There are a lot of decks that are focused around using Ongoing effects as their win condition. There are a few good archetypes of Ongoing cards that you can play in pools 1 & 2, but once you reach pool 3, so many new possibilities are unlocked, you just need to collect the right cards early on to build all of those decks. No matter what pool you’re in, we’re going to take a look at some of the best decks centered around using Ongoing cards and we’ll take a look at how you should pilot each one and what you should watch out for.

Since there aren’t that many cards in pools 1 & 2, we’re going to take a look at the best decks in pool 1 and their better versions in pool 2, once you’ve got a few more cards. Once we get to pool 3, there will be a lot more diversity in the decks and their gameplans. 

10.Pool 1 Spectrum

Since we’re limited with how many cards we can use to build a deck, this is the best Ongoing deck that we can make in pool 1. Luckily, it’s really consistent and fun to play, while also being really powerful.

As you can see, there are only 2 cards in the deck that don’t have Ongoing effects, being Angela and Spectrum. Angela is possibly the strongest card in pool 1, with her potential to reach 6 power each game easily, and with a nice bonus if you play Nigthcrawler on her location and move him out of the way, for another +2 power. She gives a lot of value for only 2 energy, so she’s a must include in pool 1 decks. Spectrum is our finisher card of the deck, that’s able to buff your entire board state with +2, which is always really valuable. The rest of the deck consists of powerful Ongoing cards, whose effects we’re about to go into.

What This Deck Excels At:

• This deck’s biggest strength is being able to easily choose how you disperse your power on the board. If you see your opponent is committing a lot to a single location you can just decide to leave it to them, and add a lot of power to the other two since that’s what this deck is good at
• You have a lot of cheap cards that give you good value when they’re played by themselves, but they’re a lot better when you take Spectrum into account which can give you +8 power to a location you need to win, if you set her up properly
• Iron Man is a really strong card in pool 1, since he can single handedly win a location, but his effect to double the power of a location, becomes even more valuable when Spectrum buffs him and a few more cards on that location, making it really difficult for your opponent to overpower you there
• Namor is widely regarded as a really bad card, but in this deck, he’s able to put up to 11 power on a location by himself and 13 if you buff him with Spectrum, so he’s great to use as a threat, and to make your opponent overcommit to a location you weren’t planning on winning and punish them if they don’t commit enough

Card List:

• Ant-Man
• Nightcrawler
• Angela
• Armor
• Lizard
• Mister Fantastic
• Captain America
• Cosmo
• Namor
• Iron Man
• Klaw
• Spectrum

9.Pool 1 KaZoo

KaZoo is a really powerful deck archetype, especially in pool 1 when there is no Killmonger yet. The goal of this deck is to play out a LOT of 1-cost cards, and then finish the game off with Kazar, Blue Marvel and hopefully Onslaught, who’ve all got effects that will buff your smaller cards.

This deck is one of the easier decks to pilot, and as you can see from the deck list, it’s filled with a lot of cheap cards, who are in the deck just because they cost 1 and thus they will get buffed by Kazar, as well as Blue Marvel, who will buff cards indiscriminately. The goal is to play out a lot of cards, and the more cards on the board you have, the more valuable Kazar and Blue Marvel’s effect becomes, since they give +2 power to all cards. Onslaught is a really strong card that can make Kazar and Blue Marvel generate even more value.

What This Deck Excels At:

• When you draw the correct cards i.e. Kazar and Blue Marvel and Onslaught, this deck is really powerful, and it can spread power out across all locations
• This deck is one of the easiest decks in the game to play, since all you have are 1-cost cards and then a few more expensive cards that will buff those 1-cost cards
• Angela is an especially good card in a deck like this where your goal is to play out as many cheap cards as possible, so you don’t have to worry about her having less than 6 power
• Onslaught, when paired up with Kazar and Blue Marvel will give you a huge boost in value across the entire board, because of his effect that doubles all other Ongoing effects on his location

Card List:

• Ant-Man
• Elektra
• Hawkeye
• Squirrel Girl
• Iron Fist
• Korg
• Nightcrawler
• Rocket Raccoon
• Angela
• Kazar
• Blue Marvel
• Onslaught

8.Pool 2 Spectrum

This is the pool 2 version of the Spectrum Ongoing deck. The goal is the same, but we’ve slightly upgraded it to keep up with the other new cards that you and your opponent can now use.

