Iron Man Justice - Overcoming Ultron Heroic

Ultron Heroic is not a joke. He is so difficult in Heroic because he can consistently challenge you on all fronts. You have to be able to deal with the main scheme, a bunch of side-schemes, and a pile of minions pretty much every turn. Meanwhile, he attacks and schemes with the best of them. When you're seeing two encounter cards a turn, especially with Modok in the deck, it can go from feeling like you're way ahead to suddenly having no way out.

I ended up playing Iron Man Justice because this hero/aspect pairing is one of the few that can contribute at pretty much every stage of the game, except the earliest turns. Assuming he has a teammate who can let him spend a few turns getting build, in this case it was Black Panther Leadership, he can take over a game late.

Justice cards like Under Surveillance and For Justice! paired with his Arc Reactor and natural thwarting skill of 2 lets Iron Man control threat - even if he only has a few pieces of his suit in play. As long as his teammate can block for him, this lets him flip out of alter-ego early enough that Ultron can't just constantly pressure the game with threat.

Once he is fully built though, threat is rarely a problem. On top of the previously mentioned cards, his Mark V Helmet is built for the massive number of side schemes Ultron gets into play. He also has his Mark V Armor and Rocket Boots to give him enough health to take a decent amount of damage. This means he can stay in hero form for a decent amount of time, particularly if his teammate can block for him. In turn, this significantly reduces the amount of threat Ultron puts on the board.

Alongside Powered Gauntlets, which are great for minion removal, Repulsor Blast is the absolute MVP of the late game. When most of your decks upgrades and supports are in play, the odds are that you'll hit at least three cards with an energy resource. This turns Repulsor Blast into a 1-cost, 7+ damage card.

Ultimately, Iron Man is one of the few heroes that can address all of Ultron's problems and lead to an end game state where the heroes are doing more than the villain. We couldn't be happier about how thematic this truly is. For a demonstration of why this Iron Man deck is a great answer to this specific challenge, check out the full gameplay stream where we finally beat Ultron Heroic on our YouTube channel.