NOTE

It is important to highlight that this Leadership deck is not an allies deck per se.

Introduction

The main objective of this Leadership deck is to maximize the usage of Strange Invocation Deck. To aid on this purpose, some focus will be done over three basic principles for him:

• To constantly cycle this deck.
• To ready Strange for being able to use the invocations.
• To be able to easily pay the invocations and some powerful Strange cards. To do this there are several alternatives, which of course can be combined: drawing cards, reducing the cost of the cards, increasing the size of your hand, and/or having resource generators.

While Doctor Strange plays with the villain, his allies should support him dealing with the minions and the plans, helping him to have accessible the most interesting invocation card at every moment and granting him cards enough to do what he is interested on at the moment.

During the game your deck will run out of cards several times, so don't be shy to discard the ones that you don't need at the moment, they will be back to your hand even before than you could expect.

It should be mentioned that once you know how this deck works, all his cards, and costs, is quite stable to deal agains expert mode scenarios/campaigns.

Core cards and why

The main principle of this deck is the Invocation Deck and to have easily accessible the invocation needed at every moment. To aid on this purpose, besides Stephen Strange natural talent and his own ally Wong, his other best friend on the game is being Cosmo. The main usage of both of them should be to cycle the Invocation Deck (using the espacial dog at every moment with the Invocation Deck as all its cards are Events and it is impossible to miss on that).

It is important to have one or both of them on the game as soon as possible. To increase the chances of this in very early stages of the game, Summoning Spell can be a helpful tool (and don't forget also Mystical Studies in the case of Wong).

Once they are on the board, Get Ready and/or Inspiring Presence are good alternatives for being able to cycle with them even faster the aforementioned deck; the latter option will help on the survivability of your allies, but it is not free as it is Get Ready.

The other extra ally that is part of the core of this deck is S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director. Although Nick Fury is a good addition in every deck, on this case taking into account the low number of allies included, it can be very cheap to bring him to the table thanks to Summoning Spell. His capability to draw 3 cards once he enters play fits quite well with the third principle of this deck; it should also be taken into account the huge amount of damage that can be dealt to the villain on a single turn if combined with Crimson Bands of Cyttorak: 4 for entering in play + 2 for attacking with him + 7 with the invocation = 13.

Up to this point it has to be mentioned the sinergy between Nick Fury and Get Ready/Inspiring Presence. Normally Nick will get exhausted for attacking or thwarting, and as he will leave the board and the end of the round, during the villain phase he will be used to block the hardest attack. With the capability to ready him once again, he will be able to perform two actions and still have 1 remaining hit point to block the attack. And please, try not to be in alter-ego form when he is in play, or you won't be able to use him at 100% (as the enemies won't attack you and thus he won't protect you from one strike).

About the allies, there are only 5 on this deck; 2 of them you don't want to lose them (Wong and Cosmo) and Nick Fury will leave you in the blink of an eye. I recommend at least to have a couple of allies more to block the attacks and support you, mainly, with the minions. Although thats true that only 5 allies is a low number, specially on a Leadership deck, this deck cycles quite fast, so they will be back sooner than expected.

Regarding the Summoning Spell, in more advanced stages of the game, and considering there are only 5 allies on this deck, it can be easy to control which ally can be summoned considering the ones in play and the ones in the discard pile (yes, I know, we all have Nick Fury in mind... that's the point!).

Finally the three double resources is a must have in (almost) all the decks: (Genius, Strength, Energy).

Summarizing. The core cards for this deck are:

• 3 x Inspiring Presence
• 3 x Get Ready
• 1 x Cosmo
• 1 x Nick Fury
• 1 x Summoning Spell
• 1 x Energy
• 1 x Strength
• 1 x Genius

A total amount of 12 (these ones) + 15 (Strange's) = 27; 24 if you only consider to include Inspiring Presence or Get Ready, but not both of them.

Gameplay

Be very aggressive with the mulligan. The first cards you should try to bring to the table are:

• Cloak of Levitation, to have double activation and spam invocations as if you were mad.
• Wong and/or Cosmo, to cycle the Invocation Deck for trying to have ready the needed invocation at every moment.

As an alternative for those two cards you should seek for:

• Mystical Studies: So you can look for on the deck for the Cloak of Levitation or Wong. If you have been lucky enough and both of them are already on your hand, some interesting alternatives at the very beginning of the game are:
  • The Eye of Agamotto: A resource generator is always worth it.
  • Sanctum Sanctorum: Maybe you won't have resources enough to pay the The Eye of Agamotto during this initial round and you wan't to maximize the usage of the current cards on your hand, but it will be possible to pay 1 resource for this card. Although you want to be in hero form as longer as possible, you can have on the board since the beginning a way to draw an extra card and, don't forget this, a tool to recover spells from your discard pile (very interesting for Protective Ward and Summoning Spell).
  • Master of the Mystic Arts: Is Winds of Watoomb on the top of the Invocation Deck? If you can pay this card, you can start the game with 6 more cards. Imagine all the things you could do in the first turn with such amount of cards on your hand!
• Summoning Spell: That's true that you can't choose which ally will enter in play, but this is one of the reasons why on this deck there are not too much allies. Be possitive, if instead of one of them you find Nick Fury, Maria Hill, or Kaluu, you have a new opportunity to draw some of these "initial cards" we are looking for (ok, with Kaluu you can only get an event, but what type of card is Mystical Studies?).

