Captain Marvel Aggression - Heroic 2 Solo Win vs. Rhino/Bom

I mainly play solo and have played quite a bit during the pandemic. After watching the Team Covenant stream the other day where Zach played solo against Rhino with Bomb Scare on Heroic 3, I decided to start a little simpler and play solo against Rhino with Bomb Scare on Heroic 1. I beat that with Captain Marvel Justice in my first attempt so I moved up to Heroic 2. After losing with Captain Marvel Justice a few times, I explored other options and heroes, but nothing else seemed to work either. Finally, after looking back on the games, I went back to Captain Marvel and tried her with Aggression. I felt like there were enough minions in the scenario, especially with 3 encounter cards coming each turn that burst damage would be useful. I also wanted a bunch of allies to help protect Captain Marvel. Endurance was crucial since you have to avoid Rhino doing 13-14 damage in one shot (I had that happen in one game when he had both Charges on and drew a 3 icon boost card).

After a couple more losses, I felt like I was onto something and that if I could make some tweaks and play well, I might have a chance. I made some changes to cards in the deck and went up to 45 cards in an attempt to avoid going through my deck as quickly and having to deal with an extra encounter card. I added a 2nd Endurance since it was crucial to get one on Captain Marvel early and the energy resource works well with her. I added 2 Honorary Avenger since it's free, gives the extra health and is a good card to discard from play if you get hit with Caught Off Guard so you can protect more valuable upgrades and supports. The physical resource on Honorary Avenger is also good for Hulk. The last addition to the deck was Lockjaw. I found that there were times when I just couldn't afford to take another attack from Rhino and because I had no allies on the table, I had to flip to alter-ego and just lost because of an Advance or a big boost to Rhino's scheme value. I had never played Lockjaw much, but the idea of having a solid ally basically on demand as long as I was careful with my discard pile, was really appealing. I had a couple more losses, but I thought that the deck had potential, so I tried a 5th time and finally pulled out a win.

Lockjaw was definitely the MVP of the game. I was also fortunate enough to have a great opening hand where double and triple resources and Nick Fury's card draw allowed me to end up playing him Spider-woman, Avenger's Mansion and Alpha Flight Station. With my card draw engine set up, I was easily able to play Lockjaw from discard whenever needed and also play other cards to make progress. The game was back and forth. On my next to last turn, I had to flip to Alter-ego because I only had Lockjaw on the table as an ally and Captain Marvel had just 2 health left. I couldn't afford for Rhino to draw a Charge so I was able to clear off all the threat from the main scheme along with the minions which were out. I had also played an Energy Channel and put 2 counters on it and hung onto a Photonic Blast figuring that if I drew into more energy resources (which there are a lot of in this deck), I would have enough damage to take out a full-health Rhino 3 version as long as I survived the alter-ego turn. I decked out on my turn when drawing up to my hand size, but I drew into Energy Absorption which meant I had the needed damage and also an Emergency which was the perfect time to draw it.

Rhino's main scheme had 2 acceleration tokens on it, so I was in good shape as long as Rhino didn't get minions with Guard, pull his Rhino Suit, get a Tough status card and/or hit an Advance. Rhino schemed and hit a 0 boost, so it just went to 4 and I had a sigh of relief. Now I had to face the 4 encounter cards. He drew 3 minions, but none of them had Guard, and then on the last card he drew the dreaded Advance. He flipped a 2 boost which would have allowed him to get to 7, but Emergency saved the day. My turn started and I finally took down Rhino on Heroic 2. Victory tasted very sweet.

I haven't tried against Heroic 3 yet, but it seems like that would be nearly impossible to beat playing solo. Heroic 2 was an extreme challenge as it was.