Fully Loaded Zen

The Ground Book

War Machine is a phenomenal damage producer. He can clear a table with ease and has the upgrades to be able to spread out damage. That leaves him open to being a bit weaker on thwart. With a 1 THW and only 2 thwart events, his need to flip down and refresh his ammo can be risky, but it's very clear that he needs to. This deck adds to his thwart potential while trying to speed up his damage ability. Since you have to lean into alter ego, let's get big plays when we flip down.

The Water Book

Get prepared for battle. Like any other War Machine deck, Upgraded Chassis and Munitions Bunker are huge to handling anything in battle. This deck gives you three targets to get to Upgraded Chassis: drawing the card itself, using Targeted Strike to complete Superpower Training, or using Iron Man to grab Upgraded Chassis. Mulligan mostly for one of those three cards. Don't forget to use James Rhodes's alter-ego ability to put a War Machine card back in the deck after the mulligans. This is also true if you have to use an upgrade to pay for any of these expensive cards.

The Fire Book

This deck thrives on the second-phase "OTK" approach, where you use your ammunition and allies to whittle down the first phase of the villain and stabilize the board. Use 1.5 deck passes to get out your upgrades, Munitions Bunker, and flip downs to do big setups. When you get to the last half of your second time through the deck, start using his alter ego action to put Full Auto back in your deck and hold any that you draw. Once you have both and about 4-6 counters on Munitions Bunker, flip the villain and blast the heck out of them.

The Wind Book

While setting up, you'll need to stabilize the board state. This deck gives you three tools to counteract the villain.

1) Statuses - Use stuns to slow down managing villain attacks and effects. Use toughs (both Upgraded Chassis and Perseverance) to protect your health. Use Professor X to alleviate your thwart burden from flipping down.

2) Threat Removal - Both Targeted Strike and Ever Vigilant will help you keep the scheme under control. Often in the first deck pass, you'll be shuffling Targeted Strike back in to be able to see it and play it multiple times, especially if you have an unlucky shuffle where Iron Man, Superpower Training, and Upgraded Chassis are partying at the bottom of your deck.

3) Allies - A lot of your allies have 2+ THW or can get there through abilities. Most allies have an added kicker to help. Brother Voodoo can help you grab a Targeted Strike, who doesn't love Professor X's ability to confuse, and Iron Fist can create space if you need to stay in hero longer than normal.

The Book of the Void

One of the hardest parts of a War Machine deck can be paying for everything. This deck uses Meditation to help make those flip downs to alter-ego really worth. You have to flip down to reset your ammunition, so it's good to really take advantage of the extra card, alter-ego action, and get a discount so you can play an expensive ally and an upgrade. This will put you in a place to flip up, get 5 more ammunition counters, and set the board back in your favor.

Often times, a deck this resourceful that isn't a Bishop deck can bring fears of dead hands. There are two ways to make sure that's not the case:

1) Resource Sinks (or Syncs...or Cinque...i'm not really sure...): Resource Man Machine Man will love getting all those unused resources (and will activate the Hero Response on Preservation) or Meditations. Plan B is a great way to turn a card into 2 damage.

2) James Rhodes' Action - if you keep adding your cards back in, you'll reduce the chance of drawing unusable hands. Every time you flip down, use the action before you end your turn, and use the action before you flip back to hero.

This deck is easy to pilot when going up against villains with high scheme thresholds. You have to be a little more patient against villains with lower scheme thresholds...looking at you Mr. Sinister! (fyi, when the randomizer put him against this deck, it really stretched my patience on the flip downs. Time them well against his blasted 5 threat threshold).