Deck Feature: Ace of Hearts

To make up for no article last week because I was away, this week I'm doing two deck features to make up for it. So be sure to come back Thursday as well. For our first feature this week is my number two choice for league battles during the first half of league: Rogue and Gambit. This deck is fun to play and also fairly easy to construct, so let's get right into it.



x3 52 Card Pickup
x4 Adrenaline Rush
x2 Steel Yourself For Battle
x3 I'll Take That
x4 Borrowed Strength
x4 Strength of Will
x4 Explosive Leap
x3 Rogue's Gallery
x3 Grand Theft
x4 Ace of Hearts
x2 Fly Girls
x1 Entwined Destiny
x1 Thief and Rogue
x2 Power Grab




This deck has a lot of great things going for it with a great amount of healing and card draw to keep you in the game. Our cards really shine mid-game, and the deck does just fine if the coin is constantly flipping tails. Attack factors are also very balanced to allow you to mix up your attacks with some low cost vanilla cards to give you an early advantage. A missing element in this deck that I always regretted was not having any cards to kill keepers. I don't feel that every deck needs such cards, but this deck in particular always has problems against any keepers that heal your opponent.

The main strategy is of course to get Ace of Hearts on the board, as it will keep you alive with healing or by putting blocks in your hand. I feel that the latter is much better, so I chose to play a playset of every Gambit card available with the exception of one. When the Gambit quests become available, you'll have a lot more options to play with and I feel the deck will really truly shine at that point, but for now it runs just fine as the deck is split even with twenty Gambit cards (there are twenty-one Rogue cards because of Thief and Rogue). Strength of Will and Rogue's Gallery help us keep our hand full so we always have plenty of options. Card advantage is what makes this deck amazing, so we want to draw as many cards as possible to always have blocks.

Our second tactic is to punish our opponent with under-costed attacks. While this is not a major focus of the deck, if your hand has plenty of cards with as much as we hope to draw, you should be able to land timely attacks with Grand Theft and I'll Take That for some scary damage. When playing this deck, it's important to try and get a read on what your opponent is doing so that you choose the correct timing on your attacks.

Overall, the deck is a fun choice but is very reliant on Ace of Hearts. In games where it gets blocked it's a very uphill battle. If you want to play this deck, I highly recommend you have at least multiples of Entwined Destiny and Thief and Rogue as it makes it just so much better. While this was one of my league decks, I must admit it was probably the weakest of my decks and didn't win as many games as I hoped for. I will certainly be revisiting this one when Gambit's quests release, so until then, I hope your results are solid if you play with this one.

STG's Gencon Report

Hi yall, STG here back from Gencon. The Super Hero Squad TCG experience was definitely one to remember, and a great turnout with over thirty players for each tournament. With much appreciation to Astral Scythe Gecko for loaning me his awesome Wolverine deck, and a little luck, I managed to win both tournaments. Maybe now I can say "I'm the best there is at what I do."

Here is the constructed deck I played:
(the deck was built and all cards owned by Astral Scythe Gecko, thanks sir)

4x Adrenaline Rush
3x Let's Play Twister
2x Snikkity Snikt
3x Decision of the Heart
3x Fast Healing
3x Phase and Rescue
1x The Bigger They Are...
2x Samurai Slash
1x Never Give Up
2x Psionic Avalanche
3x Adamantium Bones
2x Telepathic Bonds
2x Savage Leap
2x Paragons of Brilliance
1x The Best At What I Do
2x Slice n Dice Furyfest
1x Fastball Special
2x Walk on the Wild Side


I choose this deck because of it's aggressive nature. We expected there to be a lot of random builds from players who weren't big players of the online game or didn't have a lot of cards, so I wanted to play a deck that didn't care about defense and just wanted to go crazy. Neither of those worries ended up coming true, but the deck did what it wanted to anyway. It has everything you could ask for, big dual factor attacks, powerful chaining capability, a little keeper control, card draw, and Adamantium Bones which would prove to be the best card in the deck. There was a lot of talk going around about how much the other players weren't prepared for it, and I really did win games by just having it sit there.

My first round was against a sealed deck. This player just wanted to win the iPad and didn't really know how to play, so it was almost like a bye. 2-0 win.

