A Soldier for All Seasons

A Soldier for All Seasons

I. Intro

I've seen some discussion lately on Bucky and how he compares to other event-driven or minion-driven heroes. Bucky is pretty popular, but I've some seen folks say they have trouble balancing minion management against pushing damage on the villain. Others find him too dependent on minions altogether. This has made me think about Bucky's kit, the types of decks he's strongest in, and what unique strengths he has compared to other similar heroes. If you're interested in my thoughts on that, see Section II. If you're just here for the deck breakdown, you can skip my yapping and head straight to section III. I promise I won't judge. :)

II. Bucky Hero Deck Theory (for solo play)

There's a lot here, so I'll start with my verdict: Bucky's many attack events and minion-focused cards work great with a speedy build-up and build-out deck, powered by playing and swiftly clearing multiple player side schemes. Bucky's unique abilities allow him to use PSS to push damage AND build out his board, even if minions are on the table. He doesn't necessarily want minions in play, but minions don't slow him down. To understand why I think this, let's take a closer look over his hero deck. He has:

• 7x event cards, 5x are attack events, and 2x are attack/defense events
• 1x Black Widow, who lets him search for an attack event from his hand, and has solid stats
• 1x Safe House #30, which lets him search the encounter deck for a minion, and it gives him extra card draw he does
• 2x Silent Infiltration, which activate (via discard) after killing a minion, netting him a confuse and a ready
• 1x Winter Mask, which gives him card draw after killing a minion (once per turn)
• 1x Winter Rifle, which boosts his basic ATK (once per turn)
• 1x Winter Armor, which boosts his HP and gives him steady
• 1x Cybernetic Arm, which gives him a resource and damage boost for his attack events each turn

Bucky's Attack Events

Bucky's baseline kit gives him plenty of attack events, an ally to fish for them, and an upgrade to pay for and boost them which AND he can always put into play on turn 1. He's great here and this is the least complicated part of his hero kit. I love his Cybernetically Enhanced AE ability, which gives him such a fast and flexible start. No weird mulligan rules here. You can even say, pay for a cheap ally with Cybernetic Arm, and then use his AE ability to put the Arm into play in the same turn.

Bucky's DEF-free Defense

Arm Block is a great defense card and Bucky has two of them. Electrical Discharge gives him access to stun and is another way to avoid damage that isn't face tanking. Most intriguingly, Winter Armor gives Bucky 3 HP and steady, as opposed to the usual boost to his basic DEF. I think this is the developers subtly pushing us towards making the most of his basic activation during the hero phase and looking for ways to keep Bucky in the game without using basic DEF.

Bucky's Deceptively Situational Minion-Slaying Abilities

Bucky has a lot of minion-facing cards, which seems like it should result in him being a strong "minion-slayer." Many people focus on his Lethal Protector hero ability, essentially giving him a free copy of Chase Them Down every time he kills a minion. This ability is not capped to a certain number of minions and I think the ability's unlimited uses is why so many people consider him to be a minion-slayer. His other minion-slaying cards are rather niche in both when they're useful and even when you can use them. He is restricted to activating Safe House #30 in alter-ego, and his 3x anti-minion upgrades either discard or exhaust after killing a single minion.

These cards' benefits are also a mixed bag. Assuming you activate all of them in a turn (not happening early or often), Bucky gets 2x card draw, a confuse, 2 THW, and a ready. That's good, but assumes you activate everything. Remember, the Safe House #30 is AE only and Silent Infiltration is a 3 ER cost upgrade that discards on activation. And that's assuming you even want to play Silent Infiltration. In my experience, Bucky usually stays in hero form, so confuse statuses tend to stick around for while, meaning you are either confusing a minion (not ideal), using the upgrade as just a costly ready (even worse), or you're holding it for later (strategically sound but it doesn't provide tempo). Readies for Bucky are also merely a good (not great) value. 2 ATK/THW is good, but not amazing. The Winter Rifle boosts his ATK, but it exhausts on use. Most turns, a killed minion is likely netting you a card and 2 THW. Nice, but probably not worth the investment of putting cards in your deck to summon minions and then spending resources and activations to knock em out.

To be clear, I think Bucky's minion-slaying abilities are a strength. Most characters don't inherently get anything for slaying minions beyond (valuable) board control. I don't think Bucky can build a great strategy centered around his minion abilities but he can absolutely use them as a supporting element.

Putting it All Together

Broken down like this, I think it's clear Bucky has very strong damage with his attack events, a handful of ways to extend his survivability, and he's effectively more resource efficient when it comes to fighting minions. He lacks thwart options not tied to his basic THW or Lethal Protector.

Event-driven heroes can sometimes run into consistency issues where you don't always have the events you want, when you want. Event heavy heroes also need to find ways to play strong events while protecting him from the villain phase and setting him for stronger success in future turns. That's a lot to ask, especially if you are trying to do this consistently. With that said, mydeck building strategy with Bucky has evolved to the following.

