Ant-Man - Christmas Tree Allies

The idea of the deck is to get out a couple of allies (especially Iron Man) quickly, using Call for Aid to speed up the process. Then, deck the halls like Christmas has come early, ornamenting your allies with Inspired, Power Gloves, and Reinforced Suit. Use First Aid, Inspiring Presence, Reinforced Suit, and Team Training to keep your allies on the field for as long as possible. About half of the time, I have been able to keep Iron Man in play for almost the entire game, and (when it works) it almost feels like you have two heroes.

This deck doesn't chump block all that often, so Ready for Action has been useful to defend while preserving your allies (especially with U.S. Agent). Stunning or confusing the villain with Wrist Gauntlets is also very helpful (the spread of icons is pretty even). My biggest problem so far has been mitigating damage, especially from minion swarms, and so I have added Endurance in the latest iteration. While Ant man does have a lot of healing, it is not always easily available, as you juggle the different forms. Therefore, another source of hit points seems worthwhile.

Earlier versions of this deck had Sky Cycle, but I found that I never played it. I also had Swarm Tactics in there, but it was too difficult to get value out of it, since Wasp is not always in play. I do not use The Power of Leadership because it only benefits four cards in the deck (Team Training and the allies). In my next iteration, I may remove one or both copies of Inspiring Presence, since it is sometimes difficult to make use of. Another copy of First Aid might be handy.

I have only tested this deck in solo. It handily beat Expert Rhino a few times, and it was able to beat Standard and Expert Zola, but the latter was a desperate fight. I tried a few games on Heroic, and I was firmly trounced. The deck struggles a little bit with swarms of minions. At this point, it feels like a firmly middle-of-the-road deck, but I enjoy having another style of Leadership deck to play. I wonder whether this archetype might work even better in Captain America or Spider-Man, both of whom have better defensive abilities.

I hope that you enjoy trying out Christmas Tree Leadership, too.