Hello everyone, BananaCrapshoot back for the next part in the article series I am writing. In today's article I am going to be breaking down and grading the 15 signature hero cards for Iron Man. Iron Man is a cool hero that has a very unique and thematic set of cards. He starts slow in the early game until you can "build the suit", then late game, he is a force of nature. Probably the strongest end game character in the game. Which seems fitting. Let's get this thing going.
The first card in the Iron Man suite is War Machine. Rhoadie comes in as a four cost with four health which is fine, its right on curve for his attack value of two. His action can be weak but situationally is very strong, namely vs Ultron or clearing the "tough" status cards on Klaw minions. He's not the best ally in the game, but he is serviceable, and its only natural that he is the signature ally for our Iron Avenger.
Next we have the first event we are going to look at. Repulsor Blast has potential to be a monster if your deck is built right, and your deck cooperates. It has the potential to hit for 13 damage off 1 resource, that is insanely strong. This deck has three copies of Repulsor Blast, as it should as its the most iconic Iron Man attack imaginable. This is a potential build around card for Iron Man, so you have to build your deck properly maximizing the amount of energy resources you have in the deck. You also want your cards that are not energy to stay on the table as much as possible to properly maximize the upside of this event. Really good card.
Tony's next event is a two cost attack, Supersonic Punch. I like this event a lot, it doesn't have the max potential that Repulsor Blast does, but its a consistent 8 damage out of hand for 2 resources, as long as you have aerial. With aerial this thing is way above curve. Like I said before, does not have the max upside as Repulsor Blast, but I like the consistent 8, and not have to worry about only hitting for 3. Solid event, glad its in here.
Pepper Potts, what can I say, this is a great resource generating card that allows you to get 4 potential resources off 1 card. Ideally you pay for something using Strength, Genius, or Energy then you exhaust Pepper to get another 2 resources off one of those cards. Early on I never played this card, but once I finally player Pepper Potts I saw the value, and man I wish I saw it sooner. Great resource generating card. Probably the best one in the core set.
Can't have an Iron Man deck without a tower in it right? Well the designers agreed and we have Stark Tower. This 2 cost support location is very strong for Iron Man, early game it helps you get a tech upgrade back into your hand that you used to pay for something else. Late game it helps you get web shooters back to Spidey's hand, Energy Barrier's back to your protection player's deck, or bring back pieces of the suit you discarded because of a Treachery card. There is a few other tech upgrades out there you can use this on, but overall this is a very good support and works well with the rest of the suite.
The first tech upgrade we have is the Arc Reactor. The basic premise of the Iron Man deck is to stay in Alter Ego mode and build the suit as fast as possible, then flip to hero mode and go off and wreck faces and take names. Arc Reactor is really good because it readies our hero, allowing Iron Man to thwart for 4 just of his hero card is very strong. Arc Reactor needed to be an upgrade, and its a good way to start off.
The next upgrade we are gonna look at is the Mark V Armor, for 3 resources you get +6 health. 6 for three is on curve and this pushes max health to 15 for Iron Man. Important to note is that when you play this you get +6 from your current health right away. so if Iron Man has 4 health, you play this and go up to 10. Also worth noting it works the opposite way too, if this gets discarded somehow you go -6 right away. Iron Man has highest max health potential and this card is a huge reason why.
The next upgrade is a 1 cost Mark V Helmet. This is our thwarting upgrade, which allows you to remove one from a scheme. Aerial buffs this upgrade, as well as the ones we will look at next, allowing you to remove one from EACH each scheme in play. Iron Man is the best hero at handling threat, the arc reactor and this helmet are a huge reason why.
Alright now we got the Powered Gauntlets, there are two of these in the deck. For two resources you get the damage upgrade, this thing deals one damage to an enemy, or like with the other upgrades, if you have Aerial it deals two damage instead. Since there are two of these in here that's a potential of four damage a turn just off the gauntlets.
The last two upgrades in the Iron Man deck are the Rocket Boots, these things give +1 health right off the bat, along with Mark V Armor this takes the Iron Man max health to 17. The boots are also how you get Aerial to boost the rest of your upgrades and Supersonic Punch. With the suit assembled Iron Man has a hand size of 7 in hero mode, 17 health, can thwart for a minimum of 5 threat, and deal 4 damage a round, without playing any other cards.
Overall I really like this suite of cards, they are very thematic and work well for a unique deck build/playstyle right out of the core set. 10 of his cards can stay on the table allowing you to deckbuild flexibility to try and maximize energy resources for late game energy blasts. I would also recommend putting in some mental resource cards to ensure you can give Iron Man the Aerial trait every round as a fully suited Tony Stark with aerial is really where it gets ridiculous. Iron Man is my second favorite hero out of the core set and his set of 15 and how cool it feels to play once the suit is built is the reason why. I also think his set of 15 are the second best of the core set. Enough rambling, time for the grades.
Grades-
BananaCrapshoot- 4.3
Tommy of Titan- 4
Tommy and I had similar grades for Iron Man, he doesn't have a bad or even mediocre card in his 15. He's the highest graded Hero out of the ones I've looked at so far.
That's it for this article in the series, look for the She-Hulk one to go out Wednesday and Tommy should have another article going up Friday. Thanks everyone for reading and checking out The Side Scheme, we hope you like the content we are putting out. We appreciate all of you, for Tommy of Titan, I'm BananaCrapshoot, stay scheming Champions.
-BananaCrapshoot