If You're a Bird, I'm a Bird

If You're a Bird, I'm a Bird

This deck is intended for solo play. It will take advantage of knowing your boost card, every turn, and occasionally knowing your encounter card. It will also lean heavily into the aerial trait.

I can't figure out how to add pictures, but yes, the title is a reference to the movie "The Notebook"

Birds of a Feather

• Falcon's alter ego ability does not inherently generate resources like a lot of other heroes, but it does provide both consistency and a use for excess resources (more on this part later). You have 3 bird cards that can be searched for.
  1. Hugin & Munin. You can judge for yourself, depending on the scenario you're facing, whether or not the ability is worth using. Note that it is not a forced response. You can play this card to simply deal 1 damage or remove 1 threat and then block an attack. Playing it can also trigger the response on Flight Squadron.
  2. Falcon's Flock. This costs 3 effective resources and will eventually generate 5 effective resources in return. When deciding on your opening turn, it can often be beneficial to find Falcon's Flock and get it into play early. It can often be close to "free" the turn you play it because the effect can be used once per card, not phase or round. This can also lead to big flashy turns later on by generating multiple resources on the same turn.
  3. Redwing. Often you will want to attack or thwart once and then use his ability the following turn. This ability is useful for many reasons. Having another aerial card in hand for Cannonball, playing another aerial card to use the response of Flight Squadron, or simply having one additional resource for the turn. Redwing is also a good way out of a bad hand. We run 8 resource cards, 6 of which can pay for Red Wing by themselves. If you draw a hand consisting of a lot of resources and nothing productive to play, it is not uncommon to play and return Redwing 3 or more times in the same turn. It is also important to remember that Redwing is a wild resource, which is useful in a variety of situations requiring a specific resource type.

Resources

As I mentioned previously, we run 8 resource cards. 23 of the 40 cards in the deck benefit from the generic doubles. 10 of the 40 cards benefit from the leadership doubles. Lastly 18 of the 40 cards benefit from the aerial doubles. You might be thinking, "Wait, 18? You mean there's 18 aerial cards in this deck?". There's actually 23 aerial cards, but only 18 of them cost 2 or more resources to play.

Insert meme of the kid from "We're the Millers" saying, "You guys don't have 23 aerial cards in your deck?"

Why so many aerial cards?

• Having so many aerial cards ensures we always have something meaningful to play with The Power of Flight. Because of that, we essentially have 6 unconditional doubles.
• We have one copy of Team-Building Exercise. We have 21 aerial cards that can have their cost reduced and one copy of Quincarrier. So Team-Building Exercise will often feel almost like a 2 cost version of Quincarrier.
• The biggest payoff for having so many aerial cards is Cannonball. Over half of the cards in the deck are aerial, so he will often take 0 consequential damage. We can often even attack or thwart, play an aerial card, trigger the response of Flight Squadron, ready Cannonball, use him to thwart or attack a second time, and still not take consequential damage.

Insert meme of Miley Cyrus wrecking ball but instead it says Cannonball

Cannonball

As I already discussed, Cannonball is very powerful. Once he is in play, he will likely stay in play for the rest of the game (barring certain encounter cards that directly damage allies or cause allies to be discarded). To make him even more useful during his time in play, we run one copy of Inspired and one copy of Sidearm. Inspired is self-explanatory, and sidearm ensures that he can keep attacking even when enemies have retaliate.

