70 Power spread across 2 or 3 Locations.
As of right now almost all Cere6ro decks are attempting to leverage Hela alongside Sword Master & Hell Cow to get relatively expensive 6 Power cards in to play. The problem with that even ignoring Hela's inconsistency is that 6 Power cards don't match up against the payoffs in normal Hela decks like Infinaut and Magneto, making Cere6ro the worse of the 2 Hela decks. My theory-craft for Cere6ro uses cheaper more restrictive cards to lower the curve which will be possible once the deck receives a little more support. The unreleased cards at time of writing are:
Hit Monkey - 2 Cost 6 power if played with 2 other cards in the same turn
Silver Sable - 2 Cost 6 Power which can only be played in a location with 6 or more power
Red Guardian - 3 Cost 6 Power which forces you to play another card at the same location next turn. (This one isn't super necessary and is only marginally better than Sword Master or Groot but since I was adding 2 unreleased cards I figured there wasn't much difference in adding one more. If the other 2 are released without him I think the deck would be fine not something I could say of the other 2.)
The rest of the cards are:
Cerebro & Mystique - Can't have Cere6bro without Cerebro, you can however have it without Mystique, and she's currently hanging by a thread. We have no other ongoing targets without much potential to add any and a single Cerebro effect has us at 8 power meaning we sneak under Shang-Chi. Our ideal run-out however sees her adding 14 power so... When theory-crafting I tend to lean towards bigger numbers first and then adjust through play test so for now she makes the cut.
Captain Marvel - If I'm honest I made this deck for Carol. She is such a cool card and I was looking for a way to make her more impactful and since multiple Carols don't work currently, bigger Carol is the only thing you can do. Later I'll describe a couple of ideal run-outs for the deck and she's not even apart of them, so I wouldn't blame you if you cut her. For me though, any time I win seeing her go Higher, Further, Faster feels like a won double the cubes.
Angela, The Hood, Bucky Barnes & Carnage - 6 Power for cheap if you jump through some hoops. To be fair that's true of most of the deck but these cards are the staples. Angela requires us to fill the lane, Carnage need to eat Never more than 2 cards otherwise we say goodbye to Cerebro. Hood needs to be played before turn 6 and Bucky has to die.
White Queen - It's really easy to overlook how much of an advantage it is to know the most expensive card in your opponents hand. Since we're Cerebro we will rarely play the card but it's still worth it. Even if you know your opponent is running a particular 6 Drop (*cough* Leader *cough*) you don't know they've drawn it or not. If White Queen gives you a 5 or less card when played on turn 4 they only have a 40% chance to draw there impactful 6 before the final turn. Knowing either way makes it a lot easier to know if you should retreat before the stakes double.
**Maria Hill ** - Is currently occupying the one tech slot I've allotted for the deck so let me explain why. The ideal run-out for the deck sees us play all of our 9 natural draws which obviously will not happen often and since many of our cards have play restriction or requirements to get them to 6 Power, a card that helps us meet those and can be played proactively is excellent.
Next I've included the previously mentioned ideal run-out. The locations I include don't refer specifically to the left, middle or right locations just how certain cards should be grouped.
- Hood - Location A
- Angela - Location B
- Red Guardian - Location B
- Bucky then Carnage - Location A
- Demon, Silver Sable & Hit Monkey - As desired
- Cerebro & Mystique - As desired (as long as Angela location is full)
Or like this
- Hood - Location A
- Bucky - Location A
- Cerebro - Location B
- Mystique then Demon - Location B
- Angela then Red Guardian - Location C
- Carnage - Location A, Silver Sable & Hit Monkey - As Desired (as long as Angela location is full)
Lastly some closing thoughts about the deck and some potential problems. Like all Cerebro decks, location variance can be pretty rough to us which is why I have Scarlett Witch & Storm as suggestions. The reason I've tried to run it without them is that unlike Cerebro 2/3 it's way easier to win with 6 Power cards. Once we recognise that Cerebro won't be possible the deck can pivot really well and should hopefully still be able to pull cubes. Another thought I had putting the deck together is that if I could I'd take out Hood, Bucky & Carnage. Cosmo and Armor are just so common that playing them is a bit of a liability, but there just isn't anything remotely as strong and fits our deck restrictions to replace them. The biggest problem though is simply that 3 of the cards are unreleased and there's no guarantee that when they do arrive they'll be what they are datamined as today. So I just have to hope because to me this is a really cool deck. I really like Cerebro but the current "good" Cerebro decks mostly crumble when they run into bad locations, bad draws or a scorpion. I really believe this list has potential to succeed with or without it's namesake.
So that's the deck, if you have any comments or suggestions I'd love to hear them, otherwise get excited for this deck one day. If your in the future though I hope you enjoy it.