It's been a couple of week since my last blog and in that time I've still been bouncing back and forward between trying to the new heroes (Star-Lord continues to amaze me - beating Ronan in 4 turns!) and revisiting some of the old ones I never really gave time to. That served me well in finding Spider-Woman and Black Panther decks that I liked in the past and now I'm playing Iron Man a lot at the moment. But it's taken finding an unconventional approach to Iron Man to make me enjoy a hero I'd never really liked before.
Here's three key facts...
- I'm playing Aggression
- It has Hand Cannons in as extra Tech upgrades
- Can you believe I was the first person to think of calling their deck 'Hulkbuster' on MCDB?
IRON MAN ORIGIN STORY
There's two heroes that I've still never played: Doctor Strange and Quicksilver. I own all the expansion but I've never actually played either of those guys. In Doctor Strange's case it's the stigma that not only does everyone say he's too powerful for the game, but that I can read his cards and see that they're right without ever having to put them on the table. In Quicksilver's case it's something different - it's because I've told myself that I don't like the 'Builder' type heroes who spend ages setting up the board in order to have it all pay off in some big combo turn.
The main reason that I think I don't like 'Builders' (or what other players call 'set up heroes') is down to a dreadful experience I've had with one guy: Tony Stark.
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| You didn't do ok, Tony. You were crapola on toast. |
Back when I very, very, very first got into Marvel Champions and only had the core set it was Iron Man who was the first hero that I played after I got done with the Spider-Man & Captain Marvel introductory games. I was still playing against Rhino and it was a car crash of awfulness where I hated everything that Iron Man was doing - I felt like had to be in Hero form ASAP to stop Rhino from scheming out immediately but then I had a hand size of like 3, so I was crippled and lost anyway despite apparently owning the world's most advanced super-suit.
Iron Man got punted into a dark hole pretty rapidly and I only pulled him back out a month or two later after I spotted that with Electrostatic Armour and Energy Barrier I could have more Tech cards and maybe actually have a proper hand size if I played him in Protection. So I made a Protection Iron Man, the sort of thing that many players have already made and a pretty typical type of Iron Man deck... and I hated that too. Something in the Protection aspect wasn't really jiving for me, especially when it was doubling down on a slow hero like Iron Man. Sitting around and waiting for something to happen... I'm sure it's a good deck but it's just not the way I wanted to play the game.
Then I found more proactive heroes like Hawkeye, Ant-Man and Scarlet Witch so Iron Man got thrown back into the same dark hole.
A couple of weeks ago word got around to me that Aggression Iron Man was pretty fun, and I discovered I'd missed that the Hand Cannons from Galaxy's Most Wanted are a Tech upgrade. I've already liked using Hand Cannon in my Scarlet Witch deck so I knew I liked them and it was the spur I needed to pick Iron Man out and dust him off for a third time. Helped by some wise words about how to approach making Iron Man's hand size work I seemed to hit on the magic formula and found something I really liked: the Hulkbuster.
I AM IRON MAN
The Hulkbuster is an Iron Man deck for people who don't like playing Iron Man. It sets up quickly then it starts blowing things up... and once it's started it doesn't really stop throwing out big attack numbers until there's nothing left to hit!
STEP ONE: Mulligan HARD for your tech. You draw 6 cards, you can mulligan for up to 6 more cards, you're almost certain to stay in AE on turn 1 so then you see another 6 cards, plus two shots of Tony Stark's Futurist ability. That's as many as 24 cards in your deck that you'll see over two turns and it means you have a >85% chance to see & play 4 Tech cards. It means the Hulkbuster can jump into Hero form on turn 2 with a good normal hand size very reliably.
^^^ This turned out to be the secret I was missing for all Iron Man decks in general, btw. Having 10 Tech cards makes you much more reliable at seeing them by turn 2 than I had realised. Virtually nothing is more important to you than getting those upgrades into play because you're going to starve to death without them.
