New/Younger Player Deck I - Spider-Man

A deck designed for players with little or no background with CCGs/TCGs nor LCGs, or for younger players. The goal here is not to design an ultra-powered deck, but rather one that is straightforward to pilot and competitive enough for most scenarios (especially with a teammate or two) while still providing the player with choices that feel impactful.

I think protection is a solid choice of aspect here, as nothing puts a damper on learning a new game like getting knocked out before your more experienced teammates, or spending the entire game flailing desperately to prevent that from happening.

Protection is also good for another reason—the text on the cards Riposte, Not Today!, Never Back Down, and Desperate Defense, are all identical with the exception of the (straightforward) effect following the final comma. When paired with a hero with high DEF (ideally alongside a copy of Armored Vest) each of these 1-cost cards enable you to nullify an attack dealing up to 5 or 6 damage (directed at yourself or a teammate) and then:

A) Riposte—Deal some damage!

B) Not Today!—Clear some threat!

C) Never Back Down—Stun the villain, typically saving a teammate from subsequent damage!

D) Desperate Defense—Ready up so you can defend all over again, thus preventing a second player from taking damage, and often tacking on another of the three preceding effects.

When the villain phase rolls around, encourage the new player to think about which of the preceding effects (in hand) is most useful given the current game state.

Spider-Man is an ideal choice of hero. Critically, he has a DEF score of 3. Secondly, his hero cards are pretty straightforward (even when compared to some of the other hero cards in the core set). Backflip and Webbed Up enable the player to further lean into the protection role. As a small bonus, if your new player wants to feel like they are getting in the occasional lick on the villain, Swinging Web Kick is one of the best straight-up damage dealing cards in the game.

Pinned Down is a nice card on its own, but offers additional utility here as it takes one of the poorer hero thwart cards in the game and shines it up. In order to utilize Spider-Tracer, you typically need to get lucky and have a minion in play when you draw the card, or hang onto the card from round to round, or allow a minion to ping away at you hoping that Spider-Tracer will be your next draw. Now, you can slap Pinned Down on a minion when he shows up, and then watch him hang around (stewing in his own impotence) until a copy of Spider-Tracer pops up.

(Obviously the preceding is ill advised if the minion in question has a beefy ATK score.)

A few additional details that make this deck new player friendly:

A) Black Cat is a good "starter" ally, as the player can utilize her ATK without mucking about with consequential damage. After a few games you can always add in a couple more allies.

B) Nerves of Steel enables you to play each of the following without discarding cards or exhausting your Web-Shooter: Riposte, Not Today!, Never Back Down, and Desperate Defense.

C) Every protection card in the deck costs 0 or 1 resources, with the exception of Nerves of Steel (which still only costs 2). In Spider-Man's kit only two cards exceed a cost of 2. For this reason the player's economy should do just fine with: Web-Shooter, Nerves of Steel, the three (classic) basic resource cards, and Spider-Man's 'Interrupt' ability.

D) After you explain the game basics, when you hand the player their deck, you can literally place one copy of Riposte, Not Today!, Never Back Down, and Desperate Defense on the table and walk the player through the text common to all four, emphasizing that (when the opportunity arrives) they should pick and play the card that they feel best fits the game state at the time.

E) Electrostatic Armor is a solid include (especially in scenarios where Tough is an issue), but can be swapped out for something simpler depending upon the would-be player.

F) "Stop Hitting Yourself" is a very solid upgrade here that I would introduce after the player has a game or two under their belt. (Simply swap in 2-3 copies as you pull 2-3 copies of whichever protection card the player has found the least useful.)