Star-Lord is a hero who I immediately hated. I put him in the bin, and left him there for years. A power that requires taking an extra encounter card? A card that gives him even more encounter cards? A 1 DEF, 3 REC, and no Defense Event? Ughhhh, pain.

But sometime in the last couple years, I decided to try him again, and somewhere in there completely fell in love with his playstyle. A lot of what he does looks pretty painful on the face of it, but the magic of Star-Lord is that if you lean in to what he does and don't get bogged down trying to build out a board state more complex than what he starts with, he can actually handle it.

I think the trap that some people (myself included, earlier on) tend to fall into is thinking that his ability affords you more setup power, which is an easy way for the encounter deck to outpace you. It feels like getting a free Helicarrier out is great, but a Helicarrier won't really help you survive whatever increased threats get thrown your way. In the opposite direction, taking extra encounter cards to put more damage on the villain (early on) isn't great, either; drawing an extra Assault can easily kill you if you have nothing on board to help you survive the extra damage. It turns out the answer to "What Could Go Wrong?" is a whole lot!

No, his ability is for three things.

• Playing expensive Star-Lord cards.
• Playing allies.
• Dealing with immediate problems.

Why these three things? Glad you asked!

Playing expensive Star-Lord cards

LazyTitan and I have both talked about mathing out the resources in your opening hand, having it figured out, and then remembering that you get to search for an Element Gun as a Setup ability, and using "What Could Go Wrong?" to pay for it. That's not an accident. Star-Lord's kit is too expensive to reasonably play without his ability. The two Element Guns, Bad Boy, Leader of the Guardians, and three Sliding Shots make 7 cards that you'll want to play that all cost 3, plus the staggeringly expensive Nova Prime at 5 (who you'll sometimes want to play).

Playing allies

Star-Lord has no inherent ability to soak damage well. 1 DEF and 3 REC are as bad as it gets, and while 10 HP isn't the lowest, it's not a ton. Fortunately, because of his ability, he can almost always play an ally in addition to something else. Allies are great because of their versatility, as always, but they're even better with Star-Lord because of Leader of the Guardians. You are going to need to use allies to defend yourself all the time, and Aggression has some pretty great ones for that purpose! Spider-Girl can web up a minion to buy you time, Thor and Throg both have Toughness to help absorb damage, and Valkyrie can zap a minion when she enters play before defending you. Mockingbird can stop two attacks, and Nova Prime can trigger huge swings in board presence like a super-powered Valkyrie.

Dealing with immediate problems

Star-Lord has enough bad stuff headed his way; letting minions and side schemes hang around longer than necessary to do even more bad stuff is intolerable. It's just about always better to eliminate the current threat, even at the cost of another encounter card, than to leave it around to hurt you more. Sliding Shot is expensive, unless you're willing to take an encounter card; eliminating Radioactive Man with a single card is pretty good!

So, with all that said: what does this deck do and why does it work?

Well, as I said, Aggression has some pretty fantastic allies, and Star-Lord desperately needs them. Brawn is included here because he's a solo all-star, but he's also great for defending against minion attacks without dying. The non-Tough allies are all perfectly fine getting an activation and a block; if you can get multiple activations first, so much the better.

Beyond that, though, this deck is really about survival. Moment of Triumph gives Star-Lord a much more efficient way of healing than his 3 REC. The catch with this card is needing to line it up with a minion and a big attack, but Star-Lord is predisposed to do that already between the extra encounter cards he incurs and all of his card draw (Star-Lord's Helmet and Daring Escape). Assess the Situation lets him get even bigger hands, so the likelihood that you draw Moment of Triumph alongside Sliding Shot or Full-Body Charge is actually pretty good. The previously-mentioned Spider-Girl can tie a minion up to give you an extra turn to line up the shot, while Angela can find a minion for you to target. Getting overkill damage from Full-Body Charge while healing to full feels amazing, and Star-Lord can frequently do it while still retaining a bunch of cards in his hand.

Getting Star-Lord's Upgrades out is supremely important. You must get an Element Gun into play on turn one, and you want the Helmet in play as quickly as possible. Once you're set up, you can negate a big chunk of damage for free between Jet Boots and Booster Boots (just don't trigger the Booster Boots until you have the Helmet in play if you can help it). Losing any of Star-Lord's cards to Caught Off Guard likewise feels terrible, so don't be afraid to sacrifice Booster Boots instead; there are three copies so you should see it often, and if you don't need to play it or spend it for another card in your hand, you can use it to fuel your Element Guns. Knowhere is good, but lower priority than Bad Boy and Star-Lord's Upgrades; play it when you can also get an ally out and use the card that they'll now let you draw, or if you need the fourth ally slot.

This deck's not terribly complicated, but it's a lot of fun. If you or your friends think of Star-Lord as requiring support from other heroes to function (or, less charitably, that teammates need to grit their teeth and bear the pain of having Star-Lord at the table), I hope this shows you he can be wonderfully self-sufficient! Self-sufficient in terms of deck functioning; thematically, allies are still going to get punched in the face on Star-Lord's behalf all the time, but they signed up for it!