Iron Man Justice Beginner Deck (Core Set Only)

The purpose of this deck is to provide players a starting point out of the core set with zero experience with Marvel Champions, from a solo or two-player perspective (joined with the other beginner deck: Black Panther Leadership).

Marvel Champions' key component is swapping between your alter-ego and hero forms, keeping the villain at bay from scheming or attacking too often. Tony Stark/Iron Man, with Justice at his disposal, is capable of handling both jobs with a price: he needs to get setup and form his armor first to increase his hand size.

Now that might seem counter-intuitive for new players, but the learning curve is actually quite low. You need to stay in alter-ego as Tony, grabbing as many pieces of his armor (tech upgrades) as you can with his alter-ego ability, to increase your hand size for Iron Man. As such, your first few turns generally do not require a flip and will breeze right by. Make sure that you mulligan your opening hand for cheap tech upgrades you can play immediately. Also focus on getting allies out to help you with thwarting, as well as cheap armor pieces so you can swap to Iron Man and start using your "hero action" thwart abilities (that can only be triggered when in hero/Iron Man mode).

The thing about Iron Man is that after a few intro games with Rhino on normal with the Bomb Scare modular set (the "beginner/intro" mission), you'll get how he flows very quickly. Iron Man's strength is that he can dish out massive amounts of damage, so using Justice as a counterbalance to that to help with thwart is an asset. In a two player game, Leadership Black Panther will help you with defenses with his latent hero power and higher defense rating, alongside of myriad allies that can be thrown at the villain at will.

As you buy more hero packs and your card pool grows, there are better options to sub in, and cards to sub out (Emergency, Haymaker and possibly one copy of Avenger's Mansion and Helicarrier each). Good luck!