Vision - Expert Ronan Killer

This is not an official write up just a stream of consciousness

Notes:
-1 Armor (she is not supposed to be part of the deck)
-3 Defiance, +3 Subdue (got the cards mixed up)

After many iterations. The current build of 44 cards with 9 allies (including vivian as signature ally) was the deck that was able to beat Expert Ronan. Some key lessons learned are that, you are almost NEVER going to flip to AE against Ronan in SOLO.

The main scheme threat threshold is 7:

• You add 2 per turn
• Ronan has a base scheme of 2 in phase 2
• Universal Weapon adds +1 scheme
• Power Stone (which you should never take from him) adds +1 scheme

Assuming he doesn't have Universal Weapon on him (you should take away from him turn 1 of the game) he will scheme for a base 3 with the power stone with 2 on the main scheme. This means all he needs is a 1 or a 2 boost to pop the main and then you are SOL. Even worse thresholds if you can't manage to clean the main scheme to 0 threat every turn. The moment that main scheme flips to Take What's Mine, the game is basically over because you either have to let him keep the Power Stone and now you can't thwart the main so you lose. Or, you choose to hit him for minimum 3 damage (which is going to require you to play an event because MOST heroes don't have a base attack of 3) which is resources on top of having to thwart the main. Then on the villain phase Ronan is going to activate on you with a double boosted scheme which will probably end the game or an attack which means double the chances of having an overkill or piercing which will most likely cripple you or straight up kill you.

Vision actually felt really good to play against Ronan and while the game was tough and there were really difficult decisions along the way, he's a very solid hero.

12 Total Attempts evolving the deck and to familiarize myself with Ronan since I haven't played against him much and with the protection aspect since I usually play Aggression or Justice. Final iteration only took 1 attempt to win once I finalized the strategy.

The strategy revolves around flipping between Intangible and Dense form every turn. This is because Vision is the one unique hero who can stay in hero form the WHOLE game and still benefit from the +1 hand size as if he's "flipping" to AE form because of the draw from Dense form. Every turn you'll have an opportunity to play cards in both forms so plan out your defenses. Intangible form + Subdue will let you face tank Ronan like he has a Universal Wet Noodle. Fanaticism? How about a Mass Increase to just ignore that with a nice stun to boot in dense form. You have a lot of layers to your survivability so leverage all the tools you have. Reboot + What Doesn't Kill Me will let you keep your HP up. Iron Fist + Mockingbird + Mass Increase and Jocasta to potentially play Mass Increase twice give you a lot of stuns. Get toughs by setting up minion HP with allies to Hard Knock them. Save Target Acquired for the Universal Weapon you never want this on Ronan.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Assume you will never flip to AE unless you have a Confuse on him AND you counted how many possible scheme activations are left in the deck (2 Advance, 3 You Stand Accused, 1 Special Delivery = 6 total)
• You MUST keep confuses on Ronan alive in case you ever draw your obligation. Vision's obligation will straight up ruin you in this match up.
• Use the hero action to reshuffle the Universal Weapon on turn 1 and take 2 damage + an encounter card and then survive with statuses and allies
• If the "Superior Tactics" sidescheme ever comes out, just leave it at 1 threat to tank "Masterplan" because otherwise, Masterplan has a chance to just mill the entire encounter deck and quickly add an acceleration token which will make your life miserable in solo
• Really familiarize yourself with the number of overkills and piercing boosts left in the deck (3 each) + 2 fanaticisms and take calculated risks to block with your hero if you have toughs
• You're going to have to play a bit risky to beat Ronan because he just pumps out so much BS so quickly
• YOU MUST PLAY ALLIES AGAINST EXPERT RONAN. He just has an OBSCENE amount of extra activations and if you don't play allies there's almost realistically no way to possibly survive against this mf'er.
• People need to put some respek on Vision's name this mans is GOATED