Ant-Man's Turn at Leadership

This is the final scenario in my tutorial series meant to introduce a new player to all the aspects and concepts of the game. This deck is meant to be played by the new player, accompanied by Thor (https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/57572/thor-s-card-draw-buffet-1.0), taking on Ultron.

This is the new player's final test, and so they'll be taking on an appropriately challenging enemy, but will of course be relying on you to prop them up. In the previous scenario, they watched you play as Spider-Ham with a tribal Web Warrior deck, and this time will do similarly as Ant-Man with a tribal Avenger deck. I tried to lean into more recognizable Avengers but there's only so much you can do and still be prepared to take on Ultron. If at all possible, the new player will want to try to be putting allies out as often as possible, and there are a few fun synergies we're going to let them play with.

First and foremost, this is an Avenger's deck, so all the characters are Avenger's traited. This means Avengers Tower will allow the new player to have one extra ally out and act as a resource generator for those all-important allies, a great support for only 2 resources. If they can get a copy of Mighty Avengers out as well, they should have a pretty beefy wall of allies out pretty consistently. This means that Band Together will often be worth 2 or even 3 resources, and allies or supports not used on a given turn will turn Organizational Support into a strong resource as well. These hefty resources should help get things like Quincarrier and Avengers Mansion out to further pull out even more allies and afford the higher cost ones like Captain Marvel and Spectrum. Finally, Call for Aid is going to be very helpful in this deck because there are so many Avengers allies, and the deck is almost the max size to account for a higher burn rate from this.

As for Ant-Man's hero cards, Army of Ants is probably the main set to aim for to aid with taking out Ultron drones and make Hive Mind more valuable, and Ant-Man's Helmet never hurts to have, though is less helpful. Giant Strength can occasionally help with cards like Organizational Support, but Ant-Man will probably want to stick to Tiny form for most of this game as thwarting will be primarily the new player's job. But the value (and purpose) of Leadership here is to also assist taking out the villain, since Ultron has pretty high HP and will require constant effort to take out.

For some more specific interactions that work really well with this deck, War Machine and Captain America both come out with Tough, meaning they'll want to hold off on attacking or thwarting on the turn they're played so the new player can get the most value by soaking the next hit with Tough, making them ideal candidates for exhausting to power up Organizational Support if it's needed. Captain America is also best used as a resource card if they don't have much out, then when they have a few allies in play they can use Make the Call to pull him out for a steep discount -- and don't forget, it's Avengers characters you control, which includes the Ant-Man hero. This deck is set up to get some high-cost allies into play, and while I generally don't recommend holding onto any cards for more than a turn or so, Save the Day is probably worth holding onto and can, indeed, save the day when the new player takes 5 or 6 threat off a scheme, which for Ultron is often over half the main scheme. Lastly, Hawkeye is incredible for taking out drones before they can make things too messy and Squirrel Girl can often be the saviour of a round by taking out every drone, including those engaged with the other player, for only 2 resources.

This deck has been tested alongside Thor against Ultron in Standard III with an additional Sentinels mod.