Most folks tend to want to pair Ronan with other big point slam Ongoing cards like Devil Dino and Dark Hawk. But I've been having more success playing him in this more Control-styled deck, which I am calling Ronan Disrupt and Control.
This list concentrates on limiting your opponent's options by pumping their hand full of crap with cards like Spider-Ham and Master Mold, then responding to what they do get out with cards like Shadow King and Shang-Chi. It ends up being a surprisingly flexible and hard-to-disrupt gameplan, making it pretty good in Conquest. My CL is 4500 and I've been able to climb steadily up the post-Infinity ladder and gotten several Infinity Tickets in Conquest with this deck, so it can definitely go toe-to-toe with some of your top meta threats.
# (1) Korg# (2) Master Mold# (2) Spider-Ham# (2) Invisible Woman# (3) Shadow King# (3) Wave# (3) Maximus# (4) Absorbing Man# (4) Shang-Chi# (5) Ronan the Accuser# (6) Doctor Doom# (6) Odin#eyJDYXJkcyI6W3siQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiTWFzdGVyTW9sZCJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiUm9uYW4ifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6Ik9kaW4ifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IldhdmUifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IkludmlzaWJsZVdvbWFuIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJEckRvb20ifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6Ik1heGltdXMifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IlNoYW5nQ2hpIn0seyJDYXJkRGVmSWQiOiJBYnNvcmJpbmdNYW4ifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IktvcmcifSx7IkNhcmREZWZJZCI6IlNwaWRlckhhbSJ9LHsiQ2FyZERlZklkIjoiU2hhZG93S2luZyJ9XX0=
There are three distinct engines in this deck that all interact with and compliment each other:
1. Opponent Hand Disruption (Ronan, Master Mold, Korg, Spider-Ham, Maximus)
These cards form the Ronan core of the deck, concentrating on filling your opponent's hand with duds and then capitalizing on that.
For Korg, the earlier he is played, the better: When played Turn 1, your opponent has a 62.5% chance of drawing the Rock before game end.
Spider-Ham turns one of your opponent's cards into a suboptimal or even dead card. For cards that like to be pigged (e.g., Red Skull, Infinaut), we have a ready answer with Shadow King. But more on that later.
Master Mold is often a strong play against decks that float energy Turn 1 and /or Turn 2, like most Lockjaw decks. If your opponent doesn't play a card either turn, this will block a draw. If you see your opponent actually playing the Sentinels you give them, that's a sign you should snap, because it generally means they have few good options.
Maximus should be held until turn 6 whenever possible so that (1) your opponent doesn't benefit from his effect, and (2) you give Ronan +4 power at game end. Invisible Woman is a key enabler for this strategy, letting you save Maximus for turn 6 while also being able to play a more impactful card like Ronan, Odin, or Doctor Doom.
Lastly we have the big man himself. Ronan is usually a turn 5 play, through he can also be worth dropping on Turn 6 if you need to go tall in one lane to win. If you successfully hide Maximus behind IW, Ronan will often be worth 17 points at game end. He can also be hidden behind IW himself to protect against Shang Chi, Enchantress, and Rogue.
2. Doom Wave (Doctor Doom, Wave, Odin, Absorbing Man)
This is a pretty standard "Doom Wave" set, including Odin and Absorbing Man because of their synergies with the deck's other cards.
Doctor Doom is often a solid turn 6 play contesting all three lanes, of course, but you can also cheat him out early with Wave, then clone him with Absorbing Man to go wide with lots of Doom Bots. He's the deck's only defense against closed off locations like Sanctum Sanctorum and Death's Domain.
Wave can either be played early to build momentum with cards like Doctor Doom and Odin, or late to limit your opponent's options on turn 6. Wave + Odin gets you two turns of restricted card plays, which is usually crushing for Bounce decks. (More on this later.) Of course, restricting your opponent to 1 card play for 1-2 turns helps keep Ronan big and strong.
