Winter's Rage

Winter Soldier is quickly becoming one of the most fun heroes to play for me. He may not be the strongest but the playstyle with his kit is wildly entertaining in my opinion.

I've already posted a Protection Change of Fortune deck for him but his real home lies in Aggression.

The idea of this deck is to defeat minions (duh that's Buckys whole thing) but also to use them as currency.

Minion Farming

We have several ways to give ourselves minions:

One is Safe House #30 which in AE lets us search for a minion and draw a card.

Another is Spoiling for a Fight which lets us discard from the encounter until we find a minion and then we ready. Really nice after recovering to then be able to ready.

We can also steal. Use Target Spotter and steal your tables minions. Really nice way to avoid quickstrike for them as well.

Angela can search the top 10 cards of the encounter deck for a minion.

Profit:

So before we blast these minion back to the Soviet Era, we want to get a little more out of them.

The first is with "Bring It!" which lets us draw cards based on the number of minions engaged with us. Even at 1 this is nice to cycle the deck but at 2 or more minions it feels like highway robbery.

The next is Man on the Wall which lets us reduce the cost of the next card we play by the number of minions in play.

The final way is from defeating the minions. His hero ability lets us remove 2 threat from any scheme when we defeat an enemy.

We also have Winter Mask which lets us draw a card after defeating an enemy.

Blood Rage lets us take 1 damage to also draw a card after defeating an enemy with a basic attack.

Unleash the Rage:

Winter Soldier has his Winter Rifle which we can exhaust to add 2 to our attack while also gaining piercing and ranged.

Hand Cannon allows us to exhaust and add 2 to our attack while also giving overkill.

Bambino adds 3 to our attack and gives overkill.

Put that all together and Bucky can hit for 9 with overkill, ranged and piercing. Sure it's not the easiest to get all into play but I've been able to on a number of occasions and it works really well.

Then for defeating the minion we also can draw 2 cards as well as remove 2 threat. Bonus if Silent Infiltration is in play as we can ready plus confuse an enemy.

I've had a turn look like this starting in AE:

Target Spotter steals minion

Encounter gives me another minion

Safe House grabs a 3rd while also drawing a card

Use bring it to draw up to 9

Kill minion deal 3 overkill remove 2 threat

Draw 2 from mask and blood rage

Man on the Wall and 2 resources to play Captain America and ready Winter Soldier

Kill another minion ready from Silent Infiltration and confuse villain

Double and Cybernetic Arm to play metal punch deal 5 overkill

Play Electrical Discharge to deal 4 and stun villain

Pay 3 for another metal punch

In total was able to deal 19 damage to the villain, remove 6 threat as well as stunning/confusing the villain.

Don't be afraid to use his events to defeat minions, you can still get the card draw from the mask. Really nice with 2 minions to overkill one with a basic attack and overkill another with Metal Punch.

Turns like this are fairly common once you get to the mid game and with the amount of minions that you can farm/defeat you're not even going to notice that Buck doesn't have any thwart events.

Since we don't want to defend with Bucky, we have allies who provide some relief for us.

Thor brings a tough for us and can help with minions if our board gets crazy.

Throg brings a tough if we're engage with a minion.

Captain America brings a tough and ready for a S.H.I.E.L.D character.

Mockingbird brings a stun.

Spider-Girl can stun/confuse a minion which is helpful for beefier minions or if we are in need of flipping down.

We also have Arm Block which can block damage if we use the Arm to pay for it.

Use Silent Infiltration to give a ready and confuse then flip to AE and heal when needed. This also allows you to grab a minion at the start of your next turn.

I have really enjoyed Bucky especially in Aggression , this deck has been a ton of fun and performs really well. I've run it in 2-handed against some lower minion count scenarios and it holds up but it's not as strong/fun.

I've mostly played this deck in 2handed but it can work well in solo.

I would take out Target Spotter in solo and put in either Chase Them Down or Moment of Triumph to help with threat/surviviability.

I'd love to hear any feedback or experiences with it!