When the Thor pack was released I was quite excited to try him out.  With cards like Hammer Throw, Lightning Strike, and a high number of Hit Points, he looks like he would be a powerhouse!  The very same day that I got the pack I tried him out in a multiplayer game with an Aggression build and it was great.  Get Over Here! is a very handy card that lets you trigger Thor’s “Have at thee!” ability, mitigating his poor Hand Size somewhat.  However, the cracks start to appear when trying to use him in solo mode. 

The main card that he has for dealing with threat is Defender of the Nine Realms.  I like this card a lot and it is an essential part of Thor’s toolkit, but you’ll need more than just this to deal with threat (as Thor’s Thwart is only one).

If you were sticking with Aggression, it has access to Chase Them Down, a great card which I currently consider an auto three-of in any Aggression deck.  But both of these cards only interact with threat via minions.  This can be unreliable as not every scenario has a decent amount of minions.  You can easily find yourself discarding most of the encounter deck to find a minion with Defender of the Nine Realms, which gets you an acceleration token quicker than usual.

What I’m basically saying is that in my opinion, Aggression is currently a terrible choice for solo Thor games.  I don’t think that until the Hulk pack is released and we get “You’ll Pay for That!” will powerhouse characters like Thor, She-Hulk, and Hulk (appropriately!) be able to play Aggression solo.

So I decided to try Thor with the aspect that can deal with threat the best, Justice.  If it was still a hopeless cause trying to deal with schemes using Justice, I’d probably categorise Thor under “multiplayer-only” for my games for now.  Here’s the decklist I started with:

As with the Doctor Strange deck, I started with the following nine cards:

• 1x Avengers Mansion
• 1x Helicarrier
• 1x Mockingbird
• 1x Nick Fury
• 1x Energy
• 1x Genius
• 1x Strength
• 2x The Power of Aggression/Justice/Leadership/Protection.

Noteworthy inclusions include Agent Coulson and Counterintelligence which are two new cards from the Black Widow pack and are great additions to the Justice aspect.

Interrogation Room is a card from the core set that I’ve often overlooked.  In a Thor deck it really shines, as you’ll be putting extra minions into play via Defender of the Nine Realms and have enough attack to be able to easily defeat them.  It also has an energy resource, so helps for Lightning Strike.

Under Surveillance is a monstrously-powerful card in solo, as it gives you a lot more breathing room.  Auto-include in Justice decks and with an added bonus of an energy resource.

Scenario	Difficulty	Module	Result	Rounds
Rhino	Expert	Bomb Scare	WIN	11
Rhino	Expert	Bomb Scare	WIN	10
Rhino	Expert	Bomb Scare	LOSS	2
Klaw	Expert	Masters of Evil	WIN	12
Klaw	Expert	Masters of Evil	WIN	16
Klaw	Expert	Masters of Evil	WIN	14
Ultron	Expert	Under Attack	LOSS	4
Ultron	Expert	Under Attack	LOSS	3
Ultron	Expert	Under Attack	WIN	12
Mutagen Formula	Expert	Goblin Gimmicks	WIN	14
Mutagen Formula	Expert	Goblin Gimmicks	WIN	10
Mutagen Formula	Expert	Goblin Gimmicks	LOSS	4

After twelve games I went 8-4 with Thor Justice.  That’s a win/loss ratio that I’m pretty happy with.  You may have noticed in the results a second round loss to Rhino.  Yep, that happened.  I took sixteen damage in one round!  My advice on that scenario is to get rid of Breakin’ & Takin’ as quickly as possible (I tried to, but had no options to do so!).

The only changes I made to the deck during The Gauntlet was to remove one copy of Counterintelligence and replace it with Down Time.  Even though Thor starts with fourteeen Hit Points and can increase it via Thor’s Helmet and Endurance, he’s still going to need to recover.  Down Time makes it a lot better, and with Lady Sif you could even double recover in one round if you’ve just taken a beating.

EDIT – Thanks to a great suggestion by Facebook user Ron who pointed out that I should have included Quincarrier, I have also removed one copy of Enhanced Reflexes to make room for it.  Cheers, Ron!

So my final decklist is as follows:

As ever, you’ll want to build your board state as quickly as you can, particularly Asgard, Avengers Mansion, and God of Thunder.

Defender of the Nine Realms, Lightning Strike, and For Justice! will help you get things under control.  Then you can finish out the game by just throwing your hammer at everything!

Summary

I actually quite enjoyed using Thor Justice, but I probably enjoyed Thor’s cards more than the Justice ones (it might just be my least-favourite aspect).  I’m very much looking forward to the Hulk pack not just for the Aggression card, “You’ll Pay for That!”, but also because who doesn’t want to smash things with Hulk?

I think that The Gauntlet worked better after removing Risky Business and Wrecking Crew from the rotation and also increasing the number of times I played each scenario.  I plan on running Black Widow (Protection) through The Gauntlet next, but I will change the module used on each scenario after the first playthrough.

Any comments, feedback, or requests are welcome!

Cheers,

Tim