Summary
This deck is all about setting up a turn 6 win conditon for Leader. I've piloted this control deck to Infinite twice now and am convinced it's a good deck to climb with due to the turn 6 swings Leader can enable. As a bonus, piloting the deck makes you feel like a super villain as you manipulate the board to ensure victory on turn 6.
Key Cards
The first key card is Leader. He's the main win condition of the deck and where it gets its name from. With his ability, his win condition is roughly:
- Be winning at least one lane.
- Be within 4 points of winning a second lane.
- Have space on your side in each lane for all the cards your opponent could play on theirs (with an additional space for Leader in whichever lane you play him)
He's a fascinating card because his win condition is so strong that it means you're essentially playing a different game than your opponent. Thats where the super villain feeling comes from when you play Leader on turn 6: Your opponent had no idea that you weren't even playing the same game as them.
Daredevil is the second most important key card and the other card that inspired the name of the deck. Daredevil's ability to show you your opponents' cards played on turn 5 allows you to setup Leader's powerful win condition. Try to play Daredevil on turn 4 along with Cloak if possible. It gives your opponent less time to react to the fact that you're going to look at their cards.
Cloak is the third most important key card and he serves two roles. The first is that he's stronger than average for his Energy cost and with this deck, the more power you can distribute to the board by turn 6, the better the odds that you're winning locations (or close enough) to satisfy Leaders wincon. The second and more interesting purpose is to be played on turn 4 to allow you to redistribute your cards during turn 5. With Daredevil active you get to see not only the cards your opponent plays but also whether they move their cards. This gives you a much stronger ability to set up Leader's checkmate of a win condition by literally moving your pieces around before the final turn. I think a lot of people are sleeping on the combo of Daredevil and Cloak for control decks.
The next key card is Angela. She's the best 2 cost card in the game for a reason so don't overthink it. This deck only needs to generate enough power to outright win a single lane(the other lane can be tied or slightly behind) so of course Angela is included. She combos well with Cloak because if your opponent contested your Angela lane you can move her entire lane into one of their weaker lanes.
Nightcrawler is Angela's best friend and gives you more flexibility for... you guessed it: setting up Leader's win condition! You can move him on turn 6 to help satisfy the wincon and of course he lets you build Angela's power up more often.
Finally we have Hobgoblin and Professor X as key cards. These two are control staples and really good for completely shutting down a lane to lock in half of Leaders win condition on turn 5. They both obviously also synergize well with Daredevil and Cloak(when played turn 4).
Other Cards
Captain Marvel might be a surprising card. She's not a key card and can be replaced with another high impact 5 cost card of your choice, but I'd recommend giving her a shot. What I like about her is that her ability to move after the game resolves just makes Leaders win condition more flexible and reduces your guess work. If your opponent has been scared off from contesting your Angela lane, you can play Captain Marvel there to lull your opponent into thinking they've built enough of a lead in the lane you plan to drop Leader in. With Carol on the board, the Leader lane can be up to 10 Power short of winning and you'll still take the lane when she flies there! Playing her into locations like Stark Tower or Muir Isle is good to allow her to get boosted before she flies. She could be replaced by other 5 drops like Aero (who can also set up her own turn 6 win condition separate from Leader) or Vision.
Enchantress is the tech card slot but is easily replaceable with Shang Chi, Cosmo, Killmonger or whatever other card you feel best deals with current meta threats.
The other cards are there for generating enough power to be competitive without Leader. Wave let's you play one of your high impact 5 drops a turn early or throw out Magento(or whatever other 6 drop you choose) to take command of a lane early. Polaris is another high Power to Energy ratio card and the ability to move your opponents cards can help you "adjust the game board" for Leader (pulling their Angela lane into yours for instance. That could set up you abandoning that lane later with Cloak). Magneto has high power and his effect is often times more good than bad(in previous versions of this deck I ran Hulk).
Alternate Options/Substitutions
The biggest area for substitutions is in the non Leader win condition. Instead of Wave and Captain Marvel, Moongirl and Devil Dino can be run. In that case I'd suggest replacing Enchantress with Cosmo as Dino is weak to Shang Chi, Enchantress and Rogue so it is probably worthwhile to be able to protect him. Cosmo also helps keep your curve from changing as it's already high enough. Try to remember that Moongirl can only duplicate the three leftmost cards in your hand so if you want to play two Dinos you have to have room in your hand. If Dino is already on the board going into turn 6, playing Moongirl and Cloak adds up to 14 power to the board. Not bad!
Update: One of the top players in the game gave this deck a spin and really fleshed out the MoonGirl Dino package. I recommend checking the gameplay with his list. In short, you're gonna want to add Sentinel and White Queen into the deck to support the MoonGirl Dino package better. He's not a believer in Cloak and while I still enjoy running him, you can definitely sub him out for a tech card like Armor or Scarlet Witch and be successful. After more brewing and getting feedback from other players who've tried it, I'd probably revisit the core cards and remove Hobgoblin and Cloak from that section. You can replace them with similar cards and be totally fine.
https://twitter.com/KMBestMS/status/1592359629350395904?t=uDxFSL8mvgEbdPLu53bbKw&s=19
Magneto can be replaced by any high power 6 drop of your choice. I'd recommend Hulk as a nice simple alternative everyone should have access to. Devil Dino could be another option but of course his power will wane based on how many of your early cards you were able to play. The point is that sometimes being clever isn't the answer and the only way to win is to just play a high power card.
Piloting
The first thing to do in a game is figure out if you want to try for a Leader win or a Wave game. If your hand has Wave and multiple 5 and 6 cost cards and very few early plays then go for the turn 3 Wave followed by a 6 drop. If you do have early plays, then you should try for a Leader win. Here is an example of the ending of a Wave game: https://imgur.com/a/qwjV7Im
You have to make this determination early because it should change how you decide where to play cards. If you're not playing each turn while thinking about how that move helps set up a Leader turn 6, then you aren't piloting it right.
As for Snapping, you want to do it when you've got DD, Cloak and Leader in hand and the locations aren't unfavorable. Try to Snap BEFORE you play Daredevil and definitely before turn 5 starts. Snapping during a DD turn 5 will tend to make your opponent very nervous and they're likely to retreat.
Learn the caveats to Leaders win condition. His true win condition has a lot more than just 3 bullet points but I listed the 3 most important ones to keep this guide simple. There are other factors that come into play when determining whether playing Leader will win you the game. One of which is cards that move before the turn resolves. Things like an opposing Nightcrawler can completely break the win condition simply by moving to a lane you weren't expecting. Cards like an opposing Angela can throw off your math because copying the cards won't boost your own Angela. Try to keep stuff like that in mind.
Vs Bots
They will typically either get wrecked or predict you perfectly and shut down even Leader. They'll do things like play a Carnage in your Leader lane in order to erase your Leader advantage. I've had them cheat in some incredible ways.