Widow’s Bite: A Black Widow Preview

How are all the Champions doing today?! BananaCrapshoot here again. Since everyone is staying home you guys should be knocking out some serious amount of games right? Well if you have a few minutes and you’ve been on Facebook or discord you probably know that Black Widow has had her cards all leak out. Apparently a store either didn’t listen or get the memo from Asmodee about new products not coming out in April. Someone got their pack and we now know all the cards! So it seemed like a good time to do a preview article on her kit. So let’s jump in.

Starting with the Alter Ego, Natasha Romanoff we get her hand size of 6 and 9 hit points and 3 recovery. The health is low 9 is tied for lowest in the game and the hand size is right on line with the other heroes we have. Nothing overly exciting besides the ability Mission Prep which lets you draw a card after you play a preparation card, once per phase. I’ve said it a million times but card draw is king in this game and any ability that lets you draw cards, cycle your deck, and replace cards played is huge so this ability seems really solid at first glance. She also has the SHIELD and Spy traits on this side.

Like all heroes so far her hand size goes down 1 card on the Hero side, except for Iron Man, (thanks Lukas). She pulls straight 2s here for ATK, THW, and DEF which is really strong, only Captain America and Black panther have straight 2s. I like the heroes with all 2s as they are very versatile and fit well in any aspect. She trades in her SHIELD trait for Avenger when she goes hero. Her ability widowmaker is very cool, free Damage is always nice, and it’s not an attack so stunned doesn’t stop it and you can get around guard with it. She seems very solid at face value here.

This card is both great and atrocious. What’s great about Winter Soldier is his ability, Black Widow’s deck is full of prep cards so getting him out for 1-2 resources should not be an issue. At 4 health with straight 2s he’s costed appropriately so any reaction is straight value city. What’s atrocious here is the artwork. My god it’s awful. I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life but geez. I really and flabbergasted how this is the artwork they went with. Of all the cool marvel art out there this has got to be the worst you could have went with. It almost looks like the artist was blindfolded and had to draw what was being described to him over a PA system. It’s just really bad.

Our first event is covert ops and while I’m not a huge fan of short hair style Black Widow I am a fan of this card. 4 threat plus a confuse. Done deal for 3. Generally when evaluating cards I have a scale so 1 resource should equal 2 dmg to be ”on curve” and 1 resource should equal roughly 1.5 thwart to be “on curve,” so 3 for 4 is slightly below the 4.5, but we don’t do 1/2 threats around here. So with the confuse this is very potent and her kit is starting off really strong minus that winter soldier set.

So our first event handled threat and our next one handles minions or wide villain board states. This deals 6 total dmg for 3 resources which follows my grading rubric, what’s nice about this is the flexibility, being able to spread out the dmg if needed. Now I think this card may need some clarification, this does not have the (attack) identifier after the Hero Action so to me that means this is not an attack and can be used while stunned. But is says it’s an Attack as it’s event type. Another is the 3 instances of dmg, are they simultaneous? Or are they sequential, meaning you can use the first instance to knock off a rough status then keep going.

This has already been discused in the various rules channels on discord and on Facebook but it is something I think FFG should clarify in the RRG. Overall I like this card a lot.

Natasha’s Alter Ego support is the Safe house 29, this card is cheap and pays off right away brining prep cards back to your hand from your Discard. Cant day anything even remotely negative about this card. This pack looks great so far minus that winter soldier art. Holy crap it’s bad.

Our first preparation card in the pack is Attacrobarics, which is fun to say 5 times really fast. This Card is pretty neat I think, the ability to discard this card to cancel boost icons is strong enough on its own for 1 resource, but being able to then deal 1 dmg to the villain for each boost icon cancelled is insanely strong. Worth noting this does not have the (defense) identifier but rather the (attack) one so you can use this if another hero is being attacked or schemes against. And this has to be triggered during the villain phase because thats the only time boost cards are turned face up. Overall this card is really strong I think.

