A Resilient Rush (The Xpert-23 Project)

(The beginning of each of my X-23 decklist writeups are the same, if you want to read my writings specifically about this deck, skip ahead to the "Deck Strategy" segment)

What is the Xpert-23 Project?

Ever since X-23 was previewed I immediately was in love with the design. I said "this could be my favorite hero in the game", she just looked so powerful and fun to play, and capable of doing so much. As soon as her cards were spoiled online, I immediately made proxies so I could test her, and she was incredible. I then made the decision to start this project: take an X-23 deck in each of the four main aspects true solo against every villain in the game on expert mode, and track my progress, and eventually to have decklists to post for people. I was allowed to change cards in my decks, but not specifically to tech against any villain, in order to hone the decks to a point where I would be comfortable taking them against any villain in the game. It took 192 total games to achieve this, 28 losses. Interestingly it was also my first general attempts at true solo for the most part, which was also interesting to explore (my favorite way to play is two handed solo, and while I haven't tested it yet I think X-23 is a monster in two handed). So all of my writeup and takes on X-23 are based on true solo plays, but they should also be totally fine for multiplayer games.

But that wasn't the end, I kept getting drawn to play more, do more last minute testing, until now where I've had to force myself to put her down, pull her claws out of me for the moment, to do these writeups. What did I learn? Well, I learned that I was correct in my initial impressions of X-23. She is incredibly powerful, incredibly consistent, incredibly resilient, and one of the absolute strongest heroes in the game.

Justice Leadership Protection

What makes X-23 so strong?

The initial concern that people had with X-23 is how often she'll have to flip to alter ego to recover. Your claws deal 20% of your starting life total to you each time you use them, but on the flip side you are always inclined to block when the villain attacks you, which cancels out the damage your claws deal to you. The turns of "I'll just take this villain hit to the face because I have to do stuff next turn" don't really exist with X-23, because her ability is once per phase instead of round. In fact when you defend you actually hope to take exactly one damage, that is ideal. Her ability seems good on paper, but in play it's just incredible how much you get to do. Cards like Assault are so much less devastating, because you often ready from the initial attack and can block again, and still ready again to do something in the next player phase. This is unreal efficiency, and makes X-23 a hero that is capable of dealing with any aspect of the game that she needs to do at the time. She thwarts well, she attacks incredibly, and she is no slouch at defending, especially against multiple things.

Tips to playing X-23

My number one tip for building and playing X-23 is to remember this statement: Honey Badger is NOT your hero. It's tempting to think of all the upside you can get if you put a bunch of cards into your deck to ready her over and over and boost her stats, and while this is exciting and will lead to some crazy turns and stories about how you readied X-23 6 times in one turn, it will also lead to your deck being way more inconsistent. X-23 does so much work by herself, so it's always best to focus on boosting X-23, and having Honey Badger there to help make her a bit better.

Through my games it became more and more evident that X-23 for the most part wants to play super low to the ground. She isn't a hero to build a large resource engine, her cards are all so cheap that it's better to try to lower the overall cost curve of your deck instead of trying to add in a bunch of resource generation. Just go cheap and X-23 will do the rest of the work.

Do not forget that X-23's alter ego ability draws you a card. I actually missed this for a lot of the games this project (I think I realized it during the Red Skull box), and it really changes gameplay decisions. As wild as this seems, there was a lot of times I chose to discard Honey Badger turn one to help play a setup card just so I could shuffle her back in to get a free card. If you count your cards ahead well enough you can flip and shuffle her or Sisterly Bond back in and guarantee you'll have it next turn. Although most of the time I would suggest waiting until the next turn to do it to go up to seven cards.

A big part of evaluating new heroes is how they interact with their obligation or their nemesis set. If you aren't going all in on Honey Badger, X-23 has maybe one of the least impactful obligations in the game. Self-Isolation takes Honey Badger and you have to make a basic recovery to discard the obligation and Honey Badger. You generally want to make basic recoveries already in the game, so you just naturally get rid of it and can immediately shuffle Honey Badger back into your deck to draw a card. It's a supremely inconsequential obligation depending on your deck build, the most annoying timing to draw it is when Honey Badger is in your hand, because then you lose a card. As far as her nemesis set goes, if it's mid to late game I just ignore Lady Deathstrike and the side scheme. You generally prefer to just leave Deathstrike out because it blanks Cyber Mods as well, although her 2 scheme does make it harder to flip. Hack n' Slash is supremely annoying, and Critical Would is a pretty messed up card, although I think that's more dangerous in multiplayer games than in solo, because if it hits a hero that can't ready that is low on life they're just dead. The side scheme is the biggest obstacle, especially if you hit it early, but late game you can use the retaliate to your advantage by popping your claws before your first attack and readying from the retaliate damage. In general the 6 threat on that scheme is a pain to deal with, and it's a good target for an Animal Instinct play.

You don't ALWAYS have to use your ability. You almost always do, but sometimes it's correct to just chill.

If your option is to discard Honey Badger or Pain Tolerance to pay for a card, choose to discard Honey Badger. Pain Tolerance is arguably your best long term investment, allowing you to stay alive and in hero mode for longer. Sisterhood is a harder choice, but I would still be inclined to play Pain Tolerance first, but less likely to discard Sisterhood as a resource for it.

You don't always have to use your allies to chump block. Sometimes you can just let them go to consequential damage, especially if they have a 2 stat! X-23 has a lot of reason to block herself, especially when you have Adamantium Lacing out and gain retaliate.