Also, if during this "drawing the initial hand" process in your hand it appears some double resources, you can keep them, specially if you have been lucky enough and you have already on your hand one of these "core cards" aforementioned.

Regarding the Invocation Deck, normally on the first round you should look for Winds of Watoomb, or Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to stay safe in hero mode thanks to the Stunned effect applied (normally) on the villain (and also because taking down the villain is how the game is won). So use if needed Stephen Strange natural talent at the very beginning of the game before becoming Doctor Strange.

For the rest of the game the idea is to control the villain with the Stunned and Confused status applied by Crimson Bands of Cyttorak and Images of Ikonn respectively (having both Wong and Cosmo in play, this is something you can do almost all the rounds). And if at some point this is not happening, Seven Rings of Raggadorr can be useful to block the attack with the Though status card given to you and up to 2 more allies (guess who should be the main affected by this? exactly! Wong and Cosmo).

When moving to the villain phase, try to keep in your hand at least 1 copy of Protective Ward; the Stunned status plus this can turn the villain phase into nothing (remember that this card can only played when in hero form), and with the Sanctum Sanctorum you can put it once again into your deck (this card and Summoning Spell should be the main cards you should recover if possible).

To remove threat, Strange has a decent basic attribute and cards such as Astral Projection and Images of Ikonn invocation. On the other hand, when focusing on dealing damage he shouldn't trust on his basic attack, for this purpose he has the Magic Blast and Crimson Bands of Cyttorak invocation.

But although striking hard and removing threat is always a good plan (well, to be honest, striking the villain is the way to win the game, while removing threat a very important action for not losing it), Winds of Watoomb is probably the best invocation, so if you are lucky and once that card is on the top of the Invocation Deck you also have in your hand the Master of the Mystic Arts card, for just 1 resource (2 potential resources if you consider the card) you can draw 6 cards without exhausting your hero! (and if you are extra lucky and you have the 2 copies of this card in your hand at the same time, for just 2 resources (4 considering the 2 cards) you get 9 cards!!).

If not to much minions appear and they are not an obstacle (for instance because they have "Guard" and/or "Patrol"), you can ignore them and focus all your damage resources in taking down the villain as fast as possible.

Finally, as it hasn't been mentioned at any point on this guide, do not underestimate the utility of the Vapors of Valtorr invocation: if the Villain (or an annoying enemy has obtained the Toughness status, just turn it into an Stunned or Confused one paying 0 resources!... or do the same with you: turn that Stunned/Confused status you have into a Though one.

Maybe one of the weakest points of this deck are the low attack value of the allies and Strange himself, but this doesn't mean this should be an Agression deck!. Only Wong and Nick Fury have a decent value, but the former you don't want to lose him with consequential damage, and the second one is going to dissapear at the end of the round. So this is another reason to be as much aggressive as possible and take down the villain before he finishes with you.

Rest of the deck and why

Up to this point only 27 cards have been mentioned, so there are still 13 cards to be included and their reason.

To cycle the Invocation Deck even faster:

• Command Team One more interesting card that works quite well with Wong and Cosmo to cycle the Invocation Deck. It works quite well also with Nick Fury for being able to have a double activation with him and still be able to block enemie's attacks before he vanishes at the end of the round.
• Innovation: It can help specially Wong and Cosmo to stay on the game a little bit more.

To draw more cards:

• Avengers Mansion: A permanent way to have one extra card every round.
• Quincarrier: A complement to The Eye of Agamotto as resource generator. This is not only useful, for instance, to be able to pay Crimson Bands of Cyttorak only with both resource generators, also to deal with those attachments on the enemy that need some specific resources to discard them.
• Helicarrier: Although this doesn't generate a resource, the result is more or less the same.
• The Sorcerer Supreme: Despite the fact that it doesn’t give you literally one card, it will allow you to have more cards in yout hand when in hero form.
• Maria Hill: A cheap ally with a good thwarting value that also grants you an extra card when played.
• Kaluu: On this deck there are 16 event cards (40%), being 9 of them from Strange.

These following 3 cards you won't normally play them, but sometimes you will end your activation with 2 cards being one of those 3 one of them, and it will be there when you will understand how interesting they become: for just 1 resource you have cards that once played they remain on the table and they allow you to stay longer in hero form and thus trigger powerful spells and invocation cards (don't forget that Strange's hit points value is quite normal). They are more useful than initially expected, specially in campaign mode, trust me.

• Crew Quarters
• Endurance
• Down Time:

Useful cards

Some other alternatives to replace some of the non-core cards:

• Strength In Numbers: One more way to add cards on your hand, and without having to pay any resource for it (only this played card).
• About the allies, I don't recomend to include more of them as the seeked effect with Summoning Spell is diluted with the more options we add. Maybe White Tiger can fit with the "drawing cards" principle, but her ability is only triggered when she is played from your hand, so it won't trigger with Summoning Spell. As Wong and Cosmo should stay longer on the board, maybe Maria and Kaluu could be replaced with "expensive" allies considering that the main idea is to play them with Summoning Spell; just decide if you prefer allies that will grant you cards when played, of more powerful ones.

Sets used

As a reminder for me, the sets belonged when designing this deck are:

• Core Set
• Captain America
• Ms. Marvel
• Thor
• Black Widow
• Doctor Strange
• Hulk
• The Rise of Red Skull
• The Once and Future Kang
• Quicksilver
• Galaxy's Most Wanted
• Star-Lord
• Gamora
• Drax
• Venom
• The Mad Titan's Shadow
• War Machine
• Valkyrie