West Coast Avengers (and SHIELD, natch)

Hawkeye gets an odd amount of hate from so-called fans who never read West Coast or Solo Avengers. And in the game, which I don't get. The key is to keep him ready as much as possible and don't use Mockingbird to thwart more than twice, or use her to block without intending to spend that resource to prevent all damage.

These tactics are a little easier with the Protection deck, but a WCA theme was too good pass up, and he's just as good. There really is no such thing as a bad blue deck. Though he does appreciate a green deck teammate bringing an Armored Vest to help out.

There is a delicate balance between a slim deck and a deck with lots of upgrades in play that dwindles the deck down just by playing and invoking Call for Aid. Too many cards and you reduce the draw of those good Events (in this case, your arrows). Most everyone knows that, hence all of the 40-card decks on this site. But if you have too few cards, you end up racing through the deck way too fast at some point and drown in encounter cards (because of Hawkeye's Quiver storing your arrows like upgrades). I did not like that in play testing.

For me, the magic number is usually 42, as that is always the answer in life. Sometimes 44. Very rarely higher.

If teamed with Black Widow, I swap Assess the Situation for a placeholder for a custom card I made:

• Complicated History
• Teamup (Hawkeye and Black Widow)
• Event -- Defense
• Cost: 2
• When a card is revealed from the encounter deck, ready Hawkeye and cancel the When Revealed effects of that card.