Keep the Pericles in the !$!?$ Hangar!!!!!

This is one of the first decks I thought of when Maria Hill was announced and it revolves around The Pericles (big surprise) but also another Protection Support NOT related to S.H.I.E.L.D. which is Hangar Bay.

They work perfectly together as the Pericles allows you to hand out status cards to the hero/villain as well as one to ally/minion. Hangar Bay allows your allies to ready after defending without taking damage and with unlimited access to toughs thanks to Maria's ability to spread counters around, our allies can defend and then still activate during our turn.

Setup:

The most important pieces of setup are going to be The Pericles and Hangar Bay as our strategy revolves around giving allies toughs to block attacks then ready for our turn.

To assist in getting setup, we have Superpower Training to find S.H.I.E.L.D Director and Build Support which can find any of our 3 cost or less supports.

To further assist in setup, we have Taunt which lets the villain attack us in exchange for drawing 3 cards. With the pericles we can give ourself a tough and eat the attack netting us the 3 cards. Against non steady/non stalwart villains, you could stun them and still get the benefits of Taunt!

After that we want:

-An ally to take advantage of said supports. Luke Cage is great since he initially comes with tough and has 5 health allowing for numerous activations. The toughs can be used on any ally really once Hangar Bay is out. I played a game with just Nick and Maria for the entirety letting him block attacks, ready up and then used the support combinations to manage his health.

-The Iliad which provides flexibility in the form of healing, damage or threat removal

-S.H.I.E.L.D. Director which allows you to exhaust once per turn and put an all purpose counter onto a support.

-Field Agent which lets you remove a counter to keep a S.H.I.E.L.D ally from taking consequential damage. With Maria, every ally becomes S.H.I.E.L.D traited meaning this works for any ally!

-Med Team which heals allies allowing us to keep them on board longer. The main targets are Agent 13 so that we can get extra uses of S.H.I.E.L.D supports and Nick Fury who allows us to add a counter to a support.

-Support Staff which gives us a resource for removing a counter.

-Command Team allows us to ready an ally for removing a counter.

Counter Management:

Another key part of Maria is managing the counters on your supports. She has a ton of flexibility in her kit to do so and my baseline is to try and keep 2 counters on each support at a time if possible.

I like to use Reinforcements for example to put 1 counter each on Field Agent, Command Team and Med Team to keep them topped off.

I typically use Nick Fury to put a counter on any support that is down to 1 counter when i activate with him. Using command team on him allows for multiple counters to be placed in a single turn.

Super Spies is really nice to again spread around counters to multiple supports. You can add 1 each to the Iliad, The Pericles and Support Staff to keep our main ones online as well as keep an extra resource per turn.

Use her ability once per turn to smooth out counters from one that has extra to one that's low. For example, if you have a command team out but no allies move 1 from there to the Pericles.

Use Special Funding to pump up the amount of counters a support will start with also. This works really well for Helicarrier as it doesn't use counters but can have one on it and be swapped to any other.

Strategy:

The strategy for the deck is to hand out toughs with the Pericles allowing our allies to defend without taking damage triggering Hangar Bay to allow them to ready for our turn.

We will utilize the combination of Field Agent, Command Team and Med Team to get extra activations out of our allies as well as keep them alive for extended periods of time. It is very common to keep an ally out for the entirety of the game through the combination of Field Agent and Med Team.

Allies like Nick Fury can stay out all game providing not only reliable damage/thwart but provide counters for our supports.

Agent 13 provides solid thwart and readies a S.H.I.E.L.D support when she activates. Couple this with Command Team and we could get multiple uses out of the Iliad or another support in a single turn.

Rogue provides a ton of flexibility as she can ping an ally like Nick or War Machine pumping her up to 4/4. Combined with Field Agent and Command Team she can do a combination of 8 damage/thwart in 1 turn while only taking 1 consequential damage!

Those 3 allies will be our Strike Team providing consistent damage/thwart. It has been relatively easy to keep all 3 out for extended periods of time and in some cases the entire game with the supports in play as well as managing the counters appropriately.

Against Expert Baron Zemo for instance i had the final turn look like this:

-Use Pericles to give a tough to Maria and Nick

-Use Support Staff to pay for Taunt knocking my tough off to draw 3 cards

-Drew into All Points Bulletin and played it to deal 7 damage

-Used Nick to attack for 2 damage

-Used The Iliad to deal 5 damage

-Played Rogue and had her ping Nick going to a 4/4. Attacked for 4 then used Command Team to attack for 4 again.

-Used On the Double to ready the The Iliad and deal 5 damage to defeat Zemo, one- shotting his stage 3.

This is just one example but the deck has been able to churn out turns like this quite regularly.

Agent 13 along with the Iliad is an easy 10 damage or 8 threat removal in a turn.

Front Organization provides a safety net to keep our important supports from being discarded.

The Triskelion isn't a necessity by any means given we only have a few allies but it provides an extra support to boost APB as well as giving flexibility in scenarios like Project Wideawake that can grant you more allies.

Overall this deck has been really fun and has performed really well. I would love to hear any feedback or experiences with it!