Notable additions to the deck are Ebony Maw and Warpath. They both give a lot of value for their cost, while having a downside. Ebony Maw’s downside is that you can’t play cards on his location after playing him. This is quite often really detrimental, so you have to be careful with playing him, but he serves the same purpose as Namor, just for way cheaper. Warpath is a fun addition to this Spectrum deck, since he’s able to almost secure a location by himself, especially if buffed up with Spectrum if his effect is active, the downside of having to keep a location empty to get him buffed is not that detrimental, especially since you can play him on one location and Iron Man on another, and then finish the game off with Spectrum, who’s going to give you huge value all across the board.

What This Deck Excels At:

• It plays the same as the previous version, but new cards have been added like Shang-Chi, Warpath and Ebony Maw that can give you a lot of value
• Warpath, when his Ongoing effect is active, will be 9 power for only 4 energy, which is really good when paired up with with a few more Ongoing cards and Spectrum’s buff at the end
• Armor is an underrated card that can help you counter your opponent if they’re playing a Destroy deck, preventing them from destroying cards like Bucky Barnes or Nova is a huge difference in power because of only one card
• Shang-Chi is able to easily take care of some more powerful cards your opponent is going to play. Shang-Chi is especially good on turn 6, if you don’t have the reveal priority and are sure your opponent is going to play a big card like Apocalypse on a specific location

Card List:

• Ant-Man
• Ebony Maw
• Angela
• Armor
• Colossus
• Lizard
• Mister Fantastic
• Cosmo
• Shang-Chi
• Warpath
• Iron Man
• Spectrum

7.Pool 2 KaZoo

There’s really not a big difference from the Pool 1 and Pool 2 versions of KaZoo. The win condition is still the same, now we’ve got just a few more cards that make it a little more consistent and a little less straightforward.

The new cards that have been added are Okoye, Armor and Agent 13. Okoye is actually a really good addition since she will buff all of the cards in your deck by +1, so you’ve got a way to make your 1-cost cards generate more value without only relying on Kazar and Blue Marvel, who you won’t draw every game. Armor is a decent card that can prevent destruction from some of your one cost cards, since a lot of decks will be playing Elektra, specifically to slightly counter Kazar, but Armor can also be used as a way to counter your opponent if they’re playing a Destroy deck. Agent 13 is decent because she can sometimes give you a really good random card from pool 3 that your opponent probably won’t be playing around.

What This Deck Excels At:

• When you draw the correct cards i.e. Kazar and Blue Marvel and Onslaught, this deck is really powerful, and it can spread power out across all locations
• This deck is one of the easiest decks in the game to play, since all you have are 1-cost cards and then a few more expensive cards that will buff those 1-cost cards
• Angela is an especially good card in a deck like this where your goal is to play out as many cheap cards as possible, so you don’t have to worry about her having less than 6 power
• Onslaught, when paired up with Kazar and Blue Marvel will give you a huge boost in value across the entire board, because of his effect that doubles all other Ongoing effects on his location
• The Pool 2 version is slightly more consistent and I particularly enjoy the addition of Agent 13 that can give you a random card that your opponent won’t be able to play around

Card List:

• Ant-Man
• Elektra
• Agent 13
• Iceman
• Korg
• Nightcrawler
• Angela
• Okoye
• Armor
• Kazar
• Blue Marvel
• Onslaught

6.Bast Patriot

We’re getting into pool 3 deck territory, with our first Patriot deck! Patriot decks are really fun, because they focus around playing a lot of cards without any effects and then buffing them all up, but when he’s paired with Bast, like in this deck, we get a really reliable deck focused around performing a lot of fun combos, since all of your cards have good synergy.

