INTRO

If you’re like me, you’ve wanted to make Colossus work, but have found him to be lacking. I first tried him in Protection (as I’m sure most of us do), and tried to keep him fueled with plenty of Tough cards, and looked for ways to overcome his 4-card Hero hand size, but in the end I found that while, yes, he was really good at tanking damage, that was about all he was good at. I struggled to find the resources to play his attack cards and deal any significant amount of damage, and I lost many a game to the main scheme being filled with threat.

And then, a few weeks ago, I had an epiphany that changed everything, and turned Colossus from a C-tier character to a solid A-tier, if not S-tier character. You may be surprised to learn that we have all been severely undervaluing his best card (spoiler: it’s Armor Up), and it works best in probably the most overlooked aspect for Colossus: Justice.

Since I made this deck I have gone on to beat:

• Expert Ronan the Accuser (True Solo)
• Expert Venom Goblin (True Solo)
• and Expert Magneto (two handed with Aggression Gambit, though Colossus did most of the work)

Let me explain how it works:

SUMMARY

There are a few keys to making this deck work properly:

1. Always always ALWAYS end your turn in Alter-Ego!

2. Try to always make sure you have an Armor Up in your hand ready to play!

3. Thin your deck as much as possible to ensure that you can do #2 every turn.

4. Use your Allies to keep the Main & Side Schemes (and Minions, to a lesser extent) in check until you’re ready to start pounding on the Villain.

5. Once you’re ready, start pounding on the Villain.

DETAILED STRATEGIES

#1. Always always always end your turn in Alter-Ego. This will give you that sweet 6-card hand size every turn, and with Armor Up you flip up to Hero form during the Villain phase, and then you (almost) never have to worry about the Villain scheming. You get the best of both worlds!

Then, during your next Player phase, flip down to Alter-Ego, and use Colossus’s Aspiring Artist ability to shuffle Armor Up back into your deck. Which brings me to #2.

2. Try to always make sure you have an Armor Up in your hand ready to play!

Once you draw an Armor Up, hold onto it until the next Villain phase. Never spend an Armor Up to pay for another card. But wait, what if you manage to draw both Armor Ups into your hand at the same time? That’s fantastic! Hang on to both of them and you’re set for the next two villain phases!

(Side note: You'll often find that you're getting attacked/damage more than once per round, either from nasty villain cards or for protecting a friend in Multiplayer, and you won't have enough Tough cards to absorb all the damage. That's okay. Colossus has 14 health, so use it to soak up some damage, and since you'll be dropping to Alt-Ego every turn you can always recover if you need to.)

I cannot emphasize this enough, using Armor Up every turn is the key to making this deck work. I’ve found that most games you’ll end up with one or sometimes two turns where you don’t have an Armor Up to play during the Villain phase (though I have had games where I have been able to play Armor Up every turn), but once you get rolling you should find it very easy to play it every turn. And when you do, you’ll always have the tough card you need to block to villain’s attack. At that point, the only things you have to worry about are Minions and Encounter Cards.

#3. Thin your deck as much as possible to ensure that you can do #2 every turn. You’ll notice that this deck has a high number of Supports, Upgrades, and Allies. This is so that you can get them all out onto the board and keep them there, which thins your deck size down and makes it easy to draw an Armor Up every turn.

Of particular note are all the upgrades and supports that allow you to draw cards. Cards like Moira MacTaggert, Iron Will, Piotr's Studio, and Weapon X are all there to help you draw extra cards and dig those Armor Ups out of your deck, and thus you should get them onto the playing field as soon as possible.

Most of the rest of the cards are Allies or cards that are there to make the most of your Allies. Which brings us to...

#4. Use your Allies to keep the Main & Side Schemes in check (and Minions, to a lesser extent) in check

As Important as all of those supports and upgrades are, I find most games tend to go best when I play an Ally or two right at the beginning of the game. The Allies are mainly there to keep Threat down on the main and side schemes, but can also be used to chump-block (if you're out of Tough cards or need to save one), or help take out Minions, depending on the situation.

Utopia and Cerebro are all there to help you get more allies on the board, and Mission Training along with Danger Room are there to increase their thwarting capabilities and keep them on the board longer.

Eventually you'll get to the point where you have most/all of your supports and upgrades out, and 3-4 Allies armed with Mission Training on the board, keeping the main scheme suppressed and ready to chump block, and you'll find that Colossus is ending up with extra Tough cards after the Villain phase. That means it's time for the last step.

#5. Start pounding on the Villain. By this point, you should have most of your supports and upgrades in play, and you'll find you easily have 9-10+ cards in your hand each turn, thanks to Iron Will and the other cards that let you draw cards. You should have several Allies out and the Main scheme should be well under control.

