Bite My Shiny, Metal Vision -- Vision Protection

This deck's goal is to be Tough as often as legally possible, which is often most of the time. Between 3 copies of Perseverance, Brother Voodoo to look for a copy of Perseverance, Jocasta to hold a copy of Perseverance for when you need to use it, (doesn't work, I misread the card. Still works with Mass Increase, though!) and 2 copies of Defensive Training to shuffle back in a copy of Perseverance each use... you are often as Tough as you need to be.

Vision's PreCon deck comes with a lot of cards that he literally can't use in Intangible form, which I thought was a damn shame. My initial thought was that if there ever was a hero that Subdue was decent in, Vision wold be that hero, since that's potentially 5 damage he could ignore in Intangible. And then I thought of Perseverance.

Since Dense form draws you a card when you switch into it, you kinda want to be switching forms every turn in order to get that extra card draw. Because you already want to be flipping forms every turn, Perseverance is always active! Plus, since damage reduction is taken into account before Tough is knocked off, if the villain attacks for 2 or less and you're in Intangible form, you get to keep the Tough status.

Energy Barrier is there to be able to soak up the small bits of damage you can occasionally take in between being Tough, while having the side benefit of throwing it back in the attacker's stupid face. It works wonderfully alongside Intangible, since it soaks whatever damage Intangible didn't. It's also nice for those times that you get attacked multiple times in one turn, like if you draw an Assault, or if Thanos fancies himself the Avatar of Death.

Vision's Thwarting is strong enough with just his Hero cards (2 Just Passing Through and 3 Solar Beam, all recur-able with Density Control), plus he has an in-house Confuse effect in Phase Disruption, so flipping down occasionally to use Defensive Training and 616 Hickory is usually completely fine. Black Widow was added to the deck to help us avoid cards like Advance after Thanos went from 1 to 13 Threat in a single turn on a test game (normal threat (1), regular Scheme (3) + Time Stone (3)+ Advance (5!)). Crew Quarters is there to help heal some chip damage you occasionally take in order to keep your HP at or above your starting threshold.

That threshold is to be able to fire off Dauntless. Cards like Hard to Ignore and Unflappable would be sick, except that they all require you to defend, and you almost never actually defend with this deck. Dauntless just requires you to get hit, however, so it makes the cut.

In terms of resource generation I've added in everything that seems somewhat reasonable to play, since the final turn of the game usually involves playing as many Solar Beams as you can, using Density Control to add them to your hand (which is how I think a lot of Vision games will end, regardless of the Aspect chosen), so making them cheaper helps toward this goal. I threw in 2 Deft Focus, rather than just 1, just because I've found getting it out as soon as possible really helps smooth the curve of the deck out. 11 of his 15 cards are Superpowers, so making them cheaper sooner is a very noticeable help toward playing out your hand. If you want, you can chuck in a Quincarrier instead of one of the Deft Focus copies, since Vision is an Avenger, but I'd rather get Deft Focus out sooner than have 0 dead cards the second time through the deck.

Reboot is also for healing chip damage while being able to get in more basic activations, but is better used on Vivian, once she comes out. Viv is an absolute attacking or thwarting machine (see what I did there?) when you can get multiple activations per turn. Finally, I didn't really end up wanting all 3 copies of Reboot, since you just don't usually end up needing them, so I threw in a copy of Target Acquired. Like Black Widow, it's just a nice card to help stop things that you don't want happening from happening. Feel free to make this whatever other card you want; it really can be almost anything. Same with Victor Mancha -- he's mainly in the deck to take a hit or two when you need some time between being impervious to damage, but if you don't find you're using him enough, feel free to sub out.

But Why Not...

I had Night Nurse in the deck, because healing chip damage while removing status cards is great, but Vision already has his Cape to remove status cards, I found that just using her to occasionally heal a damage or two just wasn't worth the card inclusion.

Subdue is a card I was playing for a while, since it can stack with Vision's Intangible form, but then I realized that Energy Barrier was just a better card. Subdue is an Event, so you need to draw it at the correct time in order for it to be useful, and Energy Barrier just requires you to flop it on the table and go on with your life. It's more expensive, but such is the cost of convenience.

Ever Vigilant is also a great Protection card for a hero who has access to Aerial, but I found that Vision's Thwarting is usually good enough that I don't need more. If I did play any copies, they would probably replace copies of Reboot, since that's the most similar card in the deck. Also, that's around the point that I'd consider a second copy of The Power of Protection, because of the overall price of the Protection cards in the deck. Then you need to find room for a copy of that, and then it's just a whole thing.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy beating up villains while your cold, robotic exterior remains shiny and unscathed!