Protection is the support aspect. There are two avenues of support: selfless (support your teammates) or selfish (support your hero kit). While the lines may blur as time progresses, this delineation helps refine the goal of your deck.
Selfless: Support Your Teammates
When most players think of Protection, this is the type of deck that comes to mind. Your primary goal is to ensure your teammates are healthy and can stay in hero form longer. This reduces the amount of threat that needs to be handled and prevents the Player Defeat loss condition. Decks focusing on defense fall into this category.
The primary build for defense Protection is Take No Damage. This build focuses on card effects that give bonuses when you defend and (surprise twist!) take no damage.
Aside: I’m going to be using the phrase “take no damage” a borderline unreasonable amount over the next bit, so let’s just abbreviate it to TND.
Unflappable is the keystone card for a TND build. Once per turn, Unflappable will draw you a card if you defend and TND. Hard to Ignore is a stack-able upgrade that gives TND threat removal. Along with this, you have a suite of events that boost your DEF and give you a TND bonus.
Desperate Defense: TND ready
Never Back Down: TND stun
Not Today!: TND threat removal
There are a couple ways to build toward TND. First, you can strengthen your basic defense by boosting your DEF stat with cards like Armored Vest and the events mentioned above. Heroes with a naturally high DEF stat (DEF = 3) are great targets for this build. The second way is through ATK reduction abilities. These will be cards like Judoka Skill, Subdue, and Pinned Down (for minions) that directly reduce the enemy’s ATK stat. A couple tangentially related cards would be Preemptive Strike (changes boost icons into damage on the villain) and Defiance (discard a boost card before it is flipped). These effects all take place before damage is calculated, preventing the damage from ever existing. This is important for things like protecting a Tough status card on your hero.
A similar but distinct way to build toward TND is by including damage prevention cards. This would include cards like Jump Flip (prevent damage and remove threat), Side Step (prevent damage and deal 1 back), Energy Barrier (prevent 1, deal 1), and Forcefield Generator (prevent 6 total damage). Damage prevention abilities will mitigate incoming damage. However, Tough has timing precedence over interrupts, so you cannot save a Tough status with damage prevention. This should by no means preclude you from running damage prevention cards. It is just worth highlighting that Tough generation and damage prevention are at odds.
If you are planning to support your team through defense, you will want to ensure you can pull the villain's attack to you. The easiest and most common way to do this is by using your basic defense. However, you will want to bring ready effects like Indomitable and Desperate Defense if you want to use your basic defense more than once. Another way is to use defense cards that don't require you to already be the target. Cards like Preemptive Strike and Powerful Punch let you become the defender of an attack, even if you're already exhausted.
Take No Damage is the epitome of defense Protection. You can certainly build for defense without committing to the TND build, but there is less overall synergy between the cards. More than likely, you would want to make a hybrid build leveraging some mix of the archetypes mentioned here.
If you like a bit of offense with your defense, there are “porcupine” cards that allow you to return damage while defending. Some I’ve mentioned, like Energy Barrier, Preemptive Strike, and Side Step. In addition, you can increase your damage output with cards like Counter-Punch (deal damage equal to your ATK), Electrostatic Armor (deal 1 damage after defending), Flow Like Water (deal 1 damage with each defense card played), and Dauntless (gain retaliate 1 if above starting hp). Most of these have triggers tied directly to defending, which make them a natural fit in defense Protection builds.
Another way to support your teammates is through encounter deck control. Protection's access to encounter deck control is rivaled only by Justice. Get Behind Me! cancels a treachery card in exchange for the villain attacking you. Black Widow lets you spend a resource to redraw an encounter card. Silk preemptively discards nasty treacheries. For encounter cards you reveal yourself, Spider-Tingle lets you tap into a Web-Warrior’s hp to cancel the When Revealed effects, and Spider-Man Noir boosts his stats by locking treacheries you’ve just resolved out of the discard pile.
As a final note for the team support builds, a small but growing archetype for Protection is Healing. Cards like Med Team, Second Wind, and The Night Nurse can help heal other characters, keeping them in play or in hero mode longer. The Night Nurse is such a strong card, that regardless of archetype, you'll need a reason not to include it. The Angel hero pack will be bringing another fantastic healing option with the Render Medical Aid player side scheme.
Selfish: Support Your Hero Kit
On the flip-side, Protection can be built to support your hero’s natural strengths. While you may use some defense cards, you’re mostly looking to help yourself. For that reason, this style of build is a good fit for solo play. The build is highly dependent on the hero and their kit, so the overall archetype will feel looser.
Protection can help a hero get full use out of a high THW or ATK stat. It sports more cards with ready effects than any other aspect. For a Ready build, you have options like What Doesn’t Kill Me (heal and ready), Repurpose (ready and boost a stat), Ever Vigilant (aerial-locked ready and threat removal), and Leading Blow (risk ATK reduction with a ready for payout). The higher the hero stat, the more value each ready gives.
If you are in need of more damage in your deck, Protection offers First Hit (attack a minion before they activate), Hard Knocks (deal damage with a Tough on defeat), Momentum Shift (heal 2 damage, deal 2 damage), Powerful Punch (hit them first), and Repurpose (for that juicy stat boost). While less conventional than damage you might see in hero kits or Aggression builds, each of these offers a unique way for Protection to increase the damage available to you.
With these “fend for yourself” builds, you can also lean into non-defense Protection by leveraging status effects. As mentioned, Hard Knocks can generate a Tough. Perseverance gives you a Tough for flipping into hero form. Additionally, many teams have Tough access. Muster Courage offers Tough for Avengers, Shake It Off for Guardians, and Polaris for X-Men. Tackle and Iron Fist can generate Stuns, and Thwip Thwip! will do the same if you have Web-Warriors around. Using Protection's stun effects alongside stuns available within certain hero kits can have a huge impact on controlling the villain, especially at low player counts. This build is called Stun-Lock, as you lock the villain out of activating each round. Note that a Stun-Lock build can also be a Take No Damage build, taking advantage of Never Back Down as a source of stuns.
Examples
Spider-Man: Peter Parker is the classic example for a defense build. He has 3 DEF naturally, and he has a defense card that prevents all damage. These synergize perfectly with Take No Damage builds.
Ghost-Spider is another great hero for a defense build. She has 3 DEF, and her hero ability can ready her after playing any one of the many of the defense events mentioned above.
Rocket Racoon is an example of a hero who wants to run a kit-support build. He sports a strong THW stat and a plethora of Tech cards in his kit. Those alongside Repurpose make him an incredibly versatile Protection hero, but he won't be defending for anyone.
Another kit-support hero would be Thor. While not a traditional Protection hero, he has high ATK, aerial, and a large hp pool. A Ready build can help leverage that high ATK. What Doesn’t Kill Me gives him more access to his basic attack while also healing. Ever Vigilant readies him and shores up his weakness with thwarting.
Captain America is the quintessential example of a Stun-Lock build. I'll simply link to Brian-V's Stun Lock deck on MarvelCDB, because his write-up explains it really well.
Conclusion
This debrief is aimed at highlighting strong synergies and archetypes in Protection. As you become more comfortable and experienced with Protection, you will find plenty of ways to break out of the molds I outlined here. There are plenty of powerful builds that are hybrids of the above. Hopefully this serves as a jumping off point for building your own Protection decks and exploring everything Protection has to offer.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to jarrett on the Solo Champions Discord for the pithy names (Selfless/Selfish). It perfectly encapsulates the types of support you build with Protection.
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