Rogue Champions – Shadowcat

Greetings! Continuing our look at the X-Men added to Marvel Champions, we’re taking a look at the girl who won’t let walls get in her way, Shadowcat

Hero Summary

We’re going to try something a bit different for Shadowcat. Instead of looking at each of her cards individually, we’re going to take a holistic approach and review her kit all at once. On that note, let’s get started.

Shadowcat, aka Kitty Pride, is a Multi-Form hero in the vein of Ant-man, Wasp, Vision and Spectrum. This makes her love Ready to Rumble in any of her decks, which you’ll see below, because she’ll be changing form quite often. On the scale of Multi-Form heroes, she sits in an odd place. Unlike Vision, Ant-man or Wasp, she can’t choose to flip whenever she wants by taking an action or using standard form change ability. However, unlike most of the others, she can flip multiple times between forms with relative ease and even during the Villains phase. This gives her a lot of flexibility and makes choosing what form she should be in at any given time the crux to using her effectively. The key piece to having a good game with Shadowcat is to remember that while in Solid form, flipping to Phased is an optional Response but while in Phased form, switching back to Solid is a Forced Response.

So what’s the difference for Shadowcat between her two hero forms? While in Solid form, there are no special conditions in effect. She’s a regular old solid person like you or me. Phased form, the one she can be forced out of, has two major effects. The first, comes from the form card itself. When she defends in this form she can’t take damage. She is effectively invulnerable. It’s better than Tough, because Tough can be pierced but this can’t. There are two caveats. She has to be Defending and once she does that, she is kicked back into Solid form.

The other main effect from being Phased comes from her hero ability. While Phased, she ignores Guard, Patrol and Crisis. That gives her a lot of flexibility against cards that typically exist to remove player flexibility. Two of her kit’s upgrades further enhance this ability. Acute Control and Intangible Interference add a secondary bonus when she ignores one of these keywords by either thwarting threat from the Crisis she ignored or damaging the Patrol/Guard minion. Overall, this is the weakest of her abilities. Typically, when you have a minion in play, you’re going to want to kill it whether it has Guard/Patrol or not. In certain cases, ignoring the keyword and using her upgrades lets you do both, but not often. Likewise, ignoring a Crisis can help in the case where you lose if you don’t thwart the main scheme. But if you’re that close, you were already having a bad game and hopefully, that isn’t relevant very often.

Now, ignoring Patrol is another matter. If you are building Shadowcat as a Justice and focusing on threat removal for the team, being able to ignore Patrol can keep you relevant. An ill timed Patrol minion can wreck a Justice heroes turn, preventing them from doing anything useful if there are no side schemes in play. Thwarting does not force Shadowcat to change form, so she can remain phased and continue to ignore Patrol as long as she needs too. Still, outside from a few select Villains or Encounter sets, these keywords are not very relevant. I’ve found myself never playing her two upgrades in most games I’ve played with her.

Most of her kit will have different effects based on which form she is in. Airwalk and Phased Strike both are enhanced when she is in Phased form, so much so that they are not worth playing if she is in Solid form. On the other hand, Quickshift has different effects based on your form, which is its main value. It is a Defense card which means by playing it, you now count as Defending. This allows you to shift from Solid into Phased to avoid taking damage (and then back because you just defended, triggering the Forced Response). It also allows you to be Defending without exhausting while already in Phased form, and you get to draw more cards on top of that.

Shadowcat’s signature support is Kitty’s Room, which is your typical affair, giving an ability when she goes down to Alter-Ego. Depending on her form, she can either draw an extra card or heal. This works in conjunction with her Alter-Ego ability, which lets her switch between forms as an action. While these are all nice, if you’re playing her well, you’ll never have any need of dropping to Alter-Ego because she’ll never take any damage.

Her signature ally is a friendly little dragon named Lockheed. He is a great ally, costing only two and having a bonus effect based on which form Shadowcat is in. What’s most amusing about Lockheed is he has the Dragon keyword which makes me wonder what other dragons are coming?

Her final few pieces of kit are not impacted by her form. Shadowcat Surprise is a great value card. It is an attack for three damage for two cost, allowing you to do damage and then switch between your forms. It also serves as a Ready. This is probably her best card. Finally, Phased and Confused works like a cheaper version of Webbed Up.  Costing only three, it allows you to prevent one enemy attack, sort of like a Stun but this can be used against Stalwart or Steady enemies. Further, it then Confuses the enemy which works great as part of a team that likes to let someone drop into Alter-Ego regularly.

