Deck of the Week is a miniseries from KennedyHawk on the MCM team. After a break we are back with Deck of the Week for the next four weeks covering core set heroes with the new expanded cardpool! This week Black Panther / Protection!
Deck of the Week is a miniseries from KennedyHawk on the MCM team. Each week I’ll overview a deck, do a write-up on marvelcdb and hopefully record some gameplay videos for the future. This issue we will talk all about a revisit to my Black Widow Protection heroic clearing deck. It’s a very fun deck where you try to soak multiple attacks per villain phase!
Welcome to Marvel Champions Monthly: a fan podcast about the game Marvel Champions! Join Kennedy, Attercop, Amerikano and Crimson on a 2-part adventure. We’ll be revealing and over viewing this year’s “Smash-Up” decks. Like last year these decks are meant to be played with any hero for a fun, thematic battle in a game of Marvel Champions. This week we go over 2 protection and 2 justice decks – as a bonus you can build all 8 of these decks with one collection!
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 14 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. This deck focuses getting Spider-Woman to a stat line of 3/3/3 and then using readying tricks and counter punch to get at least 3 uses of those states. Holiday colors chosen on purpose.
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 14 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. This deck focuses on keeping Clint in hero form for as long as possible so that he doesn’t have to be concerned with his biggest weakness – Threat! Will this deck work out? Or have I failed this city?
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 14 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 Defending the 9 (well maybe just other 3) realms! Thor will use powerful Protection cards to ready and defend multiple times per round. This is ideally a multiplayer deck where you handle all the damage from the villain while the other players seek the glory that you allow them.
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 canceling the villain’s phase using Captain America in a controlling protection suite. Cancel attacks with stun, cancel treachery cards and be a bit prickly with reflected damage!
Captain America Protection Deck: https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/5831/captain-america-cancel-culture-decked-halls-2020-1.0
Welcome to Marvel Champions Monthly: a Fan podcast about the game Marvel Champions. Join hosts: KennedyHawk, Crimson, Lester and Amerikano in a smashing new episode. Here we do a team deckbuilding task working on a Hulk-Protection deck (link below). We also answer some listener questions and have a surprise guest appearance by the folks at the Card Text to tell us all about the rules interactions with our Rise of Red Skull spoiler card – Goliath!
Today’s article is going to be a brief primer on a Thor/Protection deck, we will cover the remaining aspects (Aggression and Justice) in the coming weeks. Frigga is Thor’s mother and the origins of the word Friday. In the movies and comics we often see Frigga in a role where she protects her children but in this deck Thor will be using protection cards for his protection. This deck is going to focus on Thor protecting allies while counting on his signature cards to take out his foes. As always our card images are provided courtesy of the amazing Hall of Heroes website. Be sure to check them out and consider supporting their endeavors! This deck is going to focus on Protection cards that will provide Thor with many Energy resources while protecting him from damage. The deck-list is located at the bottom of the article so read on!
Secret Origin
The objective with this deck is to get some pieces in place so Thor as the protection player doesn’t even need to defend! This is done though a few cards from Ms. Marvel’s deck, mainly Energy Barrier and Nova. Thor is the defender of the nine realms with a stout 2 defense. We are hoping to not need to use his defense stat and instead use his potent attack while protection cards and a hefty 14 starting hit points will keep him alive. Thor has one signature card that helps with this goal. His trusty – but totally awesome looking helmet! Staying in hero form means Thor will trigger his Have At Thee ability as much as he can.
Let’s take a look at some of the protection cards included in this deck. For damage mitigation we have cards like Energy Barrier (see above), Nova, and Preemptive Strike.I know this card took a hit in multiplayer from the latest RRG update but it still is a great card for mitigating damage slowly and chipping away at the villain. Also all 7 of these cards (Nova is uniquer) have the energy resource symbol which is vital to the success of Thor!
We also have some cards to heal Thor which provide this energy resources, Med Team which can heal Thor for 6 over 3 turns. With damage mitigation from Energy Barrier this should help Thor sustain hero mode for a long time. All these energy resources are good for fueling Thor’s Lightning Strike which is key for removing several minions that may pile up while Thor focuses on taking down the villain. The deck ends up coming in with 20 energy resources so that’s a pretty good amount to fuel this event.
I hope this brief write-up inspired you to try playing Thor with a little support form Protection. Using these cards should allow Thor to stay in hero more for longer and trigger his Have at Thee ability more often!
First, give Thor time to set-up. You are going to need to get a few damage mitigations down to get rolling so this deck may struggle a bit in solo.
Use your mulligan wisely, be sure to search deep for something to help with your low handsize (God of Thunder, and Asgard are perfect turn 1 plays!)
Don’t be afraid to flip back to Thor and use Mjolnir early as a resource, you’ll be able to bring it back and it helps with your early game economy (a must for Thor players!)
Thwarting is going to be tough – use your allies wisely to keep the threat managed. Your main threat management tool is staying in hero form!
Mulligan Thoughts:
Mulligan hard for hand support – Consider a hard mulligan for Asgard, or 2x God of Thunder. Your deck doesn’t need speed. It needs slow and steady ramp.
Always pitch Mjolnir – In your initial hand, you’d rather see more combo pieces and return it to hand as a resource!
Don’t be tempted by Attack events early on – Don’t let the allure of Hammer Strike get you early on, pitch these cards for economy builders as it’s essential for keeping your damage mitigation up and running
Multiplayer Tips:
This combo works well in solo but really shines in multiplayer. There you’ll be able to mitigate damage on your turn and defend for another player. Consider packing an armored vest for this instance and allow the rest of the team to deal some steady damage.
Thanks for sticking with me – next Thor entry we’ll swing for the fences with a hammer’s blazing – aggression deck!
