Muir Island
Muir Island is going to create a unique chance for massive power in a lane. However, how much is too much? 9. That is too much. So, let's aim to always end the game with cards at 8 power. With that said, when playing into Muir Island, when playing ON curve, remember that you want to play a card into that lane whose power is only ONE MORE than the current turn.
- If Muir Island pops up in the first location lane, and you play a 2-power card there, by the end of the game, it will be an 8 power card. Keep the pattern going! Turn 2, play a 3 power card. Turn 3, play a 4 power card. Etc.
With that pattern established, let's strategize.
The Featured Location from July 22nd, 2023 at 11pm EST to July 23rd, 2023 at 11pm EST is Muir Island. As a featured location, it will have a 50% chance to appear in any ladder match. Now you must make a choice:
- Build INTO It
- Build AROUND It
- Ignore it
How to Build INTO it
- Rocket Raccoon I love today because he can snipe as a 1/2 or a 1/4 into the Muir lane. A solid option to play on turn 3 as we should potentially see a load of Broods and Mister SInisters be played into that lane as well.
- Jeff makes an appearance as he could essentially curve up into being a 7 power floater which would work well with your control decks.
- Armor is in here specifically if you're ignoring that "9-power rule" and letting big cards get even bigger in this lane.
- Brood and Silver Surfer land here as a duo knowing that Brood and his Broodlings will top off at 8 power when all is said and done if played into Muir Island on turn 3 with the Surfer cherry top off.
- Omega Red and Iron Man make too much sense to me here. This is a controllable lane that can create incredibly consistent win cons. So, having these two mega players pile together seems like a no-brainer to scale power into multiple lanes.
- Captain Marvel becoming a floating 8-power card instead of a 6 should be enough to keep some security if you're going to play into multiple turn 6 win conditions.
How to Build AROUND it
- Invisible Woman & Shang Chi partner together well here as many players will ignore that 9-cost rule in this lane and load it early. So, knowing the location effect will proc BEFORE Invisible Woman reveals Shang Chi could be that one extra power needed to push the opponents cards over the top into Shang-Chi territory.
- NTW is also here to help control your turn 4, 5 & 6 drops in Muir. If you cant have fun, why should they?
- Killmonger could be meta here as many players will try to 'capitalize' on getting those lane dropped 1-cost cards to have some sort of value. Nice way to snipe some cubes at the end of this match.
- And then there's Stegron. Turn 6 Stegron just feels so incredibly powerful in this location. See the deck below as to why.
When all else fails, destroy it.
Running either Storm, Rhino or Scarlet Witch will switch the location, therefore eliminating the ability entirely.
Featured Deck - On All Fours
- I'm going to run a hybrid Darkhawk/Omega Red deck on this Sunday in particular because we have a few combos to scale massive power with.
- Korg & Rockslide fit on curve into the Muir lane to end at 8 power so they can't be Shang Chi'd. Therefore, Darkhawk could be a solid consistent lane winner.
- Nightcrawler provides us with early play again that can stay, or even move, into the Muir lane and top out at 8-power.
- The Omega Red/Stegron synergy looks strong here too to feed power into the other lanes. I like this with Onslaught as well as a play pattern in you don't draw Iron Man.
- When all else fails, Iron Man + Onslaught is 28 power all by it self on turns 5 & 6. And into Muir Island, that turns into 40 power. So, playing everything else strong into a different lane, like Warpath and Darkhawk, could forceast two strong contender lanes as well.
- Stegron and Nightcrawler also lead us to Miles Morales. Plus, with the recent OTA changes to Ghost-Spider and Phoenix Force, Miles seems like a great drop here this weekend while these move cards are hot on defense and built into the offense.
- Overall, I think the deck is going to be consistent both in and out of this featured location. But, with the incentive to WANT to play into Muir Island, we can capitalize on that offensively and defensively in this deck. I hope you enjoy it!