Odin has the obvious synergies with Doctor Doom and Wave, but he can also be used to duplicate the effects of Korg, Spider-Ham, and Master Mold. If you get Ronan out on turn 5, Odin can make a great turn 6 follow-up by sending two more Sentinels into your opponent's hand.
Absorbing Man is our flex card. Doom is his favorite clone, though he can swing matches by copying Shang-Chi, Shadow King, or even Master Mold in some cases. Note that if you play Absorbing Man directly behind Invisible Woman, he will clone the last open-faced card you play. This is a great way to get a clutch double Doom, Shang, SK, or MM at the end of a match.
3. Control (Shang-Chi, Shadow King, Invisible Woman)
These cards all allow for surprise turn 6 finishes that can swing matches and get you 4- and 8-cube victories.
Shang-Chi is Shang-Chi. Generally, you want to avoid playing him before turn 6 if possible. If you see an opponent going tall in one lane, try to hide Shang-Chi behind Invisible Woman so that he inflicts maximum damage at game end.
Shadow King serves a similar role stuffing a lot of big meta threats that you either don't want to kill (e.g., Nimrod) or can't kill because they haven't grown to 9 power. Shadow King also has an important interaction with Spider-Ham: Because the base power of all Pig cards is 0, Shadow King will "reset" their power to 0. This can be a massive and often unexpected punish against Infinaut and Red Skull enjoyers who snap you when you Pig those cards. If you turn one of those cards into a pig and have SK in hand, consider using Wave to tempt them into playing it out early.
Invisible Woman has a lot of useful interactions with the other cards in this deck, most of which I've already explained. Generally you want to partner her with Absorbing Man for maximum clone-age, Maximus to delay his effect until game end, Ronan to hide him from his counters, or Shang-Chi or SK to maximize their damage outputs.
Part of what makes this deck fun is that it's flexible and has several good play lines. Here are a few of my favorites:
1. Korg > 2. Master Mold > 3. Wave (behind MM) > 4. Odin (behind Wave) > 5. Doctor Doom > 6. Ronan
Hope your opponent likes robots, because their hand and the board is about to get flooded with them.
1. Korg > 2. Spider-Ham > 3. Wave (behind SH) > 4. Odin (behind Wave) > 5. Doctor Doom > 6. Maximus + Shadow King
Similar to the above, except you get a double-pigging instead of a million Sentinels. Because your opponent is under the effect of Wave when the second bonk hits, you're highly likely to hit a different card than you did the first time. If your opponent plays either or both pigs, punish it on turn 6 with Shadow King. This line is ruinous for Bounce decks.
1. Korg > 2. Invisible Woman > 3. Maximus (behind IW) > 4. Spider-Ham + Master Mold > 5. Ronan > 6. Doctor Doom/Odin
Solid play line that maximizes the damage to your opponent's hand, guarantees a big Ronan at game end, and then goes wide with Doctor Doom or tall with Odin (ideally using him to clone Maximus or MM to make Ronan as big as can be). Shang or Shadow King can also be game-winning turn 6 plays in certain scenarios.
1. Korg > 2. Master Mold/Spider-Ham > 3. Invisible Woman > 4. Absorbing Man (behind IW) > 5. Ronan (either openly or behind IW)
This one sets up Absorbing Man for a big finish in turn 6. Play Maximus + Master Mold together to burst a bunch of cards into your opponent's hand, or Doctor Doom to flood the board with Doom Bots, or Shang Chi or Shadow King to slay two lanes. You have a lot of possibilities for turn 6 with this set-up.
1. Korg > 2. Spider-Ham > 3. Invisible Woman > 4. Absorbing Man (behind IW) > 5. Ronan (either openly or behind IW) > 6. Maximus + Master Mold
This is usually our best play line against Discard Apocalypse, which otherwise gives this list trouble. The hope is that we Spider-Ham a key win condition (ideally MODOK), then play Maximus + MM on turn 6, followed by Absorbing Man copying MM, to flood the opponent's hand with six cards and embiggen Ronan. If they played Dracula, this finish has the added bonus of making it much more likely that Dracula hits a Sentinel rather than something good.
