Colossus Enhanced — One Man Army

I've been wanting to get more out of Colossus in Protection for a while, and the cards from Fear No Evil felt like a good excuse to come back to him. The idea behind the deck is pretty simple: push Piotr's DEF as high as possible and turn that defense into something more useful than just taking hits.

The new package of cards that rewards you for playing without allies also fits him perfectly. If there is one Marvel character who can stand in front of the villain and say, “I've got this,” it's probably Colossus.

The idea behind the deck

Colossus starts at DEF 2, but we can push that quite a bit with Innate Reflexes, Armored Vest, and Ronin.

With all three in play, we reach DEF 5. Then The Best Offense... makes things much more interesting: we gain another point of DEF and, for that turn, we can use DEF instead of ATK or THW.

So with everything set up, Colossus can reach DEF 6 and use that number to attack or thwart.

That would already be good on its own, but Fear No Evil gives us several cards that let us squeeze even more value out of that DEF.

In Harm's Way is probably my favorite. At DEF 5, it can deal 5 damage and remove 5 threat with a single card. If we are at DEF 6, even better.

Army of One lets us ready Colossus very cheaply as long as we do not control any allies. That means we can thwart using DEF, ready, then attack, thwart again, or use the second activation for whatever the board needs.

Colossus starts doing a lot more per turn than you would normally expect from a hero with a hand size of 4.

Tough is still a huge part of the deck

Even though the deck leans heavily into DEF, Colossus' own Tough mechanic is still central to how everything works.

Tough status cards are still one of the main engines of the deck.

We have Organic Steel to get them back, Bulletproof Protector to manage them and ready again, and cards like Steel Fist or Made of Rage to turn them into offense.

Iron Will is especially important because it rewards us whenever we lose a Tough status by drawing a card. With a hero hand size of only four, any extra card draw matters.

Titanium Muscles also helps the economy and keeps Colossus hitting hard on turns where we are not using The Best Offense....

And this is important: Made of Rage and The Best Offense... are not really meant to work together.

When we use The Best Offense..., we replace ATK and THW with DEF and ignore modifiers to ATK and THW. So Made of Rage belongs more to the turns where we go back to classic Colossus: spend a Tough status and throw out a huge basic attack with Overkill.

I like that the deck has those two different gears depending on what we draw.

Defending also generates value

Another thing I wanted to improve was the villain phase.

With Unflappable, a perfect defense can turn into an extra card, and Not Today! helps us control threat while defending.

Get Their Attention also fits really well because it lets us get value out of enemy attacks instead of simply surviving them.

And this is where Ronin creates a nice interaction.

As long as we do not control any allies, it gives us +1 DEF and Retaliate 1. That single point of damage may not look like much, but it lets us set up minions to die during the villain phase and trigger Change of Fortune, drawing two cards.

It will not happen every turn, but when it does, it feels great.

Stand Alone follows the same general idea: the longer we can operate without allies on the table, the more value we get from the new solo-style package.

Piotr still matters

Even though the deck wants Colossus standing in front of the villain, I try to use Piotr as much as the situation allows.

The difference between a hand size of 6 and a hand size of 4 is huge.

Piotr's Studio helps us find our identity cards, and Armor Up lets us end the turn in alter ego without necessarily giving the villain a free scheme activation.

If we have Armor Up, when the villain is about to activate we can flip to Colossus, gain Tough, and make the villain attack us instead of scheming.

Moira MacTaggert fits perfectly with that plan, rewarding those identity changes with another card.

I do not force the flip back to Piotr every turn, but whenever the board allows it, those two extra cards are absolutely worth taking advantage of.

Why only Shadowcat?

Because we do not really have a choice. :)

Shadowcat is part of Colossus' identity kit, so she is the only ally in the deck.

You do need to keep in mind that while she is in play, she temporarily shuts off some of the “play alone” bonuses. Ronin loses its bonuses, and Army of One or In Harm's Way become less efficient.

Because of that, I usually treat Shadowcat as a temporary tool: she comes in, does what I need, and I do not try to keep her around for too long.

And honestly, the fact that Kitty is the only person Piotr allows into his little “one man army” feels pretty fitting.

What I look for early

There is no completely rigid mulligan, but I usually want to set up the pieces that improve the deck's economy and DEF as early as possible.

Iron Will is almost always welcome.

I also want Armored Vest, Titanium Muscles, Unflappable, and of course Innate Reflexes, which is already available from the start.

Ronin is another very strong setup piece because it switches on the no-allies package immediately.

For economy, Deft Focus and The X-Jet help a lot, especially because Colossus' hero hand size can otherwise feel very restrictive.

You do not need to reach DEF 6 before the deck starts working. DEF 4 or 5 is already more than enough, and I would rather keep playing than spend several turns trying to build the perfect board.

In short

The goal was to build a version of Colossus that actually feels like Colossus.

I did not want to fill the table with allies defending for him. I wanted Piotr himself to take the hits, and I wanted the fact that he can absorb punishment to be the thing that helps him control the game.

Fear No Evil gives him exactly the tools he needed for that.

He can defend, manage threat, hit hard, and get multiple activations in the same turn, while Tough status cards still work as the second major engine of the deck.

I do not think this is the only way to play Colossus, and it is probably not the simplest either, but out of all the versions I have tried, this is one of the ones that feels closest to the character from the comics:

Piotr in front. Everyone else behind him.