The Rise of the Red Skull: Zola (Expert Solo)

This is the villain I was really nervous about. See, Zola's got a lot of villains, which should really hurt this deck. And boy, did it not disappoint. Zola is an intimidating opponent, with enough minions to overrun anyone. But it's his freaking Scheme value that scared me the most. Draw just one Advance, just one, and it's possible to lose, flat out. Which meant that I had to swap out stuff in my deck to be able to keep the pressure up, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Oh, and Tough's a jerk. A big fat orange jerk.

Spider-Blitz 

Allies

Brawn

Valkyrie

Black Cat

Spider-Girl

Support

Aunt May

Helicarrier

Hall of Heroes

Avenger's Mansion

Upgrades

Spider-Tracer x2

Web-Shooter x2

Webbed Up x2

Downtime

Martial Prowess

Events

Press the Advantage x2

Drop Kick x2

Enhanced Spider-Sense x2

Backflip x2

You'll Pay For That! x3

Toe to Toe x3

Relentless Assault x2

Swinging Web Kick x3

Resources

The Power of Aggression x2

Energy

Strength

Genius

Campaign

Laser Cannon

Basic Recovery

Zola

I lost three games, right in a row, all right before I would have won. Zola's scheme value trashed me whenever I swapped back to heal, which wasn't very often, due to the sudden availability of Aunt May acrost all four games. The real trip up for this deck, however, was Defensive Programming: +2 hp and Guard, which blocked my access to Zola, while making sure that practically anything I had short of a Swinging Web Kick couldn't one shot the minion who got it. Toughness also came up fairly often, slowing down my machine further. I cannot emphasize this enough: if this deck does not get its Swinging Web Kicks in ASAP real problems begin to emerge.

I'm not kidding when I say that every loss happened with a Swinging Web Kick in hand, Zola at 7 or 8 hp in his last stage, waiting for the next turn. Either I'd get swarmed or schemed out. So I took to social media, hitting up the fine folks on the interwebs  for some quick advice. I got some responses that were really good: take out all but one of my You'll Pay for That! for two Piercing Strikes and one of my Toe to Toes for a third Relentless Assault. This would allow me to kill off the minions and end guard, meaning the Swinging Web Kicks could get through faster.

As a quick aside, I love fan communities for this sort of thing. Like I've said before, this game hits a lot of weak spots in myself, particularly the more logical and analytical aspects. It's so nice to be able to go and jump onto Facebook and Reddit to see what other people are doing and get advice. No community is perfect but it's been so nice for this game and Arkham Horror in particular to get in and see what other people have been doing.

I ended the game at 10 hp, which is just as well, considering that Red Skull is up next. Eep!

Conclusion

Zola was the toughest foe I've faced in the expert campaign so far. Toughness and minions with guard are just incredibly rude aspects of his deck and Zola makes excellent use of them. The jerk just throws you under a pile of amplified minions and then schemes you into the ground when you go back to heal. One of the things that I habitually don't notice is the increased scheme value of a villain. That's usually cause I'm playing Protection or Aggression and am not used to seeing a lot of scheming, but the simple fact of the matter is that a Scheme of 3 trips me up pretty badly. 

Y'know, not to mention all those asshole minions. And Toughness. Evil orange Toughness

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