Venom - D on Demand

EDIT: Removed: Leading Blow x2. Added: Momentum Shift x1, Hard to Ignore x1

Its clear Venom is an extremely flexible hero with the tools to tackle any aspect, and with the new Sonic Rifle and deeper well of weapons available to Red players, justice or aggression seem like easy choices, maximizing his ability to wield a minimum of 3 restricted upgrades and a fourth with a Side Holster. But why play with the same toys everyone else is? Let's turn Venom green.

ECONOMY

Look no further than Venom's hero ability for our greatest, most reliable source of resource generation. The ability to snag a at the expense of 1 damage lets you get those key upgrades down faster and more importantly, you'll be able to get the kicker out of Grasping Tendrils, Savage Attack and Behind Enemy Lines without needing to rely on having the double resources or spending 2 cards. The best part about his ability is that it's once per phase, so don't be afraid to use it, especially when the rest of this deck is designed to keep incoming damage to a minimum. I've found that I take so little damage from villain activations that until Nerves of Steel is out I won't shy away from trading the 1 damage to pay for a Defense event.

Regardless of how much damage you'll be taking from the villain or minions, you'll still be spending a lot of your health paying for cards. This sounds like a great opportunity to introduce you to our next best friend: Project Rebirth 2.0. Prior to getting your set pieces in play and using it for card draw, we need to view this as more as a resource battery to pay for more cards. It's almost like a reliable Web-Shooter from Spidey's kit, except its there forever and can essentially net you 6 resources every time you're flipping down and back up again. That said, deciding when to use it for health or for card draw is key. If you're in a position to flip down comfortably and not with a dire need for health, the card draw can be very helpful. If you're flipping down with no cards in hand, don't be afraid to draw that 1 card as it gives you a chance to filter out something that would prove useless or ill-timed on your next turn and you can always take the 3 health right after the villain phase anyways. Taking some pressure off of deciding on health or cards is Crew Quarters netting you 2 health which, as many players have found is a nice alternative to Down Time as it keeps you from having to exhaust, letting Venom stay up and ready to handle whatever is going on with the board state while he's been taking a break.

As we'll get into later, defending is going to be natural and common with this deck and its got a couple more ways to boost hand size with Spider-Sense and the timeless Unflappable combo-ing well together on those turns where we rack up the DEF.

For good measure we've thrown in a Helicarrier to smooth out our cost curve while also allowing us to pop Behind Enemy Lines or Savage Attack for their full effect for essentially 1 health all while keeping our hand as full as possible. Lastly, the deck currently runs 1 copy of Nerves of Steel that I don't always have the chance to play, but if I can get it down early while the board is still manageable it let's me rip those key defensive events without having to overspend.

DEFENDING

I guess if we're playing protection we should defend a bit, right? I'm not even going to get into Grasping Tendrils, it's ridiculous and I'm sure I don't need to explain why. If we plan to use a lot of Venom's health paying for cards, we'll need a way to ensure he isn't taking tons of damage when he doesn't want to from enemy attacks. Enter Venom's ability to flex into whatever DEF he wants. Its easy for Desperate Defense and Never Back Down to pop when paired with none other than Venom's Pistol's. With a base DEF of 2, 3 from Armored Vest and the pistols providing another 1 or 2 (you can save them for the hero phase if you need to as they won't ready if used for defense), we'll be at a comfortable 5. That gives us the freedom to either take extremely minimal damage or choose to use one of defense events to ready or stun and buy us even more precious time to take care of the board or sneak those hits in on the villain. With 3 being the highest boost count outside of those nasty second boost cards, we won't have much trouble readying or stunning when we defend for 7. Again, knowing when you'll flip back down for more health or knowing that you need to clean up some minions or thwart is huge in deciding if that defense event in hand is worth more to you now or spent in the hero phase as a resource. Also if you can manage to get it down and not spend it on something else, we have Electrostatic Armor to help ping some damage or remove that pesky Tough from the villain.

With 6 opportunities to ready between Desperate Defense and Run and Gun, the loss of pace due to exhaustion is much less scary. Couple that with not really ever having to exhaust to recover in AE, Venom should be ready to rock pretty reliably.

ALLIES

Let's look at the squad.

Clea: She's there, she's cheap, and she'll be back. Great chumper, toughness remover or quick thwart to help bring one of those awkward threat side schemes back in reach for someone else.

Iron Fist: Who doesn't love stuns? I'll usually play him early rather than late game as he can buy me some time to plop down upgrades, but late game I'd rather play Run and Gun or other attack events to start closing things out. Don't be afraid to toss that stun on a nasty minion either depending on the scenario/modular as you have plenty of other ways to stun the villain.

Ironheart: between a Helicarrier and Symbiotic Bond she's free and you draw a card. Boom.

Spider-Man: A small infusion of loosely attached theme here, but more importantly that burst activation can really get you out of a pinch.

Starhawk: My boy. The best for last. A fellow Guardian who, like Ironheart, can be played almost for free and he can recur as often as you need him to. Still my hands down favorite Protection ally.

HOW TO MAINTAIN PACE

As with most protection decks, getting set up in order to slowly unleash your killing blows is crucial, and the worst way to have that ruined is by throwing every possible resource you have at thwarting when it gets out of control. Therefore, prioritize keeping threat low with your basic activations and allies and use that Multi-Gun to remove 2 often. Handle minions as they come, and don't even think about hitting the villain until you're ready unless the board is clear.

During deck testing things were going fine until I took on Expert Zola and realized that damage, despite Venom's guns, just wasn't as reliable as it needed to be. I took to adding 2x Leading Blow and 2x Hard Knocks. Leading blow you want to combo with your pistols to guarantee a ready, so choosing where you want that damage to go in key. 3 boost icons bring you down to 1 so removing Tough or queuing up an enemy for a Multi-Gun strike is smart, letting you use your base ATK of 2 somewhere more efficiently and without risk. Hard Knocks on the other hand can keep you hanging out in hero mode for another turn all while dealing a hefty blow to a troublesome minion. Again, combo this with a Multi-Gun and any minion 6 HP or lower is toast and you're tough.

Finally, we have The Night Nurse on hand to keep us from stalling out and wasting a Venom/Pistol's combo in the hero phase. When you've got a Run and Gun in mind that turn and you're looking to swing for a basic ATK of 4 twice, being stunned can really slow you down and make that extra ready feel a lot less useful. Honestly whether its slapping down that final damage or thwarting yourself to safety, she'll keep you in good health.

A COUPLE LAST THOUGHTS

Venom's setup ability in this deck can burn through a ton of cards before you've even started which can feel bad at times if you don't draw 1 of his 3 pretty quickly. One way to lessen the chance of discarding half your deck is to hang on to more cards in your opening hand, increasing the chance of drawing a weapon sooner. Some players will mulligan aggressively for the Multi-Gun which I can't argue, but if you see a decent upgrade or two in your opening hand think about keeping your hand. Alternatively you can just play it like you normally would and just risk that extra encounter card. I don't think either way will lose you the game, its more of a personal preference decision.

To further counter this I've considered dropping both Electrostatic Armor and Nerves of Steel as I don't always get them down and adding a couple Pulse Grenades will increase my chance of drawing a weapon sooner.

Don't sleep on Green Venom.