Iron Man "Hulk Buster" Protection (updated) expert

updated 27/12/19 since the deck builder now allows you to publish with the new cards. This deck has cleared all core set villains on solo expert. Original commentary below

With just the core set Iron Man protection is very weak but with the new cards from Captain America and Ms Marvel I thought I'd see how viable the deck could be.

I've found this to be deck pretty strong and it has a large toolset. Energy barrier also being a tech upgrade means Tony can get up to his max hand size quicker.

Card Breakdown:

• Villain damage

Largey taken care of with Tony's existing card pool

Repulsor Blast

Supersonic Punch

With the former, once the suit is built, Blasts should be hitting for 7+ damage a turn with the stacked energy resources. There are plenty of options to get aerial for the latter.

• Aoe Damage/ minions are handled by:

Powered Gauntlets

War Machine

Energy Barrier

Nova

Med teams mean Roadie can stay in the game a lot longer.

• Thwarting

With Tony's base Thwart of 2 with Arc Reactor and Mark V Helmet Tony has plenty of encounter control already built in.

I know a lot of players like justice with Tony but really all this just adds to his already high threat reduction

• Defence

Ah the bread and butter of a protection deck. The cards picked shore up Tony's low defence. Notable inclusions:

Energy Barrier - another tech option meaning you can get into hero form earlier and not suffer low handsize. Also a great option for dealing with low HP minions

Preemptive Strike - excellent card when you flip over a 2-3 point boost card.

Nova - Can kill an enemy even before it deals damage.

Indomitable - it’s an energy resource, thins your deck and critically when you do need to defend can be used to ready up for the following turn.

Tony's base defence is a rather poor 1 but we can bring this up to the "default" level of 2 with Armored Vest. With Expert Defense he can also handle the odd larger attack

• cards which may be cut

I've included Luke Cage but he is expensive so may end up being cut. He can however take 2-3 villain hits.

Armored Vest it’s cheap, and a mental resource to chuck for aerial when needed, but may be cut. You mostly defend when you draw into an Expert Defense which already substantially reduces attacks.

• notable omissions

Avengers Mansion with a hard mulligan and Tony’s Alger ego action you should be able to drop 2-3 tech bits turn one. ive found you can get into hero mode consistently from turn 2. avengers mansion slows you down too much

• other options

Endurance more energy resources and some bonus hp. a substitute for one or both armored vests

Enhanced Awareness mental resources for both aerial and black widow. I've cut a single med team to try this out.