Daring Lime's: Divine Reckoning

He's also currently my favorite hero which is why this write up is so long :), in my experience he is one of the strongest heroes in the game, but it is hard to unlock his full potential. It seems like he wants to be in Aggression, and while Aggression is good, I find Protection to be much stronger and more consistent with cooler combos. I may post an Aggression Hercules list as well if people are interested, but this deck is the primary way I've been playing Hercules in Legacy.

Hercules' Gameplan

Hercules has a very specific gameplan. His main mechanic is to complete labors that bring in his GIFT upgrades. In addition to having a strong upgrade, it empowers the rest of his kit, allows you to change to alter-ego, readies your identity, and draws you 4 cards. This equates to roughly a second turn. It's very strong. To have a good Hercules deck you need to make sure you can finish his LABORS as fast as possible.

The trick is that his LABORS are a Herculean task... but once you do, you'll have very good odds of winning!

Labors

Here's a quick overview of the Labors:

• Defeat the Hydra

  • This labor tells you to find a non-Elite minion with 6 printed hit points. Some scenarios have one, but others don't. Since Find searches everywhere except face-down encounter cards, you can also grab Lernean Hydra from his nemesis set. So there will always be a valid target. Make sure to look at every possible choice of minion (including other players nemesis sets) and choose the easiest one. This gets easier as you learn the villains. If you're unsure, the Lernean Hydra isn't an awful option.

• Embody Pathos

  • This functions similarly to Defeat the Hydra, except it's for side schemes. The same rules about Find apply, except this card specifies that it can't be a side scheme that's already in play (you technically can choose a minion that's already in play for Defeat the Hydra). Evaluate the side schemes as best you can and choose one. Don't forget that it gives the side scheme Assault! This allows you to use your basic ATK stat instead of your THW stat when thwarting the side scheme. It makes it much easier.

• Protect Humanity:

  • This card finds Amadeus Cho and puts him into play. This is the most finicky labor to complete because if the villain attacks twice with something like Assault, or there are minions out that also target Amadeus Cho, or gods forbid both and you get Gang-Up (this happened to me against Magneto; I still won, though), then it can be difficult. Note that the interrupt on Protect Humanity lets you choose an ally, so if Amadeus Cho is defeated, you can just play another ally and finish the labor later. Also, Herc's Helm allows you to technically defend without exhausting. If you have multiple allies and don't need all of them to survive, this can be extremely useful.

Your #1 Priority is Completing Your Labors

The games that you quickly complete your labors vs the ones you don't are like day and night. Since you get the value of an extra turn from completing your labors you should always calculate if you can complete it, and then use the cards you draw into to deal with the board state. If you don't have enough output to finish your labor then you have a tough choice to make between making progress on the labor or dealing with the board. That's what makes Hercules so hard to play and why you may see mixed opinions on how powerful he is. Luckily with this deck you can reliably complete Defeat the Hydra and Embody Pathos in one turn so you won't often be in that situation.

Protect Humanity is the trickiest one. You can use Taunt to cause the villain to attack you which will then redirect to Amadeus Cho at which point you can defend with Herc's Helm or normally. Indomitable let's you ready after defending allowing you to still deal with the board state. Generally, I like to use the extra economy I have from completing the other labors to play Indomitable so that I'm ready for Protect Humanity when it comes out. If Protect Humanity is my first labor, I generally just deal with the board state and finish it once I can. It's honestly not that bad if it's your first one since you get the extra card draw from Amadeus Cho on turn 1.

With this deck the optimal order of the labors is:

1. Embody Pathos - It is easy to defeat with the readies.

2. Defeat the Hydra - With one Gift out, it is very reliable to finish in one turn.

3. Protect Humanity - Since you already have 2 Gifts, you don't need to worry about it. You'll complete it naturally while you're winning. All of the other orders are also totally playable.

Once you have all 3 gifts Hercules will be like this:

Quick Card Overviews:

To help you play the deck better and understand why I chose the cards I did I'll provide my truncated reasoning.

Ready for a Fight: This card is sooooo good with Hercules. It's the most important card in the deck. It let's you go to alter-ego and get 6 hand size, then flip up for the villain phase. It is especially good with Protect Humanity because you can flip up and finish it, then ready and flip back down from your responses, and start your next turn in alter-ego where you can bring the next gift in and still be able to flip up to hero side. It is very satisfying to do that combo. This card essentially reads "Finish your labors 1-2 turns faster." Don't pass it up!

No Double Resources: The first thing you may notice is that there are no double resources! That's not a mistake. They aren't needed. Hercules's cards are so cheap and he has so much card draw that the double resources are essentially dead cards for him in my experience. Also, by not including them, it further improves the consistency of finding the high tempo readies you need for completing the labors as fast as possible.

Now onto the cards:

• Taunt: this card is OP for Hercules. His survivability is so good that the villain attack is negligible, and it draws him into his cheap upgrades and high tempo events you need to set up quickly. It also helps you finish Protect Humanity faster by causing the villain to attack you. This card is the core of the deck.
• Face the Past: A ready and 3 cards?? Sign me up. Goodbye Labor.
• What Doesn't Kill Me: A ready with healing is super strong for Hercules, especially when you take extra damage from taunt. In the harder scenarios this extra bit of healing is greatly appreciated.
• Limitless Stamina: This card is OP. Hercules can use it because he has 14 starting hp. It's basically an auto include in his decks.
• Leading Blow: This card is especially good once you have your Golden Mace and couple gifts. It basically never whiffs at that point and can get you out of some tight situations with your labors in the early game.
• Ready to Rumble: Since Hercules gets the free flips to alter-ego it is very consistent. It's a very strong 1 of.
• Indomitable: I really like playing these to prepare me for Protect Humanity as well as defend for other players in multiplayer. It has a nice combo with Herc's Helm. Since you are technically defending when you trigger its response, you can ready off of Indomitable.
• Change of Fortune: Since you have really high retaliate, you can easily defeat minions and draw. I really like defeating the hydra in the villain phase and drawing 6 cards. It's very strong. In general finishing the labors in the villain phase helps make sure the timings work out in your favor.

