July 12th Featured Location - White Hot Room
White Hot Room
First to fill this gets +3 Max Energy.
The Featured Location from July 11th, 2023 at 11pm EST to July 12th, 2023 at 11pm EST is White Hot Room. As a featured location, it will have a 50% chance to appear in any ladder match. Now you must make a choice:
- Build INTO It
- Build AROUND It
- Ignore it
At first glance, the location looks like it's going to be a ridiculously fun location to build into. However, once you start building your 12 cards, finding the balance of gameplans that work together is actually incredibly challenging. Filling the right curves, defense, outs, etc, gets increasingly difficult since this is a location that may lead to many retreats. A player must figure out where their resources are best used knowing full well that if it's a "low-cost" deck like Bounce or Silver Surfer, this location very heavy favors those archtypes.
Yet, if you're a "high-cost" deck like Galactus or Ramp, this location could be your demise if forfeit to the opponent. It's an increasingly challenge idea the more you think about it and, to be frank, I loved theorizing this location's possibilities.
How to Build INTO it:
- The first three cards (Wasp, Mister Sinister and Brood) should feel like no brainers here. Try to fill the lane up early and fast. Even with the gameplan that you're going to lose that location intentionally having 7, 8 & 9 energy on the final three turns could lead to some chaotic big swings in points that a late snap could scare off the opponent.
- Same goes here for Mojo, Captain America and Punisher. It may seem like a dead horse to beat, but lane-loader locations always should have these cards in mind since they'll be beneficiaries of these featured location days.
- Venom comes to mind here as a great option too to be the fourth card played into that lane. Sure, Carnage works too...but he's just way less fun in my opinion.
- Stegron also serves a great purpose here to swing power from a fully loaded lane to your favor as a turn 6 play.
How to Build AROUND it:
Typically, I have recommendations here on how to counter it. However, this isn't a lane you can 'lock down' necessarily. Sure, you could Ebony Maw into Viper exclusively on turn 3, but the use case and chances for consistency are too low to be worthwhile in my opinion. The only other lane locking locations (that don't fill the opponent's side with cards) are only on turn 5 (Professor X & Spider-Man). So...honestly...just destroy it.
Running either Storm, Rhino or Scarlet Witch will switch the location, therefore eliminating the ability entirely.
Silver Wodin
I went with a hybrid deck that plays into the On Reveal side pretty heavily here. So, yes, the deck has a few gameplans. But, they should coincide together quite nicely.
- We have the 'fill 'er up' cards in Wasp, Mister Sinister and Brood. These are here exclusively to win the featured location. However, given the gameplan, they have NOT be here to to win the lane itself. If Brood gets landed though...it has a chance.
- I decided to couple the defensive play of Storm with some further 3-cost cards in Ironheart, Wolfsbane and Silver Surfer. All On Reveal. All who could be reactivated under a turn 6 Odin play. So, if you win the lane early, you have the best of both worlds, Ramp + SIlver Surfer. If you give it up early, you play into a Turn 5 Surfer + Ramp, or a Black Panther package.
- The Ramp core of Black Panther, Arnim Zola, Doctor Doom and Odin are a solid core, even on curve. So, they should play well into this location today.
- Magneto is here as well as a potential turn 6 swing play if your opponent has read this article, or has decided that Brood is going to be their friend as well. Move around those Broodlings and move around that power on the board to try and steal back the White Hot room on the final turn of the game.
- After this featured location, I personally will be tampering with this deck again for tournament play, and I'd love to hear what YOU would do with it as well in the comments below.