Take It Easy, Winning Doesn't Have To Be Difficult

I'm a bit late to the Winter Soldier party since I haven't been making videos or on the site for a couple months. I just picked up his pack though and had quite a bit of fun playing him. I want to share my interpretation of Bucky Barnes.

Minion Slaying Isn't Worth It

When I look at Bucky's kit, he doesn't actually have that many good ways of dealing with minions. His Metal Punch can get overkill, but other than that there isn't anything special. He's lacking AOE damage that you'll find from other characters like Hawkeye with his Explosive Arrow and Venom with his Multi-Gun, and the pay off isn't that large. At the beginning of the game you'll get 2 threat removal for defeating a minion. That's really nice, but not worth building around on its own. Once you're set up, your Winter Mask will let you draw a card when defeating a minion and you can trigger your Silent Infiltration, but that setup doesn't guarantee a win. Spamming minions onto the board in my opinion will leave you lacking in tools to actually defeat them. The encounter deck will naturally bring out minions that I feel is about the correct pace for Bucky. That's why I'm not doing a minion summoning strategy and am instead going for a high tempo strategy and just treating the extra threat removal and occasional card, ready, and confuse status as a bonus when it happens.

Why High Tempo?

This makes sense to me because of his Cybernetic Arm. You can get it on turn 1 to help afford your attack events and make them deal extra damage. Since you'll be able to reliably get the arm every single game I want to build around attack events, and that naturally lends itself to a high tempo strategy. One of the weaknesses of a high tempo strategy is the threat on the main scheme getting too high when you get slowed down by guard minions. Luckily for Bucky, as the villain gives you minions you'll naturally get a bit of extra threat removal to make up for lost time leading to a consistent and powerful strategy.

Theme

Another reason I want to play Bucky this way is that a powerful control strategy or engine building deck doesn't feel on theme to me. I'm not looking to take Bucky up against the steady/stalwart final bosses. His kit isn't well equipped for that. His survivability largely comes from status cards and he doesn't have a powerful late game win condition to look forward to. I'm sure I could come up with a deck that can take on a lot of the Final Bosses, but that's not something I'm interested in for Bucky. I plan to play Bucky alongside the other street level heroes like Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Captain America and take on the Core Box and Red Skull villains. His kit is geared toward that in my opinion and it's also on theme. That's not to say this deck is weak though. It certainly packs a punch, and you'll be able to breeze through the majority of scenarios. Things could get out of hand though, but that keeps it interesting :)

How To Use This Deck

The game plan for this deck is quite simple. Hit the villain with your events and end the game quick. Think of it as a rush deck that does take the time to defeat minions when they come out. You do have a decent amount of thwart with Bucky's 2THW stat line, occasional confuse and ready, and allies. Your survivability will come from the Drop Kick stun, Electrical Discharge stun, and Silent Infiltration confuse. You can also block with the pair of Nick Fury's and utilize Arm Block making you quite tanky. This deck has loads of physical resources for Hulk and Drop Kick. Lie in Wait can be good to help you quickly deal with minions and trigger your responses. Your priorities are as follows:

1. Can I win this turn? If so, do it.
2. If I can't win this turn, make sure you have a plan to stay alive by utilizing status cards, allies, and your identity specific cards and keep the main scheme in check so you don't lose to an advance.
3. Other than that it's pretty much just hitting the villain with attack events.

Simple game plan, yet very effective. I hope this deck is fun for you!