Bast can give you incredible value when you play her with The Hood or Mysterio in your hand. A fun interaction not a lot of people know about is that Bast will make all 3 of Mysterio’s copies have 3 powers once you play them, giving you a good amount of power for low energy, especially if you add Patriot’s buffing effect to that. We also have some more really good Ongoing cards that combo with each other like Iron Man and Mystique who can really change the state of the game once they’re played together, and of course, Valkyrie who will set all cards on her location to 3 power, but luckily you have a lot of Ongoing effects with Patriot, Blue Marvel and Iron Man, that can still win you that location even if all cards have 3 power.

What This Deck Excels At:

• If you like decks that are a little harder to pilot, but have a lot of fun and interactive combos, then you should surely give this deck a try, since it’s not only fun to play, but it’s also a viable strategy for climbing
• Bast gives you insane value in this deck, since she has great synergy with cards like The Hood, Mysterio, Mystique and Iron Man, since those are all cards with great effects, but low power
• Now that Valkyrie is in pool 3, she’s become a lot more accessible to players, and we’re sure to be seeing more of her in decks as time goes by, she is capable of winning you locations easily, especially when you’ve got some Ongoing effects on the board that will buff cards on the location with her
• Debrii is a great counter for Galactus, who’s still prominent in the meta, he’s not all that powerful now, but you need a way to battle him, and Debrii is great at doing just that
• Patriot is a great card that can buff a lot of the cards on your field. This deck can generate cards without effects with Squirrel Girl, Mysterio, Debrii and so on

Card List:

• Wasp
• The Hood
• Bast
• Squirrel Girl
• Shocker
• Mysterio
• Mystique
• Patriot
• Debrii
• Iron Man
• Blue Marvel
• Valkyrie

5.Generic Darkhawk Dino

Here we have 2 really powerful cards that represent the Ongoing archetype in the form of Darkhawk and Devil Dinosaur. Darkhawk has always been a good card, since his release and now people play him heavily with Stature, but we thought this deck fits more into the ‘Ongoing Deck’ category.

The goal in this deck is to play out either Darkhawk and Devil Dinosaur, or maybe even both, and then fill your hand with cards, and your opponent’s deck with useless cards, to hinder their consistency and make Darkhawk stronger. Mystique is another great Ongoing card that can copy either Darkhawk or Devil Dino’s effect and add to the overall power on your side of the board significantly. Iron Lad was very recently released, and he’s been a good addition to a lot of decks, especially in decks that were already running Zabu, so that his effect can come down on turn 3. It’s nice to note that there aren’t many bad effects for Iron Lad to copy, except maybe Mystique and Cosmo, but if he copies Darkhawk, Rockslide, Devil Dinosaur or Doctor Doom, you can safely Snap in a lot of situations and Iron Lad can really give you a lot of value for only 3 or 4 energy.

What This Deck Excels At:

• This is a balanced deck that will let you draw into a win condition often. There are some times when you pull Devil Dino and all of the cards that synergize with Darkhawk, but in a lot of scenarios, you can play out some really big bodies on the board
• Iron Lad is a really fun card in this deck, he’s able to sometimes copy Darkhawk’s effect, which can be really good, getting a few DoomBots on the board isn’t bad either, so there are quite a few scenarios where he can come in handy, although you can swap him out for Moongirl if you don’t want to spend 6000 tokens
• Darkhawk and Devil Dino are really powerful and this deck has good support for both of them. Agent Coulson on turn 6 can give you 4 power on the board, while giving you +4 for Devil Dinosaur, and Rockslide is a great value generator for Darkhawk, even after his slight nerf
• Doctor Doom is a good consistent option that you can always play on turn 6, for a safe +5 power on all locations

