The Winter SHIELD-er

The Winter SHIELD-er

Woah! Another themed SHIELD list, this time with a... dubious name to say the least. Regardless, introducing my SHIELD-themed Winter Soldier deck to wrap up the Agents of SHIELD expansion!

Let's talk gameplay and deck choices:

Winter Soldier is one of the newest heroes at time of posting, but already has made his mark in the mind of players. His Cybernetic Arm makes him extremely versatile and allows him to flex into multiple aspects. His consistency with getting the arm and a great tempo-based hero ability allows him to get working from turn 1 and is a great choice for controlling both minions and threat alike. That being said, he does have a few issues (namely economy) that this decklist attempts to tackle. The Winter Mask is great, but not enough in my plays.

We are employing different resource generators that Bucky has access to: Helicarrier, Team-Building Exercise, and Clarity of Purpose are all included so Bucky can keep both the allies and attack events flowing. Both of the Nick Fury cards are great additions as they can he discounted by the Team-Building and get multiple activations out them through the addition of Command Team.

Running such a large ally lineup allows Bucky to have flexibility in the choices he makes. You WANT to get the max uses out of allies in this with the Team Training inclusion, only chumping with them once they have 1 health left. Allies will allow him to soften up minions in order to more reliably meet his hero-side kicker or some flexible thwart available on the table. There is a large amount of SHIELD traited allies which he can discount with multiple toolbox effects such as readying up SHIELD supports, drawing cards, stuns, and more.

And how can we possibly forget maybe the greatest tempo play in the deck, dropping his signature ally in order to play a Winter, Widow, Soldier, Spy and fetch a Rapid Response from the discard for *FREE.

Once the board is in a controlled state, Bucky can then shift to pure output with his attack events and pay to get some of his more expensive upgrades down such as the Winter Armor and Winter Rifle.

Other concerns / card considerations:

This deck is PRIMARILY a multiplayer deck first. A lot of the lines and play pattern in this writeup assume that fact. That being said, there are solo-specific changes / additions you can make that take away from the theming. Professor X seems like a no-brainer, Beast to combo with Rapid Response since high output in required for solo expert can be easy additions dropping some of the slower cards in the list.

The deck has a few flexible slots as well. Multitalented has had great use in my plays but I would totally get replacing for something like a The Triskelion or leaning even harder into the theme like Sky-Destroyer (which was in the deck at one point, just wanted a faster tempo replacement).

Deck results:

This deck has been primarily played in multiplayer in a large number of solo/expert games and has never failed to perform. It's had great games against Expert Black Widow, Expert On the Run, and more.

And that's about it, Winter Soldier is truly a simple hero but a ton of fun! If you try it out, let me know what you think, who you fought, and any changes you made!

Get out there and go defeat minions again... Again... and AGAIN!