"Avenge Me!"

This is an incredible card. So incredible that I feel it should be an auto-include in any ally-spam leadership deck where you're an Avenger hero. The allies you spam don't even need to be Avengers. They can be X-Men or Web Warriors or just a random assortment you collect.

I don't need to sing the praises of this card. It speaks for itself. You pay 1 card to draw 2 more. As long as you have an ally in play without one of these on it, it's pure value. Delayed a bit, yes. But value all the same.

What I really like about this card isn't how overpowered it is, but how it redefines Avengers tribal, giving it something it was sorely missing. That is, an actual mechanical identity.

When the game was first released, the Avengers tribal was a generic hodgepodge of different buffs with no cohesion or theme. It was the game's first team and needed this sort of generic feel. But times have changed and other tribes have developed their own identities.

Web Warriors benefit from swinging in and out of combat, with a focus on abilities when they enter play on the allies themselves, and letting you draw cards when they leave play through Web of Life and Destiny. X-Men tribal has a special focus on supports that want you in alter-ego like X-Mansion, Danger Room, Cerebro and Moira MacTaggert. This makes sense when you consider that X-Men stories focus a lot more on the school and the training that happens outside the battle than other teams do. X-Men are the alter-ego archetype to represent that side of them. The SHIELD archetype generally revolves around SHIELD Supports, with allies like Agent 13 and Dum Dum Dugan synergizing heavily with those supports, as well as cards like Sky-Destroyer which trigger off of any SHIELD card entering play. While other archetypes prioritize the Allies since they're superhero teams, SHIELD places just as much focus on the Supports.

Avengers tribal has always been a bit all over the place, though. It's been very generic without a clear identity of its own. And I think this fixes that. It takes Avengers from the generic team to being the "vengeance" team. An Avengers leadership tribal deck now plays allies at a discounted rate with Avengers Tower. It equips those allies with "Avenge Me!". When those allies are defeated, it lets you draw cards so you can actually avenge them with the new cards you draw.

Suddenly, Avengers have an identity that's uniquely their own. They're Avengers. They avenge the fallen. It's what they do.

She-Hulk

This She-Hulk is... fine.

She is perfectly, boringly fine.

For 5-ER, you can block three whole attacks and either deal 2 damage or thwart 2.

It's a very fine, appropriately costed card that doesn't try to do anything too interesting. It feels like something that could have come in the core set, like Mockingbird. She's fairly costed, but without more Defender or Gamma support, I can't imagine wanting to put her in a deck when ally slots are so limited and she doesn't have much of a wow factor for her cost.

Iron Fist

For 4-ER, you can consistently neutralize an attack from a weak minion every turn for the rest of the game.

Danny really wants to be a Voltron ally though, with you stacking Inspired, Sidearm and similar cards on him to amp up his power so he can start tanking hits from the villain. If you use both of those with the new Righteous Purpose, you can get him to 6 ATK and fairly consistent block the villain.

That's a high investment to get him built up there, but I suppose it's worth it to prevent all that damage.

He's very similar to Echo but I think she's usually better since she doesn't need to be down to 1HP to reach her full potential, and Protection has access to Hangar Bay to let her block multiple times. Although one advantage he has over her is that he can block for teammates in multiplayer if you need to go alter-ego, while Echo loses her protection if you switch down.

Toughen Up

This is a card that you won't want to throw in just any deck, but it could make you really durable in the right type of deck.

If you're doing anything with this, there are four cards I would suggest using.

You should first use Ready for a Fight and Practiced Plan to be able to consistently switch back to alter-ego as needed without letting the villain scheme. 3 copies of Ready for a Fight with 2-3 copies of Practiced Plan would be best.

Second, you should use a copy of both Endurance and Defensive Conditioning to get +6 HP, making it easy to heal above your base hitpoints without losing value.

In the right deck, this is going to be fantastic and help you trivialize damage even more than Protection already does, letting you reliably get a tough card every turn so long as your HP stays in the right range. Which, with multiple cards increasing that HP, should be a pretty wide range to be able to hit consistently.

The Circe

Without Maria Hill, it's hard for this card to be worth it. Captain America and Hercules are fine and all, but they're not really developed assuming you're going to pay 6 for them. Heimdall is probably a more realistic cost for the best ally you'll play with this.

So, you've played 7 effective resources for the Circe, and each hero is another effective resource, bringing the total to 9. Playing Heimdal and Giant Man from your hand would cost 12. You've likely spent an entire turn just playing Circe, and then you have to wait to draw your giant allies, and can play one a turn. Also, if you need to be putting out fires, you can't afford to spend 6 on this, and you are drawing these giant allies who are of limited use in most decks.

I'm not saying it's useless, but it definitely shouldn't just be thrown willy-nilly into decks. You need to consider the costs/risks.

nerman8r · 54
I would say there are two ways to make good use of this without actually playing as Maria Hill. One is to cheat into play with Scarlet Witch. The other would be to use Cameo to get Maria Hill's Nick Fury ally. Otherwise, I agree that this just isn't worth it and Leadership has much better ways to generate economy to play your expensive allies. — Dreamchaser_Guild · 64