Card List:

• Korg
• Quinjet
• Zabu
• Sentinel
• Mystique
• Cosmo
• Agent Coulson
• Darkhawk
• Rockslide
• Iron Lad
• Devil Dinosaur
• Doctor Doom

4.Generic Patriot

This patriot deck has been in the game for a long while now, and it was always a nice and consistent way to climb if you enjoyed its gameplay. It has a lot of Ongoing cards in it, and now that Super Skrull is in pool 3, the deck has gotten a lot better and in my opinion, a lot more fun to play.

As we mentioned previously, Patriot decks are based around playing out many cards that don’t have any effects on the field, and then buffing them all up with Patriot, Mystique and Blue Marvel. What’s really good about this deck is its turn 6 potential with Onslaught or Ultron. Depending on what you draw, and what you need in each situation, playing either Onslaught or Ultron will significantly change the course of the game. Onslaught doubles all of the Ongoing effects on a location, which is usually really beneficial, especially if your opponent played a few Ongoing effects and you’ve got Super Skrull on board, and Onslaught can swarm the entire board with his Drones who are all 1-cost and 1-power, but they don’t have effects so they will get buffed by Patriot. Both of these cards are really impactful and can win you the game, especially with a good set up.

What This Deck Excels At:

• I personally find patriot to be a really fun card, since his whole premise is taking weak cards without effects and making them way more powerful
• Super Skrull is a great card any time Ongoing cards are in the meta, and while there are a lot of decks that run a few good Ongoing cards, Darkhawk decks are tier 1 in the meta, so you have really good chances of getting a lot of value from playing Super Skrull
• Onslaught can double your Ongoing effects on a location, which can sometimes be really insane in Patriot decks. Especially if you stack Patriot, Mystique and Super Skrull on a location, that’s really hard to beat unless your opponent is running Enchantress
• Ultron is able to swarm the entire board with 1-1 Drones. This is a really useful effect, even if you don’t have a good board state set up, as long as you have patriot, this is really big value, just beware of opponents that might be running Killmonger

Card List:

• Wasp
• Misty Knight
• Mister Sinister
• Shocker
• Mystique
• Patriot
• Brood
• Cyclops
• Super Skrull
• Blue Marvel
• Onslaught
• Ultron

3.Spectrum Destroyer

We’re finally returning to Spectrum again, who’s a central point of this pool 3 deck that’s really fun to pilot and really good at getting a lot of power in unexpected ways. I love the slight control package we’ve got in this deck with Professor X and Klaw, and Destroyer is actually a really fun and versatile card.

This deck has 2 win conditions in the form of Spectrum and Destroyer. Spectrum will give a buff to all of your cards across the board, while Destroyer can be a really good way to give a lot of power on one location, but you have to set up the board in order to play him, or he will just destroy everything you’ve played before. That’s where the difficulty in piloting this deck becomes apparent. You have to play your cards, while always thinking ahead and thinking how much power you will have after turn 6, if you play either Spectrum or Destroyer. You need to set up Armor, Professor X or Cosmo if you want to play Destroyer, otherwise he’s not worth it.

What This Deck Excels At:

• This deck has 2 different win conditions that are bonded together by some control cards like Armor, Professor X and Cosmo. 
• Spectrum is always a good option if you need to spread out your power on the last turn, but her usefulness depends on how many Ongoing cards you’ve played before and where
• Destroyer is great when you’ve managed to set up the board with Armor and Professor X, since they will protect your cards from Destroyer’s effect and make him a really good option to play out on turn 6
• Warpath has a really good synergy with Destroyer, since you can play out an unimportant card on a location, and then when you play Destroyer, if you’ve got Warpath protected, the other card will get destroyed and Warpath’s Ongoing effect will activate

Card List:

• Ant-Man
• Armor
• Colossus
• Lizard
• Mister Fantastic
• Cosmo
• Warpath
• Attuma
• Professor X
• Klaw
• Spectrum
• Destroyer

2.Master Mold Hand Disruption

This is a really fun deck with a unique premise that’s possible only with Master Mold. The goal of this deck is to be able to fill your opponent’s hand with random stuff like Sentinels and Widows’ Bites to make Ronan more powerful, while also having a separate package based around Darkhawk that’s focused around filling your opponent’s deck with junk.

