Luke Cage: Why'd you have to go and hit me...

Protection decks haven’t been a whole lot of fun for me since Ghost-Spider hit the scene and went home with all the Oscars. Sure, there were plenty of options, but none were quite as fun as having Gwen bust chops on the villain’s turn.

With Luke Cage, I sort of got stuck in a loop with Aggression and Leadership because of ‘Sweet Christmas!’ and Harlem’s Hero. The regular Tough supply was just a convenient bonus in those cases.

But then I started thinking…what if the Tough wasn’t just interesting, but the entire thematic structure? Cage never starts the fights, he just ends them. Which made me think of all the times someone threw a punch or took a shot and he just gave them a tired, angry look.

So I built this deck, which wants the enemies to take shots, because it’s an incredibly bad decision. Making ‘Sweet Christmas!’ the bonus that can really mop things up.

The central conceit is stacking up the Retaliate total. Cage gets +2 retaliate from his Metal Bracers, then +1 each from Ronin and Dauntless He then has Cuts Both Ways which gives him +1 retaliate until the end of the phase for each play. So if you have two of them, let ‘em rip and suddenly Cage is dropping a tough in exchange for seven damage. Given that he collects Toughs the way other people collect Pokemon, this is a highly efficient exchange rate.

Once you get rolling, Cage just shrugs off the Villain phase while the enemies beat themselves to death. Sure, there are 124 minions at the moment that can survive a retaliate of 5, but they are spread across a wide array of encounter sets and are done after a second attack or a use of Sweet Christmas. There are only 11 minions at the moment that can survive a second round of level 5 retaliate. Those are ten Thunderbolts (six of which are from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. campaign) and Phoenix's nemesis, Dark Phoenix. Cage isn’t breaking a sweat. What’s amazing is that it is a passive ability, so he doesn’t have to exhaust, he just shaves hit points all day long.

This is all capped by Cage’s unique ability that removes any upper limit on Tough cards. This makes him the only hero able to spam the Toughen Upupgrade. The designers made sure he could regularly use those Toughen Ups by making the loss of a Tough ping him for one damage. With Endurance, Down Time and Defensive Conditioning, Cage becomes a 16HP powerhouse that can use the Burstein Process for at least one if not two Toughs, REC for six and then trigger all three Toughen Ups, giving him four or possibly five Tough status cards. Handily going into the Villain stage without a care. Then each attack removes a tough, pings Cage and slaps the enemy for a bunch of HP. Repeat ad nauseum.

Sideboards

Protection does a couple very specific things really well, and it has some surprisingly effective cards that accomplish remarkable tasks if that’s what's needed.

For example:

Disarming Defense- Eliminates a wide range of Villain attachments.
Defiance- shut down boost cards on boost heavy villains.
Bait and Switch- Handling scheme heavy villains.
Get Behind Me- lock down villain treacheries.
Never Back Down- Give your hero a breather from the villain next turn.
Armored Vest/Innate Reflexes/The Best Defense…- This little combo combined with other DEF boosters already in the deck can give Cage a huge swing on ATK or THW.


The Mulligan

Obviously you want things that generate Toughs and Retaliate. That said, The Burstein Process is a guaranteed on any turn in Alter-Ego, so you can mulligan first, then go grab it. Heck you can even mulligan The Burstein Process in order to get something else and then just drag it back.

The Metal Bracers are the priority, as they prevent damage while also providing the retaliate this deck relies on. Second choice are the Toughen Ups, with third place being a tie between Ronin, Endurance and Defensive Conditioning. Honestly though, You can prioritize the Toughen Ups, since they help make Cage nearly invincible while you wait for the retaliate options.

In fact, if you are having trouble, consider swapping out some of the ‘one off’s’ (Change of Fortune, Ready For A Fight) for duplicates of the retaliate cards. While you can only play one, they are so important for aggregating damage that waiting for a full pass through your deck is almost absurd.

Being fair, this becomes a deck where you just choose events that most fit your situation in between regular flips to Alter-Ego. You might consider increasing the number of Ready For A Fight you include just to speed the game up.

But Holy cow, Luke Cage ended up being way more interesting than he came off in the preview.