"Encounter Cards, I Choose You!" - SHIELD Star-Lord

Wanna be the very best, like no one ever was?

...Well, good luck! I can't help you there. What I can say is that Global Logistics allows Star-Lord to not only see but CHOOSE his own encounter cards. And, for a hero that draws a lot of encounter cards, that's pretty neat.

Also? New card Command Center loves Leader of the Guardians.

If you like this deck, feel free to give it a ❤ ! Thank you!

Picture the scene.

It was a rainy Wednesday night. There I was, minding my own business browsing the internet, and people were discussing the best SHIELD heroes. "Star-Lord," I think to myself with a smirk. But as I read and read and read, nobody - absolutely nobody - is talking about SHIELD Star-Lord.

My smugness turns to fear.

Quickly, I open marvelcdb and search published decks! To my horror, there is only one Star-Lord SHIELD deck out there I could find! But it doesn't include Global Logistics. Worse, only one published single Star-Lord deck even uses Global Logistics - but it's not a full SHIELD deck.

Horror turns to dismay - but not all hope is lost. Through the power of collecting all 8 gym badges, I now present to you the lord of SHIELD himself.

Why SHIELD?

1) SHIELD's weakness? Slow setup. Star-Lord's strength? Quick setup by taking an encounter card to reduce costs.

2) Star-Lord's weakness? He takes extra encounter cards. SHIELD's strength? You can pick and choose your encounter cards with Global Logistics.

Their strengths both compliment each other and cover their weaknesses. This extends to the fact that SHIELD allies generally have a good THW stat which Star-Lord can enhance by making them all Guardians and Leader of the Guardians. Likewise, where SHIELD lacks damage, Star-Lord has buckets of damage.

I've actually been playing this deck for the last few days and had a ton of fun with it. At either 1 or 2 player, I have used this deck to beat:

• Expert Drang
• Expert Loki
• Expert Sinister Six
• Expert Mutagen Formula + Mr. Hyde
• Expert Klaw

While this deck can do fine in 3-4 player, be aware that it will need help thwarting and that Command Center becomes much harder to reliably trigger. Consider swapping it for another Overwatch.

Professor Oak's Laboratory

Here we are at the start of the game! Your aim should be to get Global Logistics online immediately. This means you need a low-cost, low-value target to exhaust for it. Field Agent is the ideal target, but Surveillance Team is good too - especially if you can bring it into play through Monica Chang.

Aside from Field Agent or Monica Chang, your top mulligan priorities are Helicarrier, Knowhere, Star-Lord's Helmet, and Leader of the Guardians. Nick Fury also makes for a strong opening if you cannot find any of those named upgrades/supports - he can effectively extend your mulligan to another three cards. And, if you find Element Gun in your initial hand, use the mulligan to discard it immediately.

If in solo, I try to prioritize playing an Element Gun on Turn 1, especially against minion-heavy scenarios. 3 damage on demand is a strong tool for Justice to have. After its initial cost, it's a Turn the Tide you can trigger at any time with piercing ~ 1 card=3 damage. Star-Lord's other sources of damage can be risky before you're ready to Global Logistics.

In 2-4 player, you can lean on your other player(s) for damage and focus fully on setting up before worrying about your weapons.

If you can play a cheap ally such as Ironheart or Quake, alongside Element Gun or any of the other named cards, you're doing well. In short? If you can end up with an ally, an element gun, and a support/upgrade in play? You've had the perfect Turn 1. It won't always be possible, but you should always aim for it.

If you are wondering where Homeland Intervention is? With these allies and Leader of the Guardians, there is already more than enough thwarting to handle things solo and in most 2-player scenarios. Adding more would be excessive, and also require room for more SHIELD supports, taking away from Star-Lord's affinity with allies. In 3-4 player, you definitely want to look into them at that point.

Likewise, we only run 2 Surveillance Teams for the same reason. We don't need more, and ideally we only want to play them through Monica Chang who we're unlikely to play three times in one match. And if you did, it's almost inevitable that you would end the game with a bunch of unspent counters. We want to avoid sinking resources into upgrades that are unlikely to pay off, and make sure our hand has some quicker-tempo options.

"Encounter Cards, I choose you!"

Generally, a solid game plan is to try and play at least 1 ally per turn when possible. Especially with Knowhere out. If you have a Global Logistics in hand, try to at least play one of those too. Especially if the ally you play lacks the SHIELD trait, just to make sure you can trigger Sky-Destroyer.

Global Logistics should always target the villain deck. Organizing the order of the cards you find is the hardest part of this deck, and should be done carefully. Check if you or any other players are going to run out of cards in your decks and thus take an encounter card while drawing your new hand of cards at the end of the turn.

Decide on whether you're going to use "What could go wrong?" or even a Daring Escape before you put the encounter cards back. Some are weak as boost cards but strong when revealed as encounter cards, and some are the other way around. You really want to set Shadow of the Past or Advance to be boost cards.

It might sound obvious, but if you plan to take an additional encounter card, put the least-bad encounter card on top of the villain deck. Then think through which of the remaining cards will be boost cards and which will be an encounter card.

In solo, you can plan ahead to your next turn. In multiplayer, Global Logistics will let you set up boost cards more than encounter cards - make sure to coordinate with your Protection player if you have one! Make it easy to trigger their Unflappable.

Challenging the League

Once you've assembled your team of 6 SHIELD agents and leveled them up- Er..- I mean- Once you've gotten a good amount of upgrades/supports down and have control of the game, it's time to turn on the damage.

Remember throughout the game that Field Agent is best used on Agent 13, with Agent Coulson also a great target. Surveillance Team is a great tool to chip down side-schemes until an ally can defeat it cleanly and trigger Command Center. Just remember to keep 1 charge on at least one of Field Agent and Surveillance Team so Global Logistics always has a great target.

Speaking of Agent 13, she is best known for readying Helicarrier - but Sky-Destroyer also makes a great choice if you know you're playing another SHIELD card this turn. Often, you will only manage to have one of those expensive supports out and she can make great uses of either of them.

Spider-Man and Nick Fury are your all-purpose tools. Don't be afraid to choose the damage option on either of them if that's what you need. Mathematically, Nick Fury gets the best value from choosing to draw you 3 cards, but if you have a nasty minion in front of you? It's often better to guarantee defeating it with his damage rather than draw three cards and find no solution.

Don't underestimate Nova Prime while in Justice either. You have a few sources of damage, but you won't be able to trigger Command Center and Sky-Destroyer every single turn without fail or in efficient ways. Sometimes you need Nova Prime to do your dirty work and simply delete that minion from existence!

Element Guns, Command Center and Sky-Destroyer are great at chipping away at the villain, and a few of your allies also have great damage. Also, if your allies have the threat handled, Star-Lord's 2 ATK is another great tool in your arsenal.

Defeating the villain's initial stage should be a gradual process at a moderate pace. And then? Then it's time to let Star-Lord do what Star-Lord does best.

Annihilate them with Daring Escapes and Sliding Shot. The damage isn't as explosive as it can be in Aggression or Leadership, so make sure you do the math and can defeat the villain before you take 3+ encounter cards! Global Logistics can only do so much!

Good luck and have fun!