Other Falcon Cards

• Aerial Recon is rarely played in solo. If you get into a strong position, you could deal yourself an extra encounter card. Then use this to be dealt one less at a point where you're falling behind, but it's usually not worth doing. It is occasionally worth playing just to trigger Eagle-Eyed or the response of Flight Squadron. If you have nothing else to do, it can be played in preparation of a future Caught Off Guard.
• Battlefield Awareness is pretty straightforward. Once per round, you can use it to get up to 3 additional attack/thwart/defense. This is a strong effect but be aware that it will accelerate the encounter deck.
• Talon Line is unfortunately not an aerial card, but it is still very strong. Getting up to 3 stuns/readies for 3 effective resources is very efficient. I usually want one ready for Falcon and one stun for the villain, but if I'm pushing to end the game, readying Falcon and two allies can create a lot of additional damage. Also, if you do stun the villain, you will know exactly what encounter card will be dealt to you next turn.
• Vibranium Microweave is another very strong, non-aerial, card. This helps keep you alive while also dealing damage. Notice that you can deal 1 damage to "an enemy. You always know what boost card will be dealt. So you can damage a minion down to 1 remaining health, plan on taking 1 or more damage from the villain attack, and then use the Microweave to finish off that minion before they activate.
• Draw Their Fire is, at worst, a 2 effective resource ready (in the sense that you can defend and still be readied the following player phase). If you have minions still alive at the start of the villain phase, it will give you additional value. Occasionally you'll know the next encounter card. If it is a card that allows the villain to attack again, Draw Their Fire is great.
• Soup Kitchen is a card I don't use as often, but it is still very useful in the right situations. If you plan on recovering, why not also reduce the cost of a support or ally by 2? Using this reduction just one time refunds the cost of playing it. Anything after that is additional value. It can be awkward to use the turn you flip down, because the discount can't be used on Flight Squadron or Quincarrier because you won't currently be an avenger or aerial. But on a turn that you start in alter ego, you can use soup kitchen, flip up, and then play either of those cards.
• Up, Up, and Away can be very versatile. We know the boost card that was already dealt. Up, Up, and Away let's use choose to either
  1. Increase or decrease the villains attack depending on how much we're defending for or how much damage we're willing to take.
  2. Switch cards in a way that leaves the encounter card we would rather be dealt, on top of the deck.
  3. Draw the amount of cards we want.
• Bird of Prey and Bird's-Eye View are both solid cards. One can thwart from 3 to 6 in a normal scenario and the other can deal 4 to 7 damage in a normal scenario. Sometimes they are worth playing at their lowest value, and they are usually worth playing when getting the most value.

Aerial Evacuation

Aerial Evacuation gets it's own dedicated section because it has proven to be an extremely powerful card. The obvious use is to use an ally to take a large attack from the villain and then use Evacuation to save that ally and flip to alter ego. This lets you recover without giving the villain a chance to scheme. But Evacuation can ALSO save you from a hand full of resources.

• Let's say we draw a hand of 5 resources (unlikely, but it can happen) and Redwing is in our deck or discard. We have nothing to do this turn... If we flip to alter ego, we can find Redwing and play him, but his ability is a hero action. So that's our whole turn.

Now, pretend we're in the same situation, but we have Aerial Evacuation in play.

• We draw a hand of 5 resources. The villain attacks. We block with an ally and use Aerial Evacuation. We start our turn in alter ego. We can discard one card to find Redwing, flip to hero form, and then proceed to play and use Redwing as many times as we can afford.

AOE Damage

Early versions of this deck were susceptible to being overwhelmed by minions. To counteract that problem, we now run 2 copies of Air Supremacy and 1 Sunspot.

• Air Supremacy will deal 3 damage each to at least 2 enemies at almost every point in the game. The value only increases from there. This is also not an attack, so it is not hindered by guard, stun, or retaliate.
• Sunspot is very similar. He will often deal the full 3 damage, and it is always dealt to every enemy. His ability also ignores all of the issues that could arise, if it were an attack.

Spectrum

Spectrum is a little clunky in the deck. She's usually only worth playing if you can put a wild resource under her, and we unfortunately only have 3 wild resources in the deck. BUT, Redwing is one of those wild resources. So if we draw Spectrum while in alter ego, we can discard to find Redwing and use him to help pay for her. You do have to be prepared and willing to not have access to Redwing until Spectrum leaves play.

Flight Squadron

Flight Squadron is not a card you want to see early, so we only run one copy. The resource cost of 4 is not as steep as you might expect because of all 8 double resources applying to it and our 3 resource generators. An ideal scenario is readying Falcon, Cannonball, and Aero or Cloud 9 because none of them will take any consequential damage.

Captain America

Captain America has a few uses.

• Finding Captain America's Shield and leaving it attached to Falcon. Depending on the scenario, the +1 defense and retaliate 1 can be very valuable.
• Finding Captain America's Shield and repeatedly returning it to hand to deal 4 damage. The initial resource investment is a little costly, but once it's in play, it becomes 4 damage for 2 resources once a turn. This is not an attack, so it will get around guard, stun, and retaliate.
• Finding Captain America's Shield and using it to pay for Spectrum. The shield has a wild resource which Spectrum highly benefits from.

The Rest

The only other cards are Adam Warlock, Aero, Angel, and Cloud 9. None of these have much to explain. They are all decent to good cards that have the aerial trait.

Closing

I hope that anyone reading this found it helpful. My goal is to show people how powerful and fun Falcon can be. Any comments/feedback/etc are welcome :)