Second round I played against an X-Men Discard deck this would prove to be my most difficult match in both tournaments, coming down to the very last cards in game three. We traded lucky blocks through all our matches, both of us catching some really lucky breaks but I fortunately emerged the victor. 2-1 win. I think this person's name was Strange Brilliant Cow, so look out for them.

Third round was against Bright Breaking Ghost playing an X-Woman deck. I just had blocks for all of his cards, so there wasn't much he could do. Big chains happened and Wolverine cut him down pretty good. Sorry Ghost, you definitely should have played the Scarlet Witch deck. 2-0 win.

Fourth round I played against a Storm/Panther deck. He had only started the physical game a few days ago, but his deck was almost fully complete. We traded unblockable attacks with his Panther in the Mist and my Decision of the Heart, but late game my cards were just simply bigger than his and my huge dual factor attacks came through for me. 2-0 win.

Fifth round was against Storm/Thor. One of the players I traveled with, playing a Spider-Man deck, lost to her in round three and mentioned her overwhelming amount of speed blocks. Fortunately for me she had only six animal blocks and elemental blocks so I was able to power over her in game one. Game two I was not prepared for her Thor strength attacks and they took me down very low. By the time Adamantium Bones came down it was too late and I lost that game. In our final game three, Adamantium Bones came down on power level seven and her cards became too weak to kill me, I threw out big dual factor chains and took it home. 2-1 win.

Quarter finals match I can't remember what I played against. I just remember winning with Adamantium Bones just like almost any other game. 2-0 win.

Semi-finals I played against a modified starter deck! I didn't know what was going on, but he definitely didn't get this far for nothing. His deck was constantly throwing surprises at me, and took me to game three. Once again the Bones came down immediately when the power hit seven and his huge damage cards just couldn't take him the distance. 2-1 win.

The grand final was against the Storm/Panther player player who had just beat Astral Scythe Gecko by lucky blocking Fist Meets Face twice. Fortunately, if you would say, he conceded because he had a True Dungeon event that was starting. That game is serious business. I think he was also afraid to play me anyway because he didn't think he would win. That would make the second time I got a default win in the finals for SHS cards, but I'm not complaining.  I just won an iPad 3!

I won't mention the sealed-only tournament because there isn't much of note, except for in the finals game I cross examined my opponent for three cards to win game one, I lost game two after an eleven damage Weather Report? Pain hit me, and game three all of his elemental blocks were at the bottom of his deck which allowed me to just absolutely roll over him for another undefeated tournament win.

It was a great experience and I hope that some of you readers who wanted to go will make it next time. I also want to thank all of the readers who are not CBR members for playing, and I hope you all will join our community.

Deck Feature: Comrades in Arms

Hello everyone! STG here with my second article. Every Thursday I'll be posting a decklist for you guys to look at, try it, critique it or whatever. These will be some of my favorite and most proud decks that I've wanted to talk about for a long time, and now that the card league is over I feel comfortable sharing them (I've got some new tricks now anyway)! So I'll kick it off with my absolute favorite deck: Captain America/Falcon. Over half a year later and very little changes to it, I still consider this one of my strongest and most consistent decks.

I built this deck over six months ago, inspired by a forum post from Mr. Puffin Rabbit saying something along the lines of "speed factor cards are very weak, so I recommend only having six blocks for them." I quietly took that information and decided to abuse it. He doesn't know that though; Sorry Puffin!



x4 Power Dive
x4 Avengers Assemble!
x3 Jab of Justice
x4 Comrades in Arms
x4 Hurl the Shield
x4 Winged Wonder
x4 Sky Strike
x3 Stars and Stripes
x4 Dive Bomb
x2 Star Spangled Soldier
x3 Drop the Hulk Bomb!
x1 These Colors Don't Run
x1 Pure Justice





This deck was my main choice for the first half of league play and posted the best results for me all the way through. There were some slight adjustments as I acquired some cards along the way and tuned, but this ended up being the final build. While it is predominantly a mono deck, it's still a completely themed deck that abuses the synergy between the ridiculous number of speed factor cards these two Avengers have. The foundation of the deck started from Comrades in Arms, which I'm still unsure why it only costs three. Avengers Assemble! is also a great supporting card, making your early game all about setting up big plays. A lot of theme decks need the power to be around six or seven before things get into place, but this deck is all literally about speed!

