Flying Green Thor

Deck concept

This deck is an attempt to use Cannonball to alleviate Thor's biggest weakness playing true solo - his inability to reliably thwart a side scheme on the turn it appears.

Card choices

To use Cannonball repeatedly, you need to have two cards with the Aerial trait in hand. That's difficult for almost any non-Angel hero because few heroes have a lot of native aerial cards, so the obvious solution is to add Starhawk. You typically return Starhawk to your hand every turn, which means that you only need to draw into a single Aerial card to be able to use Cannonball, and in an emergency you can still use him just with Starhawk in hand, and still only take on consequential.

Starhawk pushes this deck into Protection, and then Ever Vigilant is obvious. Aerial Intervention isn't such a clear choice, but it is effectively a resource card with the Aerial trait, which unfortunately The Power of Flight lacks. Starhawk also calls for Knowhere (the extra ally slot is also very useful when you have 2 positions on the bench spoken for), and that in turn requires Build Support, so there aren't a lot of actual choices to be made in putting this deck together.

I went for Soaring Acrobatics because it can help Cannonball clear more side schemes unaided, and can also add an extra point of damage when Thor attacks to clear a 4HP minion. Down Time is good because Thor winds up taking a lot of hits in this build when you have two allies you want to keep in play. Multiple Man is probably the oddest-looking choice but I found him essential. Once you have all your pieces in play, card draw from this deck is actually ok: a minimum of 6 in hero form due to Knowhere and Asgard. But in the early game card draw is weak and with allies you need to keep in play Thor can wind up taking a lot of damage. Multiple Man gives you crucial room for this rather slow start and I mulligan for him ruthlessly, even though it may mean not playing Mjolnir in turn 1. He's a dead card after the first deck run, but I don't mind that.

Playing the deck

First mulligan for Multiple Man, even if it means discarding one of your key pieces. After that, you need Starhawk, Cannonball and Build Support to come out, which may take you a while. I tend to be aggressive using Defender of the Nine Realms to see more cards because once set up I don't find an acceleration token too much of an issue. Nick Fury, Asgard and Assess the Situation also help to keep the card draw ticking over.

when you have Build Support in play be a little careful about when you defeat it. You don't want to lose Knowhere to an untimely Caught Off Guard or Overwhelming Force.

Each hand needs a little planning to ensure that you can activate Cannonball at the right time and benefit from Knowhere as early as possible. You may want to leave threat on the main scheme so that you can use Ever Vigilant, but this isn't as brain-frying as a Domino deck. There isn't a game-ending combo either, just steadily taking the villain down with Hammer Throw once your key pieces are set up.

How to lose with this deck

It takes a while to locate all the key pieces and get this deck going, so it can lose early if Thor takes too many villain hits or too many nasty side schemes come out in the first couple of turns. I've already mentioned the risk if you have to discard Knowhere and can't get it back. Concussive Blast is bad too.

Another way to lose is if too many minions come along at once. With the right hand, of course, Thor can Lightning Strike ay number of minions, but there are only two in the deck and not enough card draw to be sure of seeing one when you need one.

Conclusion

So a slow deck with quite a big 'how to lose' section. This obviously isn't the strongest deck ever made but it can reliably beat Standard II or Expert villains and provides a different way to play Thor solo, which I quite enjoy.