Keep on top of threat. It might be tempting to go all in on damage, and you can get away with it to an extent, but you do like to flip down a couple times a game and it's best to make sure the main scheme is a clean slate when you do, just to be safe. You have a pretty good outlet with her 2 thwart, and since her attack isn't strong without her boost from the claws you are inclined to thwart for 2 then take the damage to ready a more powerful attack.

Deck Strategy: Aggression

This was the deck that evolved and changed the most over the project. Every version was good, because X-23 actually feeds into an aggression semi-rush style incredibly well. A trademark of rush decks is trying to go all out on damage, at the expense of thwarting and blocking, defeat the villain before they can defeat you. What makes this interesting for X-23 is she can do something similar but also cover your bases in the ways rush decks often fall short. You still get to block, you still can thwart if things get out of hand, really anything that comes up you can deal with. It's not a full on rush deck in the usual sense, but still mostly acts like one. You want to do a lot of damage, and aren't afraid of taking some back. A turn with this deck often consists of thwart for 2, take the 2 damage from your claws to ready, then attack for 5-7 damage consistently, then block and do it all over again the next turn. If you can consistently do that you'll be more than okay almost always.

Total Losses: 9 (Kang, Nebula, Ronan x2, Loki x2, Venom, Magog, Mojo)

Card Choices

Hand Cannon/Moment of Triumph/Lock and Load: This was a very late addition to the deck and ended up being significantly important to the list. X-23 is the queen of basic activations, and Hand Cannon adding 2 damage over the course of 3 turns is very strong, especially knowing that none of it will be wasted because of overkill. You can really set up large overkill attacks with the deck, which led to the inclusion of Moment of Triumph. X-23 is happy to have extra healing, especially in the form of a 0 cost event. If you can nail a 0 cost 4 heal that keeps you in hero mode an extra few turns, and you can get a lot done in that time with this deck. Angela was also included to fish out an unlucky victim for our Hand Cannons. Lock and Load is very strong with X-23 in solo because she can thwart it with a single activation and then ready to immediately take advantage of the weapon you get that same turn.

Directed Force/Skilled Strike: As I just said, X-23 is the queen of basic activations and if you're guaranteed to make basic attacks these cards are great value. Directed Force needs the attack to have a keyword to work, but luckily we can almost always have that active. Adamantium Lacing gives us piercing, Hand Cannon gives overkill, and if you have Honey Badger in play Claw Mastery gives you overkill as well. It's not enough to justify 3 copies, but 2 is super solid.

Allies: We include Professor X and Psylocke for confuse, so we can occasionally flip down. Sunfire because he's amazing and should be in any aggression deck with access to energy resources. Bug is actually an all star here, since you always make basic attacks he can stay on the board the whole game, and is generally just a Beat Cop. Spider-Girl is there not just because she's good value, but she's a good answer to Lady Deathstrike when you draw Shadows, giving you two free turns of her activations.

Attack Training/X-Force Recruit: I included a single training card in this deck, partially because I have a few extra X-Men allies that could be targets if I draw it without Honey Badger. X-Force Recruit does the work you want it to by giving an extra hit point to Honey Badger for free so she can be fully healed with a First Aid.

Ready to Rumble: This might seem like a strange include, but it has been very good for me. When you need to flip and recover it's often a bummer to waste your often boosted stats to flip down and recover. It's been nice to just flip down while exhausted, then on the next turn exhaust to recover for 6, flip up and ready with Ready to Rumble and still have access to your double activation. It doesn't set the world on fire, but it is a valuable card that amounts to paying 1 cost for a preemptive X-23 activation, which is often worth a lot.

Cards I Tested But Cut

Jarnbjorn/Godslayer: Jarnbjorn seemed like a natural fit for X-23, as it can be used multiple times per turn to go with X-23's readying ability. It can also further enable Mean Swing, which you can already use with her claws if you want to save 2 damage (if your only plan that turn was to attack, ready, then attack again, which doesn't happen enough to keep Mean Swing in the deck). The big problem is X-23's kit only has 3 physical resources, so I was having to make more concessions than I wanted to try to make this card good, and it just didn't remain as worth playing. Godslayer is a super cool card, and a powerful one, but I found I never wanted to pay the 3 cost for it, and would only get it in play from the side scheme, and Hand Cannon is a more flexible card that does more for this deck at a lower cost.

Fluid Motion: X-23 loves boosted stats, so it felt natural to try to build towards this card. Unfortunately it was incredibly inconsistent, as X-23 has exactly 0 attack cards in her kit. So just like physical resources with Jarnbjorn I was forcing attacks in the deck that just didn't fit to try to make this work more consistently, leading it to be scrapped as an idea.

Toe to Toe/Precision Strike: These events do have synergy with X-23, and are worthy includes. Toe to Toe is excellent at killing beefy minions, often letting you ready if you take the attack undefended, and Precision Strike is good at knocking out small minions and giving you a little healing. These cards didn't get cut because they are bad, they were just victims of "too many good cards" syndrome.

Wolverine: It feels a little wrong to not have Wolverine in an X-23 deck. We all know he's a great ally that can pump out some solid piercing damage and then thwart forever. The thing is X-23 can already pump out solid piercing damage and Bug can thwart forever, and since I didn't want more than 1 4-cost card in the list, Wolverine got cut because Psylocke offers more.

Hulk: The Hulk ally is excellent, and this deck both has plenty of physical resources and can utilize the 1 damage to all characters to ready X-23, but there was a few more mental resource cards I added to the deck than I feel comfortable with including Hulk. It's a shame, because he's great, but I felt is was right to cut him.

Conclusion

This deck turned out to be a blast to play. You can deal so much damage with such a low cost curve. It's a constant barrage on the villain, and that is just satisfying to do sometimes, especially when you know you can cover the rest of the game as problems come up.