Our strategy with this deck is simple: We want to get our keepers out early and follow up with some huge damage around power five and six. Don't hold anything back. Even if you feel like your opponent is holding a speed block against your early Comrades in Arms or Power Dive without the special effect, just do it. We want to apply constant pressure and almost every card threatens a lot of damage, so let's thin out the blocks early and overwhelm our opponent. If your opponents are blocking your keeper setups, your five power Sky Strikes and Stars and Stripes will be hitting for great damage anyway.

If you get your keepers on board and things are going as planned, the game turns into autopilot. Once your opponent is out of speed blocks in hand you can consider all of your cards to be unblockables. Sky Strike hits the deck for four before turning over a speed block? Your Comrades in Arms and Avengers Assemble! give you the extra reach damage to get the full seven. The real star of the show when your keepers are on board is Dive Bomb. It's very easy to smack your opponent for 10-20 damage by using only one card from hand. Chaining from the deck (or graveyard) is very powerful, especially when the damage is in small packets that add up fast and is really hard to block.

This deck transitions well into late game with some extra surprises in Drop the Hulk Bomb which automatically sets off your keepers, and the incredibly powerful super rare These Colors Don't Run. If you don't have this card, don't worry about it, just fill in the block with something Dive Bomb can chain with. Pure Justice is also in as a last resort but quite honestly I feel it's a weak link in the deck as the games rarely last that long -- again, if you don't have this card don't worry about it. I do not recommend using the Captain America card Deflection, as Dive Bomb is significantly better synergy with this deck. While Earth's Mightiest Heroes fits the theme very well, I found much better results in Power Dive as it is much more important for our early game and can also be triggered by Dive Bomb.

The deck is very easy to build as it is mostly Rise of Heroes and quest cards, along with some Unleashed uncommons (I do not believe Stars and Stripes is available from the Prize Wheel, unfortunately). You don't need the super rares for this deck, so I hope some of you guys will give it a try and let me know what you think. See you next time.

STG's Top Ten Cards List

Hello everyone! STG here with my first ever article. The CBR card league was a blast, I learned a lot and enjoyed it thoroughly. So I would like to give a big thanks to The Tyrannical Mason and her efforts in organizing and maintaining such a long event, as well as the players for all of their participation. For my first article, I'm going to go over the top ten cards that are, in my opinion, the best in the game. While there are a ton of good cards in the game with some bonkers effects, to make my list the card must not be narrow in scope without good reason and should be able to perform well mostly on its own. While "Comrade in Arms" is absolutely ridiculous because of its three power cost, it's a bit too restricted to truly be the best of the best. There are some small exceptions to that as you'll read, but I feel those particular cards are there with good reason. And remember, this is only my opinion. Let's begin!

10. Scent of Fear - A card in hand is always better than a card in deck. You may read that from me more than once. Scent of Fear is very powerful in that it gives you complete information of your opponent's hand and spot removal in one nice package. Not a lot of cards can offer these together, and none so early in the game before the big threats start hitting the board. Discard strategies are powerful, and this is an essential card in that deck. Being a Daredevil card is a great bonus for his theme deck, too.

9. Claw Everything Always (Honorable Mention to Risk it All) - Claw Everything Always gets the nod here over its little brother. While they both do the same thing, the Lizard card does it in a slightly better position than the Spider equivalent. While seemingly "vanilla," it's ridiculously low power of four is just too good. Risk it All hitting for six is a lot more common than Claw Everything Always hitting for ten unblocked. Ten damage is an awful lot, which actually can make your opponent "Risk it all!" The backfire effect can be a problem for the younger Spider-man card as early in the game you will either give up information on your deck from hitting yourself or go down two cards in hand early in the game. Claw Everything Always is also better in that it's significant damage at every turn in the game and is just so good at closing out games, especially in a mono red deck (Or even blue!).