The gauntlets are alright, they generate a wile resource which is awesome, but you can only use them to pay for preparation cards. So that is a slight draw back, but I like it better than the generic “generates a wild resource“ card we have seen before. Solid resource card. Its worth noting this is a tech upgrade so Stark Tower can get it out of your Discard if you are playing with Iron Man.

Our next preparation card is grappling hook, this is a sweet card for 2. It straight up cancels the effects of a treachery card. This is very strong and works great for avoiding shadows of the past unless you are using the Critical Encounters custom environment card. Another tech upgrade for some help when playing with Iron Man.

Here’s the suit, this thing is all kinds of sweet. It costs 3 and gives +1 def. She already has a base of 2 so getting to 3 really helps survivability with her low HP total. But that’s not all folks, you can also exhaust this sleek thing after you trigger a preparation card to ready black widow. Since she can trigger preparations during all the phases this is pretty strong and just adds to the seemingly powerhouse set of hero cards, except the non powerhouse winter solider artwork. I can’t believe that’s the art.

The last card in her signature kit is another preparation card. It’s also another tech card. This one is like Hawkeye in a stick, it has a similar effect where when a minion joins the fray you discard this thing to deal 2 dmg to that minion. Except this costs 1, and it stubs the minion. What?! 2 dmg plus a stun for 1? Crazy, and yet they still picked that horrible winter soldier artwork.

That’s all of her cards in her set of 15, next I’ll look at the other cards that come with her. Overall I think her set of 15 is very strong and versatile, her 9 HP and lack of a defense card might be the only things keeping her from being a S tier hero. She looks very strong and everything is very well designed, except that darn winter soldier artwork.

First justice card is Coulson, he’s a decent thwarting ally but his response to search for a preparation card is really strong and synergies well with Black Widow.

Here’s another prep card and this one is decent. 2 for 3 threat is right “on curve” according to my rubric. I think this is a solid card that will see play in Justice decks for sure.

I love 2 cost allies, this one is no different. the response to deal 2 dmg to a minion is awesome and it’s nice to see justice get an aggro focused card. I like Quake a lot, auto include in my Justice decks.

Here’s a generic way to cancel The effects of encounter cards. For 1 that seems like good value but when you trigger this one you basically give it surge, so unless you know what that next card is this could be a dangerous card to play. Not sure if this one is that good.

This Card is very good I think. 4 dmg + 2 thwart basically for 3 is good value. Only catch is you have to defeat the enemy to trigger the 2 threat removal. This card will be scenario dependent I think. Rhino and wrecking crew it probably stays in storage.

As if leadership wasn’t good enough, you give them a way to play an ally for free basically. The dream with this I think is nick fury. You chump block with him, trigger Rapid Response, put him back into play, draw 3 cards then you can block with him again! This card enables some good combos and I don’t see this not going in leadership decks.

Defensive stance is ok maybe, preventing dmg is always nice, defense has a decent pool and gets crazy good with Doctor Strange, I’m not sure this one makes the cut in a 40 card deck.

This card is really good I think. For 1 you can do anywhere from 1-7 dmg. on average I’d expect 3 dmg most of the time which is really good for 1 resource. Worth noting you have to take dmg and deal equal dmg back, so if you block and prevent 2 of the 3 dmg you would only deal 1 back in that situation.

We have a few ways to deal with and cancel treachery card effects but now we have a way to cancel boost abilities. This will be nice vs klaw and mutagen formula for sure. outside of that we will have to see what comes out in future scenarios. Good for it’s cost.

Card draw is king and here’s a way to draw 2 during the villain phase, this has a super specific requirement to trigger and Is scenario specific I think. Overall it’s good I think.

As if we didn’t have enough resource generating cards, now we get a back one that generates wild resources. Yes please. Thor, leadership, aggression all can use this card in their deck to trigger something else, lightning strike, vision pump, jarnbjorn. All benefit from this. This card is really good.

Well I’m gonna stop there, the nemesis set looks really cool too but I’ve rambled on enough Here. Overall I’m really excited for Black Widow, I think she will be really strong regardless of aspect and she has lots of awesome things in her kit. Except for, of course, that hideous Winter Soldier art, why FFG why??!! That’s it, that’s the preview, stay Scheming Champions!