Prepare for Trouble!

• Prepare for trouble!
• Make it double!
• To protect the world from devastation!
• To unite all peoples within our nation!
• To denounce the evils of truth and love!
• To extend our reach to the stars above!
• Widow!
• Fury!
• Team S.H.I.E.L.D. blast off at the speed of light!
• Surrender now or prepare to fight!

Overview

The idea behind this build is to deal massive damage through the use of Counterattack. Engage the enemy on our terms and initiate an enemy attack with Toe to Toe, pray that our below average health is enough to survive, and then strike back with Counterattack and the 5 damage from Toe to Toe.

Inviting all of this punishment onto ourselves is not sustainable in and of itself. We will die very quickly. We will therefore be needing to recover our health quite a bit, but unlike Gambit, we do not have a single big attack use card like Charged Card, so Moment of Triumph is not the best here. Instead I opted to go back to basics with Down Time and Endurance, which gets the job done sufficiently.

As ImpossibleGerman stated, due to the large number of attacks Widow is unleashing, Jarnbjorn becomes an excellent addition and really makes the difference in getting lots of damage in. I have dealt 20 damage in a single turn through repeated Jarnbjorn usage, taking down a villain stage.

As IlEmperatore mentioned, Espionage is an absurd card that can net you 6 draws if all 3 are in play. True, while this deck does not run any additional confuse cards outside of the in kit Covert Ops, (where being in Alter-Ego allows for a greater chance of encounter cards to surge), I often find that after the first deck pass, and a lot of your upgrades are in play, it becomes much easier to line up your combo cards.

The other big draw card we have is "Bring It!" and it rounds the deck nicely. On Heroic difficulty, especially against minion heavy scenarios, the board can get flooded with minions very quickly. Having a 0 costing card that can draw say 2-6 cards is helpful in lining up combos and enabling the big plays.

I make no exaggeration when I say I have had a turn where I have had over 15 cards in hand. I triggered all 3 Espionage cards and drew 5 cards from "Bring It!"

Face the Past is a risky card if played early on, as after the first cycle of the encounter deck, Taskmaster is effectively another lose condition if he comes up as a boost card. However, Taskmaster when forced out via Face the Past has got to be one of the easiest nemesis minions to clear off the board, and as Face the Past is removed from the game, this further increases our consistency of lining up our combo cards together. The final advantage of Face the Past which is more subtle, is that a future revealed Shadow of the Past will now surge, adding another card to the encounter deck which can trigger espionage.

Mockingbird is included as an extra ally but came in super use to hit that magic 3 threat removal. The stun is very powerful of course, but she is also icon for Jarnbjorn.

Attacrobatics is helpful to manage our health. Although a Counterattack on its own can deal the same damage as Counterattack + Attacrobatics, sometimes it is worthwhile to use both, to get the extra damage from Widowmaker.

The 2 Aggressive Energy cards may seem a bit odd, since they only bring excellent value when paired with Dance of Death, as I have opted not to use any other multi-attack cards. However, they can be fed to Jarnbjorn to deal extra damage in a pinch. Same can be said of most other multiple copy cards in the deck like Espionage and Counterattack.

Target Acquired is a pretty subpar card but it is preparation and resource which makes it worthwhile. Lie in Wait is included purely because it is another preparation card.

Heroic Exclusions

We do not use Return on Investment (ROI) / Value over Time (VOT) cards like Avengers Mansion and Helicarrier as these cards are too slow tempo on heroic difficulty. Instead, "Bring It!" and Espionage serve well to generate value, while being low costing cards.

Conclusion

Blast the villain into oblivion, with well timed counterattacks, ensuring we manage our health so that we do not die in the process.