Hello Champions! BananaCrapshoot here again to bring you another edition of The Hero's Journey, this is part 5 in which I will be going over the 15 cards that make up Spider-Man's hero deck. This will complete all the Heroes in the core set and I will go to expansion Heroes in the future. Just a reminder this series is breaking down the 15 cards in the Hero decks without taking the identity card into consideration. Without further stalling lets get going.
The first card in Spider-Man's Hero deck is Black Cat. I really like Black Cat, her health and cost are in line with her stats. Her forced response can be a nice way of getting additional cards in you hand and can potentially replace herself. The biggest benefit of Black Cat is that her 1 ATK has no consequential damage! That means she can swing away for 1 damage every turn and never leave the table. While 1 ATK is nothing to call home about, the fact that she stays on the table and is a consistent 1 damage a round is a huge bonus. If you are playing leadership she's a perfect Inspired target, giving her 2 ATK every turn and never leaving the table. Black Cat is probably the best signature ally in the core set. I think its between Black Cat and Shuri, but I think I give the edge to Black Cat.
Next up we have Blackflip, and jeez what a card. So a 0 cost event that allows you to prevent all damage from an attack. This will always be relevant and is a big reason why Spider-Man's kit is so good. There are two copies of this in your hero deck so you will see it often enough for it to be relevant. The dream is top decking this off of Spider-Man's ability and not taking any damage off a huge boosted attack. I really like this card.
Who designed Spider-Man's 15 hero cards? These cards have all been really good so far and I'm sure the other Heroes in the core set wished they had some of these. Enhanced Spider-Sense is another very good event, for 1 resource you Cancel it's "When Revealed" effects. Draw an Advance? Sorry Rhino, I'm not losing on turn one scheming today. There are again two of these in the deck. It's a very good utility card, Spider-Man does a little bit of everything and he does it all very well.
Spider-Man does some damage prevention, does some encounter card shenanigans, but he can also deal some damage too. Swinging Web Kick is a very solid attack event, 3 for 8 damage is slightly above curve so you always get good value when you play this card. There are three copies in his 15 so you can see this card reliably well enough. Another very good card for Spider-Man.
You can't have a Spider-Man deck without having Aunt May in it can you? The designers didn't think so and here she is. She only costs 1 resource and has a great Alter-Ego action for our local Wall Crawler, you exhaust her and heal 4 damage from Peter Parker. Being able to do this multiple times in a game is insane and helps make up for Spider-Man's low hit point totals. She's a solid support for this kit and another good card for Spider-Man.
Honestly this is probably the worst card in Peter's kit and it isn't even a bad card. It's a 1 cost tech upgrade that attaches to a minion and when that minion is defeated you get to remove threat. Removing three threat from a scheme is never bad. The reason this is probably his worst card is because of the villain scenario's we currently have. Against Rhino and Wrecking Crew you probably pitch this card more often than not. Against Klaw, Rhino, and Green Goblin this card is very relevant and can come in clutch at times.
Here we go. The iconic Web-Shooters, another 1 cost tech upgrade in this kit. This gains 3 web counters. You exhaust this and remove a counter to generate a wild resource. So for 1 resource you gain 3 wild resources. This is very very good, and he has 2 of them in his deck. So for 2 resources you gain 6 wild resources. Wild's make everything better and there's a reason they are the least represented resource type in the game. You want to play these early and often as it sets you up earlier for the end game. Another great card for this Hero deck.
For real, I'd like to know why some card design decisions were made because Spider-Man's set of 15 is so much stronger than others its pretty insane. Webbed up is an amazing card, that's why it costs 4 resources to play. You attach this to an enemy, and it is essentially working like a Stunned status card with its Forced Interrupt. When the enemy would attack this card is discarded instead, then you Stun that enemy. For 4 resources you shut down basically 2 villain activations in a row for that villain. That is insanely powerful, it allows you to go all in without fear of getting blown out, and allows you to stay in hero form because you wont be taking big damage swings. The real powerplay is stunning an enemy through another means such as Mockingbird and Tackle, then using Webbed Up. The way the status cards work is, the enemy would attack and remove the Stun, then next round Webbed up is removed and the enemy is stunned again for another round. This card provides some insane value for your Hero its amazing in this deck.
Grades time-
BananaCrapshoot- 4.5
Tommy of Titan- 4.2
Tommy of Titan and myself have basically the same grade on this kit. Spider-Man has 0 bad cards. Every card is good to great. He can play well in any aspect and really provides great utility for both solo and group play. I think he has the best Hero deck out of the core set. His set of 15 will keep him relevant throughout this games evolution as his cards are just so good.
Well that concludes the core set Heroes, for a little recap I'm gonna give the grades for all the Heroes we have done thus far.
Tommy of Titan-
Black Panther -3.5
Captain Marvel - 4.3
Iron Man - 4
She-Hulk - 3.1
Spider-Man- 4.2
BananaCrapshoot-
Black Panther - 3.5
Captain Marvel - 4
Iron Man - 4.3
She- Hulk - 2.7
Spider-Man - 4.5
So you can see we each have similar rankings, overall I like doing this article series, its fun for me to write about the 15 hero cards without regard to the Identity card itself. I will do Ms Marvel and Captain America in the near future but will probably write a few different articles first, as all of mine have been this series so far.
Thanks for stopping by and reading this Spider-Man ramble session, hope you enjoy what The Side Scheme is putting out and we hope to continue to put out more content and make it higher quality. Be sure to check out the podcast and our youtube channel for even more content from The Side Scheme, for Tommy of Titan, I am BananaCrapshoot. Stay scheming Champions.