Black Widow Leadership - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Standalo

After the Guardians Campaign (Standard!) with Groot and Raccoon, while I finally won, I still had a grudge against Ronan. So I build 4 new Decks (one for each Aspect) so play the villains stand-alone. The challenge: Beat Expert Ronan.

The predecessor (going all in on Avengers, no Nick Fury and Mockingbird) lost, but this specific deck did it in the first try, so I thought I'll share. Honestly, I didn't play any other villains yet with it, but I am pretty confident that this deck should be able to beat most villains (and most pre-Guardians villains probably Heroic).

The Gameplan

Your Gameplan is to finish the Game by kicking massive butt with Avengers Assemble! There are three very thematic phases in the game.

Phase 1: Prepare: S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents in the field This Phase is building up your stuff. Allies you play are cannonfodder, keeping Black Widow alive by chump blocking. Your S.H.I.E.L.D. Colleagues Mockingbird and Nick Fury will do massive work to keep you in the game, especially combined with Rapid Response. Also, always try to squeeze Espionage in. The dream is obviously having a strong turn playing Nick Fury with 3 Espionage and Rapid Response already in play, then starting the next turn with +9 cards. In this phase of the game, the villain will get the occassional 1 ping damage from triggering your Preparations, but the name of the game is control. Don't try to kill the villain if Minions are in play, concentrate on removing those.

Phase 2: Establish Control, ping Villain to death With all your stuff in the game, start whittling the Villain down and bring in the Avengers. With Avengers Tower and Stinger, you can have up to 5 of them in the game. Do that until the villain is shortly before his final stage.

Phase 3: Avengers Assemble It is possible to finish of the villain in one go. This is a combo deck, and the combo is quite easy: You set 3 #Espionage up and try to play as many Avengers on the board as you can. Once the Villain triggers your trap, you Draw 6 cards on top of the cards you already have, so start the next round with 11 or 12 cards. It's very likely that you drew Avengers Assemble!, as a lot of your deck, Preparations, Allies and Supports, should have thinned your deck already. If you are lucky, you have Lead from the Front on top of that and a Rapid Response in play. Most villains won't withstand that assault going into their final stage, and will never profit from their Stage III enter play Effects. Usually, you also should have enough cards drawn to play a Dance of Death.

Card choices

**Allies*** My first try was a pure Avengers Deck. But Rapid Response is so good with Mockingbird or Nick Fury (even if the later still disappears, he brings you a whopping 3 cards and can block a second time) that those S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents had to go in. A notable exclusion is Maria Hill. Some sacrifices had to be made as she has not the Avengers Trait, and I played this solo. She is a good substitute for Mockingbird in Multiplayer games, as Stun gets worse and all players drawing a card gets better the more players. In solo, I consider drawing a single card worse than Stunning a second time.

Other than that, a notable exception to the cheap ally suite is Hawkeye, as he costs 3. But he has great Synergy with Rapid Response, which basically refreshes his tokens. Stinger allows one extra card on the table.

Events Obviously, 2 Avengers Assemble! to almost guarantee you will draw into your combo. It's still worth to play in most cases even if you don't combo. Only 1 Lead from the Front, as I found out it's not necessary to play this AND Avengers Assemble! to take out a villain stage at once, but it's a great card while you are building your combo.

Support No Avengers Mansion, no Helicarrier. We go with cheaper Alternatives Team-Building Exercise and Avengers Tower, Quincarrier still on board. Obviously, Team Training goes in every Leadership deck with cheap allies. This is especially important for this combo deck as Avengers Assemble! means your allies need 2 hp left to get full value.

Upgrade Of course, Rapid Response. Since you can have only 1 in play and you usually never discard this, 2 are enough. We play 3 Espionage because the card is so great for Black Widow. Try to always play this, it's part of the gameplan to draw into Avengers Assemble in a moment you control.

There is only one Target Acquired. It's a fantastic card, but it's max 1 per Player and there are plenty of boost Abilities that are not worth discarding this card. Let it sit until a real problem shows up.

This deck is insane fun. Those Thor-like turns where you draw a massive hand and the villain enters a maze of traps feel very rewarding. I hope you have fun and please comment about your experiences if you played this deck!