Science and Mutants Oh My!
This Is No Back-alley Operation
I assure you, sir, that we are doing our very best with our provided funding. The government wants its precious Weapon X as soon as possible, but this is no science-fair project. This is real science; it requires experimentation, testing, evaluation, and fine-tuning. It can’t be done hurriedly, or we might go wrong with the formula. We are shaping the future of mutants and humans alike. We will accomplish our goal of harnessing their power to aid us. Mutants are powerful, but they can’t beat science.
Let me tell you about the Wolverine project, sir.
James Howlet is his name. He has a very interesting mutation: retractable claws made of bone, heightened senses, and a powerful healing factor. The healing factor is what I’m interested in. His body could handle the stress of covering his entire skeleton with adamantium, claws included. If it works, It will make him indestructible. Of course, it will be a very long and painful process for him.
I beg your pardon?
Oh, don’t you worry about any humane ethics dilemma, sir. He is more of a beast than a man. Besides, he is a mutant; It can’t be considered human experimentation. Also, he signed a waiver. Everything will go smoothly with the procedure.
Sir, I’m sorry to call you back so soon. I must say, it was fantastic. It is so great that we can’t seem to be able to stop him. He became an indestructible killing machine like we promised, but he might be too good at it. Yes– he is wrecking everything here and stabbing every scientist that worked on his project. Also, he called me a bub? Say, do you know how good are the odds of someone surviving after being stabbed by three different blades in the stomach? I’m asking for a friend.
Weapon X Facility - The Location
Why, hello there, beautiful Snappers! Sit down; I’ve got some bad news. This next Wednesday, the 17-hour Weapon X Facility will be thrown into the game, and it will be a full 24 hours of it being the hot location. Why is that bad news? Let’s see what it does.
Weapon X Facility is like a second, more generous Sokovia. When Weapon X Facility is revealed, it will force both players to discard a card from their hand; however, as compensation, both players will draw a card from their deck. It’s a bit of a give-and-take, contrasting with Sokovia, who only takes.
Now you know why I said it’s bad news. You might be wondering how to avoid getting your most precious card ripped out of your hands. That’s the neat part. You don’t. You can use a deck that doesn’t mind getting discarded most of the time and benefits greatly from drawing a card. Who’s that tall lady wearing green, smiling mischievously?
Any Hela deck would greatly benefit from Weapon X Facility, but there is only one card you never want to discard: Hela herself. If that worst-case scenario doesn’t happen, you'll have a golden ticket to win.
You could also work with one of those full discard decks. You know the ones, right? Using cards like Morbius, Dracula, Miek, Swarm, Proxima Midnight, and Apocalypse. Perhaps even placing the titular Weapon X himself, Wolverine.
Sprinkling a few discarders like Blade, Lady Sif, and M.O.D.O.K. You can’t go wrong.
There is a brave knight who would venture into the facility with no fear. Black Knight could get a free Ebony Blade if Weapon X Facility isn’t revealed as the first location. If you use him, his best friend, Ghost Rider, could show up to bring the discarded card back from the shadow realm.
One last thing. There is a powerful size-changing hero that would work great on that full discarding day. I’m talking about Stature; she will be discounted to 1 without you doing anything in every single game that the hot location shows up, which should be roughly around 50% of your games. You could also run the ‘force your opponent to discard’ gang with Black Bolt and Silver Samurai to force your opponent to discard most of his hand away.
I think that covers possible strategies to work with the Weapon X Facility. If I missed something, be sure to let me know!
Just a note: Arishem probably will be a great card to use since your deck never runs out of cards, and you, most of the time, won’t care about discarding a random M’baku out of your hand. I won’t feature him here since he’s everywhere already, and there is no shortage of decks using him.
Weapon X Facility Decks
This is my wacky list of decks that I believe will work well with the location:
Hela Knight
As I said, any deck working with Hela should work well. There are a ton of different decks featuring the Goddess of Death, but this is the one I chose to play on that fateful day. It’s simple to play; discard your cards and bring them back with Hela. Remember the rhyme: If you get a big Ebony Blade, snap your opponents out of the game.
Give and Take
Discard your cards, empower your scalers, and get more cards. Discard those new cards also! This deck has three scalers: The Collector, Morbius, and Miek. Your way to win most of the time is with the big three. In some games, you win by playing random cards provided by Helicarrier.
Skipping Stones
You know, what’s worse than discarding a card? Discarding a card and drawing Korg’s rock as compensation. This deck is already great, but with your opponents losing cards, not drawing cards, and not drawing rocks, It is just cruel. Remember to play your most annoying On-Reveals on the side locations to use them again with Grandmaster.
Not the Bees!
Do you want to play with the Season Pass card? Don’t you worry. I've got you covered. Gwenpool works surprisingly well with the discard package. It doesn’t matter if you can play the last cards she buffed. Dracula can take the buff later. Also, if Swarms get buffed up, your opponent is in for a rude surprise with all the stings he’ll get.
Afterthoughts
I believe the Weapon X Facility won’t be anyone’s favorite location. But it’s a nice step towards providing more locations in favor of discard decks. Usually, only destroy decks get locations catered towards them, so it's a good change of pace. After its debut, the facility will be a rare location, meaning that, unfortunately, we’ll see Sokovia way more than its less evil cousin.
I hope that I was able to help you guys get ready for this Hot Location Day. I’m always curious about your plans and strategies for that day. Will you use a radical new strategy? Will you cower into Conquest matches all day? Let me know in the comments!