I'm a big Surfer fan. I used to be a Move fan. This is my attempt at a Surfer Move deck. I don't have a TON of games with it yet but it does have ways to win against the Prof X Cannonball decks that have risen up to combat Hela. However, this decks gets wrecked by Hela, Tribunal and other decks that can go super tall in multiple lanes.
This deck can't go crazy tall in multiple lanes but what i can do is move around a lot of it's power to let you adapt to what your opponent is doing. You want to try to win the lanes they're not strong in. That's why decks that can go tall and wide are a problem.
The ideal play line is Angela -> Hope -> Jeff in the Angela/Hope lane and Kraven in another. From there you can really start to scale your threats and dump your hand. You finish with Surfer to give everybody a nice boost.
Key Cards
Surfer - Obviously but he helps you play into Prof X by being able to pump those lanes on turn 6 after he locks them down. Our other scalers Angela and Kraven can't do anything once Prof X is played on them so this is what justifies this being a Surfer deck (beyond me just being a big fan of the character and card).
Hope - Hope is the new Sera for Surfer decks. For Surfer decks, it's VERY important to get Hope down by turn 4 so that we can play two 3 cost cards on turns 5. She's less flexible than Sera who can be played to any lane by turn 5 and provide her benefit. However the restriction gets payed off by the fact that Hope herself actually gets buffed by Surfer as well as the extra 3 cost card she lets you play. So compared to Sera, Hope ends up being worth about 8 extra power: + 4 from Surfers buff on Hope and the extra 3 cost card and then the power of that 3 cost card itself (which is between 3-5 in this deck). She also lets you better compete for priority on turn 6 compared to Sera. She's not vulnerable to Mobius either and is less useful to Loki than Sera because the amount of energy cheat she gives is capped at +3 (if they fill her lane on turn 5) whereas Sera can provide Loki players up to 7 additional energy via her discount! All Surfer decks that want to run Sera should instead run Hope imo and it's not even a close consideration.
Angela/Kraven - You typically only get to play ONE of these two in a given match. Angela is definitely the better of the two. Occasionally the stars will align and you'll be able to play both but you REALLY want to play a 3 cost card on turns 3, 4 and 5 in which case you can only play the other one on turn 5. Obviously both of these cards kind of stink when played that late but if you have to choose you want to play Angela on 2 and Kraven on 5. This way you can Move your cards out of Angela's lane on turn 6 to pump her up some more and boost Kraven at the same time. Hope can give you extra leeway here and allow you to get both out in plenty of time.
Jeff - This is a deck that runs Angela and Kraven so we want to run Jeff. It's as simple as that. However some other perks are that he further helps us combat Prof X, let's us fill a lane early to better control where Spider-Man moves and if we run Miles he gives us another way to discount him to 1 cost on turn 4. This is important as it lets us play a 3 cost card and play Miles into Hope on turn 4.
Polaris/Juggernaut/Spider-Man - This is not a deck that can go super tall so Move disruption is important for disrupting certain Combo decks before they have a chance to go off or simply thwarting decks looking to rely on a single big card to win a lane. They each have their uses. Polaris is best for disrupting enemy Angela plays or denying early Destroy combos by pulling Wolverine, Deadpool or X-23 to a different lane. Juggernaut is great for nearly guaranteeing a win on lanes you're ahead in, provided you have priority and the opponent has one other lane with space for their cards to go. Works best if you can lock down one of their lanes early with Polaris and Spider-Man. Juggs also gets a shout for beating the Cannonball Prof X stuff when they throw priority. Spidey plays a similar role to Juggs but because his effect is more random he's better earlier, against decks that will play a single card to win a location or decks which need specific cards in specific lanes for their combo to work. He's great for amping Kraven though and clogging the opponent up.
Alternative Options
1 Cost cards
This deck needs to run THREE one cost cards. That gives us a good chance to be able to play Hope + 1 on turn 4. Hope + 1 on turn 4 is so critical to Surfer decks because it gives us much better temp going into turn 6 and in total it ends up being worth about 6+ points of power more than playing Sera (assuming you play Surfer on turn 6). Tempo is important because a lot of our disruption relies on having priority to be effective.
Since this is a Kraven/Miles/Angela deck we obviously want Nightcrawler. Miles serves as our second 'one cost card' thanks to how easily we can trigger his discount. However we can replace him if we don't like having to Move cards before we want to in order to get him discounted by turn 4. Your choice of 1 cost cards comes mainly down to personal preference.
With that said, any 1 cost card we consider needs to be decent to good when played on turn 1 AND good when played on turn 4 since we may end up holding it until then. We also don't want to to have much of a location restriction to get value from it since it's gonna have to go wherever Hope goes.
Early scalers like Sunspot and Nebula or cards like Elektra or Rocket which trigger based on opponent card placement are out because they don't satisfy those conditions
- Spider-Ham - His disruption is better later
- Iceman - His disruption is arguably better late as well because it gives the opponent less time to adapt their gameplan.
- Echo - Since Angela and Hope really telegraph where we're gonna play, we use her more defensively to protect against Cosmo being played against our OnReveals.
- Hawkeye - His restriction is already baked in since we typically want to play into the Angela or Hope lane anyway. We are never playing him turn 6 anyway.
- Snow Guard - She's better earlier but isn't bad on turn 4 if we want to user the Bear or Hawk to trip up our opponents.
Angela Bounce type stuff
You can lean into the Angela/Hope side of the deck by adding Kitty and Elsa. However, you'd probably want to drop a lot of the Move component (Kraven, Polaris, Spidey or Juggs and Miles) and add more cheaper cards. Maybe even bring Brood back. The Move stuff doesn't work with Elsa because to get the most value from Polaris, Juggs, Spidey and even Nocturne you need to play them in specific locations on specific turns. Elsa meanwhile wants you to stack cards in a single location and then move them out (or fill multiple locations at once and then Bounce the cards back to hand). With all those Move cards gone, Miles becomes less reliable so you replace him with an actual 1 cost card as well. Finally, consider Black Swan as a way to play Kitty and your Bounced up 1 drops on turn 6 along with Surfer and another 3 cost card. Actually.. I may just make a full Bounce Surfer deck.
Traditional Move
Another option is to lean harder into traditional Move by adding Vulture, Cloak and Iron Fist. Don't run Ghost Spider. She's a LOT more awkward with Angela and Hope because if you play her into either of their lanes you lose a trigger when she pulls the card there. She's also awkward on turn 6 because you can't play Vulture + GS + Surfer unless you managed to get the extra energy from Hope. Overall, it's better to play Iron Fist because you can play him last on turn 5 and then turn 6 play Vulture to boost Angela or Kraven (or both if you're lucky) + Surfer. As I mentioned, Hope + 1 is critical for Surfer decks and going Hope + Ghost Spider just kind of sucks. Cloak is tricky too because he gives your opponent flexibility too. Try to play him into lanes where your opponent only has one empty space. This way, if they do take advantage of the Move, they end up capping their lane early. I may make a Traditional Move Surf list but honestly I think it's gonna suck because Traditional Move just isn't any good :'(
Abs Man Double Up
Copying Surfer on turn 6 (after using Hope) is great but it's not a bad day if we can copy Juggs or Spidey to catch our opponent off guard and potentially clog them. The downside is that if we don't copy an OnReveal or if we just don't get good value from it because we whiffed then he's pretty bad as a 4/4. For this reason, an Abs Man double up version of the deck only potentially works if we go the Elsa Bounce direction and add Brood. I haven't explored this yet because it seems the least viable of all alternatives I considered.