Witch, Please

Something I've realised while building this deck: despite being present in the same places at various times - especially during the Krakoa era - Illyana and Laura have had close to zero on-panel time together. So to Marvel editorial: I want a buddy-cop-style series with Laura and Illyana, except it's the two of them constantly trying to outdo each other for who can be the craziest chaos gremlin. Come on, you know you want to.

Anyway.

Do you like playing Magik, because you like the puzzle of figuring out how to stack your deck for maximum play efficiency?

Do you find that most Magik decks just aren't confusing enough?

Do you want to turn the deck-stacking, brain-melting puzzle up to 11?

Then do I have the deck for you!

Magik and the New Mutants:

This deck ended up going in a bit of a different direction to what I originally intended. It started off as a Magik thematic deck based on her time with the New Mutants, and included characters from that period like Cannonball and Sunspot. With my time playing and tinkering with it though, it has turned into something else.

This deck is based around using Uncanny X-Men in concert with Magik's own top-of-deck discount, to get X-Men allies into play for cheap. You'll notice there are a few X-Force characters as well. It's important to note that that you don't get the double discount with any of the X-Force characters, even with Children of the Atom in play - they don't gain the X-Men trait until you have them in play, so they don't have it while on top of your deck. The X-Force characters all have good reasons to be in the deck though, and you can still get them into play for cheap (as I'll explain below).

The deck was always focused around Dani Moonstar and Magik - as they have a tight ongoing relationship in the comics (the title of the deck is actually something Dani said to Illyana in the New Mutants run). Any leadership deck I build for Magik is probably going to include Dani, because I love the way the characters interact (Dani Moonstar hero pack when?).

Game-wise, she's also one of the allies who helps make this deck sing, as she opens up the full power of Cerebro (although there are several other Psionic allies available to do it as well). And while this is a thematic deck, it's actually pretty strong.

The Premise:

What we are going to do with this deck is abuse the top-of-deck discount from Magik, in concert with Uncanny X-Men, to get a 2-resource discount for each ally we play. We're going to use multiple tricks to get the allies we want, cycling them out of our deck and discard, and to make them more effective. Generally we are going to be more thwart-focused in the early game, but we can hit pretty hard for a late-game push on the villain.

For the three X-Force allies, we can't get the 2-resource discount - but we do have Summoning Spell to play them more cheaply. Of course, there is only one copy; but we will churn through the deck fairly quickly, so that's ok. And because it's Magik, we are going to cheat to play it multiple times per deck pass. Even if we have to play them at full cost though (or with a 1-point discount from the top of the deck), they are still worth it.

Notable Omissions and Changes:

Originally this deck included Forge; but two of the key supports - Uncanny X-Men and Children of the Atom - are not actually X-Men-traited. So he's not as useful as I hoped, and he was cut in favour of better allies.

I've gone for The Power in All of Us x2 over The Power of Leadership. Honestly, this is kind of a line call; what I've found is that I'm more likely to spend it on a Basic Spell than one of the Leadership allies (which I'm often getting into play for 1 or zero cost). You could swap them over though, and the deck would still work the same.

Professor X isn't in the deck for thematic reasons. I know he's good, but he doesn't really fit into a Magik adventure in the field. I'm also not a huge fan of characters appearing in every deck, and he's in a lot of them. Also, comic readers will probably understand when I say Charles Xavier is kind of a bad guy. I'm happy to leave him out.

Beast is potentially good in this deck, to pull resource cards for additional plays. Once again though, he's both really common in X-Men decks, and not a perfect fit thematically. He's really not necessary in this deck in any case.

Beak is another one who works in this deck. You can play him for free and he's really good. But Beak is also a precious little bean who needs to stay comfortable at home and enjoy his life. He will NOT get thrown in front of a villain as a chump block by me.

Kid Omega is really strong and you could play him for free in this deck. He's not in this deck because I don't like him (the comic character, not the ally card). And as Magik said to Quentin when he asked her out:

"I would tear you apart, little boy, like the bear does the baby goat."

Setting Up:

Children of the Atom is important, but it matters most on the second deck pass - we want the extra ally slot from Utopia, and to make sure we get the Uncanny X-Men discount consistently in the late game. On the first pass though, we'll be concentrating on getting set up; so it won't matter as much. The allies will be cycling out quickly, as we burn them to keep the board state under control. If we bottom-deck CotA, it's fine - just play it when you see it.

