True to Marvel form, heroes are good guys. Good guys are powerhouse-punch-‘em-in-the-face good. Nearly everyone is an Avenger. And, heroes show up late.
Can’t they just once save the day before the villains ruin it?
Let’s help the heroes get to the battlefield ahead of schedule and end the game before our opponents’ devious plans begin.
If we strike first, we’re still the good guys.
Right?
Choose Your Character
Without looking at the 99, we have a difficult choice between running Captain America, Team Leader or Director Nick Fury as our commander.
Cap gives us raw, explosive power turn after turn while Fury enacts a slower, resource-minded gameplan. Do we want to pummel our opponents now? Or, do we want to slowly bury them under righteous heroic value?
Looking at the 99, the answer is clear.
We want Cap.
Hope Fury’s not too mad.
Captain America and Nick Fury duke it out in Captain America #153
Out of the box, we get a deck overflowing with value engines. With twenty sources of card advantage, we do not need value in the command zone. We need power.
Many of the Earth’s mightiest heroes have keyworded abilities, attack triggers, or damage triggers that all benefit from Cap’s +1/+1 counters, vigilance, and haste.
But, yep. Still slow. And the heroes that show up on turn two lack the oomph that we are looking for at the commander table.
Wizards gives us nine mana rocks and one more land than usual to compensate for the beefy beaters, but we aren’t so sure. Let’s flip the script and let the good guys come out first by lowering our average mana value and increasing the punching power of our early plays.
Gentlemen
Not known for their friendly working partnership, Phil Coulson and Matt Murdock are the turn-over-turn on-board value that we want on turn two. As incremental sources of +1/+1 counters combined with Matt Murdock’s ward, our opponents will look to remove these two from the battlefield faster than Deadpool betrays Coulson.
The more removal that gets used on our early plays, the better. Each early sacrifice makes it more likely it is that our Cap sticks around to buff the team.
Matt Murdock (Deadpool) tracks down Coulson in Deadpool Vol. 4 #31
The Wasp
Inexpensive, under-the-radar interaction that wears counters well and that our opponents feel bad spending removal on. The Wasp.
The Wondrous Wasp’s ability to erase the text box of an opponent’s commander for sixty-two cents is sure to draw attention, more removal, and anger from the table without taxing our wallet.
Janet Van Dyne (somehow two cents more expensive than the Wondrous Wasp?) offers a reasonable piece of one-for-one interaction on a flyer.
As an original Avenger who named the team, The Wasp deserves these slots on flavor alone.
The Wasp names The Avengers in Avengers #1
Value, Value
Tapping into the Spider-Verse can be disorienting, for sure.
Jessica Jones and Araña (Spider Girl) were both powerful value engines in their respective limited formats without strong homes. Red was notoriously weak in both Spiderman and Marvel Super Heroes, and red white specifically was completely unsupported in Spiderman.
And, Jessica Jones and Araña were both Avengers supporting Captain Marvel.
And, more recently, Jessica Jones is Spider Girl?
Jessica Jones IS Spider Girl in What If? Jessica Jones #1
Disorienting identities aside, Jessica Jones and Araña both offer clear +1/+1 counter and attack synergies that develop into mid-to-late-game value engines to keep our heroes arriving on schedule.
Teaming Up
More disorienting than the Spider-Verse, Captain America, Team Leader meet Captain America, Wings of Freedom.
Cap Leader will give our Cap Wings a small bonus to buff Wings’ attack trigger. And, keyword soup Cap Wings will wear the +1/+1 counters as proudly as the stars and stripes. In many cases, Cap Wings will attack an opponent without strong flying defenses while enabling attacks against more strongly fortified opponents with his team buff.
And when Cap Leader and Cap Wings don’t enable all the attacks we need, Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior will keep new recruits on the opposite side of the battlefield incapacitated to help the heroes get there.
In practice, this team is much better than in the comics.
Captain America and Spider Woman fumble mid battle in Spider-Woman #15
Bring in the Young Avengers
Last but not least, let’s lower our mana curve by recruiting Young Avengers Kid Loki and Hawkeye (unfortunately Clint Barton and not Kate Bishop).
We are bringing out the good, heroic side of Kid Loki as he grants hexproof to all of our heroes the turn they come down buffed by Cap, Team Leader, an annoying piece of tech that will limit our opponents to choosing whether or not to answer our threats in the narrow window between entering the battlefield and receiving Cap’s counter.
Hawkeye, Master Marksman, who we wish was Kate Bishop, gives us a utility belt of triggers to activate on attacks, clearing the way of blockers, doming opponents on the sidelines, smoothing our draw, and maybe triggering Kid Loki’s draw two.
Hawkeye, Kate Bishop and Loki in Young Avengers Vol. 2 #8
Cuts
To make room, we are cutting out the low-impact early plays and beefy beaters. We are looking to maximize speed over pure brawn here.
Henry Gyrich makes tough cuts in Avengers #181
Captain Mar-Vell, Space-Born
Captain Marvel, Apex Avenger
Speed, Young Avenger
Captain America, Living Legend
Rescue, Pepper Potts
Thor, Asgard’s Avenger
She-Hulk, Wallbreaker
Ant-Man, Elusive Avenger
Heroic Return
Thought Vessel
Cleanup Step
Heroes are good in Marvel, and it’s no different here. Of the precons covered so far, Avengers Assemble appears to have the best combination of draw, brawn, and speed. This deck presents a threat for the table to answer every turn with consistent value engines to never run out of things to do.
In a twist, at a table of four players with the Marvel precons, whoever picks Avengers Assemble will likely be the villain.
Captain America is the real villain in Captain America: Steve Rogers #1
