Royale with Cheese 2.0

It's been Nick Fury month on the Winning Hand podcast, and I thought I'd revise, revamp. and repost a fun tempo/turbo Nick deck I cooked up last year. It works best at solo or duo. At higher player counts, Nick can still do good work, but the momentum of the deck is in clearing schemes, and higher player counts make that less reliable.

It is a deck that uses Nick Fury (Hero) Episode 93

It makes use of Nick Fury's Flying Car Episode 94

It makes use of Secret Agent Episode 95

Nick Fury is fun. His thwarting ability is quite strong, and accumulating threat on his suit form to spend as damage/resources is an interesting mechanic to play around. This deck leans into basic thwarting with Nick Fury, and defeating side schemes to

• deal damage with Followed
• draw cards with One Way or Another and Skilled Investigator
• tutor Cheese with Chance Encounter to tutor preparations
• find side schemes or play your own to get the ball rolling

This deck also flexes Secret Agent to "ping" thwart and pull the threat to the suit. Nick has enough stellar prep cards in his own kit to not really need extras. I usually like to recur Intelligence Analysis (for the treachery cancel), but EM Shield and Eyepatch Camera are great too. If you already have them, Practiced Plan is the play.

As with every hero, building your board of key cards is necessary. For anyone who's spent time with Nick Fury here in Marvel Champions, you can see right away that his Watch and Car are the most important.

After that, the goal is to build threat on his suit form upgrade Heroic Intuition, Heroic Conditioning and Surveillance Specialist can boost his basic thwart up to 5 (and draw an extra card to boot). One threat from each thwart goes on the suit (and I usually immediately spend that thwart to ready with Fury's Flying Car and do another thing).

Overwatch can mirror this strong basic thwart on a side scheme, which you can tutor with One Way or Another for even more card draw.

As mentioned in the Winning Hand, Secret Agent is a great card, and I worry that people are sleeping on it because I don't hear it getting praise or love. Nick has fantastic preparation cards, and with ever one he triggers, he steals another threat onto his suit form. The math here is good, and I thought they missed it in the podcast:

• you get the benefit of the preparation
• you get to "thwart" for 1
• you get one damage/resource on your suit form.

So every prep card you play becomes "also thwart one and deal one damage". If you did this even twice in a game, Secret Agent is on the cost curve, its just not a tempo play. If you do this more than twice (see Practiced Plan) you're cash money and gaining on villain.

Time to spend that sweet threat you banked:

• I rarely play Spray Fire, but it can be good if you've got more than one minion. There are enough attack events in this deck that there are better targets, though.
• Concentrated Fire is great against a single minion and go back into hiding, or against the Villain.
• Turn the Tide is an all-star here. You can usually find a way to clear something with Nick's basic thwart every turn, and then flipping into assault form and dealing damage (up to 6) for zero cost feels fantastic. Very punchy.

Project T.A.H.I.T.I. is a magical place where Agent Philip "Cheese" Coulson can be recurred again and again to steal you preparation cards back from the discard pile.

Intelligence Analysis is the best one. Zero cost, cancel a treachery for the cost of a suit threat (which you immediately steal back with Secret Agent), this is the premier recursion target

Eyepatch Camera is also really good, but I often save it for when I need a big attack turn or if the main scheme is in danger of going over from a surprise influx of threat.

Practiced Plan is also a great target for recursion, because it costs zero, "counts" as any of your other preparation cards (since it can pull it back to your hand) and amplifies the threat stealing effects of Secret Agent, counting as another preparation card you're resolving

Agent Coulson himself can be recurred with 2x Chance Encounter with One Way or Another getting side schemes out for you to thwart down.

This deck has worked really well solo, even against Villains with higher scheme stats. The Majority of Villains put pressure on you with either damage or threat. But Nick avoids the damage and denies the treat, and most Villains don't have any answer to that. I tried to keep the deck on the thinner side, but there are a few Honorable Mentions that you could swap in or out to see how they work:

• Fitz-Simmons is great for Nick, because some of his best cards are Tech. But once that tech is out you might need to add Homeland Intervention and/or Global Logistics to give them something to do.
• More preparation cards like Target Acquired, Intelligence, and Espionage, but recurring the superior preparations from Nicks own kit is often a more powerful move
• The Raft can lock away minions so you can focus on the Villain (Nick's own nemesis set is good to lock up).
• Field Agent is great for keeping Maria Hill alive, but I have a hard time finding room for more cards.
• At one point I had Husk and a Sidearm in here, because even if you cant read or boost her activation, Fury's Watch allows you consistent access to a mental resource to heal her. It was a fun interaction, but I found I ended up with 10-15 threat building up on the suit upgrade with not enough attack power to spend it down.