Thor - God of Thunder

Let's start with that, that Thor is my favourite hero in the MCU, by far.

I'm still fairly new to the game, and still a beginner in deckbuilding, yet I'm seeing some sparks already and am connecting the dots. I was really sad to see that Thor was so mutilated with a hand size of 5/4 (alter-ego/hero), yet I really wanted to make him work.

I've played with the pre-constructed deck 3 times, lost 3 times and hated him, but then I've stumbled upon Team-Covenant's very low curve deck and then I've realised that's the problem - the precon had way too many expensive cards and I was stuck multiple times with a dead hand, able to play 1 or even sometimes 0 cards.

This is a (in my opinion) a way better and a waaaay more consistent version of Team Covenant's Thor deck https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/2250/thor-we-were-swingin-1.0 which included some very counter-intuitive and counter-kit cards, below is my write-up:

Let's start by his basic abilities: in alter-ego he can summon his beloved hammer Mjolnir (which you should immediately see as an additional resource) every round, in hero form when he engages a minion, he draws 2 cards with a limit once per phase. Let that sink in, once per phase...

I've immediately observed that basically if he can engage a minion in hero phase he basically has a hand size of 6 (not including Asgard), if you get lucky in the Villain phase you make that 8 - whopping 8 cards at the start of the round, that's sick!

So with the staple cards he should have - Angela, Looking for Trouble, and his kit's Defender of the Nine Realms you make sure you engage that minion almost every turn and have an ater-ego form hand size in hero form.

Reasons why I got rid of TC's cards:

• second copy of Combat Training - I don't even know why would somebody include more than 1 copy of that card, this should be self-explanatory, but let's explain that - if you have that in play, the second copy is a dead card, and even if you somehow discard the first one, because you needed it for other reasons, with Thor's deck-cycling ability, you'll have it fast back in your hands. Yes, it's a , so it does work with Hulk and Jarnbjorn, but this definitely is not a reason to include a dead card.
• another almost-dead card (and same symbol card) is a Counterattack, even though you face-tank many attacks with Thor, it's not worth to give him such a card, as we want to get as close to a 40 cards deck as possible, this card does not deserve the spot, but I would consider including a 1 copy for some attack heavy Villains, like VG/Thanos/Crossbones,etc.
• Tigra - initially I've played with her for like 15 games, and I've used her maybe once, mostly she's too expensive to play and/or we lack the ally spot to put her in as Thor has better allies to use, for example: Angela, Bug, Lady Sif, Throg, Valkyrie, let's not mention she's a symbol that really does not work with Hulk, who with the amount of and in this deck might be used as an attacker or just a tank, your call - I've had a lot of luck with both versions.
• Get Over Here! - this card is completely dead in singleplayer and even in multiplayer we already have a lot of ways to engage minions that this card probably has no space here, although I could consider putting it in in some really-minion heavy encounter sets that could swarm other players.

Once we have that down, I'll explain the inclusions:

• Angela - beats me why it was not included in most popular Thor's deck on mcdb - imo it's a staple, I'd say it could even be in his kit as one of the 1/15 hero cards, yet they made it an aggression card to work with Valyrie hero.
• Hall of Heroes - I could basically copy above card's explanation, when hero's kit is based on defeating minions and we have a card that let's us draw 3 cards in alter-ego every 3 defeated minions - that's a staple, works perfectly with Thor's kit.
• Looking for Trouble - Those are basically 3 more copies of Defender of the Nine Realms, as the only thing that Thor struggles with is threat mitigation, we have to fight it as well as we can, additionally it works with Thor's kit perfectly, on top of that it has a symbol - it's perfect for other cards from this deck - Hulk and Jarnbjorn. I'll say this again, but not in vain, this is a perfect Thor card.
• Throg - it's basically a 2 cost minions that almost always has the tough status, as we want to be engaged with a minion at the start of every hero phase, it's almost a guarantee to have a 2 cost very good tank.
• Bug - this ally helps us with anything we can't handle, for the most of the time it will be pinging those schemes for 1 every turn, then we attack, it heals, you get the gist.
• Chase Them Down - additional copy of that to help with that threat mitigation.

Cards to consider for the future:

• Down Time - I don't have Ms.Marvel nor Phoenix, so I have not used that, but I can see this card being useful, sometimes you want to come back to Odinson form, call that hammer and heal, that would ensure you heal for 2 more. I'm seeing this card as useful in his kit, not sure how much though, will update in the future.

• "Bring It!" - I also don't have Drax Hero Pack, but this card looks like an auto-include, as Thor you can have 1-2 and sometimes 3 minions engaged with you, that's up to 3 more cards to draw and the card itself let's us basically cycle itself (if we have at least 1 minion engaged with us, which we'll probably have) making it a deck with 3 less cards, and the lesser the better - you'll see your hero cards more often, and they are your strongest ones. Update: after getting Drax and this card to my collection I immediatelly added it and I have to say it's definitely a staple, works great in this deck for the reason described above.

• Gatekeeper - If you would have any problem with threat while playing solo, you could consider playing this card, for 0 cost and +2 health to a minion (2 health minions still can be one-shotted with Mjolnir and Combat Training) it takes care of that 4 threat. However, I would not run that card too often.

Let me know if you want some more write up, for example on the play-style/mulligans as I have not touched those at all.