Turn the Tide, Vol 1 - Rhino

Turn the Tide, Volume 1: Rhino

I. Welcome to Turn the Tide!

Greetings all and welcome to Volume 1 of Turn the Tide! This is a series where I build decks designed to face off against a specific villain. The format for each volume will begin with an overview of the villain’s deck before transitioning to the hero deck I designed to defeat it. This series is a hobby and I don’t know how regularly I’ll be able to upload. However, I plan to upload this series bi-weekly on weeknight evenings, US Eastern Standard Time. I’ll be aiming for Wednesday/Thursday, real life permitting. Unless stated otherwise, I am facing all villains on the Expert I difficulty, with their recommended mod sets.

II. About this Series

Since this is volume 1, I will briefly introduce myself and my goals for the series. I joined the game in December 2024, first buying the core box and some heroes before I quickly discovered this was my favorite tabletop game. I am using this series as a means for me to organize my Marvel Champions play-throughs and to learn more about the game.

I have also noticed many deck builders, myself included, tend to discuss decks in a very general sense when it comes to how they fare against villains. That’s fine and makes sense. There are a lot of villains! However, I think there’s ample room to discuss how heroes and cards (specifically “bad” heroes and cards) can have a niche role against specific villains, and I hope to explore that more here. While I don’t consider these decks to be guides (I’m still learning a lot), I do hope the information and formatting makes them a useful resource.

Alright, that’s enough introductions. Let’s get to the decks!

III. Villain: Expert 1 Rhino

Mod Sets: Bomb Scare, Standard 1, Expert 1

Stats: 15/16 HP, 1/1 SCH, 3/4 ATK

Villain Card Effects:

• Rhino II: When Revealed: Search the encounter deck and discard pile for the Breakin & Takin side scheme and reveal it. Shuffle the encounter deck.

• Rhino III: Toughness (This character enters play with a tough status card). Stun each hero

Traits: Brute, Criminal

Villain Schemes: 1 scheme, 7 threat

Main Scheme Effects: None

Deck Stats (including mod sets and Expert 1): 33 Card Deck

Boost icon distribution (0/1/2/3): 9/11/12/1

Avg Boost Icons/card: ~1.15

Boost Star Effect icons: 0

Deck Breakdown

• 6x Minions: 2x Hydra Mercenary, 1x Sandman, 1x Shocker, 2x Hydra Bomber

• 3x Side Schemes: 1x Breakin' & Takin', 1x Crowd Control, 1x Bomb Scare

• 20x Treacheries: 2x Hard to Keep Down, 2x I'm Tough, 3x Stampede, 1x Explosion, 2x False Alarm, 7x Standard 1, 3x Expert 1

• 4x Attachments: 1x Armored Rhino Suit, 2x Charge, 1x Enhanced Ivory Horn

Cards of Note: 2x Advance, 2x Charge, 1x Enhanced Ivory Horn, 1x Breakin' & Takin'

IV. What Can Go Wrong

Rhino is a simple tutorial villain, but he can be dangerous. Don’t let his stat line fool you. Rhino’s biggest threat, in solo play, is fulfilling his single stage scheme with either a surprise Advance and/or a big boost card. Expert adds a new wrinkle, as he starts with the Breakin’ & Takin’ side scheme in play. This is a nasty side scheme, adding an extra encounter card during the villain phase, giving Rhino more chances to draw Advance or something that surges into it. In solo play, I highly recommend you have a plan for generating 3 thwart in your opening mulligan. I did not do this in my first expert game against him, and Rhino drew Master Plan and an Advance turn 1 and then I lost after Advance #2 on the following turn. He got me and I learned my lesson!

Charge and Enhanced Ivory Horn make his big attacks a bit scarier and chump blocking with allies a little less effective. The horn in particular requires triple punch resources to remove, which some decks may struggle with. But frankly, you can probably beat him before the extra damage matters. Keep his scheming in check, avoid extra encounter cards, and you should handle him fine.

V. Hero: She-Hulk (Justice)

Rhino is a simple and easy villain, so let’s make this interesting by limiting our deck options to just the Core Box. Even with this limitation, we have some good options. Emergency and Great Responsibility allow you to negate threat during the villain phase, greatly reducing Rhino’s ability to scheme out. Superhuman Law Division and her AE ability give you even more AE threat reduction, letting She Hulk comfortably flip to AE for the larger hand size and free damage when flipping back up to hero form. She-Hulk’s high HP (and 3x copies of First Aid) means she is comfortable trading blows with Rhino if she doesn’t have an immediate answer to his scheming.

Core Box Justice can struggle with damage and She-Hulk doesn’t have many attack events, which is why I am giving her 2x Haymaker in the year 2025. Haymaker one-shots five out of six minions, so it is pulling its weight here.

Mockingbird has some nice synergy with Superhuman Strength, if you get the right draw order. Her stun can prevent Superhuman Strength’s stun from triggering, meaning you don’t discard the upgrade and you get to retain its +2 ATK. It’s hard to pull off, and completely unnecessary, but it’s fun to see even Core Box decks having funky synergies.

VI. Other Strategies

Looking beyond the Core Set, Under Surveillance single-handedly prevents Rhino from fully scheming out in a single turn, denying most of his win conditions gone right there. Rhino says he’s tough, but he’s neither steady nor stalwart, so statuses fully work on him, buying you plenty of time chip through his 31 HP.

VII. Conclusion

I’m guessing most people on MarvelCDB didn’t need me to design a deck to beat Rhino, but I thought he would be a good villain for testing the series’ format. Let me know what you think of it in the comments. I hope the layout will prove useful in the future as I build for more difficult villains.

Next time we tackle Klaw, who should be a more substantive challenge. Thanks for reading and until Volume 2!