• Primarily defend against the villain with attack events that grant toughs or stuns
• Use allies for their thwarts, statuses, and other abilities. They're generally not here to attack, and chump-blocking is a last resort. We want their thwart, even it it's just 1 THW
• Avoid minion-summoning cards and attack events which can only target minions. Events should be flexible and support survivability
• Get better access to choice attack events with card draw and tudoring
• And, here's the clincher: Use player side schemes, and Bucky's basic THW and Lethal Protector (and allies), to put otherwise expensive upgrades into play on the cheap, quickly setting up for powerful late games.

The first deck pass is about thwarting down PSS to swiftly set up Bucky. Bucky' 2THW and Lethal Protector means Bucky needs just two of the following three things to clear out just about every PSS the turn you play it:

• A basic activation to thwart for 2
• An ally
• A minion and an attack event to slay it

Once those key upgrades are in play, you can use his powerful events to quickly close out the villain.

This strategy isn't as fast as a pure rush, but it's surprisingly quick while keeping Bucky protected during his build-up turns. Drawing expensive supports or upgrades early means you can use them to pay for allies utility events AND you can be secure in the knowledge your PSS will allow you to put those late-game cards into play soon. This strategy is also minion-resistant because Bucky's base THW and Lethal Protector both remove 2 threat from any scheme. Finally, clearing PSS doubly thins out your deck by placing key upgrades on the board and removing the PSS cards from play. Your second deck pass will be a lot more event heavy, which is exactly what Bucky wants to clear out the villain.

Alright, that's enough theory. Let's get to the deck!

III. The Actual Deck

This deck uses player side schemes to quickly build out the board so Bucky can ultimately play multiple, powerful, attack events in a single turn to close out the game. This deck has two phases: a build-up phase and a close out phase.

Phase 1: Build-up

This phase is centered around playing and clearing player side schemes, so we can swiftly put powerful upgrades into play on the cheap. These side schemes have very specific targets. Lock and Load has just one target, the Winter Rifle. Build Support is to seek the Helicarrier. Superpower Training is to play Winter Mask if the encounter deck has many minions and Winter Armor if there are few minions. With the exception of Keep Up the Pressure, play and clear every PSS as soon as you draw it. Clear PSS with a combination of Bucky's basic THW, basic ATK and attack events to trigger Lethal Protector, and thwarts from allies.

Except for the Furies and Professor X, activate allies sparingly. Have them in play, but defend with stuns, toughs, and Arm Block whenever possible, face tank if that fails, and chump block with persistent allies as a last resort. To that end, consider holding onto status-granting cards or Arm Blocks between turns. It will extend your survivability during this build-up phase. Similarly, only have allies thwart and attack if absolutely necessary. Your allies are your most reliable and readily available sources of thwart. Bucky can clear any PSS with his basic THW and any ally. So don't waste their HP on unnecessary thwarts when you have other options.

Be on the look-out for Fluid Motion and especially Martial Prowess, as you can't put them into play with PSS. The latter helps immensely in paying for attack events and in consistently meeting Drop Kick's kicker. Fluid Motion will help in late game as you thin out your deck and reliably draw and play multiple attack events per turn.

Don't worry too much about throwing damage on the villain for the first few turns. By the end of the first deck pass, you should have your key upgrades up and be ready to to put Keep Up the Pressure in play when you draw it. This brings us to close out.

Phase 2: Close out Have all your key upgrades on the table and Keep Up the Pressure in play with either only 1 threat left on it and any ally on the table, or have a 2 THW ally on the table. Thwart out the PSS, pick up the best attack event (probably Metal Punch and aim to play two souped-up attack events, triggering both of your Fluid Motions and setting up a 6-damage basic attack with the Winter Rifle. 1x Metal Punch and 1x Electrical Discharge will hit for 14 damage on the turn you clear our the PSS (assuming you play for one of them with the Arm), and Bucky's basic attack brings the single turn damage to 19. That's just a sample and assumes you don't have either Aggressive Energy in your hand to pay for the events, and no other allies on the table. Anything else pushes this over 20 damage real fast, and that'll one-turn a lot of villains in solo play or bring them real close for the following turn. In play-testing this, I was once just a bit short of damage on my close out turn, when I drew into Arm Block and finished the villain during their own attack.

IV. Conclusion

I hope you enjoy this deck and, if you read the full write-up, I hope you enjoyed that too. I joined Marvel Champions late last year and have missed out on seeing many of the characters go through the bumpy stages of figuring out their early metas. Bucky presents an interesting puzzle for those looking to maximize him, despite the balanced stats on his hero card and simple events-driven gameplay. I think leaning into his apparent strengths is a trap. He lacks Rockets' renewable weapons upgrades to readily overkill minions for card draw, Thor's AoE damage events, or Gamora's sheer event flexibility. His strengths are different. His allow for very speedy, safe, and consistent build-ups, ultimately leading to big damage. It's my favorite way to play him and I hope you give it a shot.

I always appreciate hearing others share their thoughts on the cards and characters, so I thought I would add my (rather wordy) $0.02. Thanks again and enjoy!