What can I say, Agatha is fun. Does she make dumb plays sometimes? Yeah, but that's part of the "fun"!
The key is understanding a few basic rules:
- Most importantly, Agatha will always play herself if able.
- Agatha will play your cards completely randomly. For example, if it's turn 3 and you have a 1 cost, a 2 cost, and a 3 cost card, she could play the 3 cost, or the 1 cost and the 2 cost
- Agatha will always play a card if able, and will always use all energy available.
- Agatha only plays you cards for you while she's in your hand. Once she's in play, or discarded, you're back in control.
So far the deck is doing about as well as you would expect an Agatha deck to do, which is to say not that great haha. I'm still in the positive by like 0.35 cubes, which is better than a loss but not by much. The goal is to play either turn 3 Wave > Agatha, or turn 3 Lady Sif > Ghost Rider when you feel like it. Personally, I think Ghost Rider is the best situation because of the surprise factor, but in an Agatha deck you take what you can get.
Many Agatha decks run ONLY Sif and Wave as their 3 drops. I'm still going back and forth on my decision to include Zabu as well, but he's just SO USEFUL when he works that I can't bring myself to remove him. Being able to play Zabu turn 5 into 2 4 drops turn 6 is insanely good in an Agatha deck, in my opinion, especially when you remember Ghost Rider is a 4 cost card. That being said, I still need to do some testing with him as the nerf is still new and he may end up being bad now (though on paper it looks like he might be better than he was before).
This deck now runs no cards that cost less than 3. The reason for this is Agatha will randomly play those cards on turns where it's very bad to play them, namely turn 3. That being said, in my opinion, you can run either 1 drops, or 2 drops, but not both in the same deck, and just hope to draw them turns 1-2 or 4-5 instead of turn 3.
If you're wondering why America Chavez instead of something else, there are two reasons. First some Agatha Math (Mathaga? Agamath?): Agatha does not replace your first draw like quicksilver, but instead is an additional card you start with. This means you're effectively playing with an 11 card deck. Add in America Chavez, and now you're playing with a 10 card deck on turns 1-5. This means you have a much higher chance of drawing the cards you need on turns 1-5 by including them both. The other reason is that an Agatha deck absolutely cannot have any other 6 cost cards in it as if you have a 6 cost card other than Agatha, Lady Sif can discard it instead of Agatha, which is very, very bad. Sure, there are variations on this deck that use Hela, but I've tried this variation and it's very frustrating to play considering how very very likely you are to draw Hela with a 10 card deck.
So, now that I've gone over the required cards, let's talk about some replacement cards, since this deck does use some cards not everyone has. Since Agatha herself, Wave, and Ghost Rider are pool 3, though, I'm afraid you'll need some luck of the draw no matter what.
- Zabu - Kazar's kitty may not be in everyone's collection, so let's talk about him first. Since Zabu's now been nerfed from 3/2 "4 cost cards cost 2 less" to 2/2 "4 cost cards cost 1 less", I actually think he's better in this deck! In his current state, he makes for an interesting turn 5 play depending on how your turn 3 shakes out. If you end up pitching Agatha to Sif turn 3, playing Zabu turn 5 means you get to play Ghost Rider and one other card turn 6 which is pretty valuable (and if you also play Wave turn 5 odds are great you're limiting you opponent and not yourself). If she plays herself via Wave instead, then you have the choice of Zabu + Sif or Aero turn 5, so it's a trickier situation. The only problem comes from Zabu coming down turn 2, which means the odds are great Agatha will play something other than Wave or Sif turn 3, but that was always a risk with Zabu even before. As before, if you need a replacement for Zabu, you can still replace him with Sunspot, or one of the suggested 4 drops like Shang Chi. Just remember, you want only 1 drops, or only 2 drops, in this deck if you have 1-2 cost cards at all, to reduce chances of Agatha screwing up your turn 3.
- Drax - Drax is really nice because he adds some power to the deck where it's otherwise lacking it, but if you don't have him, you can replace him with any 4 or 5 cost card that adds some power to the deck. Ideally this would be something like Rescue or Crossbones, but even Namor or Warpath could work, depending on how your turn 3 plays out.
- Enchantress - The deck used to run both Enchantress AND Shang Chi, but they are dead draws so often I think it hurt the deck more than it helped it. Because of that I think this spot should be either Enchantress OR Shang Chi. I do not recommend Cosmo in this deck because he costs 3 and dilutes your chances of playing the right cards on turn 3. Personally I run Enchantress, because I like her Chibi variant and I seem to run into Patriot and Dino a lot, but Shang Chi is a fine replacement for her depending on what you're running into.
- Aero - This lady is a little hard to replace because she can really save your bacon. She's tech against Shang Chi or other annoying cards trying to destroy Agatha or contest locations you're winning. That being said, you could replace her with either Devil Dinosaur, or Taskmaster. Dino is good because this deck skips a lot of turns, which means a lot of cards in hand, and with White Queen in the deck, you can keep your hand decently full, which makes Dino a nice power drop in another lane. Taskmaster works in the very specific, but not uncommon, scenario where you can do Wave > Agatha > Taskmaster. He's very swingy when he works, but if you end up playing Agatha via Ghost Rider instead, then Taskmaster is a dead draw because you play Ghost Rider, not Agatha, so Taskmaster will only copy Ghost Rider.
- Jubilee - Everyone has Jubilee, so if you don't want her in the deck, that's your choice. before we recommend replacements, though, I'll say that playing Jubilee means that you draw all of the cards in your deck except one (you draw 3 cards plus Agatha turn 0, then 1 card per turn for 6 turns, and Jubilee pulls one extra card out for a total of 11 of your 12 cards). That's a very consistent deck, especially with Zabu in there allowing you to play Jubilee and one other card on turn 6 when you know there's a 50% chance to get a card you want with her. That being said, you could also replace Jubilee with Magik, who works similarly (it should also be noted that if both Magik and Jubilee are played you draw ALL of your cards), or you could swap her for Sunspot for more stats, or just any 4 drop with some decent power like Rescue or Crossbones.