Gamora's Steel-Toed Boots

It's one thing to go Toe to Toe with a minion, but a villain? You gotta be tough for that! Toe to toe is normally an efficient way deal with bulky minions, but it can deal nice damage against the villain, with proper setup. This deck pairs Toe to Toe with Protection's ready access to tough cards and counter-attack shenanigans to turn this funky card into a safe and sizable villain damage.

This deck has a straightforward plan:

1. Set up your board

• Get Jocasta on the table with either Powerful Punch or Crosscounter.
• Complete Superpower Training to get Gamora's Sword in play
• Get as many counter-attack upgrades (Dauntless, Flow Like Water, Electrostatic Armor) in play as you can. You don't need all three, but one or two is nice.

2. Use minions to get tough You can do this one of two ways, either:

• Fish for a minion with Infiltration and then defeat them with Hard Knocks or
• Mill for a minion with "Come Get Me, Bub!", which gives you a tough instantly.

3. Go Toe to Toe with the villain Play Toe to Toe and select the villain to attack you. Use the defense card Jocasta is holding to sneak in a hit, then hit the villain with Toe to Toe's damage, and finish with Counter-Punch, if you have it. If you're set up, Powerful Punch and Toe to Toe (both powered up by the sword) will hit the villain for 11 damage (and 1 thwart!) for 5 ER. Very doable with Gamora's Keen Instincts and Jocasta holding a defense card. Each of the counter-attack upgrades increases the damage by 1, for upwards of 14 damage total.

Allies are here to block against the villain or any excess minions. Except for Drax who brings in some extra anti-villain firepower.

Sideboard

This deck initially had Counter-Punch instead of the counter-attack upgrades. Counter-punch is cheaper, leans into Gamora event-heavy gameplay, and it combos with her sword. On the other hand, there's no good way to hold onto counter-punch or guarantee you'll have it and Toe to Toe in hand on the same turn, and you only have to pay for each of the upgrades once. I prefer the upgrades' consistency, but counter-punch is perfectly playable.

I also played around with 1x or 2x Tackle in the deck to stun the villain so I could retain toughs longer and only trigger a villain attack when I had all the cards ready. This sorta worked, but it's just slower. This deck has good access to toughs as long as the encounter deck has minions in it. It's just easier to lose the tough and get another one.

This deck is a submission for Episode 77 of the Winning Hand podcast. You can find the Boomguy's deck and other community submissions here. I hope you enjoy!