Avoiding Doomsday: Dr. Strange

Okay. You saw this deck's prior version when I posted it a few weeks back, but some things about it were tweaked specifically to match up against Zola/Doomsday Chair. We felt this combo would be a heavy challenge as the tech upgrades in MODOK's pod would be something the Mutates could end up grabbing with their When Revealed effect making them sticky to the board and MODOK himself could easily end up with the guard or retaliate boosts as well, which would make him even more of a pain than he already is.

My friend was playing a remarkably effective Thor Justice deck which used Followed and Hammer Throw as ways to damage Zola that would not trigger his retaliate since they were either not attacks or had overkill. I had Crimson Bands to do roughly the same thing.

I made 5 cards of switch for this match. I removed Black Knight and Wonderman, took out Quincarrier because Thor needed it more than I did, Avenger's tower as now there were 3 non-Avengers in the deck (and two I never planned to allow to leave the board) so I could never have 4 heroes from it and its reduction would not kick in very often. Similarly I pulled out Honorary Avenger as the theme was important in the deck, but no longer a main focus. I am pretty sure I had 2 team training in the last version as well since his Cap deck had a number of heroes in it he wanted to stick around and that was not a focus of the Thor deck (we thought) so we didn't want that here.

What went in was Heimdall, 3 Rapid Response, and the Triskellion. All should be pretty self explanitory.

Heimdall's job was to filter out MODOK and the side schemes that summons him. He enters play on repeat with Rapid Response and does serious work on threat and damage. Triskellion, when I plan on Wong and Heimdall never actually leaving the board was critical for allowing me to keep other allies out for blocking or supplemental damage/thwart.

What we didn't think about was how many times Zola would shuffle his deck, search his deck for specific cards, and draw multiple cards in search of specific card types. We had so many times where we thought we had stacked the deck for a specific circumstance only to have an effect occur that mucked it all up. We had twice that we got all 3 of the ways to get MODOK out of the deck early...only to have Master Plan or a Mutate create draw that removed 10-15 cards from the top of the encounter deck searching for side schemes or tech upgrades to bring them back quickly. He still was 2 Thwart or 3 damage every single turn the rest of the game after I played him as he never left the board with Rapid Responses keeping him around the rest of the game.

I missed the two econ cards...but neither were ones I could keep with this team.

Zola's minions with all the upgrades were BRUTAL. We, at one point, had 3 minions on each side of the table and that included MODOK with the +2/+2 and 2 hit points upgrade (Crimson bands stun, Heimdall did 3 next turn, get off my board jackass.) Lightning Strike at one point killed 4 minions including Thor searching out one of them to remove threat and draw. Cycling the spell deck on my side was still key to us eventually winning. US Agent was an all star. He got tough repeatedly, blocked the enemies with toughness repeatedly, and managed to stick around for 6 turns eating minion damage, adding a little of his own along the way.
We eventually controlled the board enough to clear his first side after 2 times through the encounter deck...yeah, it took that long. He had also flipped his main scheme by then to its second stage so we weren't feeling THAT confident. Then it happened. Hammer Throws, Crimson Bands that I put on Repeat with Master of the Mystic Arts, Heimdall twice attacking in one turn (Attack, die to retaliate, come back with Rapid Response, go again...still alive because Team Training is AMAZING) and we cleared 80-90% of his side III in one turn. He had 3 life left and we were suddenly in the "As long as he doesn't finish us this villain phase" territory. We decided to dick around and clear every minion and all the threat from the board before dealing the finishing blow. He was also both stunned and confused when we finished him because we could and it was fun.

That Villain/Minion combo is insanely tough. Its the hardest we played even having played every pre-Red Skull villain with the Ronan pod. Well, other than Red Skull adding Legions of Hydra which we are pretty sure is impossible short of 4 player (minimum of 9 threat on the side scheme when it comes into play no matter what you do and it adds an encounter card until you clear it...and Madame Hydra is unkillable and refills it...YEAAAAAAAH). We thought we had lost several times against that Zola match but it was just barely possible with some major persistence and patience.

The original version of this deck is unquestionably better. This is a fun version 1b. Enjoy it as well if you decide to give it a try.