Get out of my way!

Hawkeye is one of my favorite Marvel characters and I built decks for him relatively often, but I've never tried playing him in Protection before. So after a bit of playtesting, here is what I managed to get working...

The problem with Hawkeye in Protection is that he really does not want to burn up his cards during the villain phase and be left without resources to fire off arrows and recur Mockingbird, or to build up his engine so that he can fire off arrows and recur Mockingbird more efficiently. So the majority of the Defense cards I included are 0 cost. Preemptive Strike only costs 1 resource, but it allows Hawkeye to deal a little extra damage (which he can use) and offer some protection to other players without exhausting.

Since Hawkeye can still fire off one arrow a turn while exhausted, he can exhaust and still contribute on offense.

The other defense cards; "Come Get Me, Bub!", Defiance, and Expert Defense, all allow him to take minimal or no damage from attacks and I have gotten some very good mileage out of his 9 HP using them. Forcefield Generator is amazing paired with the defense cards when you can get it out, but it's 3 cost does usually make it tricky with all of the other things you are trying to pull off.

Getting Angel's Aerie out early can pay off big over the course of a game with all of these defense events. Government Liaison is here solely to recur Mockingbird and help get out the Helicarrier.

Victor Mancha has worked overtime for me in this deck, allowing me to ignore one low damage attack per turn for large chunks of the game.

Defensive Energy is optional. I like it because it fills my hand back up when paying for Preemptive Strike and it provides a couple of wild resources for encounter card shenanigans. But you could easily switch it out for whatever suits you.

Is this deck a powerhouse? No, it's not. I've had wins and losses with it. Other protection decks are stronger, other Hawkeye decks are stronger. But it's turned out better than I thought it would, it's a great change of pace, and I've had fun playing it. I hope you do too.