Tough Enough

Luke Cage is here! What a sweet Christmas in August. This deck is a thematic and powerful compliment to his kit.

Luke wants toughs. That makes protection a natural home for him. So much so that several tough cards are not included. Perseverance and Hidden Base are solid, but unneeded.

Luke’s economy is…just ok. He doesn’t share the economy that common comparison Colossus can get. All he has is Power Man which exhausts. What he does have that Colossus doesn’t have at all is a bunch of in kit retaliate. Coupled with always being able to perfect defend thanks to the toughs, prot is also amazing for added card draw thanks to Unflappable and Change of Fortune.

The real kicker is an unassuming card in Luke’s kit which is, frankly, not useful in certain aspects, Fogwell's Gym. This is a free ready when a defender (pun intended) loses a tough. So! Every villain phase, Luke can defend the attack, take no damage and trigger Unflappable, draw a card from Power Man (assuming the villain did more than 1 damage which…they usually will), and then ready back up with the Gym. That alone gives Luke a 7 card hero hand!

To round out the kit we are stacking on more toughs with Hard Knocks and Toughen Up, which is not max 1 for Mr. Mayor. Works wonderfully with Ready for a Fight. Luke has an amazing retaliate 2 in kit, so there’s also Change of Fortune and Powerful Punch to make that even more guaranteed. Whether beating up a minion on your turn or the villain’s, you’re making money, hero for hire.

To finish out the deck we have the Netflix special and have the whole Defender crew. Iron Fist is legally required if he’s in aspect, and although it’s a different Daredevil, there’s still one here. Med Team is almost exclusively here for Jessica Jones.

You have several good options to swap this up as you like. As mentioned the additional tough cards are available, but I’ve already had over 10 toughs with this deck and that was already excessive. What Doesn't Kill Me was originally in this deck but I opted to take it out as I never really used it since Luke is pretty much in full control of his hp and his stats don’t make it very appealing to use.

I hope you have as much fun with this as I have, and would love to know what you come up with!