Cyclops - The Jim Lee Blue team '97

Cyclops does not need the largest X-Men roster. He needs the right X-Men, in the right place, at the right time.

This deck is built around Scott Summers as a battlefield commander, using a compact roster inspired by the classic Jim Lee-era Blue Team: Beast, Gambit, Psylocke, Rogue and Wolverine, with Phoenix and Professor X rounding out the squad.

"To Me, My X-Men!" is the heart of the deck. Rather than filling the deck with allies, the goal is to repeatedly cycle a smaller group of high-value X-Men. X-Men Instruction puts them back into the deck, while X-Mansion provides additional recursion. As the deck cycles, To Me, My X-Men! becomes increasingly reliable.

Beast is particularly useful with To Me, My X-Men!: bring him into play, trigger his resource search, use his activation, and let him return to the deck to potentially do it again later.

Scott's other strength is his TACTIC toolbox. Constant Training allows you to search your deck for the TACTIC upgrade you need instead of waiting to draw it. Exploit Weakness, Practiced Defense, Priority Target and Coordinated Effort therefore become answers you can deploy according to the state of the battlefield.

Coordinated Effort deserves special mention. It can attach to any encounter card in play, giving Cyclops a persistent target for Optic Blast when attached to an enemy while also allowing the entire team to help pay costs on troublesome encounter cards. Two copies provide flexibility without sacrificing deck space, since Constant Training can search for one when needed.

Contingency Planning gives you somewhere to store an upgrade that cannot yet be used, preserving the right tool until the right target appears.

Meanwhile, Uncanny X-Men, Team Training, The X-Jet and X-Mansion provide the infrastructure for the team, while Get Ready lets Scott squeeze additional value from whichever X-Man is most useful at that moment.

Professor X is the ideal seventh ally: powerful when he arrives, excellent at thwarting, and temporary enough that he never occupies valuable board space for long.

Optional — Complete the Blue Team: Cameo is the 41st card and is entirely optional. Remove it for the streamlined 40-card version. Keep it if you want access to Jubilee and the full classic Blue Team experience.

Find the right X-Man. Deploy the right tactic. Give the order. That's what Cyclops does.