The idea

I've been revisiting Doctor Strange recently and wanted to build something around Wong. I loved Dr. Strange and his Amazing Flying Wong but wanted to explore how I could beef him up into something approaching a second hero rather than primarily using him as an Invocation deck shuffler.

The basic idea is pretty straightforward: get Wong out early, make him your Sidekick, and then abuse the unreasonable number of ways Leadership gives you to ready him.

This started off as a 50-card deck with more allies and some general Leadership good stuff, but after a bit of testing I've been cutting anything that doesn't really contribute to what the deck is trying to do. It's currently sitting at 45 cards, which seems like a decent compromise between consistency and having enough toys to play with.

It's built primarily for true solo, although there's nothing here that should stop it working in multiplayer.

I'm still testing it, so suggestions are very welcome.

Why beef up Wong?

He's already one of Strange's best cards and he's very useful when you've got something situational like Vapors of Valtorr sitting on top and you'd really rather be looking at Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. But you normally get to do that once a turn and I usually hold off on using him to attack unless I really have to as I want to keep him in the game.

But with this deck I'm trying to get him out, turn him into a consistently useful attacker and thwarter, and activate him several times in a phase.

Step One: Find Wong The deck has several ways of getting Wong into play rather than relying on naturally drawing him. Suit Up is probably the ideal opening. It can find Wong along with one of the ally upgrades we need, usually Sidekick. Call for Backup gives us another route directly to him. Summoning Spell is the slightly more chaotic option, but I've deliberately reduced the deck to only three allies:

1. Wong
2. Kaluu
3. Captain Marvel

That means Summoning Spell should normally give us something worthwhile. After Wong, Captain Marvel is obviously the jackpot, while Kaluu gives us another body and can dig for one of the deck's many events.

I originally had more allies, because allies are fun and Leadership makes it very easy to keep adding them. Eventually I realised they were also making it less likely I would find the cards this deck actually wants. Poor Stinger was the final casualty.

Step Two: Build Wong Once Wong is in play, we start slowly turning a librarian into an Avenger-powered Swiss Army knife. The full ridiculous version looks something like:

• Sidekick
• Honorary Avenger
• Inspired
• Reinforced Suit
• Power Gloves
• Sky Cycle

You don't need all of this before Wong becomes useful. In fact, trying to build the entire setup tree before doing anything else is a good way to lose. But each piece gives him another useful job.

Sidekick is the important one because it switches on Side-by-Side. Honorary Avenger lets Wong benefit from Mighty Avengers and use Sky Cycle.

Inspired and Mighty Avengers turn him into a genuinely useful attacker/thwarter rather than somebody who only exists to manipulate the Invocation deck. Reinforced Suit gives him enough health to keep making consequential-damage activations. Power Gloves adds a point of damage every time he attacks or thwarts, which starts becoming surprisingly useful when he's activating multiple times in the same phase. And Sky Cycle gives us yet another way to ready him. There are two copies of Honorary Avenger because the second can go on Strange himself. This helps keep Mighty Avengers active when Strange flips to Alter-Ego.

Step Three: Ready Everything This is where the deck gets silly. The main cards are:

• 3x Side-by-Side
• 2x Get Ready
• 1x Command Team
• Sky Cycle

Get Ready and Command Team are fairly obvious: ready Wong and either activate him again or use his ability again.

Sky Cycle gives you another repeatable ready each turn. But Side-by-Side is the card the deck is really built around.

It readies both Wong and Doctor Strange and then either heals them or gives them both +1 THW/+1 ATK for the rest of the phase.

So a fairly normal sequence might be:

• Wong exhausts to discard an Invocation you don't want.
• Strange uses the next Invocation.
• Play Side-by-Side and ready them both.
• Wong can now manipulate the Invocation deck again — or, if he's sufficiently upgraded, start attacking/thwarting.
• Strange is also ready again and can use another Invocation.

Then you've potentially still got Sky Cycle, Get Ready or Command Team available to ready Wong again.

The important thing is not to become obsessed with using Wong's basic powers. Sometimes his best activation is still: "No thank you, Vapors of Valtorr. Next."

