Good decks for Any Heroes?

[Kyle]

Given that battle sites are preferred, and offer a greater amount of flexibility... I'm wondering, are there any decks out there that actually function BETTER with any heroes than with a battle site? I enjoy playing both kind of decks, but it seems like any hero decks are less successful overall.

[CoS]

If you run a very tight deck that uses the DPS event New Lease on Life your Any Heroes are far more valuable than activators that have already pulled all the good specials from the site.

[Nate Grey]

Awesome question. Before ever coming to these forums, all I had ever played were Any Hero decks. I was comfortable just using those but noticed that it was so difficult to compete against the Battlesite decks with them. It took me a good while to finally accept the use of Battlesites and I really have learned to value their versatility and dynamics. I understood why cards like Devourer of Worlds had to come along. Using that card early does even the odds but if it doesn't come up it makes things so much more difficult. Anyway, I'm interested to read what suggestions the more experienced players have for making competitive Any Hero decks. I know for one thing its good to use that Image Mission set that has the event that doesn't allow activators to be played.

[Onslaught]

Any "solid" kind of deck that is just all around hardy is better served using Any Heroes, since those decks usually average lower hits to venture. If you want to build a deck that tries to win in the powerpack, it generally has to use Any Heroes. You can't run the risk of being hit by DoW and letting the game end on venturing while you try to recover, so you need Any Heroes if your deck's overall goal is to grind out a victory in the later stages of the game.

Basically, there are two kinds of decks that CAN run Any Heroes, and then various archetypes that specifically WANT to run Any Heroes.The types of decks that can afford to run them:

1) Anything with an EE
If you don't have an EE, you will get blown up by decks that make level 10 followups to teamworks. If you have a defensive net of 9 or lesses, this is catastrophic because of the snowball effect caused by losing a character in those types of decks (high amount of cards that are exclusive to each character).

2) Anything with redundant stats and a lower special card count
If you are using Any Heroes then your defense becomes weaker, so your characters are going to die faster. That's fine as long as your deck is built to take this into account (and in fact it can even be an advantageous playstyle as it allows you to trade hits, bet aggressively since you can compare your potential hits to venture to their potential hits to venture without having to factor in if you have enough defense to keep a certain target alive, etc).

Sample Any Hero deck 1: Sentinels, Zealot, Serpent Society, 3 stat Sabretooth
Here is a sample of category 1). It has plenty of ways to defend level 10 powercard followups, so it doesn't need the defense of a battlesite.

Sample Any Hero deck 2: Neron, Robin, Donald Pierce, Mr. Fantastic
This falls into category 2). Robin has very few special cards, Donald and Neron both can play the 6 strength teamwork, Fantastic backs up the 8i, etc. This style of deck is extremely hard to play but pays huge dividends if it jives with your playstyle. A lot of people don't really know how to properly defend (especially regarding when to take hits) due to being spoonfed by the more defensive nature of the game in its later stages. A lot of people will bet one concede if they don't have an autopilot hand with two defensive cards, some powercards to block teamworks, etc. If you know how to play without that security blanket, you can really make this deck sing and maximize its potential.

Sample Any Hero deck 3: Zealot, Captain America, Wonder Woman, 3 Stat Spider-Woman
This deck is an example of something that wants to win by attrition in the powerpack, so it runs Any Heroes to avoid losing by venture to an early DoW. Other decks are strong enough to answer/play around DoW (or utilize the power of their battlesite enough that they can win quickly before DoW can come up), but a plodding deck like this with no tricks is too slow. Fortress is also the best way to extend the game against something with superior venture totals, so it has that synergy too.

Sample Any Hero deck 4: Spawn, White Queen, Holocaust, Bishop
One of the few decks that wants to run Any Heroes by choice. Remove their dead pile with White Queen or Holocaust, refresh your Any Heroes with New Lease on Life, recur New Lease on Life with Bishop, etc. Even if all parts of your combo don't go off, you still have a big advantage of recurring Any Heroes while your opponent redraws weakened or unusable activators.

Sample Any Hero deck 5: Spawn, X-Man, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman
Here is the deck that probably makes the best use of Any Heroes because it hits on all of the above criteria. It can afford them due to the EE and defensive nature of the character, it wants Fortress to help reach the powerpack, it has a unified strategy with them in general (low duplicates ensure sticking around in venture to be able to survive to the powerpack to capitalize on having two 8 stats), etc.

This is just a rudimentary rundown, but hopefully it gives you an idea of how Any Heroes fit into the game. Your deck composition, personal playstyle, victory condition goals, etc all factor heavily into whether or not you will use them as part of your overarching strategy. Battlesites are much more versatile, due to quicker access to your best effects, as well as a wider range of unique effects that become exponentially more powerful when combined with certain decks/events. This gives them the edge on paper, but there is a certain subtlety to playing Any Hero decks properly that is hard to quantify.

[gameplan.exe]

@ Onslaught - yes. This is exactly what I meant on another thread when I said that I consider AnyHeroes to simply be another option to add to your deck. It's like, you could go with Onslaught's Citadel, The Outback, Krakoa, or Any Heroes - it just depends on how it will complement your deck. Good breakdown.

[Kyle]

Thanks for the reply, Onslaught. 

[Nate Grey]

I like sample deck #5. 

[Kyle]

Stumbled on the inherent of Sanctum Sanctorium, going to see if I can build something competitive with it. Will probably try deck #5, as well.

[steve2275]

marvel knights homebase
Marvel Knights Team +3 to Venture Total per battle if using Any-Character Special cards
DAREDEVIL   2   7   4   6   19
PUNISHER   3   7   4   4   18
SHANG CHI: MASTER OF KUNG FU   2   7   5   5   19
GHOST RIDER   6   6   6   2   20
BLACK PANTHER   2   7   5   6   20
SPIDER-MAN   3   7   6   5   21
SPIDER-MAN: SYMBIOTIC COSTUME   6   5   7   2   20
course its opo only