Nova is wealthy in resources, but his kit is lacking in things to spend them on. While other aspects load him up with cheap attack/thwart/defend events to spend his 2x per turn on, here we are spending it on allies! This Nova deck can solo expert Ronan and expert Thanos without breaking a sweat!

One for the Money

With such great resource generation, it stands to reason that card draw is where we should focus our efforts. Unleash Nova Force is unfortunately unreliable to build around, so we are going a different direction.

2- and 3- cost allies are the perfect target for Nova in order to play multiple allies per turn (Supernova Helmet + double resource). This gets crazier when you consider how many allies are getting us cards back. Maria Hill, White Tiger, Kaluu, Nick Fury, Moon Girl, Ironheart are our base to build out from. Reducing one with Supernova Helmet, drawing, readying helmet, and playing another while still maintaining almost a full hand is incredible.

All of these allies make Band Together an auto-include. From turn 1 it will be an extra double resource and often powering "Go for Champions!" or Moon Girl on its own. at worst you discard it for Champions Mobile Bunker or it’s only a single for Nova’s events, but I haven’t found it lacking yet!

Mockingbird provides the standard two blocks for our frail hero. Spider-Man is great for burst thwart and damage. Vivian is amazing to delay things we can’t deal with right away.

Two for the Show

Nova can reliably play 2 allies a turn, one for the money (SiN) and two for the show (chumping). We will turn these extra allies into a Strength In Numbers battery.

Strength In Numbers turns the low stats of our various allies into more cards. Avengers Mansion, you guessed it, more cards. Champions Mobile Bunker, cards on a stick.

Champions Mobile Bunker is actually incredible useful. It’s Spiritual Meditation without having to use a card from hand. You can get rid of useless cards, particularly cards from Nova’s hero kit that may be unplayable in the given situation, like Unleash Nova Force and Forcefield Projection, or his thw/atk cards when you don’t need them respectively. Since I’ve been running this in Thanos, Mockingbird was often a discard target because of stalwart. Champions Mobile Bunker filters your deck quickly and gets your good event cards and allies back into the action.

Three to Make Ready

This deck has pretty low outputs of damage and thwart at first glance. The key here is Ms. Marvel. Kamala is getting us back our best value cards, guaranteeing us double Pot Shot/Lightspeed Flight plays.

Double Pot Shot and a board of ally attacks is generally how we will end the game. However, using our events to clear the board with Unleash Nova Force can continuously ready Nova and draw more cards. The card draw + extra Supernova Helmet resources turn into more allies, which turn into more draw, until we draw back into Pot Shot and Lightspeed Flight. Our engine spirals out of control so often it’ll leave you thinking “huh I thought I just cycled my deck a turn ago, doing it already again?!?” This makes Unleash Nova Force a little more reliable, since we can consistently churn through our deck and get to the events we need, without relying on Nova’s lacking stats.

And Four to Go! (For Champions)

Nova is a bit on the frail side outside of Protection. Here we are using "Go for Champions!", an absolutely bonkers card, especially with a board full of Champions allies. But the real power is with Regroup. With your nice board of allies, you can block multiple attacks while getting you cards back to hand. (Kudos to @moby for the idea, I saw this in his Ironheart!!) These allies can then be played right away, netting you more cards or in Vivian’s case completely shutting down Thanos in a loop.

How This Deck Solos Hard Villains

Thanos is a difficult villain to true solo. He requires thwart, attack, defense, and ways to deal with the Infinity Stones. Vivian completely shuts this down, by shutting off the Forced Response on the Infinity Gauntlet. This stops Thanos from resolving his stones, or getting more stones. In a pinch, you can even ditch Regroup for the Reality Stone to protect your other cards!

Moving on to Ronan the Accuser. Nova has some big advantages over other heroes. His lack of building requirement means that he can start board clearing right away.

Turn 1 Milano guarantees a turn 1 Supernova Helmet. "Go for Champions!" can stop 3-4 attack turns handily and gets around Ronan’s retaliate in stage 3. Power Stone gives Nova something to do with his basic actions and really opens up Unleash Nova Force plays. Vivian can also blank Fanaticism in a pinch, or blank Universal Weapon to open up Mockingbird. Mockingbird is a great 5th defensive option (after Go For Champions! and Regroup) once you remove the Universal Weapon. I was able to clear Ronan with only 6 damage all game, 2 from Universal Weapon and 4 from retaliate.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy Nova smashing Ronan and Thanos as much as I did!!

If you like this, you should also check out Moby’s Ironheart deck!

https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/19560/ironheart-moongirl-bounce-leadership-1.0p