Flying Fortress

Do you want to defend for the Table from on high? (no, not like that, sorry). How would you like to spend the first part of the Villain phase defending for every Villain attack, every minion attack, and Retaliating 3 to all of it? Are you the type of person that would like to draw 6 cards during the Villain phase, then draw 3 more in the hero phase?

Well step right up and I'll tell you how this could be you.

Falcon defends the table. Impressive to behold when you can pop off with it. Pretty sure this is coming with me to MC/DC in October '26. Most fun I've had with Falcon, and fun enough that I actually prefer this to some of the other decks I have built.

D-FENSE! *clap clap clap*

• Innate Reflexes makes sure you can always start with a + to defense in your starting hand
• combined with Vibranium Microweave, Defensive Conditioning, Armored Vest, and Ronin, this brings Falcon's base defense up to 7.
• it takes time to build to this, but you will do just fine if you don't get all that +defense in the first deck pass. In fact, I wouldn't try to... because there are two bigger priorities

(1) playing Practiced Plan and Draw Their Fire every time you have one (or preferably both) in hand and

(2) cashing out Draw Their Fire every time you have it and Practiced Plan on the table at the same time.

• Listen: I've played this deck a lot so that I could figure out the best way. With all these upgrades out, Falcon ill have Defense of 7, max HP of 16, and "Retaliate" 3. But if you wait until Falcon is built out to start ripping Draw Their Fire, the game will be over by then
• to prevent this from being a "Win More" trick, you have to rip Draw Their Fire as soon as possible, as often as possible. Before you're all set up. Even if your defense is only 4. Even if your retaliate is only 1. Even if you cannot kill a minion in the villain phase. Even if you spend your entire next turn playing down Practiced Plan and Draw Their Fire again. Because this frees your teammates to do whatever they came to the table to do.

Funding the Vision

• Draw Their Fire has a cost of 1 per person in the game. So it can be expensive to play down every turn (or every other turn if you're still setting up)
• accounting for this, I've laid down some riches into this deck. Here we go:
• first, because Draw Their Fire is an Aerial card, you can use The Power of Flight and Team-Building Exercise to get it down easier.
• next, Up, Up, and Away should be played as often as possible. With high defense, you'll often take 2-3 boost cards, draw that many additional cards to replace Up, Up, and Away, and still laugh off the Villain damage.
• Unflappable will usually draw you an extra card at some point during the villain phase (or the hero, phase, that's next), and Vibranium Microweave can, once per turn, give you that one extra virtual defense if you need it so that you can perfect defend.
• Change of Fortune will sometimes hit, but once you've got at least two retaliate, it can be pretty reliable (as long as your aggression player can agree to leave one for you).
• Because of Draw Their Fire, you're likely to enter the Hero phase readied! You can lean into that with three copies of Taunt. You can even use a basic power, then play Taunt, using Stand Alone to ready up just in time to basic defend. Take no damage, retaliate, then draw 3 cards. It's cash money.
• You've also got Falcon's Flock, Quincarrier, and Avengers Mansion. Within a couple turns, you're ready to play Draw Their Fire AND Practiced Plan AND one or two upgrades on your turn. Occasionally an event if it's called for by the board state (though you can probably guilt your teammates into doing all that... staying in your lane has benefits).
• by the second deck pass, you should be drawing into Practiced Plan every turn, using Draw Their Fire every turn, and still having money left over to play some other cards.
• additionally, it becomes easy to grab extra attacks and minions with Aerial Recon... Flying Fortress Falcon laughs at those.

Didn't Quite Make The Cut

There are other ways this deck could do more, and it's tempting to include them. The problem is the more cards I add, the more it dilutes the deck and makes it MORE difficult to draw Practiced Plan every turn. I therefore prioritized keeping it to 40 cards and thinning the deck so that it could do the ONE thing I built it to do. But here are some honorable mentions:

• Up to 3 copies of Hard to Ignore would let you thwart 3 from the main on the Villain phase.
• Containment Strategy would be a way to melt a side scheme by doing what you're already doing: defending at least 4 times on the Villain phase.
• Angel's Aerie stacks up counters quick, but if you flip down, you miss a turn of defending. It's possible to use Aerial Evacuation near the end of the villain phase (if someone else is "lucky" enough to be taking encounter-card damage) and go down to alter ego with them, then flip back up on the hero phase, but it's not consistent. This is, coincidentally, my recommendation for dealing with obligations without missing a turn of defense.
• because Dauntless turns off at 9 health or below, any cards that can heal falcon would be good. First Aid, What Doesn't Kill Me, and especially "Come Get Me, Bub!" are all ways to heal while in hero form, but as events they don't thin the deck, making forever defense less reliable.
• Build Support and Superpower Training are both really nice (for Quincarrier and Draw Their Fire), and they do thin the deck, but Falcon doesn't have a consistent way to contribute to thwarting them. Maybe your Justice player brought them.
• Specialized Training as well, which could be nice if combined with Containment Strategy... but I haven't tried it.

And that's the deck! Hope you all have a great day, and I'll see you in the People's discord server for more webcam games!