Now that you’re back from the Marvel Knights Sneak Peek and looking over your cards, you’re probably wondering what a “Solo Style” X-Statix deck might look like. Get ready to start thinking in a whole new direction!

Goin’ Solo

3 Vivisector

4 Orphan, Guy Smith

2 Plazm

2 The Spike

4 U-Go-Girl

4 Battering Ram

2 Orphan, Mr. Sensitive

4 Zeitgeist

2 Imperiex

4 Acrobatic Dodge

4 Dead Weight

2 Flame Trap

3 Overload

4 Reconstruction Program

4 Spin Doctoring

4 Star of the Show

4 X-Statix Café

4 X-Statix HQ

This deck wants the odd initiative. Turn 4 is the crucial turn, and recruiting second then will let U-Go-Girl do her worst. More importantly, it’s the turn where you can flip X-Statix Café, giving you that all-important +2 ATK and +2 DEF if you control only one character. You should be able to “break serve” here and swing back at your opponent. Let’s start at the beginning, though.

Vivisector and Plazm are reasonable plays in the early turns, but it’s their boosts that make them so well suited for the deck. You don’t want to put extra characters into play in the later turns, as you’d rather keep Orphan, Mr. Sensitive ready and Café and Star of the Show online. Since their boost abilities pop them right back into your hand, they’ll be available to pay the additional discard cost of several X-Statix plot twists.

Orphan is a good candidate for an early solo run if you didn’t play Vivisector on turn 2. He starts out big (6 ATK/6 DEF), and he gets bigger each turn. If you did play Vivisector, and then played Orphan on turn 3, you might as well play The Spike on turn 4—you’ll have the characters in play that you need to keep him from being KO’d when stunned. If you don’t have two other characters around, U-Go-Girl can wreck your opponent’s plans by removing his or her 2-drop. Of course, you have to return a character to hand, as well, but that’s fine—you want to get Café and Star of the Show going, anyway.

By turn 5, you’ll probably have noticed that your opponent isn’t losing too many characters. Since the deck does best when you’re quietly making one attack each turn (despite who has the initiative), you won’t exactly be cutting a swath of destruction through the opposing ranks. Flame Trap can be a big help in getting rid of some of the hordes. So, on turn 5, you might be looking across the board at four or so characters. With only one or two characters at your disposal, your opponent will be looking to break your serve. Battering Ram’s activated ability can put a damper on that plan and let your remaining character get through without your opponent being able to reinforce. If you don’t have the initiative on turn 5, Orphan, Mr. Sensitive may not be ready for action on the turn you recruit him, but he’ll sure make for a nice wall. Your opponent might need some attack pumps to get through him, so Overload or Acrobatic Dodge can be a lifesaver.

Zeitgeist is the only 6-drop you’ll need. He’s just that good. This is a turn when you’ll really want to be sure you’re on the solo path. Dead Weight is his best friend, since you probably weren’t going to attack with him, anyway. His activated power is the bomb. Zeitgeist is also a great play on turn 7, so don’t be afraid to X-Statix HQ him for a quick 6 endurance gain, then Reconstruction Program him and recruit him again with a fresh new cosmic counter.

With the deck’s defenses and endurance gain, you should be able to find your way to turn 9 and Imperiex. With odd initiative, Imperiex should win you the game on the turn he hits play against everyone but Jean Grey, Phoenix Force.

One of the best cards in the X-Statix solo arsenal is Spin Doctoring. We’ve seen recovery cards before, but this is the first one that readies him for an attack (without breakthrough). This card is also very necessary for the solo deck, as such a deck is fairly vulnerable to KO effects. When you only have one character, it seems unfair to lose it. While you could simply recruit a new solo character on the following turn, there are times when you really want the character you’ve got and don’t want to recruit a new one. When’s the last time you played a deck where you could say that?

Questions or comments may be sent to mhyra@metagame.com.