Overview:

Intro: I love the leadership class for Star-Lord. His base cards and abilities are super strong but there are definitely so many risks associated with flipping additional encounters a turn. This is why he needs a little help from his friends!

Style: So this deck primarily revolves around using your "What could go wrong?" (which will be abbreviated to WCGW for this guide) hero ability every turn and having your allies help mitigate the threats from the extra encounters. After you get your board set up, you'll have some huge turns to use Blaze of Glory, Element Gun, Daring Escape, & Sliding Shot to get some massive swings onto the villain.

Testing Edit

• Remove Yondu (1x)
• Add Hawkeye (1x)

Starting Hand Strategy:

• Priority 1: I’ll almost always opt to use WCGW to play Element Gun. Getting your gun out early gives you an easy way to deal with any minions you may draw.

• Priority 2: Allies that I love to get early are Groot & Rocket Raccoon. These allies are both cost 3 and don’t have an “on summon” ability that will be a waste for turn 1. Getting out allies early gives you more flexibility to deal with encounter cards/the board state.

• Priority 3: I also really love getting Star-Lord's Helmet & Knowhere out early. These cards will give you great mileage (especially if you can get them out turn 1 or 2).

• Plan out your hand and resources. I’ll use Peter Quill’s ability, Smooth Talker to swap cards from Priority 2 & 3 if I don’t have enough to pay for them all.

• Don’t be afraid to use ally cards as resources. This deck has 2 copies of Make the Call so you’ll be able to play them from the discard pile.

Playing This Deck:

Early Game: The early game phase is a balance of pushing the boundaries with WCGW to get out allies, upgrades, and supports while mitigating the risks that come with it. I prioritize getting Element Gun out first turn and possibly Groot or Rocket Raccoon if you draw them (although any ally is better than no ally!). I’m oftentimes using Ready for Action on Groot so that he can continue to be a reliable blocker. It feels really nice to get Star-Lord's Helmet & Knowhere out early for draw potential. After that, I would choose Avengers Mansion, Helicarrier and Team Training as my next priority for supports.

Mid Game: At this point you can focus on really continuing to have more allies on the board. The more you have, the more options and flexibility you will have to mitigate any trouble you come across. Using Make the Call allows you to have some flexibility to resummon the exact allies you need from your discard pile. Most of the time, I found that I would have to use allies somewhat abusively to mitigate the bad stuff that can happen. This is the precarious part of the game where you are balancing getting out the rest of your support/upgrades and filling your board with allies.

Late Game: At this point, you will find that you have thinned out your deck after having most of your upgrade/supports on the board. Star-Lord is stacked with some great event cards that allow him to have a HUGE amount of damage/thwart potential. Ideally, you want to play Blaze of Glory into Daring Escape (multiple times) and then finish off with a Sliding Shot. Then you can swing with all your allies that get the +2ATK/+2THW and you can 100 to 0 a villain most times. You can continue to abuse this with the 0 cost Get Ready which will allow you to swing multiple times with some of your big hitters (like Beta Ray Bill and Nova Prime).

Card Analysis:

Allies:

• Groot: one of the best allies for Star-Lord. He is essentially free with WCGW and the BEST blocker (and trust me… Star-Lord needs a blocker). Never attack with Groot unless it is an emergency. Give him tough with Ready for Action and that turn he blocks basically allows him to just heal 2 for free! He also gets 7HP with Team Training on the board. You don’t want to leave home without Groot.
• Rocket Raccoon: a reliable minion killer that is also 3 cost (no additional resource required after WCGW). Not only does he have 4ATK w/overkill against minions but he also has 2THW. This makes him a super flexible ally for Star-Lord.
• Falcon: I have always been a fan of Falcon in my other leadership decks. Only issue I had was his 4 cost to play. However, Star-Lord gets him on the board for 1 resource in combination with WCGW. I found his on-summon ability super clutch for someone like Star-Lord who is constantly suffering the effects of additional encounter cards. It is great for keeping the main/side schemes under control. Also with Make the Call, his on-summon ability becomes a reliable tool you have in your arsenal after he is discarded.
• Nova Prime: At face value, 5 cost is way too high for Nova Prime. However, with WCGW, this ally comes in super clutch with his on-summon ability. Just being able to straight up defeat a non-elite minion on summon is probably one of the strongest abilities we have seen on an ally. Again, with Make the Call, you will still have access to this ability after Nova has expended himself on the battlefield.
• Nick Fury: I really like his flexibility to provide exactly what Star-Lord needs to deal with a particular situation. I will often discard him as a resource early on and then use Make the Callto bring him into play to handle a specific need I have. He is also a great person to abuse with Get Ready since he is not sticking around haha.
• Beta Ray Bill: Another 5 cost card that I would never want to pay full price for. Beta Ray Bill will be your double whammy, “ kill a minion, thwart the main scheme” friend. This extra value you get from his ability has helped me keep so many situations from spiraling out of control.
• Yondu: Another ally with great staying power that will be reliable in chipping away at the boss or helping you fight minions. The fact that he does not suffer consequential damage is very nice. Honestly though, was my last priority to get him on the board though. (I may replace him with someone else in the near future).

Events:

• Make the Call: Edit (thank you Archangel for clarifying this point!) This card is still pivotal to this deck. Since you’ll often have to use some allies as resources early on, this card opens up the ability to tap into the exact ally you need to help yourself from whatever situation you face. Hopefully by the time you need to use this card to summon people like Falcon or Nick Fury, you will have Helicarrier and Avengers Mansion to help pay for the allies.
• Ready for Action: Found myself almost exclusively using it with Groot. He is the best person to have tough on since he will not only take 0 damage but heal 2 damage (if he is injured). This gives Groot some huge stay potential. Of course, feel free to use this on other allies if necessary.
• First Aid: In my games I would often just tap Helicarrier and heal Groot. However, I do situationally use it to heal other allies like Beta Ray Bill and Rocket Raccoon if I need their abilities.
• Get Ready: use and abuse Nick Fury with this. Also, if you made another ally tough with Ready for Action and chose to defend with them, this is a good card to still utilize them when it comes back to your turn! Lastly, this is great for the big damage turn after you use Blaze of Glory. I’ll often use this on Nova Prime or Beta Ray Bill to swing for 10 damage in one turn!

Support:

• Team Training: I put two copies in this deck because I like to get this out as soon as possible. Having the extra +1HP on all your allies just allows them to be so much more flexible.
• C.I.T.T.: Honestly still questioning the value of this card. I rarely got to play this or use it’s effect (because the other options always seem to be better). May end up replacing this in the future. Found myself rather using the 2 resources to shoot with both #elemental guns almost every time.

Wombo Combo:

Combo Explained: So during the late game you will be able to pull off a huge combo. Your deck is thinned because most of your allies/supports/upgrades are on the board. I found that my hand would often look have some combination of Blaze of Glory, Daring Escape, and Sliding Shot (especially since you’re drawing extra cards almost every turn with Star-Lord's Helmet and Avengers Mansion). In an ideal world, this is the combo you want to use….

• Blaze of Glory
• Attack with hero + all allies
• Daring Escape (as many as you have) to keep attacking with Star-Lord
• Get Ready to attack with your highest ATK allies
• Use WCGW to pay for Sliding Shot (which will do a minimum of 9 damage at this point).
• Shoot with both Element Gun's

Questions?

Please feel free to comment below for questions, clarifications, suggestions or if you notice anything wrong with the deck! Thank you all and I hope you enjoy this as much as I do! (