8. Slice in Half - Oppressive cards are powerful; cards that you know you are forced to block or be set behind a lot. This is one of them. A card is not only good on sheer power, but also its intimidation factor. Because you only have so many blocks in your deck, once you realize early on that your opponent is playing a DD/Elektra deck naturally you are going to hold red and yellow blocks. But will you quickly let all your yellow blocks go or hold at least one in hand in fear of this card, even if it means taking decent damage from attacks like Flipping Out and Totally Jammin? Slice in Half can sometimes cause you to lose half your deck... without even being played. It's also rather upsetting if this card does activate and you watch two or three speed blocks fly by.

7. Strange Teleportation - Taking an extra turn is wonderful. Doing damage is great too. Even better is trying to make your opponent decide which hurts them less. The best are those times you do it two turns in a row! The best part of this card is actually its power cost of nine. Usually by this point in the game, a lot of damage has been dealt making the decision really hard on your opponent. Most players almost always choose not to block it, which can cost them heavily at these later stages of the game when the decks start thinning out. If your deck is built properly, this card will punish your opponent no matter whether they choose to block it or not.

6. Erase Your Destiny - Remember when I said a card in hand is always better than a card in deck? How about that spill on intimidating cards? Erase Your Destiny is one of those cards everyone loves to hate. Being in the starter deck, I'm sure we've all randomly lost games to this card. Incidentally it's also a devilish card to put into decks it doesn't even belong in, I've lost quite a few games against themed or mono decks that have nothing to do with energy cards, and then this beast shows up and blows me out.

5. Fist? Meet Face - The Fantastic Four certainly loves their keepers and so does this card. Cards that are two of the same factor are difficult to block, and F4 can throw out enough problems to thin you out of blocks really quickly. As an added bonus, F4 "set-up" keepers such as Hungry For Battle and Turn Up The Heat will not only both boost this card and make it come out faster, but they also can't misfire. Keepers that can only be destroyed by an opposing card's effect typically do a lot of sneaky things for you and this card shows it. The beauty of this card is that it hasn't even reached its full potential yet. If you aren't aware of the Invisible Woman quest cards, I suggest you take a look at how even more ridiculous this card will be in upcoming months.

4. Beyond Defeat - Healing is easily the most broken mechanic in the game, and this Wolverine card is the king among healing cards. In healing focused decks especially, lasting to turn twelve is only a matter of time. This card lets you last even longer, or it allows you to make a serious comeback. An eleven card swing is nothing to scoff at, especially when it puts cards back in your deck while taking cards away from the opponent. This card is especially dangerous because of how often it shows up back to back given the big power cost. Healing five so late in the game can often take you out of range for your opponent to finish you off, if your opponent has used up all their game winners already.

3. Panther in the Mist - Unblockable cards are underpowered, cost quite a bit, and/or have tough requirements for a reason. Not this one. Have you ever wanted to play a deck that absolutely does not care what your opponent is doing? Well slap together everyone's favorite Black Panther keepers and this bad boy! This is one of the few cards in the game that forces a combo to happen no matter what, and it hurts everytime. Did you know, King and Queen sets off once Panther in the Mist starts the chain of blowing up all of your Panther keepers? (That was a mouthful). Even better is that this card is still strong without its supporting cast of red keepers. Four for four unblockable with such an easily requirement is very strong, and it's easily boosted with Soul of Wakanda. I know most players have played this deck because of how silly this card is, I don't even know why I should bother to say so much about how much this crazy card does. Some players may wonder why this made my list over King and Queen, it's because K&Q can actually be stopped and is very predictable. K&Q also forces a red block out of hand, which makes Black Panther "blow up" keepers more threatening, which makes Panther in the Mist even more threatening (Another mouthful). The important bit to remember, this card absolutely cannot be stopped and if your blocks betray you I wish you good luck in having a chance at winning that game.

2. Grand Theft - Did your opponent just try to drop some huge awesome card on you? Well here is one of the best punishments for it! The surprise factor of this card is off the charts; while your opponent can try to play around cards like Slice in Half and Erase Your Destiny, this card is a problem on a whole different level. It's rather unreasonable to be prepared for this card as a dual speed factor, even worse when your opponent randomly places it into any deck that needs to fill in red blocks. When you see this card, especially when not a part of a particular theme deck, sometimes you think twice about playing your huge cards because you'll usually take six damage for your troubles. It's more crippling when your opponent is prepared to block your big card and then punish you for it. But unfortunately, you typically want to play your big cards to win games and Grand Theft is there to make sure you suffer for it each and every time.

