Staple cards every deck should have

[Palatinus]

Only if they know you don't have any power cards.  Just fake them out.  "Man, I guess I haven't been getting any power cards until now because they were all bunched in my deck.  Now I have a hand full of them."

I think you'd have to discard them as unusable unless the event says you don't have to.

Fair enough.  Some of them say "No X cards may be played.  X cards are not discarded."

[gameplan.exe]

Only if they know you don't have any power cards.  Just fake them out.  "Man, I guess I haven't been getting any power cards until now because they were all bunched in my deck.  Now I have a hand full of them."

I think you'd have to discard them as unusable unless the event says you don't have to.

Fair enough.  Some of them say "No X cards may be played.  X cards are not discarded."

Dunno about any others, but that is, in fact, how Down But Not Out is worded. So, you could keep all of the unusable AG-coded specials you'd want 

[Palatinus]

So we may have proven that Power Cards are in fact not a staple card.  As long as you don't mind not playing teamworks, doublteshots, making many attacks, or winning.

[Nostalgic]

So we may have proven that Power Cards are in fact not a staple card.  As long as you don't mind not playing teamworks, doublteshots, making many attacks, or winning.

Lol! Indeed... 

[JohnL]

Since I've been searching old hard drives for various images I actually came across the actual newsgroup posting I made about the Shadowcat 'almost power card free' deck. I was wrong above, it has 36 Ghostly Phases!


The Proxy Deck

Yeah, I know you've got all the cards but you're gonna need proxies for this one. No really, you WILL need proxies.

This deck can beat an FF plaza deck - quite easily sometimes. Unfortunately it gets the tar kicked out of it by almost every other deck! I'm posting it here for entertainment purposes. Got a friend who insists on playing FF cheese all the time? Make up this deck and beat 'em. (Shock value should get them the first time). Here it is with comments below:

Blue Beetle    4 6 4 5 (team +2 to venture)
Marauders      7 7 3 2
Shadowcat     6 3 3 6 (May have dup. Ghostly Phase specials)
The Flash (R)6 6 4 3 (Reap the w. from res)

Specials:
Marauders 
   4 x Vertigo (all attacks may be moved)
   1 x Malice   (exchange for 1 card)
Blue Beetle
   2 x Frictionless foam (opp. Discards universe and -3 to venture)
Shadowcat
   1 x Computer Genius (draw 3)
   36 x Ghostly Phase (avoid 1 attack) (Now do you see why you're gonna need proxies?)
The Flash
   2 x Reap the Whirlwind (discard 1 placed card)

Power cards:
1 x anypower 6,
1 x anypower 5,
1 x energy 4

Battlesite: Gamma Base w/ 4 Leader activators + Beyonder
  Omnibus OPD (discard all cards w/ I icon in hand, opp. Discards hand and placed)
  Twisted mentality (all attacks must be made on Leader)
  Green 'n mean (opp -3 to venture, -6 if Ann. Affair)
   Freehold (may have 1 extra card placed)

Homebase: Marvel universe - Opp. is -1 to venture total per battle

Mission: Seperation anxiety with:
  No cards w/ fighting icon may be used to attack this battle
  Sort thru draw pile card by card and put first card w/ energy icon in hand, may be dupe

Strategy: Basically sit there and do nothing. You have a venture advantage over the FF, so as long as you can avoid every attack they have you win. This cunning plan renders all their 'avoid 1 attack' and 'teammate may avoid 1 attack' cards useless.
   The power cards are only there to give you something to place but remember to place them on Shadowcat! (I don't need to tell you not to attack with them do I?) The Battlesite gives you a couple of good cards (placing an additional card is the weakest but helps by giving you an extra Leader activator). The opp. -3 to venture total cards are useful in case your opponent does something funky that gives them venture points. Also, you may sometimes be able to let low power cards hit (eg. If you have a 3 to venture total and your opponent hits you with a 1,2 or 3. If you are able to venture for game next time then you might want to even let a 4 hit if it allows you to tie the venture and be in a good position for the next battle. Same principle applies to a level 1 power card in the absence of the +/- 3 to venture cards.
   Use the Flash's special and Blue beetles special to get rid of any attacks your opponent places.
   Use Leaders Twisted Mentality on Shadowcat as soon as possible. Since it is likely to be negated though, there are 4 Vertigos which should be enough to see you through.
   The events are generally pretty useful. A large number of teams have F as their second icon so that event may work well, the other event gives you an activator (Leader or Beyonder) which may give you another shot at getting twisted mentality out early.
   Venture high when you can (you have several potentially crushing cards - draw 3, Omnibus, and the no F icon event) because you have to win before the end game.
  Hmm, the end game. The good news is that reshuffling the 4,5 and 6 will be pretty easy.
The end game - you don't want to be there. Nuff said.

Yes I am aware of the 1,001 ways to beat this deck, but I thought it was a bit different and variety is after all the spice of life. Passing as your opening move in a game is kind of cool.

[gameplan.exe]

That's a pretty fascinating build. It would be even better if Twisted Mentality was game-lasting. Or if Vertigo could be played defensively.

[CoS]

Today you could use Coda Island as your battle site and run Grunge's danger seeker as you OPD.  However, finding 30+ ghostly phases will be hard for most players.

[gameplan.exe]

Of course! I totally forgot Grunge was on a Battlesite!

[steve2275]

However, finding 30+ ghostly phases will be hard for most players.

i got 8