But once Inspired, Mighty Avengers and Power Gloves are down, attacking and thwarting with him becomes genuinely worthwhile too. Especially as Sidekick and Reinforced Suit alone take him to 7 HP, Honorary Avenger can push that to 8, and Side-by-Side gives you a way of healing off some of the consequential damage from all those extra activations.

Strange as it is, this is still a Doctor Strange deck

So the normal priorities haven't disappeared. Cloak of Levitation, The Eye of Agamotto and The Sorcerer Supreme are all excellent and I normally want them down as soon as reasonably possible. Master of the Mystic Arts remains ridiculous, particularly with Winds of Watoomb or Crimson Bands. Spiritual Meditation helps dig through the 45 cards and dump things that aren't currently useful. Quincarrier and Helicarrier give the deck some additional economy once they hit the table. Sanctum Sanctorum is also more relevant here than in the classic "never leave Hero form" Strange builds. Suit Up is an Alter-Ego action anyway, so occasionally flipping down isn't necessarily a failure. It can be an opportunity to heal, use Sanctum and find/rebuild part of the Wong engine.

General Strategy I wouldn't delay playing useful Strange cards just because you're trying to assemble Super Wong. Strange is enormously powerful before the engine exists and the Invocation deck should still be doing most of the heavy lifting early.

The rough priority is:

1. Get Wong into play.Ideally Wong + Sidekick via Suit Up, but don't turn down Wong just because Sidekick isn't available yet.

2. Establish Strange.Cloak, Eye and Sorcerer Supreme are still excellent long-term investments.

3. Add Wong upgrades as resources allow. Sidekick comes first. Honorary Avenger/Sky Cycle and the stat upgrades can follow.

4. Start abusing readies.Don't forget that Get Ready and Command Team don't have to mean another attack or thwart. Another Wong ready can simply cycle another Invocation.

5. Let the board decide whether Wong is support or muscle. If threat is getting out of hand, an upgraded Wong can suddenly do a surprising amount of thwarting. If the board is under control, use him to dig for the Invocation that finishes the game.

A Few Cards I'm Watching This is still very much a work in progress. Captain Marvel is expensive, but she's an excellent Summoning Spell or Call for Backup target and gives the deck another substantial ally when Wong isn't the answer. Kaluu is cheap enough to play normally and with this many events will almost always find something useful. Make the Call is currently down to one copy. It's useful for bringing Captain Marvel or Kaluu back, and obviously gives some Wong insurance, but the aim is really to keep Wong alive rather than repeatedly replay him and lose all his upgrades. Command Team has also dropped from two copies to one. Six stored ally readies sounded wonderful in theory; in practice I think one copy gives the deck enough without slowing down everything else. Mighty Avengers is probably the card I'm most interested in getting more testing on. When everything lines up it's excellent, but it does require a bit of setup to keep all your characters Avengers.

I know the obvious question is why this isn't 40. It started at 50.

After testing I've been cutting cards whenever I've found myself repeatedly using them as resources rather than actually wanting to play them. The deck is now at 45 and feels considerably more focused. Could it go to 40? Probably. But I'm not convinced five more cuts automatically make it better. There are enough permanent upgrades/supports and enough card draw that the deck thins itself quite aggressively once it gets moving. So for now I'm leaving it at 45 and would rather have other people test it than keep theorycrafting cards out of existence.

Testing / Feedback This is the bit I'd particularly appreciate help with. I'm mainly playing true solo and I'm interested in:

• how reliably Wong gets online;
• whether 45 cards feels consistent enough;
• whether Mighty Avengers earns its slot;
• whether Captain Marvel and Kaluu are the right secondary allies;
• whether there are too many or too few ways to ready Wong;
• and whether any cards repeatedly end up being used as resources rather than played.

I'm also interested in how it handles harder scenarios once the novelty of turning Wong into an eight-health, power-glove-wearing Avenger with a Sky Cycle wears off. Although I'm not convinced that novelty ever will. If you test it, let me know how it goes — particularly what you'd cut, add or change.