1. Supernatural Soda - Coming in at the number one spot is Supernatural Soda, one of two cards I have no idea how got approved (The second I'll mention later). Few keepers in the game demand an immediate answer, but none of them are as powerful as this. An unchecked Soda will often win games by itself just by sitting there healing you like crazy. The power coin flips once every turn and there more than enough tricks to abuse this card; the scales are tipped heavily in your favor with this card online. This card will make you understand the importance of having solid keeper destruction in your deck or you will lose games to it, very often. If you have two or more of these in play you have probably already won the game and your opponent should just stop playing. Yes, it's possible for your opponent to still come back but odds are heavily against them once this gets going. While the similar Aura Drain is a guaranteed heal on your turn, Soda can potentially heal you twice as much, and cannot be misfired. This card is the gift that keeps on giving and quite honestly gives way too much, letting you steal games from your opponent you should have never won.

Honorable Mentions:
These cards, while powerful, may be a little too narrow or just shy of making my top ten. But they are still incredibly scary cards and powerhouses we have all come to love or hate. Links are provided as there will be no images.


King and Queen: This card needs no introduction and does a lot of great work. I feel that Panther in the Mist is the true backbone of the Black Panther/Storm deck, but some players may disagree.
Perfect Solution: "A card in hand is always better than a card in deck." So let's turn all of our cards into cantrips so that we always have a stocked hand full of options!
Improbability Field: This card is the enabler for all sorts of tricks and nasty things. There are some cool combos you can do with more than just Scarlet Witch cards, so do explore it for yourself!
Fools, We'll Show You All!: All the benefits of "Mental Invasion" without the guessing game, this card has a convenient cost to punish those team up attacks your opponent is holding.
Ace of Hearts: This card does a lot of good things for you, and unlike most character-themed keepers it doesn't misfire itself. Joy! This card is going to get even better when Gambit's quest is released.
Fantastic Force: While there are a few dual factor cards with the same stats as this card, the amount of support it gets from Turn Up The Heat, Cold Fusion, and Power Lifting makes this one king.
Punch Out: Its a combo card much like Panther in the Mist, but unlike Black Panther this card can be stopped, costs way more and is predictable. But it is dual factor and still packs a punch!
Comrades in Arms: Someone remind me why this costs three? I'll be featuring this card in a later article, so I'll talk about it then. Stay tuned!
Protective Shell: This is the other card mentioned alongside Supernatural Soda. While currently unreleased online, this card is nightmarish in the physical card game. This card enables so much nonsense to happen I don't even want to talk about it. You'll see for yourself when it's released online. If it were already available, it would easily take the number two spot.

That was a long spill, but I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, this list is only my opinion. My next article won't be as long, so I hope you'll come back to check out my future writings. Thanks!

Marvel Super Hero Squad Online Tier and Difficulty List

Difficulty List

Easy (even when not played perfectly, you're good) : American Dream, Angel, Captain America, Captain America (SS),  Classic Daredevil, Daredevil, Giant Man, Hulk, Punisher, Thing, Tuxedo Thing, Wasp, Wolverine

Medium Easy (easy to play appropriately): Avengers Captain America, Black Widow, Bucky Cap, Classic Thor, Elektra, Gambit, Gladiator Hulk, Luke Cage, MK1 Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Monkey King, Pure Elektra, Reptil, Rogue, Shadowcat

Medium (has an optimal strategy, but can work without it): Avengers Hawkeye, Avengers Iron Man, Avengers Nick Fury, Avengers Thor, Black Cat, Blade, Captain Marvel, Classic Wolverine, Dark Surfer, Emma Frost, Falcon, Firestar, Future Foundation Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Human Torch, Iceman, Iron Man, Iron Patriot, Jean Grey, Ms. Marvel, Nova, Red Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Sentry, She-Hulk, Stealth Iron Man, Spider-Girl, Spider-Man 2099, Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Thor, Valkyrie