A Note On Allies: Hercules doesn't really want to play allies, but I think you kind of have to. It's sort of an insurance policy in case something goes horribly wrong and Amadeus Cho is defeated while Protect Humanity is out. The extra allies are necessary to prevent unlucky games where your entire hero mechanic is shut down. These are not the only allies that would work, and I purposefully avoided Nick Fury and Professor X because I'm a bit bored of playing them at this point. If you aren't they work well here though! Here's my reasoning for each of the allies:

• Clea: Since she shuffles into your deck she is the ultimate insurance plan for Protect Humanity. Having an ally available in your deck rotation is also very strong for when things go wrong and you need a bit extra thwarting or a block. She is surprisingly effective and I find her to be one of the most fun allies to play.
• Daredevil: He has high hp for Protect Humanity as well as 2 THW. Since Hercules generally doesn't need to chump block, consider thwarting twice with him to get 4 threat removal.
• Ironheart: I didn't say I would avoid all the staples lol. She adds consistency to your first deck pass by drawing you an extra card. Drawing into Face the Past or Taunt can be game changing.
• Victor Mancha: He's very good for blocking attacks from the minions you summon and serving as a back up plan for Amadeus Cho for Protect Humanity. Also if you have him and Amadeus Cho in play, he is fantastic at helping Amadeus Cho avoid attacks from minions.
• Brother Voodoo: He's not great at the beginning, but after you have a gift or two, finding your identity specific events with his ability can be game changing in addition to his 2 THW helping Hercules with his biggest weakness.

That's all the cards covered! Check out the anecdotes to see how powerful this deck has been for me and also get a sense for how I play it:

Expert Apocalypse 1 w/ Dark Riders and Gene Pool:

Turn 1: I mulliganed for readies and Taunt and got my Embody Pathos scheme. I played Taunt, took 4 damage from the attack, and drew 3 cards. I activated to remove 3 threat from the side scheme, drew into Face the Past, and played it, which summoned Ares, drew me 3 cards, and readied me. I activated again to remove 3 threat from the side scheme, used 1 Limitless Stamina to finish it, drew 4 cards, and readied again. I then defeated Eros and the Mister Sinister Prelate minion using another ready and 2 The Gift of Battles. Finally, I played Indomitable to be ready when Protect Humanity came out.

That was just turn 1! To recap, I defeated my first labor and the prelate minion on turn 1. Hercules and this deck are insanely powerful.

After that, I spent a bit more time building and playing upgrades and supports to make sure everything stayed on the rails. I brought out my next Labor, Protect Humanity. I got the first counter off by using Taunt. Later, I went to alter-ego after playing Ready for a Fight. Then, during the villain phase, I used Ready for a Fight to flip up and block the attack against Amadeus Cho. That completed my Labor, allowing me to ready, draw 4 cards, and flip back to alter-ego!

This combo let me skip the villain's scheme while still ending in alter-ego, leaving me ready to bring out my next Labor.

Then, on the following turn, I brought out my final Labor, grabbed Tusk, defeated him, readied, and drew 4 cards. I then finished Heart of the Empire, which brought out Mikhail Rasputin. I defeated him, then defeated The Towering Citadel, which brought out The Shadow King. I defeated him as well, then defeated The Tyrant's Throne, which healed Apocalypse for 5. Finally, I defeated Apocalypse and won the game.

In one turn I finished my last labor, defeated 3 high hp minions, 3 side schemes and still had enough left over to defeat Apocalypse. I repeat, all in one turn...

This deck is EXTREMELY POWERFUL.

My fiancé Paulina was able to finish draw 26 cards on turn 4 using this deck. It's really really really good! Protect Humanity still takes 2-3 turns to complete and that's the one she got first in this play test. The other two labors can be completed turn 1 reliably since there are so many readies in this deck.

I don't post on MCDB as much these days. Most of my decks I throw up on the website I built. I posted 1 or more decks for every hero in the game there that are updated constantly as I make changes. If you want to see those decks you can find them here: https://marvelchampionslivingtierlist.streamlit.app/good-decks

This Hercules deck is an example of one of the decks that is on that site. My current plan is to only post on MCDB if it is something I view as special, and most of the decks I make will go onto the other site. If you want me to keep posting frequently on here let me know, I'm on the fence about it.

And just in case you wondering, I did defeat Expert Ronan using this exact list (no Ronan tech cards) many times. I played against Ronan about 10-12 times and found that I win about 2/3 games. Most of the time against Ronan it tends to be about cheesing the scenario by teching in cards that can avoid Fanaticism or bypass the Universal Weapon. This deck doesn't do any of that, and it doesn't even utilize the strongest allies in the game. That was very impressive to me, and as player count goes up Hercules only gets stronger! I hope this deck serves you well, if I get around to it I may make a guide for Hercules or post the deck lists I have in the other aspects. For now, I hope this will do :)