Once you find that you can start your turn with a Tough card or two already on Colossus, then you can start using them to smash the Villain with Steel Fist and Made of Rage, and it's even better when you can play a Bulletproof Protector first to gain another tough and draw another card. It's really awesome when you can do that and play both your Made of Rages on one attack, smashing the villain for 14+ damage. At that point it only takes a couple of turns to finish the Villain off and chalk up another victory. Congratulations Comrade, you did it!

CARD BREAKDOWN

In this section I want to go through each card and briefly explain why I included it in this deck. I did a lot of fine tuning, and I don't think there is much- if anything- that I would want to swap out, but I will include some of the runner-up cards down below.

ALLIES

• Beak Obviously he's best when you have 3 other allies out- removing 5 threat and blocking an enemy attack for 2 resources is pretty sweet- but even if you can't do all of that he's still good for a couple of threat and a block.

• Bishop Bishop is fantastic in this deck. In most Justice decks, you don't want to get attacked a lot, so his build up is very slow, but not this deck! He's my go to for clearing out minions: Play him, Thwart a little bit, and within 1-2 turns of villain/minion attacks you'll be ready to blast someone for 6 damage. He is also usually the best target for Mission Training and Triage.

• Blindfold She's okay. Not very strong, and only 2 health, but her Enters Play effect can be clutch for dodging nasty Encounter cards, and the Psionic keyword is nice for boosting Cerebro.

• Dazzler Expensive, but decent stat line and ability. It's best to play her with a Mission Training from Danger Room, which will let you thwart for 12-15 total threat with her. If I were going to swap an ally out for a different X-Men ally, she is probably the first one I would pick.

• Forge Great at helping you ramp up during the early game, but during the late game he's pretty much reduced to chump-blocking.

• Marvel Girl Solid 3-cost ally with 3 Thwart (with Mission Training) and 3 (or 5) health, but usually not as good as some of the others. But again, the Psionic Keyword is nice for buffing Cerebro

• Professor X Even though he only stays out one turn, I almost always play him when I draw him. He's very flexible and useful in a variety of situations, and always good to block an attack. I find that I often use his ability to ready another X-Men character, as it enables some very powerful turns.

• Shadowcat Colossus's signature ally, but a very solid one. As with the other 3-cost allies, its great when you can play her using a Meditation along with a free Mission Training for up to 5 turns of removing 3 threat each turn.

• Triage One of the most useful allies in this deck, for either healing a little extra damage off of Colossus if needed, or even better, removing some damage from one of your other X-Men allies like Bishop or Shadowcat and keeping them around for a couple extra turns. I always use Triage as my first chump blocker to get her back into my deck as quickly as possible.

EVENTS (Most of the events in this deck are Colossus's identity-specific cards, but I still want to mention how I use them)

• Armor Up If you have gotten this far and still don't understand what to do with Armor Up, then please go back and reread the Summary and Strategy sections. ;) To reiterate: try to always have an Armor Up in your hand, ready to play each turn. Never choose to discard one. Never use one to pay for another card, even when you have both Armor Ups in your hand. Whenever you flip down to Alter Ego, use Aspiring Artist to shuffle the last Armor Up you played back into your deck.

• Bulletproof Protector Mainly useful in the late game, once you can use chump-blockers, Organic Steel, and the occasional stun card to ensure that you start the Player Phase with a Tough card on Colossus. Then, play a Bulletproof Protector to double your Toughs or ready Colossus, draw an extra card with Iron Will, and use those Toughs to power up your attack cards.

• Made of Rage - Mainly useful in the late game, but it's great for dealing extra damage to the Villain and/or overkill a Minion. Remember that if you have 2 Tough cards and both Made of Rage's in your hand you can pile them onto a single basic attack for 14+ damage with Overkill.

• Meditation - This is the first deck I've tried where I felt like Meditation really fits. You'll be ending every turn in Alter-Ego, so you will almost always have an opportunity to use it, and it's great during the early game to help you get out supports & allies and ramp up faster. Especially useful if you get one in your opening hand, since you won't need to exhaust Colossus for anything else on your first turn.

• Steel Fist - Fairly self explanatory, great for clearing out minions, or for damaging, stunning, and confusing the Villain when you have a Tough card to spare. Mostly used during the late game or to get rid of Minions.

PLAYER SIDE SCHEMES

• Superpower Training - Great for finding your useful identity specific upgrades and getting them into play, and Colossus has several. Iron Will should be your first priority, but if you already have that then grab an Organic Steel.