Medium Hard (requires a consistent strategy to play well): Ant-Man, Arctic Iron Man, Armored Spider-Man, Avengers Hulk, Avengers Black Widow, Beast, Black-Suit Spider-Man, Black Panther, Colossus, Cyclops, Dr. Strange, Hulkbuster Iron Man, Invisible Woman, Mohawk Storm, Nick Fury, Nightcrawler, Phoenix, Samurai Wolverine, Scarlet Spider, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Spider-Man Ben Reilly, Spider-Woman, Street Clothes Wolverine, Thor, Vision

Hard (relatively developed strategy needed to get this one right): Deadpool, Hawkeye, Psylocke, Scarlet Witch, Storm, War Machine

Tier List

S (Can define a team): Phoenix

A (Has at least one very highly potent ability or an outstanding arsenal): American Dream, Angel, Arctic Iron Man, Armored Spider-Man Avengers Hulk, Black Cat, Black Widow, Captain America, Captain America (SS), Cyclops, Classic Daredevil, Classic Wolverine,Daredevil, Giant Man, Gladiator Hulk, Hulk, Iron Man, Jean Grey, Ms. Marvel, Mohawk Storm, Monkey King, Punisher, Red She-Hulk, Scarlet-Witch, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Valkyrie, Wolverine 

B (Has either one serious tool or a well-rounded arsenal): Avengers Iron Man, Avengers Thor, Black Panther, Blade, Bucky Cap, Dr. Strange, Firestar, Future Foundation Spider-Man, Gambit, Ghost Rider, Invisible Woman, Psylocke, Pure Elektra, Red Hulk, Reptil, Rogue, Samurai Wolverine, Scarlet Spider, Shadowcat, She-Hulk, Spider-Girl, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man Ben Reilly, Street Clothes Wolverine, Storm, Thing, Thor, Tuxedo Thing, Ultimate Spider-Man, Vision, Wasp,

C (Has at most one potent situational tool or a modest arsenal): Ant-Man, Avengers Black Widow, Avengers Captain America, Avengers Nick Fury, Black-Suit Spider-Man, Classic Thor, Dark Surfer, Deadpool, Emma Frost, Falcon, Hulkbuster Iron Man, Human Torch, Luke Cage, MK1 Iron Man, Nightcrawler, Sentry, Silver Surfer, Stealth Iron Man, Ultimate Thor, War Machine,

D (Has at most one relatively functional tool or a weak arsenal): Avengers Hawkeye, Beast, Captain Marvel, Colossus, Hawkeye, Iceman, Iron Patriot, Mr. Fantastic, Nick Fury, Nova

Alright, that's the meat. Now, for some notes.

I was given the task to create a tier list for this game a couple months ago. It was a casual thing; I chatted a lot of with Quirky, who made the first serious one (that I know of) over on the Comic Book Resources forums, which can be found here. He asked me to do it; people asked about the list quite a bit. I eventually got around to making it.

Honestly, my experience with these things is limited; I'm a casual fighting game addict and a long-time MMO player who has played SHSO since February. I don't really touch the RTS scene, which probably would be more relevant. Nonetheless, I really took the time to play each character in the game up to this point and try and evaluate them as fairly as possible.

The reason for the two different lists is that there is because people with limited experience have continually asked me about tier placement as a means to figure out who they should purchase next. That's a really bad idea unless you actually have a sense of how the game works. The average player who runs in the daily mission queue clicks intently on every enemy and only knows how to use the hero up, or maybe doesn't know how to switch between the powers. The ease of use list, then, is self-explanatory, and is better to use for novices making informed initial character decisions.

The tier list itself is based on more-or-less optimal use. When I say "more-or-less" optimal, I mean that I'm not taking each power to its logical extreme if, in practice, even highly experienced players tend to screw up whatever exploit that would make it more effective. Still, it assumes an ability to shift between all of the powers in a list, an ability to effectively use combo, and an ability to do basic strategy.

I'll write a full article explaining my thoughts on in-game strategy later, but if you've read Quirky's list and want to know the difference, it's important to know we have a few philosophical differences. I'm not as convinced of the importance of heavy damage-per-second (DPS), and I tend to favor secondary qualities on powers a little higher on average. It's why the heaviest hitters mostly got clumped in with A, and why low-damage characters with notable secondary qualities can place far higher than on his.