Hey guys! I wanted to wait until I hit infinite rank with this deck before I started writing about it, but the guide's finally here! I'm very excited to show you all what I've been cooking up involving the newest card just added to the game, Hit-Monkey.
Lots of people have been using Hit-Monkey in their decks, and he's typically being found in Sera miracle and bounce decks. However, I decided that I wanted to run him in a Valkyrie style deck, as Valk is a really surprising and powerful cards that can consistently steal 8 cubes right from out under your opponent's nose.
This deck has so many different win conditions that it can be overwhelming, but with time and this guide hopefully you can understand why this deck is so powerful and versatile. Bounce decks by design are a bit more complex and nuanced than most other archetypes, so I'm going to be doing my best to try and break down some of my strategies and reasoning.
Basic info and combos you need to know
The Beast Opener
Beast is generally better the earlier he's played out in this deck, so that you can play out cards like Moon Girl, Sera and Valkyrie later on.
t1: any 1-drop. t2: either one or two 1-drops in the same lane. t3: Beast onto the lane and bring three 1-drops back into your hand.
This can be potentially huge for Hit-Monkey plays later on, as each of those 1-drops basically have an imaginary +2 power when you play them out with Hit-Monkey on turn 6. This potential for extra power goes up dramatically if you can manage to copy Hit-Monkey with Moon Girl later on.
You can also choose to play Hit-Monkey into the Beast lane and bring him back along with two 1-drops if you like, with Monkey being played either on turn 2 or turn 4 with Beast. Having Hit-Monkey as a 1-cost rather than a 2-cost can open up a lot of new possibilities, and will be especially useful in games where Sera doesn't appear.
The only cheap card you don't want to pull back with Beast is Bishop, and sometimes Angela, but this can vary from game to game. As a rule focus on 1-drops and possibly Hit-Monkey.
The Solid Opener
This is probably the best non-Beast opener you can play, barring some exceptions.
t1: any 1-drop. t2: Angela. t3: Bishop.
You may want to consider putting Angela and Bishop on the same lane if you think there's a high chance of winning another lane with something like Antman/Sunspot/Demon + Valkyrie.
From there you can either Moon Girl and copy something, play Hit Monkey and Beast, Mysterio and Hit Monkey.
The "Nothing Else" opener
t1 Sunspot. t2: whatever. t3: pass. t4: She-Hulk.
Obviously not the greatest option but it's still something, and it will often beat out your opponent if they also got a weak opening hand.
Mystery Monkey
Most people know about this synergy but I want to touch on it anyways.
t4-6: Mysterio and Hit Monkey. 10 damage total. Generally not the best use of Monkey if played on t4, but there will be times where you want to get him out as fast as possible, such as if you want to play Sera or Moon Girl next turn and it's not possible to clone him, or if you don't see a better opening to play these two together.
How to Valkyrie
Basically if Valkyrie is played into a full lane that includes Angela, Bishop, Sunspot or Ant-Man, and you don't have priority on that turn, you're normally going to win that lane (remember to float 1 energy with Sunspot).
Cards that normally act as dead weight, such as Hood and Mysterio clones, can act as great fodder for Valkyrie, so try and pair these together if you can.
There are a few ways that Valkyrie can still lose from a favorable position. If the opponent plays Aero, Killmonger, displaces your lane with Magneto, plays Cosmo, knocks you out with Juggernaut, or plays other cards that buff their lane such as Captain America or Ant-Man, you may run into problems. But generally speaking you should have the foresight to see if your opponent is likely to play anything out like this, but it can't always be helped.
Winning with Valkyrie when you have priority IS possible, but risky if the lane enemy lane is close to full with a good chance to overpower you.
How to win games (possible win conditions):
Due to the flexibility of Bounce decks, there are actually more win conditions than the ones written here, but here are some of the ones I make regular use of:
The Valkyrie play
t5 Sera. t6 Mysterio, Valkyrie (played into a full lane with antman/bishop/angela/sunspot) and Hit-Monkey OR Demon. 12 power from Mysterio and Monkey, up to 17 power if Bishop is also in play, up to 21 power if Angela is also in play (not counting Valkyries' stats or lane since she will win her lane regardless).
You can see that the power from this goes up dramatically with Bishop and Angela in play, so try and maximize the play with those cards if you can.
The Moon Girl play
t4 Moon Girl to copy Hit Monkey, Demon, and Mysterio. t5 Sera. t6 Mysterio x2, Demon x2 and Hit-Monkey x2. Without Bishop or Angela buffs the power gain on turn 6 looks like this: 8 + 12 + 40, for 60 damage total on turn 6 BEFORE even factoring in Bishop and Angela.
That is a huge amount of power but keep in mind this is THE most optimal version of this combo.Even if you can only copy Monkey and Demon or Mysterio you're still looking at a ton of extra power on the board with Sera in play.
The Moon Girl + She-Hulk play
t(1-3) Sunspot, t4 Moon Girl to copy She Hulk, t5 pass, t6 She Hulk x2, Mysterio, Hit Monkey. 18 + 4 + 6 = 28 damage on turn 6. Still a very good option even if you are missing Sunspot. As long as at least She Hulk is cloned you can improvise the combo in a number of different ways depending on your hand.
I like to think of Moon Girl + She Hulk as an option separate from other Moon Girl plays because you really need to hard commit to She Hulk in order to make sure she's playable on turn 6.
The Weird Play
I don't have a strict definition for this one, but it's just the general idea of being able to pull out surprising options using discounted cards from Beast. For example, if you did something like t3 bounce back Ant-man, Sunspot, and Demon, you could later pull out a t6 that looks like Hood + Valkyrie + those three cards to complete a full lane for a sudden 11 power boost on another lane (not including Bishop and Angela buffs).
It's pretty hard to math out what you can get with options like these, but that's part of the fun of this deck. I find Bounce decks to be very fun in the amount of creativity and expressive plays they allow you to perform, especially when you factor in what locations can enable.
Other Notes:
I'm writing this shortly after it was announced that Sunspot would be going from a 1/1 to a 1/0. This honestly won't really affect him in any meaningful way, and doesn't change what he wants to accomplish here. You still want to run him as long as the deck includes She-Hulk at least.
The main reason Bast isn't included in this deck is because I don't have him. He has great synergy with Hit-Monkey decklists, but I'm not sure if he'd work well with cards like She-Hulk if he was included, I'd need to do some testing.
Ghost could also be a good card since you really want to give priority on t6 when you're playing Valkyrie, but between the Beast bounces and the Mysterio clones not giving power, generally you're going to be going 2nd on t6 anyways, so I don't think Ghost is that important here.
You CAN beat Sandman/wave decks, but it's rare. I would recommend retreating these games, they just counter combo decks too hard.
Killmonger is also a huge counter, especially if you try and win with Valkyrie. This can't really be avoided, but if you really want you could probably add an Armor somewhere to help with that problem.
I think the most replaceable card on this list might be Sera. I like to use her in order to make Valk + mysterio + monkey plays on turn 6, however she can be a little clunky at times. For example, if you've already used Beast on Monkey and Angela, Sera won't provide any additional benefit to those cards since they can't go below 1 cost. I personally believe that her pros vastly outweigh the cons, but feel free to replace her and experiment with other choices if you'd like.