Drakow · 367
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81D_Trbairw
We are going the distance with Hercules. The game plan is to smash those Labors to the ground, so that we attain godlike power and annihilate the villain. To that end, we have a multitude of readies in the deck including #Limitless Stamina, Spoiling for a Fight and Face the Past, all of which give the flexibility of handling whatever labour happens to be in play at the time.
Because Defeat the Hydra, Face the Past, Spoiling for a Fight and Angela bring minions to play, it makes a lot of sense to focus on minion beneficial draw cards like "Bring It!", Blood Rage, and Hall of Heroes, the latter especially since Hercules gets up to three free trips to alter-ego, upon completing each of his Labors.
With all of this draw power, there is no need for the double resources, and you can simply run the single, greatest resource in the entire game, Audacity instead.
Toe to Toe is primarily in the deck to speed through Protect Humanity, though it can be a good minion cleaner, just beware of the anti-synergy with Amadeus Cho when targeting a minion, as it will strike Amadeus Cho instead of Hercules! Once set-up, Toe to Toe can be a great tool for dealing big damage to the villain in conjunction with Counterattack and Gauntlets of Hercules.
We run a fair number of allies to ensure we can complete Protect Humanity consistently, in case things go wrong with Amadeus Cho. Spider-Girl is great for freezing a troublesome minion for a turn or two, particularly in the early game when we are focussing our efforts in clearing the Labors more than likely we will be leaving minions on the board unchecked, otherwise.
Bug sticks around pretty much forever which again is very useful as a backup for Protect Humanity, but chipping away at the main scheme every turn racks up over the course of a long game, which Hercules tends to be strapping in for, so there is a lot of value generated out of Bug throughout the course of a typical game.
Throg is an ally that tends to stick around for a short while due to his Tough status card, which again helps with Protect Humanity, and Grant Ward is a cheap, high tempo card that can thwart for two and help mitigate threat particularly during the early game while setting up.
In a similar vein, Keep Them Busy is to help provide more set-up time and is fairly easy to clear due to the Assault keyword - even at higher player counts it is possible for Hercules to outrightly clear it on his own, or get it down most of the way for someone else to finish it off, if need be, possible at the cost of delaying the completion of a Labor but that is a decision to be evaluated depending on the board state.
Defeat the Hydra is probably going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome, particularly if you are forced to put Lernean Hydra into play. It will come down to the cards you have in your hand, but it should be doable to take it down in two turns if not one.
Once set-up, Prince of Power becomes a clutch card for healing and with eighteen maximum health, you should be good to take hits and strike back with Counterattack and Gauntlets of Hercules with ease.