"Your father died by his own glider."

At last, Spider-Man plays how I've always wanted him to!

Spider-Man is my favorite hero, but no matter how I built him, he was unsatisfying. When the Spider-wave hit, the lack of a Web-Warrior trait saw him almost entirely ignored. New wonderful characters like Ghost-Spider improved on his concept while receiving said support.

With the release of Fear No Evil, all the tools have fallen into place to make the Wall-Crawler a genuine menace.

Stand Alone finally gives Spider-Man access to a ready effect, allowing him to block for a friend as well as himself. It also immediately sets the tone. Spider-Man stands alone. No armies of Avengers or Web-Warriors come to his aid, and Black Cat is actively a hindrance. What a flavor win. 3 copies because it is simply that important to get it out early, and I've never been sad to draw copies 2-3 as uncomplicated resources.

Innate Reflexes practically starts in play for free thanks to Scientist. Kicking Spidey up to 4 Def immediately. Ronin, Armored Vest, and Defensive Conditioning raise him further to an absurd max of 7 Def.

In Harm's Way capitalizes on that huge 4-7 Def, giving Spider-Man basically 3 more Swinging Web Kicks that Thwart. Providing him access to big thwarts, but also to more consistent big damage swings when the board requires it. Even Spider-Tracer becomes useful when it's so easy to trigger it on command.

Spider-Sense's card draw only works if the Villain began the attack targeting Spider-Man, which means blocking for friends won't trigger it, but redirections such as Get Behind Me!, and Ready for a Fight do trigger it, as does Taunt. Making all those cards monstrously resource-effective on Spider-Man, and will trigger Stand Alone's ready for the free block, making it even better. In particular, Taunt works great when there hasn't been an opportunity to block twice during the villain turn (perhaps because Spidey went first). Letting him trigger it to get free cards. Also works great if he started the turn in out of Alter-Ego, he can get in a basic action or even a second taunt, plus it'll trigger an Unflappable that would otherwise have gone to waste.

In addition to Ronin, Dauntless, and Electrostatic Armor bring Spider-Man's "retaliate" up to 3. With all the ways Spider-Man gets in the villain's way and takes an extra attack, it really starts to chunk the villain down for 6-9 per round easily just for doing his job. This will even one-shot minions that wouldn't have been worthy of his big 3-cost attacks.

"I Can Do This All Day" provides an extra way to get a block in no matter what state Spidey is in. If you haven't found Stand Alone yet, these will hold down the fort. If you have, a 3rd block can be life-saving or card-cycling with Taunt.

Finally, Quincarrier and Ingenuity provide cheap permanent resources to take the pressure off the good ol' Web-Shooter for a minute. Especially Quincarrier since Ready for a Fight requires a .

The turn order is important. Not only is it far easier for Spider-Man to defend his friends when they go ahead of him (since Stand Alone will only ready him on the second attack if it is coming his way naturally), but a single Ready for a Fight can prevent an entire round of scheming by blocking the scheme for an ally and bringing Spider-Man into hero form for the second activation. It's always nice when Spider-Man can get in some quick Scienciste-Homework and a pick-me-up from Aunt May before swinging back in in the nick of time with extra cards in hand.

I love this deck. It keeps everyone in my playground safe, suppresses the villain, makes big swings, and can do upward of 30 damage per round in the late stage of the game to rush the villain down when it's go time. And it does it all with just Spider-Man shouldering all of the responsibility alone. It's the most Spider-Man feeling deck I can imagine.