6 Tiger Wong Reveal – Early Pool 3 Deck – The Power Cosmic Season

Got lucky and pulled Wong early in pool 3? I have been using this as fun combo deck to grind ~30 ranks.  There are probably obvious optimizations available, and a few of the slots are very flexible based on your preferred playstyle

Key Cards: Wong, Ironheart, White Tiger, Odin

Support Cards: Nightcrawler, Armor, Scorpion, Storm, Enchantress

*Flexible Cards: Sunspot, Iceman, Black Panther

Strength: Big numbers using small/few cards, pretty consistent play pattern/low effort

Weakness: Cosmo; This deck is easy to predict to the opponents (You can usually still win due to sheer numbers when the combo goes off even when your opponent knows what you’re going to do, but a lot of smarter opponents will retreat early if they don’t have an answer in hand)

Quick Play Pattern: Turns 1-3 play 1 or 2 cards at each of two locations, Turn 4 Wong at empty location, Turn 5 Ironheart or White Tiger under Wong, Turn 6 Odin under Wong – this should leave you with either 6 7 power Tigers or 20+ power cards from 6x Ironheart triggers; If they Cosmo/Enchantress your Wong, retreat

Detailed Play Pattern:

Opening hand: Ideally you see at least 1 of your 3 combo pieces (Wong, Odin, and either Ironheart or White Tiger), if you have all 3, snap

Turn 1: If left is a location you can’t combo in, play a 1 drop, doing nothing turn 1 is also okay

Turn 2: 1 of the two locations should hopefully be combo safe, the other should have a 1 drop, or Armor/Scorpion

Turn 3: A cheeky Storm in an empty lane is a great way to disrupt your opponents plan with almost no impact to you (Tiger can place tigers in the flooded lane, and Ironheart will buff Storm); If didn’t draw Storm, Armor and Sunspot an empty lane; At this point hopefully Wong is in your hand and 1 lane should be empty, with the other 2 with 1 or 2 cards in them

Turn 4: Wong; if you don’t have Wong in hand your combo is going to flounder a bit.  Ironheart in your combo lane is okay (Ironheart > White Tiger > Odin will put some solid stats on the board, but this the pool 1 strategy and won’t beat stronger pool 3 decks)

Turn 5: Ironheart or White Tiger – this is where you have to make a choice.  If you have Odin ready in hand for turn 6, there are some trade offs to consider:

1. White Tiger will play more stats (2 Tigers Turn 4 and then 4 more Tigers T6 for 6 Tigers x 7 power = 42 power), BUT if you have more than 1 card in your non-combo location (eg. Sunspot & Armor) you won’t have 6 open slots, and at least one of the T6 tigers will fizzle (making this play only +35 power).  
2. Ironheart will trigger twice (adding 12 power) and then 4 more times when Odin drops on T6 (+24, so total of 36 power to the board), Ironheart can also buff Wong, meaning you are more likely to win the combo lane.  Ironheart also gives you the opportunity to play a 1 or 2 drop in an empty lane (or soak Sunspot for 2 energy), be sure to drop that card BEFORE Ironheart so they will receive the buff
3. Odin isn’t in hand; you’re either praying for a lucky top deck T6, or you can play T5 Ironheart and T6 White Tiger.  This line isn’t nearly as solid stat wise, but if your opponent isn’t way ahead on board, or if luck goes your way you can sneak out a win.  Without Odin in hand T5 Retreat is 50/50

Turn 6: Odin; Finish the combo and watch the numbers go up.

Example Games:

6 Tiger Wong: Don’t need to win the combo Wong lane when you have 6 tigers!

Ironheart Wong: Even excluding The Nexus I won all 3 lanes

Lost Game (Retreat -2 Cubes): Game lost due to the board being clogged (no room for tigers!) If I had drawn Ironheart instead of White Tiger I could have potentially won this game in spite of Hood/Rock/Goblin. I didn’t play out Enchantress/Scorpion here.

Perfect starting hand: This is the ideal start to a game, except that Mojoworld location can be tough for our Ironheart combo to fill – T3 Storm Mojoworld into Flooded or hope to draw White Tiger before T5); or use Mojoworld as the combo location. Nightcrawler T1 creates options.

Alternative play patterns/Tips:

1. Didn’t draw the combo – retreat, this deck doesn’t put enough stats out without getting an least Wong or Odin to double proc one of your combo pieces
2. Opponent Plays Cosmo on my Wong/Combo Lane – retreat, they turned off your deck and you don’t have an out
3. Zoo/Patriot Decks can put out a large number stats very quickly in the late game.  Playing Enchantress to kill their lords is one of the few sequences when it’s okay for you to not combo off; T6 Enchantress + Armor/Scorpion/Sunspot +2 is sometimes enough to lower their stats; If you suspect Mystique is about to copy a T3 Patriot, T4 Enchantress can be worth upsetting your own combo if you have priority (rare pre-combo)
4. T3 Storm can push an opponent to play in a lane they wouldn’t otherwise and you can leave Storm alone in her lane because you’ll either fill it with Tigers or buff Storm with Ironheart +10-15, something opponents can rarely beat by T4; Our deck doesn’t benefit from many of the location buffs so Storm removing an annoying location (
5. Armor can be used offensively against Destroy Decks to lock their Nova/Bucky Barns while protecting your Iceman/Sunspot, but with two cards in that slot it’s easy to miss Tigers, so Ironheart tends to be a better T5 play after Armor.
6. Killmonger can kill your Ironheart combo if you only have Nightcrawler/Iceman/Sunspot covering your two noncombo lanes, be sure to play armor, storm, scorpion early, or go with the Tiger route if you suspect a Killmonger
7. Nightcrawler early can later be moved into the combo lane to make room for the 6th Tiger in non-combo lanes
8. Locations that move your cards (Strange Academy) or add cards to your board (Central Park, Savage Lands) can be tough to play around;  Most locations will benefit your opponents more than you, so use your Storm wisely.

*Flexible Cards/Changes:

• 1 Slot: Sunspot can work well if Ironheart is your turn 5 play, or if you have him in your opening and skip turn 2;  Iceman provides a bit of tempo
• 1 Slot Alternatives: Korg is good for additional tempo, but can benefit destroy decks as Carnage/Death enablers; Ebony Maw has worked in place of Sunspot, but found him very susceptible to Killmonger and because you have little to no spare energy in the late turns he can lose a lane unless he is timed perfectly with T3 Armor + Maw.
• 5 Slot: Black Panther is a bit of a win more (Wong + Panther + Odin is a very satisfying 64 power Panther, but you typically aren’t trying to win your Wong/Odin lane);  Spider-Woman is good disruption, especially with multiple triggers; I’ve also used Iron Man, Spider-Man, Professor X, and Gamora, all are very situational, and can benefit depending on the hot location.  Ideally you aren’t playing the card in this slot at all and are playing your combo on turn 5. Hobgoblin doesn’t fit well, because you often would want to play him in your Wong lane, but Wong brings him back to your side.
• I tested a version with Mysterio in place of Armor/Scorpion, but the extra bodies clogged the lanes and didn’t provide any tempo to the opponents.
• Absorbing Man, Mystique or a laundry list of meta cards would enhance this list as you unlock more pool 3 cards (Who knew Wong + Odin was good?!?)
• American Chavez improves the math of drawing Wong by T4, but she removes the chance for a T6 Odin top deck, and hurts his draw odds slightly.  I haven’t tested her as a Black Panther replacement yet or done the math, but she might be a net positive for odds to combo off.