This holiday season KennedyHawk returns to his Decked Halls series and brings each hero a gift with a new deck built using his least used aspect for each hero. For the next 13 days this miniseries will provide a short deck overview of a deck Kennedy is enjoying this winter season. Whatever holiday you celebrate we hope it brings you joy and look forward to an amazing 2021. Today’s deck is all about buffing up Iron man and rushing out tech upgrades -but not with Protection. Iron Man follows She-Hulks suit and is a bit self-involved.
Welcome to Marvel Champions Monthly, join hosts KennedyHawk, Crimson, and special guest Daniel from the Critical Encounters Podcast as we discuss all things Iron Man! In this episode we kick off a new series and present a unique or new to us deck focused on playing Iron Man in each aspect. The decks built on air and presented here will be featured on the MCM youtube channel. Future Power of Episodes will focus on different heroes and how they can shine in each aspect. We hope you enjoy this new format and look forward to new episodes monthly!
Let’s take a look at the 16 cards that make up my favorite hero in the game to play: Iron Man
Tony’s Alter-Ego is nice. It’s better than simply providing you a resource because it lets you choose which resource you want. But more importantly, it lets you dig to find more pieces of his essential armor – especially with an unfortunate mulligan.
Iron Man’s ability is pretty straightforward and directly affects how you want to play Iron Man: build his suit as soon as you can. The faster you can do that, the faster you can get into the fray. And, as you’ll see below, I think the hero cards allow Iron Man to do a lot once he’s in the fray.
Cards I Love: Pepper Potts – getting Pepper out early can really help boost the number of Tech upgrades you can play quickly. Also, a well timed activation to give you Aerial and not requiring you to spend a card is satisfying.
Arc Reactor – I’m a big fan of cards that let you ready your identity (Hero in this case). It helps if you’ve just dealt with your Obligation, Business Problems. Or it lets you thwart for 4. The flexibility here is great.
An awesome card that makes Iron Man extremely versatile.
Cards I Like: Repulsor Blast – 1 cost for a potential 13 damage. Why not?
All 5 discarded cards must have an energy resource (including the Energy card) to get to 13 damage.
Supersonic Blast – 2 resources for (most likely) 8 damage is a great value. I typically only play this with Aerial, unless I only need 4 damage to defeat the Villain’s stage or a pesky minion with Guard.
Really, it’s either a 2 cost for 4 damage or a 3 cost for 8 damage.
Card(s) I Dislike: War Machine – AOE cards are conditionally good. War Machine is very helpful against Ultron; not as good against other current villains. I usually find myself ditching War Machine for the wild resource.
I love how thematic his kit is: Tony needs time to get his armor on, without it, he’s pretty much worthless against the villain. Once the armor is on, he can handle just about anything. Thanks for reading!
-Amerikano
Check out KennedyHawk’s Hero Combo Primer focusing on Iron Man and 3 cards from each aspect that combo well with his hero kit:
Lester makes his triumphant return in this short issue 8.5. Spoiler warning we discuss a potential hero to be revealed by FFG next week!
Lester gives us his feedback on our last Deck Garage and we do some rules pop-quizes about status cards. Lester gives us his opinions on Black Widow since he missed out in Episode 8. Next month we’ll have all three hosts together in one issue again!
00:00 Intros 01:00 Recent Plays 05:10 The Pulse – News Segment 10:45 Tony Stark’s Deck Garage Recap (Discuss Iron Man Leadership Further 18:30 Iron Man Lore Discussion 29:00 Jennifer Walters Rules Lawyer Minute (Rules topic discussion on Status Cards!) 43:40 Lester’s Black Widow Opinions
Join KennedyHawk and Crimson for a January issue of Marvel Champions Monthly. Lester was frozen in the North but we’ll get his comments later this month. In this episode we discuss recent Marvel Champions News, Recent Plays, Team Build a Deck, Argue about Indirect Damage and eventually discuss Black Widow spoilers!
00:00 Intros 01:45 The Pulse (news) 04:00 When We Last Saw our Heroes… (recent plays) 09:15 Listener Questions (’nuff said) 16:20 Tony Stark’s Deck Garage (Real time team deck build – this month Iron Man Leadership) Iron Man Lore Discussion (postponed to next episode so Lester can join us) 46:00 Shield Toss Story (another play story) 49:00 Jennifer Walters Rules Lawyer Minute (Rules topic or debate) 56:00 Meanwhile… in a Secret Lair… (Strategy primer for “Doomsday Chair” encounter set) 1:01:35 Spoiler Talk (Black Widow Talk)