Cold Steel, Hot Lead

Cold Steel, Hot Lead: Mission Brief

Cold Steel, Hot Lead is a multiplayer deck built to control the board by clearing minions before they can pressure the team. Its four-phase game plan steadily brings Bucky’s weapons and damage engine online while still contributing meaningful villain damage. Once fully armed, it pivots from battlefield control to a devastating endgame barrage.

Phase 1 — Cold Start (Turn 1)

Mulligan aggressively for meaningful permanents, prioritizing Economy, Health/Recovery, and Weapons. Examples include

Economy: Avengers Mansion, Hall of Heroes, and Winter Mask

Health/Recovery: Winter Armor, Endurance, Down Time

Weapons: Winter Rifle, Bambino, Hand Cannon, among other weapons.

Hold Arm Block when it appears, buying Bucky more time to build before needing to return to alter-ego.

Avoid spending cards on attacks unless no worthwhile permanents are available.

Goal: End the turn with Cybernetic Arm and one or two additional permanents established.

Phase 2 — Steel Yourself (Turns 2-4)

Continue building Health, Economy, and Weapons on your board.

Kill dangerous minions when needed; otherwise, keep investing in setup.

Use Black Widow and Captain America for damage or threat removal before losing them to consequential damage or an enemy attack, and keep every weapon attached to Bucky.

Goal: Keep Bucky safe while establishing multiple weapons and reliable minion-clearing damage.

Phase 3 — Weapons Hot (Turns 5-7)

The full weapon board is as follows: Side Holster, S.H.I.E.L.D. Sidearm and 2 copies of Pulse Grenade, Winter Rifle, Bambino and/or 1-2 copies of Hand Cannon. (You can't field both Hand Cannons when Bambino and Winter Rifle are in play; the extra copy is for consistency to help replace one of these weapons when you use all charges).

Ideally, use the non-restricted S.H.I.E.L.D. Sidearm and Pulse Grenades as reusable Firepower targets without taking damage away from your Basic Attack power activations.

Use minion defeats to generate threat removal, card draw, readies, as well as healing through Moment of Triumph.

Between that, Arm Block, ally blocks, and a potential Protection player, you can also flip down to heal between damage bursts and minion-clearing turns as needed.

If you see Sharpshooter Play it It will boost your Firepower damage, or Winter Rifle Basic damage each turn, and plays into end game combos.

Goal: Reach three weapons available for Firepower while maintaining a powerful basic attack and safe health total.

Phase 4 — Terminal Barrage (Turn 8+)

Finish any remaining permanent setup when convenient and replay disposable upgrades that enable readies, thinning the deck while keeping damage the priority.

Clear every minion that appears whenever possible; minion clear remains Bucky’s highest priority even during the late game.

Goal: Keep the table clear of minions to protect the other players and drive Bucky’s threat removal, then direct all remaining damage combinations into the villain.

Here's the math on your final combos

Basic Attack: With Combat Training, Aggressive Conditioning, Winter Rifle, Bambino, Hand Cannon, Directed Force, and Sharpshooter, Bucky’s basic attack deals 14 damage normally or 15 if Sharpshooter discards a double-resource card.

And here is the big combo: All for a 1-cost Firepower and a 0-cost Directed Force with your upgrades in place.

Firepower: Exhaust S.H.I.E.L.D. Sidearm and 2 copies of Pulse Grenade, paying with a wild resource from either Cybernetic Arm or Aggressive Energy; this triggers Honed Technique, add in a Directed Force, and finally top it off with a Sharpshooter activation, and this combo deals 24 damage normally or 27 with a double-resource Sharpshooter discard. This can be split 3 ways at 8 (24 damage) or 9 (27 damage), or pushed entirely on the villain.

That said, assembling the complete setup takes time and a little luck. Even with only half the pieces in place, Firepower can still deliver excellent endgame damage for a 1-cost event.