Katherine Bishop Prevents Plenty of Problems

This particular iteration of CptScorp's Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) is my platonic ideal of what a solo hero in Marvel Champions can be. She defends well, thwarts well, can both ping and do large bursts of damage, and, importantly, can flip down to Alter-Ego without fear of the villain scheming out (a constant annoyance in solo play). Hawkeye can do it all.

Let's get into it.

Meet Kate

In case you haven't seen this particular homebrew Hawkeye before, you can find it here courtesy of CptScorp. Kate Bishop allows you to include Skill cards from any aspect, which means you get staples like Heroic Intuition and Combat Training as well as spicier includes like Mean Swing. Her Bow, which she gets right off the bat, slowly builds up counters that translate to damage as you are attacked. These are her only innate sources of damage.

As a result, Kate rewards a slow, consistent pace with the occasional big spike. In her kit there are, of course, a variety of ways for her to manipulate her bow's counters, gain extra resources, ready herself, y'know, all the good stuff.

Butttttt, the reason we're in Protection and what we're really here to see are Hawkeye Investigations and Athletic Agility.

Preventing Damage and YOU

Hawkeye Investigations and Athletic Agility both give you bennies when you prevent damage; removing threat and pinging damage respectively. Hence why we've got 3x Energy Barrier, 3x Side Step, 2x Evasive Shot, and even one Perseverance (tough counts as prevention too!).

Say you're attacked by the villain for 6 off a boost but you've got an Evasive Shot in hand, an Energy Barrier, Hawkeye Investigations, and Athletic Agility on the board (which is not an uncommon situation). You stop 5 damage with Evasive Shot and Energy Barrier, send 2-7 back, remove 1 threat, take 1 damage, and remain unexhausted with three more cards in hand. That doesn't include another 1 - 5 damage from Hawkeye's ability.

The numbers aren't huge, but it's a great encapsulation of how well she can chip away and control every threat.

It's worth noting that Agile (the keyword on Athletic Agility) specifically only works if you are not defending against the attack, so it's incompatible with Side Step and Evasive Shot (since they are defense events that cause you to count as defending). It does work with Energy Barrier though.

The Rest of the Deck

As we saw, though you're trucking through attacks with the best of them, Hawkeye still gets swiped by little bits of damage here and there. And given that she's got 9 HP, that adds up real quick. Hence why we've got The Night Nurse, Quick Draw, Endurance, and, the MVP, Lucky to keep us afloat. He's like a mini Aunt May who, instead of bringing cookies to our bedraggled hero, drags them over to look at an arrow he found.

While you're taking a break to gratefully pet your dog, Counterintelligence and Infiltrate keep you covered from threat. They can even remove threat thanks to Hawkeye Investigations.

Though Protection Hawkeye is very defensive in nature, you will almost never exhaust to defend. That frees you up to use your basic thwarts and attacks as needed. Heroic Intuition and Combat Training buff those up respectively, and Mean Swing + Skilled Strike can combine for massive slabs of damage slung at minions or sent straight into the villain's dome.

Skilled Investigator is here because it's a Skill and it'll likely get you at least 2-3 cards throughout the game.

As for the ally spread, Ironheart is great for cycling and the occasional chump block. Starhawk and Hawkeye (Clint Barton) actually serve similar roles. Since Kate gets so much value out of being attacked, you typically don't want to block with your allies. Both Clint and Starhawk want to take consequential damage and return to you, providing a consistent drip of damage and thwart. They're a welcome sight the second way through your deck too, as you may not have many targets for your double resources.

Closing

As a player it gives me great joy to keep a clean board while I go mano a mano with the villain. No side schemes or minions hanging around, complicating my decisions or compromising every possible solution. Just me, my insistent dog, a bow, and an open, clear shot at the villain. That's the life Hawkeye promises my friends.

Post-Script

Some other card considerations:

• Making an Entrance - Could swap for Skilled Strike, depends on the scenario.
• Defensive Stance - This could be a straight swap for Side Step. Bringing this in would let you still get the benefit from Agile since it won't cause you to defend against the attack, unlike Side Step. Who's got time to pay 1 more resource though?
• Target Acquired - Probably a worthwhile include over the second Counterintelligence? Comes down for free with Anchor Points. I'll be honest, I'm not good enough at the game to value this one highly enough.
• Spider-Man - Maybe a swap for Perseverance? This deck is missing chunky threat removal, which Miles can help with while providing a body.
• Helicarrier - The deck already has Kate's Quiver and is at such a low curve anyway that this hasn't felt necessary, but it would be hard for me to look you in the eye and say it's always an incorrect choice.

Anyway. Good hunting!

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