STEP TWO: Stabilise the board and improve your armour. Because you were in AE on turn 1 the chances are you need to play catchup, especially on threat. Into The Fray and Looking For Trouble can help with that and you've lots of cheap attacks to remove opposing minions. You also want to keep expanding your armour whenever possible on the first pass through your deck so you can build to the max 7 card hand size. Don't be too precious about your minions, they're just meat shields for you to keep you upright and firing Repulsor Blasts.
STEP THREE: Bust some Hulks. On your second pass through the deck you should have your armour set up and a big hand size. With your upgrades out in play you're going to be drawing a lot of firepower every turn and it's time to take the fight to the villain. The combination of Angela/Looking For Trouble with Relentless Assault/Into The Fray and then Moment of Triumph as a kicker on top should be able to keep you healthy. Your Hand Cannons and Powered Gauntlets make it easy to set minions up for some big overkill hits and recovering a lot of health from Moment of Triumph.
STEP FOUR: I dunno. I saw a Shawarma joint about two blocks from here...
Hulkbuster Strengths
Once you've got your suit powered up there's not a lot of heroes who can consistently patrol the table and keep control of the villain's cards as this Iron Man deck. You've got threat removal from your Mark V Helmet, Into The Fray and your native 2 THW (and the Arc Reactor to ready you) then for minions you've also 10 attack events, Powered Gauntlets and those tasty Hand Cannon attacks.
Hulkbuster's healing comes from Moment of Triumph, and all of your attacks can hit for big numbers and trigger big heals. Just as importantly with things like your Powered Gauntlets you're able to chip minions down to the point where you can max those overkill hits when you need them. Healing is important for Iron Man because although he gets to a ton of HP (this build maxes out at 20HP once you've got everything in play) he only has 1 DEF so if you've not got allies around to take hits for you he's going to take a lot of villain attacks on the chin.
The biggest strength for me, though, is how aggressive this Hulkbuster suit is once you're ready to turn his attention to the villain. A couple of Hand Cannons in play, a Repulsor Blast and a Supersonic Punch can easily be 22 damage and you'll still have resources spare from your 7 card hand to play an ally or another attack! It really helps you to push through those final villain stages as fast as possible and that's not something you get from every Iron Man deck.
Hulkbuster Weaknesses
Although you're not completely without tools for them I've found Side Schemes to be problematic for the Hulkbuster, especially once you get to the big ones in Galaxy's Most Wanted. You've got a native 2THW but unless you have the Arc Reactor and the Mark V Helmet online that's all you've got and it's probably not enough. You've also not really got any great Thwarting cover from your allies, two of which even have 0THW themselves. It's not all bad - Looking For Trouble and Into The Fray make you very good at controlling the main scheme threat so you can usually cope with Acceleration schemes, and you've enough removal that you won't immediately keel over to Hazard schemes either, but a Crisis scheme can definitely slow you down a lot.
The other big issue I've felt is that if I don't land the Quincarrier into play you're not going to be able to activate your Rocket Boots and go Aerial every time you'd like - maximising Energy resources for Repulsor Blasts means there's not many Mental resources around. When the Quincarrier gets to your hand you need to bear that in mind when you're deciding if you want to take the tempo hit to play it or not because without it your suit pieces will lose a fair bit of power. It's not essential to play Quincarrier every time you draw it but it does help this deck by more than just being a ramping resource.
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So that's 2 out of 3 down. I thought I hated the 'Builder' archetype but I've now got Black Panther and Iron Man decks that I really enjoy playing. I think the trick is that I've been able to make them faster and more proactive, with low cost curves and it's worked twice. Maybe I need to get over my prejudices and give Quicksilver a try after all... surely the fastest man on Earth can't be that slow can he?
However I'm also back playing X-Wing a little bit now so my blogging time will be split between that and Marvel Champions. We'll have to see which game wins out and gets the most love!
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