This deck is also slightly tricky to pilot since some cards are counter intuitive, you can’t play Darkhawk in the same game, so you have to always be thinking ahead and thinking about what your win condition is going to be since some plays will make some other plays less valuable. Master Mold and Black Widow are great cards that help you get the most out of both Darkhawk and Ronan, because they can fill up your opponent’s hand and make them unable to draw any cards from their deck. Controlling what’s in your opponent’s hand is really useful, and in a game with only 12 cards, making your opponent miss drawing one is really beneficial to you. We don’t have many decks that focus on interacting with your opponent’s hand, so it’s really nice that we have a deck to play that’s really inventive and fun.

What This Deck Excels At:

• This deck has some of the most unique gameplay in the entire game, it’s focused around filling your opponent’s hand and deck with junk and then profiting from that with powerful cards with strong Ongoing effects
• Darkhawk has his support in this deck in the form of Korg and Rockslide, they can fill your opponent’s deck with rocks, and are really good when played on the last turn
• Ronan The Accuser benefits from playing Master Mold, Maximus or Black Widow on the last turn when he’s on the board already. If you manage to play him on turn 5 and then copy his effect on turn 6 with Mystique alongside playing Master Mold or Maximus, you’re going to get a lot of power on the board that your opponent can’t easily overcome
• Sera is a really useful card in this deck. She might seem counterintuitive or unnecessary, but if you manage to stack her and Zabu’s effect, you have a really powerful turn 6 that your opponent probably won’t be able to predict

Card List:

• Korg
• Black Widow
• Master Mold
• Zabu
• Mystique
• Cosmo
• Maximus
• Darkhawk
• Shang-Chi
• Rockslide
• Ronan The Accuser
• Sera

1.Thanos Ongoing

This is the most consistent deck that’s focused around playing a lot of Ongoing cards. We have the return of Spectrum, who’s more valuable than ever with the addition of Thanos’ Infinity Stones. This deck has a lot of Ongoing cards with decent effects, that you can buff at the end of the game with Spectrum.

Thanos’ Infinity Stones all have really good effects that synergize with the rest of the deck. Soul Stone and Power Stone are cheap Ongoing options for you to play early on, that will get buffed with Spectrum if you play her at the end of the game. The Stones let you play out a lot more cards than your opponent and overpower them. You have a lot of synergy between the Stones and the cards in your deck; One really good combo is playing the Time Stone (+1 energy on the next turn) and then locking down a location with Professor X on turn 4, letting you focus all of your power on winning 1 more location and beating your opponent that way.

What This Deck Excels At:

• You have really good Ongoing cards that can overpower your opponent once you stack their effects. Goose is great at preventing your opponent from playing their bigger cards on a location, while you can easily stack a lot of your cheaper cards on that location
• Spectrum will buff a lot of the cards on your field if you play her on turn 6, and she’s always going to be a really valuable play
• Mojo and Lizard are a great combo on a location, since your opponent might commit too much to make Lizard a lot weaker, but Mojo will negate that and actually give you more value if your opponent plays 4 cards on Lizard’s location
• I love the combo that you can make in this deck by playing Time Stone on turn 3, and then playing Professor X on the next turn to lockdown a location early on

Card List:

• Ant-Man
• Goose
• Mojo
• Armor
• Lizard
• Mister Fantastic
• Cosmo
• Blue Marvel
• Devil Dinosaur
• Professor X
• Spectrum
• Thanos

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