SUPPORTS

• Cerebro Great at finding allies and adding them to your hand, even if you're only going to use it as an extra resource. With 9 X-Men allies in your deck, Cerebro almost never misses, but still it's best when you can use Cerebro while Blindfold, Marvel Girl, or Professor X is out so that you can search your entire deck for whichever ally you want (I usually grab and play Triage if I can, but there are times when another ally might be more useful).

• Command Center Useful for the occasional couple of free damage or to remove a tough card from an enemy, but not critical to the deck by any means. Still, by playing it you thin your deck by one more card, allowing you to get your key cards more often.

• Danger Room Danger Room is fantastic in this deck, since you spend part of every turn in Alt-Ego. Get it out early and then add a free Mission Training to an ally you play almost every turn afterwards.

• Moira MacTaggert Moira is one of the most important support cards, and you should play her as soon as possible. You will be flipping to Hero form (nearly) every turn with Armor Up, and Moira allows you to replace that Armor Up you just played by drawing another card.

• Piotr's Studio Another clutch support card, play it as soon as possible. You will be in Alter-Ego every turn, and since it only targets Colossus cards it is great at digging Armor Ups out of your deck.

• Utopia Both of Utopia's abilities are super helpful in this deck. It won't be long before you're maxed out on allies, so making room for one more is always a good thing. Plus, since you will be playing allies very frequently you can use Utopia's exhaust ability to ready other allies, and really maximizing your turns. NOTE: once you play Honorary X-Men then you can also use Utopia on Colossus while you're in Alt-Ego. See the Honorary X-Men notes below for more details.

• Weapon X - Identical in function to Piotr's Studio, albeit with the added cost of taking a damage every time you use it. Fortunately, Colossus has plenty of Health to spare, so get Weapon X out there as soon as possible and start using it. It's especially nice alongside Piotr's Studio for finding those Armor Ups even faster.

UPGRADES

• Honorary X-Men This is the last card I added to this deck, but I have found it to be well worth it. Play it on Colossus, and now he has the X-men trait in Alt-Ego. This is important because now you can use Utopia and/or Professor X to ready Colossus while in Alter-Ego, which then allows you to play Meditation more often or to recover if needed.

• Iron Will Probably Colossus's most important card (after Armor Up of course). Play it as soon as possible so that when you play Armor Up and block the Villain you get to draw a card. Even more useful once you can use it to start drawing multiple cards per turn thanks to Organic Steel and/or Bulletproof Protector.

• Mission Training Very useful for buffing your Allies and keeping them on the board longer, but you never need to actually play it. Instead, since you'll be ending every turn in Alt-Ego, use Danger Room Training to get it out for free. I usually try to put my Mission Trainings on the more valuable allies, like Shadowcat, Dazzler, and Bishop, but don't be afraid to throw them on a weaker ally that you only plan to keep out for a couple of turns. You're getting the Mission Trainings for free after all.

• Organic Steel Not as crucial as some other cards, but still useful at any stage of the game. My favorite is when you can pair it with Iron Will and Bulletproof Protector for maximum card-draw shenanigans.

• Titanium Muscles is actually the least useful card in this deck, but it still has its uses. Because you aren't actively trying to stack tough cards, you usually won't find much use out of the Resource effect, and the extra attack usually isn't useful until late game. But once you're built up and ready to start attacking the Villain, you can then make use of both of those abilities.

ALTERNATE CARDS TO CONSIDER ADDING

• Beat Cop Beat cop isn't the best card at 3-cost, but if you really want to put one in a deck, this isn't a bad place for it.
• X-Mansion I originally built this deck with X-Mansion in it, but found I was usually skipping over it for other cards. But still, it's nice for keeping your allies out longer and since you're always flipping down to Alt-Ego you'll get to use it every turn.
• Build Support Not really necessary because you'll have Forge fetching your supports for you, but still can be useful to have for an extra side scheme to thwart and for getting your crucial support cards out.
• Avengers Mansion for even more card draw
• Different/additional X-Men allies - A lot of the allies in this deck can be swapped out for other X-Men allies if you desire.
• New cards - I built this deck before Jubilee came out, and Night-Crawler and Magneto will soon be here, so it will be worth reviewing those packs to see if any of their cards would find a good home with Colossus.

CLOSING REMARKS I drew a little bit of inspiration from several other Colossus decks on here, but none of them enough so that I could rightly say that this deck is "derived" from them. This deck just plays so differently from any of the other Colossus decks I've ever looked at. But still, thanks to all the other creators out there who indirectly helped me refine this deck.

And thank you for checking this deck out. Give it a try and let me know how it goes! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!