Sample Decks

Shadowcat Surprise (Aggression)

•  Allies
  • Angel
  • Colossus*
• Events
  • 3x Get Over Here
  • 3x One by One
  • 1x Shadow and Steel*
  • 3x Surprise Attack
• Resources
  • 2x Aggressive Energy
  • Energy
  • Genius
  • Strength
• Supports
  • The X-Jet
• Upgrades
  • 1x Combat Training
  • 1x Deft Focus
  • 3x Fluid Motion
  • 1x Martial Prowess
  • 3x Ready to Rumble
  • 1x Symbiote Suit*

Shadowcat leans into her ability to flip forms regularly and attack often to supercharge herself using Fluid Motion. With all three in play, plus an array of cheap attack events to trigger it, plus Combat Training and Symbiote Suit if you are so inclined, she can get herself up to seven base attack. With Ready to Rumble and Shadowcat Surprise (her event card) she should have no trouble readying to strike at least twice in a turn. Triggering all three Fluid Motions requires good draws but all of her Aggression events are cheap which helps her play three attack events and potentially have something else to do.

Symbiote Suit, Colossus, and Shadow and Steel are all optional cards for this deck. Shadow and Steel is a good card so worth trying to pull off, which requires Colossus if you’re not teaming up with him as a hero. Symbiote Suit gives you that extra attack to pull of seven, but six is still good. The other benefit is the extra hand size which increases the odds of being able to trigger all Fluid Motions in a turn. With multiple ready options she is one who might get enough benefit from it to make the extra Encounter card worth it.

Shadowcat Can take a Hit (Protection)

•  Allies
  • None
• Events
  • 3x Defiance
  • 3x Jump Flip
  • 3x Powerful Punch
  • 3x Sidestep
• Resources
  • Energy
  • Genius
  • Strength
• Supports
  • X-Jet
• Upgrades
  • 1x Dauntless
  • 1x Electrostatic Armor
  • 1x Endurance
  • 1x Flow Like Water
  • 1x Nerves of Steel
  • 3x Ready to Rumble
  • 1x Unflappable

You know what happens when Shadowcat defends in Phased form? Nothing, she can’t take damage. What’s the best way to exploit that? Try to be in Phased form and defending any time she would take damage. To pull that off you need a lot of Defense event cards with the Defense keyword that don’t trigger off of you already being the defender. Things like Never Back Down and Desperate Defense are out. You don’t care about boosting your defense stat after all. In are Defiance, Powerful Punch, Jump Flip, and Side Step. These cards are intended to mitigate things when you take damage. Which they will do by making you the defender and therefore immune to damage. When you’re not in Phased form to start, they’ll do their regular effect, mitigating your damage, and then flipping you into Phased form. Defiance and Powerful Punch can further be used to make Shadowcat the defender without needing to exhaust.

To really make this build feel like an exploit, we have Flow Like Water, Dauntless, and Electrostatic Armor. Any time she defense with one of her event cards, she’s dishing three damage back out to her attacker. Those don’t need to exhaust so if you can defend multiple times, you get to dish that damage back multiple times.

The biggest weakness of this build will be getting all of your upgrades into play. You’re geared around blowing your load during the Villains phase, which leaves you very few cards to play on your turn. Until you get some of the resource generating cards out (X-Jet, Unflappable, Nerves of Steel) you’re paying with cards in hand. If you’re not careful you could get into a loop where you’re not building up your kit and not defending very well.

Shadowcat Keeps the Peace (Justice)

• Allies
  • Angel
  • Blindfold
  • Colossus
  • Professor X
• Events
  • 3x Lay Down the Law
  • 3x Mutant Peacekeepers
  • 1x Shadow and Steel
  • 2x Warning
• Resources
  • Energy
  • Genius
  • Strength
• Supports
  • 1x X-Jet
• Upgrades
  • 1x Chance Encounter
  • 1x Deft Focus
  • 1x Endurance
  • 1x Heroic Intuition
  • 2x Justice Served
  • 1x Mission Training
  • 1x Overwatch
  • 2x Ready to Rumble
  • 1x Sense of Justice
  • 1x Skilled Investigator

Shadowcat has the option of remaining in Phased form as long as she only thwarts. This gives her the option to thwart while ignoring Patrol and Crisis keywords.  To further fuel her flexibility, you have Mutant Peacekeepers. This card lets you combine Shadowcat’s thwart with her allies and remove threat from any scheme she wants. Blindfold and Colossus can remain in play most of the time to help fuel this, throwing Mission Training on one of them for more thwart. Colossus remaining in play lets her play Shadow and Steel whenever it comes up. She can cycle Professor X, Lockheed and Angel as needed. With Chance Encounter, Overwatch, Skilled Investigator, and Justice Served she has the potential to draw an ally, ready, draw a card, and double up the thwart. Ready to Rumble is still there to help her ready more often but will probably be used more during the villain phase as she will attack less often. When she does flip, she has Lay Down the Law for a cheap four threat removal. Warning is not a card you see often. Tossing a card from hand to prevent one damage is not a great value. However, with Shadowcat, if you are phased, you spend it and prevent all of the damage you’d take so it has far more value. With no extra attack or defense cards it helps keep her defending.

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Wayne Basta

Editor-in-Chief at d20 Radio

Wayne is the managing editor of d20 Radio's Gaming Blog. He also writes Sci-fi, . If you enjoy his work, you can support him on Patreon.

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