War Machine Running S.H.I.E.L.D. for 'Justice'

The future of air combat... Is it manned, or unmanned? I'll tell you, in my experience, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilot's instinct, his insight, that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern its outcome or a pilot's judgment. - James Rhodes: Iron Man

War Machine is a deck good against anything. I have always enjoyed playing this deck, but I wanted something with a little bit more interesting set-up. Something really fun and cool to execute (...a pilot's instinct, ..., that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern its outcome...).

This is why I built a very thematic deck around the S.H.I.E.L.D. archetype.

49 cards is a weird number to start with, but each card has its purpose in this deck. (I have summarised an option for trimming down the deck at the end of the description)

All added cards with the exception of the resource cards and a few permanent Support and Upgrades cards are from the S.H.I.E.L.D. archetype.

This deck is built in a way where the cards interact with each other and do something useful every turn.

Government Liaison will help you with setting up your deck and getting out those costly Allies. Later on, you can use it to utilise Dum Dum Dugan, Global Logistics and Homeland Intervention to their full potential and you can utilise Munitions Bunker more than once when you are in hero form.

Agent 13 will ready any of the S.H.I.E.L.D. aupport cards you need (like Munitions Bunker for example).

Field Agent means you can use Agent 13 and Dum Dum Dugan more effectively. For example, if you have 2 Field Agents, you can use them together with any other 3 S.H.I.E.L.D. cards to deal 6 damage with Dum Dum Dugan for no consequential damage. And you can do this multiple times. MAD!

And Sky-Destroyer will casually deal 2 damage (4 damage if you ready it with Agent 13 every phase you play a S.H.I.E.L.D. card.

And all this is on top of what War Machine deck can already do, and it can do a lot!

The deck is packed with a lot of damage, thwart and survivability. It's really fun and challenging to play it.

...

If you prefer your deck to be a bit slimmer, you can get rid of any of the following cards: Crew Quarters, Down Time, Endurance, Sense of Justice, Heroic Intuition, Skilled Investigator and Symbiote Suit. Removing all of them will trim down the deck to 42 cards.

I prefer playing those cards because of the following reasons:

• Crew Quarters - you will spend a lot of time in Alter-Ego.
• Down Time - you will find yourself in a position where you need to use your Recovery.
• Endurance - extra 3 Hit Points can be the difference between dead and alive War Machine, and it cost only one resource.
• Heroic Intuition will give you this little bit of extra Thwart for when you need it, and we all know War Machine's biggest weakness is Thwart.
• Sense of Justice - you have only 2 Thwart events in this deck, but the cost to play Targeted Strike is 1, which means you will never need to spend another resource for it if you have Sense of Justice down.
• Skilled Investigator is at a cost of 0 and it will occasionally allow you to draw an extra card. Even if there is only one Side Scheme defeated during the whole game, the card has paid for itself.
• Symbiote Suit provides you with a lot of benefits, the extra +1 hand size is the biggest one. The drawback is the extra encounter card you will receive every phase, and unfortunately, War Machine doesn't have built-in mechanics to negate Treachery cards, but I think it's well worth the risk.

If you really want to get rid of some cards at least, Endurance, Heroic Intuition and Sense of Justice are the best candidates for it.