estyles · 32
This build is mainly focused around getting Retaliate 2 and blocking as often as possible. Designed for 2-player, where you should be able to absorb all attacks without taking damage. Tested in 2-handed solo alongside Rocket Aggression. At higher player accounts, there may be too many attacks for you to deal with, but I assume that most players will have some allies and/or healing to take care of themselves. This is probably playable in solo, since it does have some threat management and the damage is steady even if it doesn't give you an impressive burst turn, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had trouble solo against harder scenarios or in heroic mode.
Once fully set up, each villain activation will result in 3+ damage to him (Captain America's Shield, Dauntless, Electrostatic Armor, with occasional add-on damage from Energy Barrier, Preemptive Strike, Side Step, and Nova). You'll have 3 to 4 defense from the Shield + Armored Vest, and extra defense + untap from Desperate Defense. Minions mostly just kill themselves with Retaliate damage, though sometimes you're caught in a bind where you have to defend even against minion attacks to avoid dropping below 11hp and turning off Dauntless. The Night Nurse and Steve's Apartment can help with that, as well as Endurance. Since I've been playing against GMW, I've been designing around the mindset of avoiding chump blocks, but that's normally an option too.
Each turn, Unflappable should allow you draw a card, and Hard to Ignore can remove up to 3 threat from the main scheme. You can remove additional threat by readying Cap to thwart on your turn.
If taking more than 2 attacks, or if I don't have Desperate Defense, I will try to block the other player's attack from the villain and use Side Step and Energy Barrier on my own attack. The recent ruling that says playing Side Step or Preemptive Strike makes you the defender can help a lot. You should normally have at least 2 chances to trigger Unflappable and Hard to Ignore.
The main weakness here is that almost all of the Upgrades are 1-ofs, and all are pretty important. But even getting a subset out on turn 1 can get you reasonably well set-up. (The Shield is the most important, and obviously the easiest to get.) Though you may only be able to defend yourself out of the gate, so if threat is not an immediate problem, the other player may want to stay in AE for a turn.