
Onslaught’s Citadel Hot Location Guide: Strategy, Best Cards and Decks
Table of Contents
The Hot Location for the next 24 hours is Onslaught's Citadel: Ongoing effects here are doubled. Hot Locations happen every week starting on Sunday at 3 AM GMT. The chosen location has a 50% chance of appearing during games. Players who strategically build around the location or counter the decks that do so can have an advantage over their opponents! How will you approach the meta, and what will you do to adapt to the new meta?

Strategy and General Tips
Onslaught's Citadel returns yet again this weekend. As always, I would like to mention this up top (as it comes up every time we visit the Citadel): Enchantress will work for some, but the best way forward for this location is play Cosmo. Cosmo can be played before Enchantress to protect the lane and allow you to stack your powerful Ongoing cards.
















With that out of the way, in the current meta there is one deck in particular that stands out as the key strategy – Patriot. Given that Patriot is already in a very strong spot, it is the clear forerunner going into this week’s hot location.
This deck benefits greatly from Ongoing cards, and +4 power per Vanilla card is a lot more than +2 power. We will need to make some modifications to the popular builds in order to be more effective during the location and not as vulnerable to counter play.
Outside of Patriot, the most effective strategy with these locations has been leaning into Blue Marvel and Ka-Zar. Many archetypes can be adapted to take advantage of these two cards, Ka-Zoo and Thanos decks in particular, and they will be in a stronger position over the next 24 hours.
If you’re looking to stick with the Control decks, make sure you’re running Killmonger. And if you were not running Killmonger prior to reading this, please reach out and I will advise you on why you should always be running Killmonger.
Main Deck Feature
For today’s deck feature, what if we combine the above recommendations with everyone’s favorite card: Sandman. The logic here is simple; if we are expecting Control decks to try and stop us with multiple cards to destroy our lanes, Sandman stops that. If we are expecting combo decks to play multiple cards in lanes at the end of the game, Sandman stops that too. While doing all this work, we can build Patriot in such a way that Sandman doesn’t hinder us much.
The goal here is to play Cosmo onto the hot location and back it up with Patriot and/or Blue Marvel to buff the other cards we play. So why Sandman?
Sandman on Turn 5 locks the opponent’s Turn 6 to one card. They may be able to do some strong things with that card, but can they play Ultron? Ultron with Patriot on board will fill the rest of the board with three to five power cards. Most decks cannot match this. With the location up, we get to leverage it while proactively preventing the majority of counter cards we are likely to face on the final turn.
If you’re looking to explore this direction during the location, another avenue worth exploring is switching Mystique with Doctor Doom.
Budget – Pool 2 and Below (pre-CL 474)
In Pool 2, we can try combining the early game flood package with Sandman to restrict counter plays on Turn 4. After Sandman, we can play one of Blue Marvel or Ka-Zar on Onslaught's Citadel. Then we can play Onslaught on top on Turn 6 for even more power for our cards. This combination can be devastating for any deck trying to combo you after Turn 4, with or without the location showing up – something that becomes increasingly important as we enter into Pool 3.
Changing the one drop package slightly with Pool 3 cards may also make this deck continue into Pools 3, 4, and 5 cards during the location. Some cards to consider include Zero, Titania, Ultron, and Bast.
After Credits
Plenty of you may just want the fun direction. Every time this location has come up, I have to try making an Omega Red deck. This time we go all in with the help of Super-Skrull!
What is your strategy? Let us know in the comments below or our Discord community! Remember to share your decks using our deck builder and browse our deck database!
Good luck, have fun, and stay safe!
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I’m pretty sure there will be a Zabu version ending up as best deck for this location. It’s always Zabu…
The play guide for the Omega One Lane deck talk about Mystique combos, but there is no Mystique in the deck!