Let's explain.
Keep in mind this deck is a W.I.P, and only gets better as more cards come to the game.
The concept of the deck is to always try to win the locations you focus on. You want to almost always invest in just two locations, since you want to concentrate your power a lot, and force your opponent to challenge you on at least one location.
The main cards here are the Guardians (Rocket, Star-Lord, Drax, Gamora) and Okoye. Okoye allows you to make every single Guardian even more powerful and effective at their job of gaining power.
However, the extra cards, such as Ant-Man, Crossbones, Daredevil, Lizard and Armor, help to secure locations and create bursts of power. Armor is especially great due to the chances of you having 9+ power being decently high. It can be a great protection against Shang-Chi.
Nightcrawler and Iceman are heavily optional. I'm still trying to find good replacements.
Our curve goes like:
- Turn 1 - Iceman/Nightcrawler (Sometimes Ant-Man)
- Turn 2 - Daredevil, Okoye, Armor or Lizard.
- Turn 3 - A 1-cost and a 2 cost, depending on what you need to do, or where you think they'll place their cards.
- Turn 4 - Crossbones, if you're winning a location, Drax or other cards if you don't have Crossbones, or aren't winning a location.
- Turn 5 - Drax + 1-cost, or Gamora if you know where they'll play (Daredevil).
Turn 6 - Gamora + 1-cost. OR, any other cards you can play. Just spam out power.
Sometimes you change up due to locations or your opponent, but this is the main game plan.
No-Go's
- Odin - Could work, but our curve is way too full to account for him.
- Groot - Too little power for the 3-cost investment, plus our curve is too full for a 3-cost card.
- Other Guardians of the Galaxy - Don't synergise, or doesn't help the deck much.
Replaceable (Without harming the main deck.)
- Nightcrawler - Just there. Can be easily replaced.
- Iceman - Same as Nightcrawler.
- Daredevil - If you're smart at knowing where they'll allocate resources, you can play without him. But he is very useful if you feel that you just can't land those On Reveals well enough.
- Crossbones - He's here for the spirit of the deck, but you could replace him with Warpath, if you're okay with the Shang-Chi weakness.
Main Suggestions
- Sunspot - Good if you feel you float enough energy to have him actually gain power. But could be a dead card otherwise.
- Warpath - A great replacement for Crossbones. He has 1 extra power, and doesn't need to be played on a winning location. However he is automatically vulnerable to Shang-Chi, which Crossbones is not.
- Goose - Can prevent certain plays, but you want to be able to use Cross, Drax, and Gamora, so isn't always amazing.
- Magik - Could fix a lot of problems to do with 3-costs and such. You could definitely use her if you feel you can work with that extra turn well.
Extra Additions
- Juggernaut - Has potential, but you'd need to change the curve to fit a 3-cost in.
- Beast - Replaying On Reveals. But you'd need to change the curve up to fit time to use him in.
Unique Ideas
- Arnim Zola - With a different curve, you could do Arnim into Gamora or Drax to gain extra power.
- Black Panther - For Zola too, but you'd end up changing the deck too much.