With draft day upon us, The Avengers is facing its first exposure to premier event level play. It seems that those players that had an opportunity to test this format extensively found that the strongest combination of teams is Masters of Evil/Thunderbolt. This combo is powered by the terrific team-up Faces of Evil, which gives all the teams’ 3-or-less cost characters a +1 ATK bonus. Neil Reeves has taken this idea to the extreme, having zero characters greater than 3, going so far as playing Mammomax—whose drawback is non-existent in his deck—to top off the curve. Teammate Nick Little has also gone this route, scooping up 4 Faces of Evil, and Maik Stich has won all his games (4-0 so far) on turn five on the back of his own two copies of the dread team-up.
Alex Shvartsman has taken a more traditional curve route, playing what is the second most popular draft strategy, Avengers/Thunderbolts. His deck is augmented by a distinct lack of Avengers drafters at his table, and he was able to get two (!) copies of Hulk, Gamma Rage, as well as copies of Thor, Odinson, Captain America, Super Soldier, Hawkeye, Leader by Example, and an Avengers Assemble!.
On the more off-beat style decks, you should look no further than the Kang Council, which both David Spears and Ryan Jones have decided to take. When every character you have is a power-up, combat seems to be much easier. Both have splashed a minor team to fill out the inevitable curve gaps, but their decks are primarily based upon the time traveling menace.
Here is the breakdown of the drafted decks:
Masters of Evil/Thunderbolts – 24
Avengers/Thunderbolts – 23
Avengers/Squadron Supreme – 19
Squadron/Thunderbolts – 16
Avengers/Masters of Evil – 10
Masters of Evil/Squadron Supreme – 8
Kang Council/Squadron Supreme – 7
Avengers/Other Teams – 5
Mixed Bag (More than 3 teams) – 5
Mono Masters of Evil – 4
Kang Council/Thunderbolts -3
Kang Council/Masters of Evil – 2
Squadron Supreme/Others – 3
Mono Avengers – 2
Thunderbolts/Others – 1
Kang Council/Avengers – 1