Weekly Release Discussion: Kluh

This is your precursor to the consensus, the place to discuss the card releasing for the week as well as group source the work on brews and possible shells and packages, both current known good decks as well as possible new, theorycrafted brews.

OTA Week Warning: Unless you're already seasonal complete and plan to stay that way or have planned on picking up this card already for 6k it's best to wait for Thursday at the earliest to make your purchasing decisions.

This Week's Card

Kluh
Cost: 5
Power: 10
On Reveal: EACH player randomly gives a card in their hand -1 Cost for each different Cost among their cards in play.

Synergies and Packages

Week two of the Axis Invasion brings Kluh, the Hulk's inverted personification, a 5/10 On Reveal that randomly gives each player -1 Cost for each different Cost among their cards in play.

This is an on-curve players dream card and with the right setup could give you up to -6 or if you're daring -7 in total cost reduction. There are of course some questions to ask:

First off, Does this card see himself or not? Based on previous cards he would not recognize himself as a different cost during the reveal because he is not technically resolved yet and therefore not in play. This means that an early Kluh might not be all that worthwhile. Turn 4 in a normal game would give you at best -3 and on turn 5 -4.

Second off, can he reduce cost to 0? The intial thought is that yes he should be able to because he doesn't have the rider on his text that says cannot reduce to 0 but that would be a huge text box so maybe he can't. This will need to be tested.

So let's talk some synergies here before we talk about some comparisons that likely should be kept in mind.

First things first - Mobius M. Mobius is about to become Kluh's best friend and worst enemy. In the hands of a Kluh deck it ensures the discounts are one sided while in matches against Kluh it ensures that your opponent is forced to play honestly.

Secondary to MMM, let's talk not only duplication but the impacts of possible discounts as well since there are some very obvious archetypes that Kluh could fit in but also some very interesting things to consider when it comes to cost discounting, ramping into, and duplication.

• Majestic Wing Beat - -1 Cost and +2 power, simple enough, getting your Kluh down to 4 cost can allow you to play him on 4 or even as a 1+4 play on 5.

• Phastos and Mr. Fantastic First Steps - both have the opportunity to give -1 Cost or +2 Power. Phastos of course works on the cards left in deck and Mr. Fantastic is random in hand.

• Psylocke Fractured Frontier - cost reduction for your 5's and 6's could help ensure that you not only get to play Kluh early but that you could also be playing additional 6's early too with possible support after the Kluh discount.

• Wong - Doubling those discounts to the hand seems enticing, does it not?

• Absorbing Man - if you can get Kluh on 4 and then Abs on 5 that seems particularly spicy.

• Symbiote Spider-Man - another 'wong' so to speak but this card often sees more play alongside more over the top combo pieces like Fallen One, Nimrod, and Star-Lord MotS (RIP?). The question would be in whether you can find balance in the combo aspects while fulfilling the unique costs on board for Kluh, in which case that is much easier said than done.

But what about card synergies and deck builds?

The most obvious card that Kluh could find synergy with is Superior Iron Man. That -1 does count for -2 cost but then you need to be finding ways to buff him too. Or maybe just having a 3/9 or getting him for possibly cheaper depending on deck make-up and location effects is good enough?

When it comes to decks there are two immediate standouts that come to mind for me, the most obvious since we are looking to play 1 card and technically using all of your energy every turn to ensure you're maximizing for Kluh leads me to Wiccan. Wiccan decks have long been decks that suffers from having trouble finishing the game, mostly because you're often building to take advantage of the Wiccan but lacking in sturdy payoffs.

Alternatively we could also be looking to do things with Pixie, with a decently shuffled set of costs in hand to get to the board it is possible that you have plenty of 'distinct' costs on the board for Kluh to take advantage of. An additional advantage to playing Pixie is that you can also run MMM as part of your gameplan to keep your low-cost cards low-cost while also preventing your opponent from taking advantage of the cost reduction.

Those are the immediate smacks me in the face cards but there could be other places to consider as well, what if we're able to do a mostly curve-out thing but with Wong and double dip on the cost discounts, might there be something in that realm? How can it rate vs other Strategies in the same realm like say 'Splat' style Surfer Decks, could it enable something that gets away from the Surfer side of the Splat deck and enables something unique?

And finally, we should look at some comparisons here. It is worth mentioning up front that both cards only affect you which is a major leg up for both cards which leaves a question on whether the 10 power on Kluh could make it up; it could, right? Well, about that, it's definitely a maybe when comparing to one of these cards.

1. Sera - Sera has two things going for her first is that she's an ongoing and she just gives you the discounts. The second is that she also gives you the discounts on the cards you draw meaning you're not restricted.

2. Thanos Fractured Frontier - The most obvious elephant in the room and another 'curve-out' card since you need to be making at least 2-3 plays on curve to take advantage of Thanos' quickdraws. The draw back is in the caveat of course, it requires you to get a Time Shot loaded in the first place for the magic to happen but when it does he discounts your entire hand, no cherry picking just all cards currently in hand -1 energy cost. The two cards could definitely work well together but neither set of decks lends itself to extending the game so we're essentially looking at a situation where you may be running both and asking the question: which did I draw and which is better in this specific situation?

There are also comparisons to be made to the hardcore ramp cards like Fallen One and it's relevant combo pieces but the big problem here is that you would need to opt into something like a Wong or Silver Surfer First Steps to double (and sometimes) triple the discounts to the cards in hand while finding ways to ensure you're getting multiple unique costs on the board AND having a healthy number of payoffs.

And so that leads me to this final question

"Where exactly does Kluh fall? Is he a curve-out contender, is he a possible combo enabler, or is he somewhere in between?"

Your Thoughts

Do you plan on picking up Red Onslaught?

How do you expect Red Onslaught to perform?

What other possible shells and synergies might there be?