Muir Island

[rucker73]

All right, it seems that a lot of guys are throwing favorite decks or deck ideas out there for some ideas and upgrades (or ridicule)  so here's one of my personal fav's.

I've never run it in actual competition but I've had fair success with it playing OPOnline against various opponents of different skill levels (though probably none as skillful as Onslaught or Dr.D )

Here Goes...

Muir Island Home Base

Prof X, Shadow Cat, Nightcrawler with Banshee in reserve.  Outback, Infinity Gauntlet (Gods of Stone, Silver Tongued Devil, Cosmic Sneak Attack)

Game plan is to outlast and win with card advantage over the long haul using the ability to take and remove low level hits and using the aspect to draw mid hand. 

DoW defense in having Deathstrike in the battlesite and Gods of Stone event.

I am at your mercy.  Feel free to offer advice.  I am not married to the chosen characters if you can make a solid argument for the inclusion of Colossus or Cap Britain I'd be happy to hear it.

[Onslaught]

I prefer Fatal Attractions (for Best Laid Plans) in my Muir Island deck, since it wants to Genetic Research into play as fast as humanly possible. For the same reason, I'd always run it with a battlesite that has Wolverine on it to get access to Tracking Senses. Good call on Outback.

Unfortunately you don't get to abuse Shockwave Rocks the World since all Muir Island decks have to revolve around Professor X, but I still think Best Laid Plans is worth it. Muir Island is cool in that you can't really go wrong with any configuration of characters you choose...

Card Advantage: Banshee, Prof X, Colossus, Shadowcat (R)
Stat backing: Prof X, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Shadowcat: Age of Apocalypse (R)
"Welcome to 1995": Prof X, Captain Britain, Colossus, Shadowcat

I'd actually run Down But Not Out in any version with Captain Britain just because your special count will be so low. Also, though you'd give up a battlesite negate you might consider ::drumroll please:: *Department H* as a battlesite. You'd still get Tracking Senses, but you'd also gain Legacy Regression from Maverick to go with Down But Not Out. This is a pretty ghetto version of Obfuscate from Onslaught's Citadel, but you really want that Wolverine 5i.

Professor X, Banshee, Colossus, Shadowcat with Fatal Attractions and Department H could be good, but I think there might be potential with Professor X, Captain Britain, Shadowcat, Banshee (R).

You could spend a year just tweaking different variations of Muir Island character lineups, let alone choosing between the right battlesite/mission combination. Fun stuff!

[drdeath25]

If you Legacy Regression Collosus', I love Siberian Strength on the Down But Not Out turn!

[Onslaught]

Legacy Regression on Colossus and betting for the win to Siberian Strength on the "Down But Not Out" turn is so tempting, but the Captain Britain version can make better use of Genetic Research. Technically you can still Legacy on Banshee, but they will just place all their fighting icons if you have Shatter Shriek placed (and Legacy in play) on the Down But Not Out turn.

Legacy on Shadowcat won't be bad if she's frontline, but of course a discard effect is much more powerful than a Draw 3 when Down But Not Out is active.

Ack, so many options! Nightcrawler is very good in this deck too, he just holds back how much you can take advantage of Genetic Research. If you want to use him, maybe a battlesite like Hell's Kitchen that has a few ways to make them stop attacking Nightcrawler in order to be able to block with higher level intellect power cards.

My most recent build that I used about a year ago was the four highest intellect chars with Shadowcat in reserve, but I'd really give serious thought to Colossus if I had a Department H battlesite.
Post Merge: July 11, 2011, 08:46:06 PM
I thought about Muir Island some more today, and wanted to consolidate a list of all the potential character lineups since there are so many.

Muir Island guidelines:
-Prof X. always has to be in, and frontline
-Nightcrawler can never be a reserve, and should be run with a Hell's Kitchen type site
-Most preferable reserves are Shadowcat or Banshee, with Captain Britain being moderately acceptable and Colossus grudgingly acceptable
-Captain Britain frontline can add Down But Not Out/Department H

Going by that, I am pretty sure these are all the combinations that you can derive:
-Professor X, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Shadowcat - Hells Kitchen type, Fatal Attractions
-Professor X, Nightcrawler, Captain Britain, Shadowcat - Hells Kitchen type, Fatal Attractions
-Professor X, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Shadowcat - Hells Kitchen type, Fatal Attractions
-Professor X, Banshee, Colossus, Shadowcat - Outback, Fatal Attractions
-Professor X, Banshee, Captain Britain, Shadowcat -Department H, Fatal Attractions
-Professor X, Colossus, Captain Britain, Shadowcat - Department H, Fatal Attractions

From these combinations you can decide who is the reserve, whether or not to use Shadowcat: AoA (probably only if she's in reserve in a Nightcrawler deck), and so on. I think I'd start out by testing one of the last two, just because hey how often do you see Department H as a viable battlesite. If you are using Marvels, it becomes even stronger with that crazy Deadpool discard effect.

It seems that Muir Island decks break down into one of three categories:
1- Extremely plain "just attacks and blocks" deck that tries to win off the strength of the aspect
For this, I think you're forced to use the four highest intellect stats (Banshee, Shadowcat, Prof X, Captain Britain) just to ensure you're getting the most mileage out of it. This is a bit vanilla, but sturdy and consistent. It also gets the most mileage out of the aspect, which is the main reason to be playing this team, so there's that.

2- Gimmicks all around, and the aspect is just one of many different tricks
These builds will all be the Down But Not Out/Legacy Regression route, since it's the best trick available once you've tied yourself to Fatal Attractions (which seems to be almost mandatory for Muir Island). You have some more exotic effects too with the KL and "Discard from hand" OPDs.

3- Oh, I have an aspect too?
The Nightcrawler builds are the ones that most resemble a normal deck, as in something you might be close to making even without the restrictions of choosing from characters listed on a homebase. The aspect here would just be gravy, so this version falls between "super straightforward type (1) " and "way too fancy type (2)."

[steve2275]

i wouldnt use colossus here unless captain britain is being used
im going without those two in my deck because i dont have any of c b's cards