Cosmic Commander: Burst Damage BOOM!

We all know that Star-Lord and Blaze of Glory go together like Dr Strange and The Sorcerer Supreme. But what if I told you that new cards Beast and Professor X also go ridiculously well with Star-Lord? And that Command Team goes extraordinarily well with Blaze of Glory?

Give everyone +2 with Blaze of Glory, then ready them with Command Team to use that +2 again. And again!

Goliath or Miles Morales alone with Blaze of Glory+Command Teams is enough to defeat a villain stage when solo, reliably hitting 14-21 damage - and that's before you factor in other allies, Star-Lord, and your events. When you do factor them in? You can play a strong stable game and then, out of nowhere, deal incredible damage with a consistent combo!

Then, as usual (if the villain even survives), flip to alter-ego so both you and your allies lose the Guardian trait (it's only given by Star-Lord's hero form). Now you avoid the damage at the end of the phase from Blaze of Glory!

Even outside of big Blaze of Glory turns, there are synergies everywhere. For example? Professor X + Leader of the Guardians + Command Team means 8 threat removed, a confuse, and a block! And you can Make the Call to do this repeatedly.

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General Strategy:

Your mulligan priorities are Helicarrier and Knowhere. I recommend playing a stable game to begin with, controlling the board while slowly building up allies/supports/upgrades until you ideally have at least 2 Command Teams in play and at least 1-2 allies as well.

(While the optimal situation is to have all 3 Command Teams in play and a line-up of 4 allies thanks to Knowhere, this is both unrealistic and unnecessary!)

After playing 2 Command Teams and 1-2 allies? Then it's time to pull the trigger - play Blaze of Glory and annihilate the villain!

This is the beauty of the combo. Aside from Blaze of Glory, the key pieces are all allies/supports - meaning you can build up each piece across multiple turns, and those combo pieces can help you even before the combo starts.

Don't be afraid to burn a few Command Team charges here and there outside of the combo to keep control of the game! And, with 3x Make the Call and multiple key allies, you can happily use any ally you need without fear of not having them available at the right time.

(As good as it is to build up a huge board of allies, don't forget to block with them too! You can't win with 0 hp!)

In 2+ player games, this combo is less likely to end games outright so you may want to split your crazy output on Blaze of Glory turns between controlling the board and hitting the big bad. In solo games, you'll often just outright win off a turn like this!

Key Allies:

Blaze of Glory works best when you have one of your two key allies, Goliath or Spider-Man. While Blaze of Glory works great with any allies, usually - especially against tougher villains - it's worth fishing for a situation where you can have one of these two available alongside Blaze of Glory.

Spider-Man has to be played from hand and, furthermore, can only gain his bonus on the turn you play him - but he's great even outside the Blaze of Glory combo, and makes excellent use of Command Team without a Blaze of Glory even active.

Goliath however, can be played at an earlier point and kept on the board - or you can Make the Call for him when Blaze of Glory is in hand. You don't have to worry about drawing into him at the perfect moment, making him your go-to game-ender.

With Team Training, Goliath can attack 3 times while Spider-Man can attack 3 times and still live to defend you later if the villain is left standing. Or, in the rare case you have all 3 Command Teams in play, Spidey can attack 4 times in one turn!

Alternatively, if you can only manage to have out one Command Team? You can still get decent damage.

The rough maths for these two that you want to aim for (depending on how many Command Teams you have out and Team Training), looks like this:

1x Command Team + Blaze of Glory:

• Goliath + Blaze of Glory = 14 damage

2x Command Team + Blaze of Glory:

• Spider-Man = 18 damage
• Goliath + Team Training = 21 damage

Factor in 1-2 more allies, Star-Lord, and at least one Element Gun, and you should be hitting around 30 damage minimum per Blaze of Glory combo! (3-4+ damage per other ally, 4 damage from Star-Lord, 3 damage from an Element Gun.)

And even this can get even higher with regular Star-Lord shenanigans like Sliding Shot and Daring Escape. With potential draw coming from Knowhere, Star-Lord's Helmet, and Gamora, White Tiger and Kaluu? It's easy to put these pieces together for insane damage!

Other Allies:

...Speaking of Gamora, she's also a great ally to ready with Command Team and Blaze of Glory. She can potentially grab Daring Escape and/or Sliding Shot for absolutely massive damage! (She is also the only ally in the deck that cannot dodge Blaze of Glory's damage when you go alter-ego, so it's recommended you use up her last hp on such turns through consequential damage in situations where the villain survives.)

Power Man can hit 6 ATK with Blaze of Glory! The problem is he takes 2 consequential damage while only having 3 hp. This excludes him from being such a key ally as Goliath or Spider-Man, but still makes him an excellent candidate to end the game with. In short, Power Man is the back-up target for Command Team - notably when you have Goliath and two Command Teams in play but no Team Training.

Kaluu is a poor target for Blaze of Glory, but he is excellent at helping you find it or another high damage event (Sliding Shot or Daring Escape) to increase the power of your combos! And, while setting up your board, you can simply use the event he gets as a resource to make him a cheap 1-2 THW + a block.

Beast is an ideal candidate for Star-Lord's "What could go wrong?" -3 cost ability. Playing him for cheap and getting a double resource back makes it easy to play him and another ally or two all at once in the same turn, getting your board ready for the combo with ease.

Further Reading:

You can start a turn with 5 cards in hand, play Beast with "What could go wrong?", trigger Knowhere from playing him, then play Kaluu (or Make the Call for him), and still have 4 cards left in hand with two allies now ready on the board. This kind of combination is a great way to set up big Blaze of Glory turns.

You can also do similar with White Tiger. You can play her with "What could go wrong?", then trigger Knowhere on her, then Make the Call for Beast and/or Kaluu to end up with multiple new allies and still have cards left over in hand.

(Just keep in mind that Make the Call does NOT trigger Knowhere. "Put into play" does not mean you took the action of "playing" the ally, it means you've bypassed "playing" the ally. So, ideally, you want to play at least one ally from hand every turn when Knowhere is in play if possible.)

Professor X should, of course, be played whenever possible while building toward the combo. With Leader of the Guardians and one use of Command Team? That's potentially 8 threat removed alongside a confuse status for the villain and a block against an attack! You might not often need so much threat removal, but its a powerful option and one of the best uses of Command Team outside the combo. And the confuse he deals is the perfect way to unleash a mid-game Blaze of Glory and dodge its damage in alter-ego.

And lastly, as in any Star-Lord deck, careful use of his hero ability is key. It becomes less punishing in multiplayer (it's easier for 4 people to deal with 5 encounter cards than it is for 1 person to deal with 2), but I would still advise against using "What could go wrong?" every turn. However, in addition to playing particularly valuable allies, consider using it whenever you find a Command Team as it's so important to this deck - you can then use that Command Team on the following turn to help deal with whatever the extra encounter card is.

Good luck and have fun!