The Green Team

With the arrival of Sidekick, it's time to see what Mantis can do as a sidekick.

Unless you already have both Mantis and Sidekick in hand turn 1, mulligan for Suit Up. If you have one of them, discard them to pay for Suit Up and then draw them back into hand, reducing the cost of Suit Up to 1 card. Get Mantis into play and Sidekick if possible, if not hold Sidekick for next turn and get it out then.

If you had no luck with Suit Up, play Mantis or Gamora if you've got them, you can add upgrades to both and play Sidekick on Mantis when you get the chance. Barring that, start powering up Drax or get a Med Lab in play.

As a sidekick, Mantis will finally have enough health to make the occasional thwart. Plus you can increase her health further with Reinforced Suit and Comms Implant. Drax and Mantis can keep each other alive using the healing abilities on Sidekick and Mantis plus Side-by-Side. Unless your enemies are hitting very hard, Drax should be able to let hits happen without even defending, leaving him free to bash on his next turn.

Med Lab can allow you to keep cycling Gamora in and out, Command Team will let you take the occasional double turn with Mantis or Gamora. Teamwork, Reinforced Suit, Inspired and Comms Implant, will buff the ladies and increase their survivability.

The biggest problem is Drax's low hand size, limiting how much of this you can achieve at once. Depending on how threat-heavy your villain is, you may want to drop into Alter-Ego occasionally to increase your card draw as well as heal yourself and your Sidekick. You can also use Suit Up while you are in alter-ego to fish out Gamora and whichever upgrade is best of her at the time, or to get Mantis and Sidekick back if something has gone wrong and she has been discarded.

Mantis is a very strong sidekick. This deck has won me several games, losing only to Ronan and his card avalanche shenanigans.