Swarm Discard Pool 2 explained

I hit Infinite during the Love & Thunder season (aka season 2) with this exact deck. The secret then (and probably now) is still understanding what's the best strategy to discard as many Swarms as possible, and Apocalypse.

The Basics

The goal of this deck is to swarm (insert goblin laugh here) your opponent with as many copies as possible, and having Apocalypse or America Chavez alongside them on round 6.

General Strategy

Play Sunspot as early as possible. If you have Nightcrawler, save it to play after Angela, so she gets an easy +2 on round 3, after you move Nightcrawler away from her spot, possibly to wherever Nakia is. Blade and Sword Master are better used on round 5, and Lady Sif is on the deck exclusively for Apocalypse.

If you get to round 5 with Lady Sif in hand, Sword Master and Blade, I tend to give preference to play Sword Master and Blade, since the main goal is to hit Swarm, and as long as America Chavez hasn't been destroyed by Yondu or stolen by Mantis or Cable on your opponents deck, you are probably gold.

Okoye, Nakia and Bishop should be played before round 5, ideally, of course, you can just play one of those cards in round 4, which isn't ideal, but that's why Sunspot is on your deck, to absorb the energy that is not going towards cards.

Okoye, Nakia, and Bishop

You potentially could fit Ant-Man/Captain America, or some other card that receives bonuses from multiple cards instead of Okoye, but Okoye can potentially buff Swarm to a 0/4 (if it's still in your deck and gets discarded) and will also boost the super reliable America Chavez coming on round 6 (that is on your deck to help you have Apocalypse or Swarm before round 6.

Nakia is no longer an S tier card, but it's still a really good card. Most of the time you will have around 4 cards on your hand when she is at play, and it's likely that you get a 50% shot to buff Swarm, or Apocalypse, but a buff is a buff, and if it hits Blade or Sword Master, that's +4 power to swing a location, not bad at all. No other card at this pool level can do anything close to it.

Usually, you would want to play Bishop before any other card as much as possible, but that might always be a circumstance of seeing your hand. Do you have Swarm? I would go for Nakia. You don't have any of the engine cards (Swarm and Apocalypse)? Then Bishop might be the best bet, and if Swarm discards happen on round 5, they will also help boost Bishop. 

Discarding Strategy

The main common mistake I did when learning this deck was how to play the discard hand. That's why I started saving Sword Master and Blade to the last round (prior to Sword Master's buff, you would have a 5 energy cost for 10 power on the round 5, now 4 energy cost for 9 power, but Sunspot can absord the unused energy, so that's an actual boost to the deck, even though it might not feel like much).

You will most likely want to save those cards later on to have a chance to boost Swarm with Okoye/Nakia. As I stated before, Lady Sif is on your deck solely for the purpose of discarding Apocalypse at least once.

Most of the time, I won't play Blade or Sword Master if I don't have a bigger chance of discarding Swarm. the ideal round 5 is to have only Swarm and Apocalypse on my hand, and if the discards only go to Swarm, that's OK, that's why America Chavez is there. Ideally, you would want a Lady Sif play (to bring Apocalypse to 12 power), and Blade and Sword Master hitting Swarm twice, to generate four extra copies of it, and if Nakia boosted it at least once before you discarded them up, you will have five 0/5 cards on your hand, alongside with Apocalypse, for a combined 37 power play on round 6, or if Lady Sif discarded Swarm as well, then you would have 7 copies of it 0/5, that's already 35 power, and likely can swing the game, even with or without America Chavez.

Even if you didn't draw Lady Sif or Apocalypse, hitting Swarm is the ultimate goal of this deck (that's why it's called Swarm Discard or Discard Swarm, not Discard Apocalypse).

Lady Sif logic

Right now, I still couldn't confirm with the devs (or found any article about it by the official team) that explains how Lady Sif's mechanic works towards it's decision on what to discard when you have two cards of the same cost. Initially I thought it would always discard the costlier card on the lefmost position in case of a tie (say, Okoye and Swarm), but when I had Morbius in hand in other versions of this deck, Lady Sif was always discarding Morbius position notwhitstanding. So, I don't know. I may update this later if I ever get official confirmation from the team.

I reported the Morbius circumstances as a bug at the time.

Snapping and Retreating Strategies

Do you have multiple Swarms on your hand, and America Chavez? That is most likely a win at pool 2 level of play. No? That's most likely a retreat. You can hit Apocalypse to 20 power, and not have enough power to distribute to other locations on round 6, the most important part of Swarm being hit is that it loses the cost, being able to be played for free alongside a bigger power card.

Location Synergies

Kamar-Taj is your best friend for multiple discards, and multiple buffs with Nakia and Okoye. Crimson Cosmos can be troublesome, since Swarm cannot be played there. Other than that, most locations aren't exactly averse to this deck, which makes it a deck that is helpful towards climbing.

You can find me on Twitch at @pegasus_snap.