or make a player discard)

Substitutions / Additions:

• Agent 13 (and possibly 1-3 Field Agents)
  • Could let you recur more preparations and/or reuse more resource generators for awhile
• Agent Coulson
• Quake

Black Widow is the first deck I ever bought, and I absolutely fell in love with the idea that she can uniquely counter encounters. I used to refer to Black Widow decks as trap decks, because I got to say "No, actually, that doesn't happen."

I was inspired by the infamous alter-ego deck Playing Poker with Natasha Romanoff and nemesis-centric decks Task-Widow, Friends with Benefits / Ghosting Your Informant to find other fun ways to play Black Widow. If you want to check out another wacky inspired concept, I created this Drax as a Healer build that I'm pretty proud of and had a lot of fun with!

Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for games lost due to unprevented scheming as the result of a user's negligence to communicate with their team that they are not a certified and dedicated thwarter.