No Pain; No Gain (A Rogue-lite Deck)

No Pain; No Gain (A Rogue-lite Deck)

In a roguelite game players can carry over certain elements like upgrades or unlocks between runs. Roguelites offer an experience that allows players to build upon their progress over multiple playthroughs.

In this deck, the ally Rogue can damage our hero Spider-Man or other allies to gain a boost to her own attacks and thwarts, at times defeating her fellow Web-Warrior allies to trigger Web of Life and Destiny to draw cards to build out Spider-Man's kit or attack and eventually defeat the villain. Spider-Man and his allies feel the pain but for great gain. Adding to the pain are three copies of Taunt, which each trigger a draw of 4 cards for our hero.

If you'd like to see a discussion of this deck, see the following video: Spider-Man (Peter Parker) | No Pain; No Gain (a Rogue-Lite Deck)

VILLAINS TESTED AGAINST to refine the deck and/or game play strategies (and UNDEFEATED in both standard and expert): Klaw (with an expert house rule(1)); Black Widow; Baron Zemo; and Magneto.

Deck Refinements

• Removal(s):
  • Render Medical Aid
    
    
• Addition(s):
  • Indomitable
  • A third copy of Taunt
    
    

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NOTABLE ELEMENTS OF PLAY:

Gain through Pain:

• Rogue: When Rogue causes "pain/damage" to another character, she not only adds to her own ATK and THW, she also has the potential to draw a card with Web of Life and Destiny. This card draw occurs from her using her ability on a Web-Warrior ally who has already activated, defeating it and drawing a card, or, Rogue, now a Web-Warrior herself, will also cause card draw when she's defeated.
  • If she happens to select Ghost-Spider, one can also grab one of Peter's valuable events from his deck.
• Taunt: No one can defend for Peter Parker, so he will take the damage, though this can often be mitigated by his defense of 3, his Backflip, or by Scarlet Spider. Note that Peter immediately draws a card due to his hero ability, so he'll eventually have drawn 4 cards when playing Taunt.
• Warrior of the Great Web will also generate extra ATK for each Web-Warrior defeated. The first copy of this should always go on Peter-Parker; otherwise, one cannot play our 3 basic Web-Warriors from hand.

Other Card Draw Sources:

• Face the Past: Note that Spider-Man can defend against his nemesis minion, Vulture, when he's revealed; then ready and draw three cards.
• Nick Fury and Moon Girl
• Spider-Man's hero ability: This tends to be triggered every single round becuase of the 3 copies of Ready for a Fight (and sometimes multiple times a turn due to the 3 copies of Taunt).
• Spider-Man (Otto Octavius): A card will be drawn if he targets one of the Web-Shooter tech upgrades with his ability (and he can still at least ready an extra resource by targeting Ingenuity).

One-Off Cards: Each of these cards are more frequently used than one-off cards often are due to the deck's massive card draw.

• Indomitable
• Protective Training is specifically in the deck to be played on Rogue to get her up to 3 extra activiations.

Conclusion:

All that pain for Spider-Man is ultimately for the greater good of defeating the villain. This deck focuses on Rogue's ally ability in an unconventional way, embracing damage and even the defeat of allies as a means to power up Rogue and create a massive card-drawing engine. Through a series of sacrifices and strategic "painful" choices, you'll be able to build out your hand and unleash powerful attacks and thwarting, embodying the deck's "no pain, no gain" philosophy to achieve victory.

(1) Note on expert house rule for Klaw: This modification assures that expert Klaw makes for a consistently challenging villain during playtesting. After discarding cards at the beginning of the game and putting into play the first minion that is discarded from the encounter deck, if that minion is NOT a Masters of Evil minion, I search the encounter deck for a Masters of Evil minion and replace the original discarded minion with it. I then shuffle that original minion back into the deck.