Low-Budget Ragnarök

So...

Thor.

Thor has issues. We all know what they are.

Issue #1 starts with the little numbers near the bottom left corner of his card. 5 on one side, 4 on the other. Hmm. Most other heroes have 6 and 5. Poor Thor, Thor is poor. He's operating at roughly 80% of the budget of nearly every other hero in the game, limiting both the things he can do and the things he can pay for.

How do we fight this? Well, Thor's ability, "Have at thee!" is to draw two cards when he engages a minion, and he can do it in both the hero phase and the villain phase. Sounds good, but several villains don't have all that many minions, making villain phase flips unreliable and minion summoning affects burn through the encounter deck.

Looking deeper at the card pool, another option presents itself. When you can't afford the premium items, go hunting for bargains. Thor is the only Asgard hero with at least 14 hit points, meaning he is the only hero that can run both Godlike Stamina and Limitless Stamina. Since Thor can always have Mjolnir turn 1 to give him a weapon and the Aerial trait, he is also the only hero with reliable access to both Mean Swing and Pitchback. These four cards all have very good value for their very low costs. Combined with Defender of the Nine Realms, that gives Thor fifteen events with 1-cost or lower (I don't count For Asgard! or Lightning Strike for this). Something else those cards all have in common? They all have a . This deck has 20 cards with a , making Thor's Ragnarök co-star, Hulk, a good deal more reliable than usual. Since most of your Allies, Supports, and Upgrades don't have a , Hulk also gets more reliable as the game goes on. The end result is that you're perfectly capable of dealing heavy damage with your piddly 4 hand-size. Getting minions just makes it better and better. Thor's end-game turns, when you trigger "Have at thee!" in both phases, can be a glorious display of carnage.

Back to the issues.

Issue #2 centers around that big white number right above the THW. 1. Look at most hero tier lists and it's a good bet that many of the low-tier heroes share that number, and not many of the high-tier heroes do. A 1 THW is a serious handicap that makes it hard to reliably clear side schemes and keep the main scheme under control. Fortunately, Thor's most important card, Defender of the Nine Realms, is really good at helping with this; but it's just three copies in a forty card deck.

Every hero has the option to avoiding flipping to Alter-Ego, which generally prevents the main scheme from getting out of hand. This of course comes with risks. In the bad old days, Thor would summon a minion, spend all of his turn dealing with it, more minions would show up, and eventually things would get to be too much and he'd have to go stand on the balcony. Then the main scheme would shoot up and you'd have to spend time and resources to somehow deal with that. It was a vicious loop that made even standard Klaw a real challenge back in the day. But now? Now you have three 0-cost events that heal you for 2, nine 0- and 1-cost events that deal 3+ damage, and a 1-cost support that gives you a steady stream of discounted blockers with additional value on top. Now Thor can limit his balcony trips to maybe one per game and that main scheme is slowed to a trickle. Side schemes are still a bit of an issue, but at least you can Bifrost for a cheaper Lady Sif.

Issue #3 is a brutal Nemesis pack that gives you a minion and a side scheme that will just NOT. GO. AWAY. Shadow of the Past used to be a true game-ender, since Loki would kick that vicious loop into overdrive and it was sooooo hard to escape. Now you can just ignore him. He does 2 damage, you heal for 2 constantly. The main scheme starts to be a bit more than a trickle, but it's something you can handle. Loki is no longer a menace, he's just a pest.

There are still some issues. Thor may be able to spend wisely and stay heroic, but he's got matchup problems. Magneto is a brick wall plastered in Tough status cards standing on a side scheme obstacle course. I have not even tried to play against Stryfe; there is no way that is going to end well. Still, this is a totally viable deck against almost every expert villain, a far cry from yesteryear's struggles in standard. You're actually surprisingly good against Ronan, which is fun. That boy's "weakness" has always been that it's possible to outrace him, and Thor can race pretty well now. As long as you don't get murdered by untimely overkill (which honestly still happens a lot), you've got a shot.

Lightning Strike obviously kind of sucks in this deck. For Asgard! has generally always sucked, but it's reeeaaallly good on turn 1 to get The Bifrost.

Fun little bonus? Odin's Anger doesn't hurt all that much, and in fact can really help out. "Oh no, I got stunned and discarded Mjolnir! I guess I'll just take the free flip to Alter-Ego, play a Godlike Stamina, pick up and re-play the hammer, exhaust to Recover, then flip back to Hero. Thanks, Dad!"

I have totally won games just like this.