1. (Float) 2. (Float) > 3. Wave. > 4. Dr. Doom (behind Wave) > 5. Absorbing Man (behind Dr. Doom) > 6. Odin (behind AM)
DOOOOOOOM! This gets you 19 points in the Wave lane and 16 points worth of Doom Bots in the other two. This play line works best when you have a restricted lane you can win with the Doom Bots, like Sanctum or Death's Domain.
This deck does especially well against other On Reveal decks, decks that rely on key draws, and decks that rely on putting a lot of big power cards on the board. These include:
Bounce, which gets hosed by Wave and Shadow King, and doesn't much appreciate a bunch of Sentinels flooding their hand either.
Destroy, which doesn't do well against opponents who carry both Shang-Chi and Shadow King.
Sera Control, which hates Spider-Ham and Wave. Be careful of them hitting Invisible Woman with Enchantress, though.
Mr. Negative, which we can often counter by flooding their hand with crap, preventing them from drawing their negative cards, and stuffing their big turn 6 with Wave on turn 5.
Devil Dino / S.H.I.E.L.D., which feed Ronan with their big hand sizes and are often vulnerable to Shang-Chi and Shadow King.
I don't think this deck has any unwinnable matchups, as you can often prevail purely by being disruptive enough that you prevent your opponents from drawing or playing their key win conditions. Its most unfavorable matchups are:
Discard, which neuters Ronan and then overpower us by going tall. Apocalypse is the fairer fight, since we have tools for disrupting their play pattern. Against Hela, there's not much much we can do except hope they don't draw Invisible Woman in time and/or that we can disrupt their combo using Master Mold and Spider-Ham.
Patriot, Cerebro, Thanos Zoo, and Wong/Tiger/Odin, which can all beat us by going both wide and tall but not so tall that we can Shang-Chi them. You can still win against these decks by disrupting their hands with Korg, Spider-Ham, and Master Mold, but it's important to recognize when they have their win conditions and respect their snaps.
Substitutions:
Iceman for Korg: Both serve a similar function in disrupting your opponent's hand, but I give the edge to Korg because we often play Wave. Even if we luck into icing one of our opponent's 5-cost cards, they'll often be able to play it on curve (or even ahead of curve) anyway if we play Wave mid-match.
Echo for Korg: This one's more interesting. We don't have any good tools for disrupting Ongoing-heavy decks, and Echo can either prevent these decks from playing in a key lane (like Onslaught's Citadel) or be a strong turn 5 or 6 surprise. Korg might still have the edge because causing a dead draw with a Rock is painful for most decks.
Enchantress for Absorbing Man: You lose Absorbing Man's flexibility to clone Doom, Shang, Shadow King, and Master Mold, which stinks, but gain Enchantress's ability to stuff troublesome Ongoing cards like Patriot and Cerebro. This might become an enticing substitution if Ongoing cards become more popular in the meta.
Why no Baron Mordo? Because Spider-Ham essentially does what he does, but better. (No one is sadder about this than me--I want Mordo to work!) Mordo also has bad synergy with Wave, since you can end up giving your opponent one of their strongest 5- or 6-cost cards with Mordo, then help them cheat it out with Wave.
Favorable locations include:
Kamar-Taj (Korg, Master Mold, Doctor Doom)
Dark Dimension (no IW needed!)
Machine World (Master Mold will send three bots into your opponent's hand)
Nidavellir (IW +Shang will frequently win this one)
Unfavorable locations include:
Luke's Bar (makes Master Mold risky, because your opponent can then win Luke's Bar by flooding it with Sentinels)
Elysium (makes it easier for our opponent to liquidate their hand and maybe even get some use out of the Sentinels we give them)
Knowhere (protects Ronan, but otherwise neuters the rest of our deck)