Slaying Drones For Profit (post-testing)

Slaying Drones For Profit

The War Machine versus Ultron video comes out on my channel on Friday May 23rd, 2025

Here's a link to the May 23rd Video.

My go-to aspect to fight Ultron is Aggression, but Protection provides some fun tools as well:

• Electrostatic Armor will knock out a 1HP DRONE
• Energy Barrier will as well, without the need to defend (and is really good against Ultron II who gets his DRONE when he attacks, rather than after). Prevent one of the damage from Ultron's Attack and ping off the newly-minted DRONE at the same time!
• Change of Fortune will draw two cards because we're knocking out minions during the villain phase, and since some of those times I'm defending to do so, Unflappable draws me a third. Chewing threw your deck quickly allows you to shuffle spent Energy Barriers back into your deck faster.
• Because I'm defending DRONE minions rather than Ultron, Med Team helps keep me alive between flips to Alter-Ego, where hopefully Angel's Aerie will have 3 or 4 counters for extra healing.
• Repurpose is great for War Machine, especially if I have Fitz in play:
  • Repurpose any of War Machine's TECH (my favorite target is an exhausted Missile Launcher... more on that in a second)
  • Flip to Alter-Ego and use the Action there to shuffle it back into your deck
  • Exhaust Fitz to find it
  • Play it back to the table (which is why I like the Missile Launcher, because it only costs 1, but if I have a double resource, I prefer Gauntlet Gun).

Of course Shoulder Cannon can knock them out during the hero phase too, but I like to keep that as a backup in case I get swarmed.

Why so many?

Change of Fortune, Electrostatic Armor, and Unflappable are all "Max 1 per player", but I'm running three of each for three reasons:

• Three copies makes them easier (faster) to draw into
• Change of Fortune and Unflappable have a resource, making extra copies of them useful for Black Widow.
• I'm playing Ultron, and multiple copies makes is less likely to lose important cards as DRONES

Why no...?

• Beat 'Em Up is fantastic against Ultron, but I don't feel I need it if I have Shoulder Cannon
• Forcefield Generator soaks a lot of damage, but I just couldn't make room for it
• Perseverance is (again, useful for Black Widow), and would help protect me from Ultron's attacks, but that pushes me almost to 50, and I don't even like to have 46 (I don't like to go over 45).

Testing and Changes

Version 1 of this deck went 2-1 against Standard Ultron

Grant Ward never caused me to lose a game, but also, I was never ever to play him while I had Sky-Destroyer in play so I replaced him with Daredevil. Daredevil can thwart for 2 and be healed up with Med Team, then defend-and-defeat DRONES forever.

I also found that I wasn't getting much out of Sky-Destroyer in this build, so I replaced it with Nick Fury, getting me up to 6 allies, which is where I like to start anyway!

Also, while the HP buff from Endurance is good, I never played it in any of those three games, so I cut it too, and the same goes for Build Support! I just never put it on the table.

Those cuts took me down to 44 cards, so I added three Hard to Ignore to keep treat in check, taking me to 47 cards.

This Version of the deck went 2-0 against Standard Ultron before recording.