The cards you do want to get into play quickly (if possible) are Cerebro, Uncanny X-Men and Utopia. Utopia is especially good early, to help burn extra uses out of allies and keep the board under control. As with all my decks though, I've built this so no single card is crucial to keep you in the game. Whatever order the cards come out, it should work.

If you don't see any of those supports in your opening hand, just ditch the whole thing. You can pull the important cards (spells and allies) back out of your discard anyway, and it's only the supports we care about. Everything else has alternatives throughout the deck.

To some degree the deck has the usual leadership plan. Bounce allies in and out to attack, thwart, and tank hits; while you get your upgrades and supports into play. Then you can pivot to smashing the villain.

Teleporting Mutants:

Illyana is famous for her teleporting ability, using the stepping discs; she also often teleports other characters along with her. We'll be using that here, teleporting allies in and out as often as we can. Using a Stepping Disc to grab Colossus is always a good move; but we can also grab Scrying to help us stack the top of the deck. And of course, if Limbo gets discarded for any reason, using a Stepping Disc to get it back is great. Late game we'll often put a Magic Barrier on top, so that we can use the kickers for Soulsword and Soul Strike.

Summoning Spell is great to put on the top of your deck when you flip up from Alter Ego, guaranteeing an ally for just one resource. This is one of the reasons we'll likely flip forms reasonably often; we can put Summoning Spell back on top of the deck and use it multiple times per deck pass.

Before we do that though, we can use Limbo or Domino to swap an ally onto the top of our deck. If we swap an ally like X-23 or Monet to the top of the deck while in Alter Ego, we can flip up and put Summoning Spell on top of it. Then we can play Summoning Spell for just one cost... Knowing that the first card we discard will be the ally we want.

Pixie is also going to teleport mutants into our hand. What you might not know, if you aren't a comic reader, is Pixie's backstory. The reason she gets to pull allies from your discard is because Illyana taught her a teleportation spell (after stealing part of her soul... Read the comics if you are curious). She's going to teleport allies who leave play back for us, so we can keep our gameplay loops going.

We're also going to have Cerebro to pull allies out of our deck. Once again, it will only pull the X-Men allies, not X-Force. The flip side of that is that you can strip the X-Men allies out of the deck, so that Summoning Spell is much more likely to hit one of the X-Force allies.

Swapping to the Top:

Magik loves deck manipulation, so that she can play the perfect card for the situation cheaply; and to hit the kickers on her events and upgrades. Fortunately, this deck has a lot of ways to do that:

Scrying, Stepping Disc, and Limbo are all in her kit and will change the top card of the deck.

Illyana's AE ability can put a Spell onto the top of the deck.

Domino and Legion can both change the top card of our deck with their abilities (Domino acts as an extra copy of Limbo, more or less). We can also see which card we are going to discard for Legion when in hero form, so we can keep him in play indefinitely.

Summoning Spell will churn though the deck and give us an ally.

We actually have so many ways to stack the top of the deck that the complexity comes from figuring out the most efficient order to do it. Do NOT play this deck if you are prone to analysis paralysis.

What's Your Damage?

My favourite combo in this deck is playing X-23 for one cost, hitting a burst of 12 damage with her, then cycling her again. (With Children of the Atom and Uncanny X-Men both out, she's a 4-health, 3-attack X-Man).

So how do we do that?

Let's say you draw X-23 into your hand but the timing isn't great. You are in hero form, Summoning Spell has already been played, and you really want to get her into play for just the 1 resource. Yep, you still can; and you don't need to do something inefficient like not playing out your whole hand. Here's how:

• Play whatever top-of-deck discounted card you want during the player phase, then swap X-23 onto the top of the deck and play the rest of your hand.
• Flip down and draw your new hand, which will include X-23.
• In the next player phase, swap X-23 to the top of the deck again with Limbo or Domino.
• Flip up and choose Summoning Spell to go on top of the deck.
• Play Summoning Spell for one resource and discard X-23, immediately putting her into play.
• ???
• Profit

This deck is designed to do this kind of play again and again. I've played it about a dozen times at this point, and it's yet to struggle with a scenario (although I haven't played it against Ronan yet, so I might do that and see how it fares).

Let me know if you try it out, and whether your experience mirrors mine :)