Private Health Insurance - Iron Man/Protection

Deck Overview

This is an Iron Man protection deck that aims to build up the suit slightly faster via adding 3 extra tech cards in the form of Energy Barrier allowing you to flip perhaps a turn earlier and not only have a slightly larger hand size but also deflect one damage via the barrier. This then allows you to contribute to managing the board state while not hurting your own ramp/hand size and gets Iron Man up and running faster.

The number of resources is slightly lowered but between the wild resources of War Machine and The Power of Protection along with Pepper Potts there is enough to make it consistent in the late game. Along with the 2 First Aid and 1 Rocket Boots and if required the Stark Tower there are enough cards that cycle through the deck to ensure aerial is more consistent than not. The x1 Enhanced Awareness is to ensure that aerial becomes a consistent outcome in the late game but this deck slot is flexible in my opinion.

The deck has been slimmed down from 45 to 40 to create a more consistent deck that draws the tech cards faster, the flip side is playing Repulsor Blast in the late game accelerates you through your deck slightly faster.

Upgrades

• Powered Gauntlets, Mark V Helmet, Arc Reactor, Rocket Boots is your main iron man tech engine that transforms into Iron Man's main damage and thwarting in the late game provided you go aerial each turn from the Rocket Boots and Arc Reactor offers flexibility for Iron Man to thwart for 4 each turn or thwart for 2 and flip and recover.

• Endurance are used to create a healthier HP differential.

• Energy Barrier as discussed gives you the valuable tech trait along with it been a resource symbol for Repulsor Blast It's ability is invaluable against the drones Ultron produces along with making it easier to clear the goblin minions Goblin Thrall, Goblin Soldier, Goblin Knight that all have 3 or 5 hp getting them to even number means Powered Gauntlets while aerial can clear them efficiently.

• Honorary Avenger is a very strong card at present giving allies like Black Widow a crucial additional health point, allowing her to thwart twice and be used for card control while also optimising the healing options this deck provides. Play them on Luke Cage can also mean he can defend almost any attack and if at full HP not die from the attack. Given this card does not have a limit of one per character this card allows for the ability to create allies that stay permanently on the board additionally it gives allies that don't already have the avenger trait the additional benefit from Avengers Assemble! if your team of heroes has a leadership player.

• Enhanced Awareness - a suboptimal upgrade where you drop 3 cards from hand (2 to pay and the card itself) to gain 3 resources back over 3 turns. It's only upside is it ensures that Iron Man can go aerial as required and is more of a card I'm testing at the moment rather than something I'm convinced is strong enough to stay due to the loss in tempo it causes early game.

Allies

• Luke Cage offers potential to be a great defender along with been an resource while in the deck. His stat line means he can consistently stick on the table and either block attacks or deal 2 damage.

• Black Widow a great control card that offers some flexibility on blocking some of the more dangerous encounter cards currently in the game, the nice thing is you can use her ability expending a resource and then use Pepper Potts to use that same mental resource to go aerial.

• Nova another resource ally that can double down on this decks concentration of resources for Repulsor Blastto deal 2 damage where needed, attach an Honorary Avenger as required to give him a slightly larger health pool.

• Nick Fury is an extremely flexible ally that classically draws you 3 cards allowing you to find your tech pieces faster along with offering 2 thwart or 2 attack and then can block that turn if you are going to flip or block for another players attack.

Support

• Avengers Mansion and Helicarrier offer additional opportunities to ramp your game plan, drawing an additional card lets you dig faster for your tech cards but in the late game also helps find your damage dealing cards in the form of Repulsor Blast and Supersonic Punch.

• Med Team is great at healing the buffed up allies which have extra health or for healing Iron Man himself. The resource means its also great with Nova and Repulsor Blast.

Events

• First Aid offers flexibility to heal players or allies while doubling as a way to go aerial in the late game.

• Tackle - A great card that can offer potential to stun the villain and deal 3 damage which is nice particularly for iron man as stopping every point of damage allows for him to stay in hero form for longer.

• Preemptive Strike a strong card to mitigate damage and deal damage back to the villain. The fact that it is also helps with the decks overall game plan and on expert mode can give you some extra security on certain attacks. It also creates a better game plan about using Luke Cage with an extra HP or two to defend and live from the attack as you can reliably know how much damage the villain will deal to you.

• Repulsor Blast and Supersonic Punch late game damage cards that are essential to Iron man's win condition and ability to clear some of the larger minions in the game including MODOK, Monster, Tombstone and Scorpion.

Resources

The resource selection is as expected this early in the game, you could easily cut x1 The Power of Protection for another card but I find it helps with getting the allies and Med Team down more efficiently.

For your consideration

1. An extra copy of Honorary Avenger
2. Down Time making Iron Man have 5 recovery is quite strong but it's also unfavourable to flip back down to hero unless necessary in the late game.
3. Haymaker a way to deal damage from hand can be nice if you don't see any of your other threats.

Hope this write up helps, thanks for reading and feel free to comment below any suggestions or feedback to the list cheers.