War Caster

At a Glance

Player Counts: Two-Player and Higher.

Play style: Lots of control, with powerful reactive plays.

Strengths: Good Economy, Flexible, and many different means of damage mitigation.

Weaknesses: Aspect cards can feel awkward to weave into turns before setup is made.

Choose a Feat

Wanda has leveled up with some new cards introduced in the past wave, allowing her to take the War Caster feat.

Hello everyone! Now that everyone is getting more settled with Angel and Psylocke, it seemed like a good time to see where some of the Aspects cards from their decks have a place to shine.

Character Selection

For those unfamiliar with the DnD reference, Warcaster is a feat Spellcasting Characters can take that allows them to cast spells with the time of an action on their opponents turn. Now, if there's any card that's gonna let Scarlet Witch emulate taking this feat in Marvel Champions, it's Warpath.

Before we move on, I'll say it here: this is more of a Warpath deck than a Scarlett Witch deck. By that I mean many card decisions were made to specifically do something cool with Warpath in lew of being optimized. There are definitely better Scarlett Witch protection decks, but this one lets you explore that card to its fullest!

The Build

Warpath is in an interesting place. He lets you break the rules of the game and lets you play cards when you normally could not. There is a key factor of this though in figuring out how useful this effect actually translates to being. If he lets you play a card in the Villian phase that you would've essentially played for the same effect anyway, did you get anything out of investing into him? Angel is a great hero for showcasing where this can be useful, since his Angel of Life/Death abilities are once per Phase, and not once per Round, he can get extra triggers off of them that he wouldn't otherwise with Warpath letting him play these during the Villian Phase.

A hero with a similar case to Angel's here is Scarlet Witch. Chaos Control is once per Phase, which previously shakes out to using it once in the hero phase resolving your Scarlet Witch cards to greater effect, and then maybe rerolling a boost card from a Villian attack, hoping it spins lower. Now, we can use the ability to boost our hero cards in both phases thanks to Warpath. This lets us chase 3-pips for Hex Bolt harder, or any other number if another effect is deemed more valuable, or provide and extra chance for more damage on Molecular Decay.

The synergy with Warpath doesn't stop there though, probably one of the most interesting interactions comes from Warpath letting us play Chaos Magic during the Villian phase. This practically extends Warpath effect to let us break the timing on playing any card that can be played with Chaos Magic.

Allies are particularly good for this, getting in someone with Tough Like Warmachine can be a nice save for a Teammate, or dropping down Vivian to blank a pesky attachment/minion/other annoying effect that couldn't be taken care of during the Hero Phase. Even Nick Furry looks a lot better for his non-draw effects when you can skip a turn of a nasty minion or side scheme that would ruin your day. This is definitely my favorite combo here, and Scarlet Witch definitely doesn't need a way to recure Chaos Magic, but man this line would be so much more fun if she did!

That's not all that Wanda is bringing to exercise her new feat. Muster Courage is another good card to play off of Warpaths effect, after he defends you can quickly setup toughs for your or your teammates for the rest of the Villian Phase, even restocking Warpaths tough if you wish. Tackle is another piece of disruption we can draw into, stacking the Villian with a stun before they have the chance to attack anyone else.

Other Class Features

Backing up the list, we have Shield Spell, Spiritual Meditation, and Sorcerer Supreme, because the Mystic trait is just as good as ever. Brother Voodoo is here to help us find the perfect event for the situation, and we have a lot of good events. Avengers Mansion and Quincarrier are no-nonsense economy pieces, with Quincarrier even keeping the kicker for Tackle always online. Hangar Bay is nice to bounce our Tough allies back into ready faster and gain back some tempo. In Multiplayer, if you already have tough/stun blocking a Villian activation, it's even nice to have a Nick Furry eat a 1 damage hit from a minion and bounce him for ready for a real Chump Block. This trick even works on other players Fury's/Professor X's. Med Team closes things out, it's nice for healing Warpath who's given a couple swings, or defended against some weaker minions (Warpath's ability works against minion attacks or if he was damaged, it's not contingent on just what you get from that Tough status!). It's also already well known for being a card your teammates will love for you to share.

Experience Gained

Thanks for reading this far! This deck really does have some cool interactions, and has the nice boon of letting you revisit an older hero you may be looking for an excuse to check out again.

If you try this deck I hope you enjoy, and Happy Gaming!