If you’re willing to do such things, consider house-ruling “ You may include Preparation upgrades from any aspect in your deck.” onto Natasha.

Barely any have been released in the time since the deck came out and I find that this gives a breath of fresh air to the hero, feeling like you have 1 or 2 new cards to put in builds. Obviously it is a buff to the card, but it’s something to consider playing around with if you just wish there was more preparation support.

This is a strong resource card that gives you a little free value without much opportunity cost. The only issue is leadership has so many good resource cards, that you are competing for slots. If you want to play Genius, Energy, Strength, The Power ofs, Band Together, Innovation, and Effective Leadership all in the same deck, maybe with some identity-specific resource cards too or upgrades like The X-Jet, you are going to have too many turns with a hand full of resources and nothing to play. You'll just have to decide what's best for you. If you have an ally-readying strategy with Command Team or Quicksilver, Effectively Leadership does get better. There's also a little combo with Mirage.

This Falcon is over-costed by 1 on stats alone but has a versatile ability to ready another Champion character when used. It is better for this to be your hero than an ally since allies take consequential damage. Usually this will be one resource spent for 2 damage or 2 thwart...an acceptable rate, but not enough to compensate for the up-front cost on Falcon unless you can buff your hero's stats with Combat Training or something similar. Like Patriot, though Falcon is ostensibly a payoff for the Champions archetype, the Champions synergy moves it from poor to average, not to something impressive. To boot, allies remains the most crowded card type and there are far better options - especially in leadership. Short of an Aerial theme deck or all-in Champions theme deck, I would try not to play Falcon.

Sadly, Champions did not get the combo potential that the Avengers, Guardians, or X-Men got, with the exception of the insane "Go for Champions!" card. Patriot gives a small bonus to a fellow Champion, but that only bumps him from below-average efficiency to average efficiency. Patriot was designed to combo with Go All Out or Push Ahead to take advantage of buffing each basic power of your hero, and this is perhaps the best use for him. A hero like Nova that can ready and use multiple basic powers a turn will get extra value from Patriot. The Falcon ally can help a bit in this regard too. Since the buff lasts to the end of the round, you can atk/thw and still defend with the +1 bonus. Even the most dedicated Champions deck would still probably be better playing a Mockingbird, Professor X, Hawkeye, or any number of great 3-cost allies now in the game, but that is a fun theme you can certainly do.

There is nothing much to say here, but I like filling in cards that haven't been reviewed yet. Obviously, this serves no purpose unless your deck has 3+ restricted cards (Venom is an exception...need 4+). There is only a handful of non-identity cards that are restricted. Most of these are actually pretty strong, so it's reasonable to include a Side Holster if they bring you above your limit. The heroes that have made me want to play this are Venom, who has Weapon combos, and Rocket Raccoon, whose identity set comes with 4 restricted cards. Be mindful that some restricted cards like Rocket's weapons or Sonic Rifle have charges, so you could be able to discard them before the restricted-ness hinders you. Therefore, consider if your deck would ever need to have 3 or more in play at the same time. This is a card you'd always prefer not to play since it does nothing on it's own, but it can enable some archetypes.