S.H.I.E.L.D. - Homeoffice Day

S.H.I.E.L.D. is a modern organisation! Everyone can work from home, even the Director!

This deck capitalizes on the handsize of 6 (or 7, most of the time!) in alter ego for Maria Hill to play her high-cost cards and let them do the work for her! Piloting it really feels like pulling the strings in the background as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. This deck was a lot of fun and breezed through the AoS campaign on standard.

SETUP

Ideally, you want to draw one or multiple double-resources in your starting hand. Don't hestitate to mulligan for them. Getting them early enables you to not only play the The Iliad on the first turn (which you can pull from your deck with Maria's ability), but maybe an Agent im Aussendienst for some additional counters. Either way, getting The Iliad out there on your first turn is the first priority.

HOW TO WORK FROM HOME

The idea behind this deck is to mostly stay in alter ego, let the supports do the heavy lifting and only pop into the office once or twice a week to distribute some counters with Maria's hero ability, activate your Super Spies and All-Points Bulletin. Concerning the All-Points Bulletin: I've regularly had 10-12 supports out, distributing singular points of damage or reducing singular threat 12 times is amazing value!

But on most turns, stay in alter ego. One particular powerful combination allows you to cancel half of the villain phase: The Pericles and Nick Fury. The Pericles allows you to stun or confuse the villain and give Nick a tough status card. Nick then thwarts or attacks, loses his tough and puts the counter right back on the Pericles. An expensive loop, for sure, but you will be able to afford this with five double resources in your deck.

Some side remarks:

• Be sure to use Maria's alter ego ability often and pull a support out of your deck, even if you don't want to play it. Use it as an additional resource.
• Monica Chang pulls a free S.H.I.E.L.D. support, the Surveillance Team. She also activates the response of the Sky-Destroyer.
• There's an amazing finisher move using Agent 13 to ready The Iliad and using the Command Team to ready Agent 13. Repeat.
• Verkleidung is there to give Maria something to do with her basic action while she is in alter ego. No immediate priority target, but if you can play it, it helps to smoothe out some turns.
• Never let the counters on The Iliad or The Pericles run out. One exception: if you can kill the villain and win the scenario by sacrificing them (either by spending the last counter or using them to fuel The Hard Call, do it.

Closing remark

I would have loved to find a space for Heimat-Intervention, but I didn't find 3 cards to cut from this deck and am hesitating to go beyond 40 cards. If you try this deck with Homeland Intervention, let me know :)