Iron Man - Mission Critical

Designed primarily for threat management, this deck still does significant damage if played correctly. It has a lot of threat management, damage, and toughness, leaving Iron Man an incredibly well-rounded ally to any team at the mid to late stages of the game. It is more effective in multiplayer than solo, but once you have a few upgrades to the suit, this deck solos fine.

How to Play

Please note this is just for guidance, you can and should play as you want to

• Your first priority is to get to 4+ upgrades on your suit as soon as possible so you can play viably as Iron Man

• Attack cards like Repulsor Blast or Supersonic Punch should be mulliganed until it's safe to put the suit on

• Stay as Tony Stark for the first 2+ turns and Mulligan/Futurist liberally in order to play these cards in the following priority:

  1. Avengers Mansion
  2. Stark Tower
  3. Suit Upgrades

  Upgrade Priority:

  1. Arc Reactor
  2. Mark V Helmet
  3. Powered Gauntlets
  4. Powered Gauntlets
  5. Rocket Boots
  6. Mark V Armor

  7. Rocket Boots*

     *You can choose not to add your second Rocket Boots, sacrificing 1 HP for a card you can constantly farm resources from by using Stark Tower to bring it back to your hand and then spend it again, giving you free resources if you're in your Tony Stark identity. The choice is yours

  The above upgrade priority is listed here in case you have options as to what upgrade you can play but aren't sure which one you should prioritise. Regardless, you should always look to play as many suit upgrades each turn as you can until your suit is built

  4. Pepper Potts
  5. Quincarrier

• Look to play Stark Tower as soon as possible. Once it is in play, discard a suit upgrade anytime you have one, then exhaust Stark Tower to bring it back for a free resource once per turn

• Once your suit is built, you should look to stay as Iron Man more than Tony Stark until your hitpoints get to low, and stop using futurist and mulligans so that you can slow down the number of encounters coming at you and your teammates

• Look to thwart as your basic ability whenever you are Iron Man, then immediately use Arc Reactor and thwart again

Allies and How to Use Them

General Use

• Nick Fury - Remember to use him to defend an attack before he leaves after the round.

• Daredevil - Use in general play.It's usually best to thwart instead of attack.

Against Minions

• Quake - Best against 1-2 minions.

• War Machine - Best against 3+ minions.

Against Multiple Schemes

• Jessica Jones

A Note on Repulsor Blast

This deck is not as focused on Repulsor Blast as other Iron Man builds out there, and so sacrifices some damage, but it's consistently excellent at thwarting and does decent damage at the same time. There are more than enough energy resources in the deck for Repulsor Blast to remain an option though, for those that want to get blasty.

Variation

I personally like to play with a lot of Hero Resource cards such as Enhanced Awareness, but if that's not your style of play or you consider them less than optimal, you could drop these cards and replace them with extra damage cards such as Haymaker, or threat reduction cards like Emergency or For Justice!. Whichever cards you replace them with, they should be energy generating cards wherever possible - Just keep in mind that you also need consistent mind resource generation to to stay AERIAL with Rocket Boots, and you should stick as close to the minimum number of cards (40) so that you can build your suit in the fastest possible time. For Heroic level difficulty, you may want to increase the number of total cards in order to reduce the speed at which you go through your deck. Adding a Mockingbird is a good option in those circumstances for the extra stun and future defensive damage blocking options.

(Tested on Expert difficulty with 1, 2, and 3 players)