Avengers Assemble Upgrade Guide: 15 Easy Changes You Can Make

Captain America, Team Leader | Illustration by Mark Spears

A new set means new precons, and Marvel Super Heroes didn’t disappoint: It brought four fresh precons for our pleasure. Of course, if you’ve ever cracked open a precon, you know that they typically need love and care, and that’s why I’m here.

Avengers Assemble, appropriately led by a new Captain America, prominently features heroes. Marvel’s Spider-Man recently introduced the creature type to proper cards (after the Hero tokens we saw in Final Fantasy), which got a surge of support with the new set. That said, a card or 15 could be swapped out, and the deck could always use a few more heroes.

Avengers Assemble Deck Overview

Captain America, Team Leader | Illustration by Mark Spears

I expected the MSH decks to be bad; Final Fantasy, a similarly large set, struggled with precons that cared more about printing cards for characters than building a cohesive deck, but Wizards seems to have learned their lesson. Avengers Assemble is a remarkably streamlined deck, led by Captain America, Team Leader.

Captain America gives hero typal an aggressive spin by granting haste and spreading +1/+1 counters. The creature base is almost entirely heroes, and pretty much everything else either acts as a typal payoff or interacts with your opponents. This is extremely solid by precon standards.

Upgrade Plan

You have a strong base to start, so my upgrade plan isn’t dramatic. Instead of reshaping the mana curve and trimming extraneous or under-supported themes, these upgrades increase the deck’s general card quality.

The cards I’m removing are underperformers. Most are just a little weaker or don’t mesh with the overall gameplan, and some are interesting cards that lack support.

The new cards shore up the odd weakness here and there, like adding protection to the 30+ creature deck, adding additional heroes, and bumping up the +1/+1 counter support out of respect to the powerful commander.

Agent Phil Coulson

Suggested Cut:

I’ve never loved Metallic Mimic because it doesn’t buff the creatures you already control, so it gets worse and worse the further you get from turn 2. Agent Phil Coulson can buff an already established board and does it multiple times; Phil here is a key hero support piece.

Akki Battle Squad

Suggested Cut:

Adding creatures that aren’t of your type is always risky because it dilutes your creature base, but Akki Battle Squad is worth it; too many of your creatures care about combat to pass up on extra combats, and you should almost always have a modified creature.

Hulkbuster Armor is a less convincing finisher than the Battle Squad because it only helps one creature and it’s much slower.

Araña, Heart of the Spider

Suggested Cut:

A hero that draws cards and cares about modified creatures is such a slam dunk that I had to triple check that Araña, Heart of the Spider wasn’t already in this deck. It’s an easy inclusion as synergistic card draw.

Love on the Battlefield gets the axe because Araña draws more cards and has the relevant creature type for other synergies; an easy upgrade.

Avengers Assemble!

Suggested Cut:

Avengers Assemble! is the hero support card. You get card draw, you get extra power, and you get an excuse to say the name of your deck on a climatic turn like saying the title in a cheesy movie.

I could get behind Avengers Quinjet if the deck had big heroes to cheat into play or if it got around the commander tax, but the enchantment is far superior for the same mana cost.

Biorganic Carapace

Suggested Cut:

Biorganic Carapace is an excellent payoff for all the modified creatures you’ll have running around. It also modifies a creature for you, which helps you assemble your synergies if Cap bites a bullet.

Heroic Return costs too much at 6 mana for a single-target reanimation spell, and I can’t imagine this creature-heavy deck holding up 4 mana when it could cast a creature.

Captain Marvel, Shooting Star

Suggested Cut:

The going rate on Make Your Move sucks, so I’d rather play a flashy mythic like Captain Marvel, Shooting Star. The deck has decent ramp to support the 7-drop, plus it works well with the commander since haste and attack triggers go well together.

Danny Pink

Suggested Cut:

Vision, Synthezoid Avenger does nothing in this deck while Danny Pink draws two cards the first time you trigger Captain America, Team Leader each turn, and an additional card for each subsequent trigger. This wasn’t a difficult swap.

Damning Verdict

Suggested Cut:

One day, Wizards will learn that putting symmetrical board wipes in a deck that wants to flood the board is extremely stupid. Until then, the free space on the Upgrade Guide Bingo Card is to tell you that a card like Avenge that destroys your creatures is worse than one like Damning Verdict that won’t.

Daredevil, Man Without Fear

Suggested Cut:

Captain America, Living Legend is Draft chaff. How about instead of an untap engine that does nothing meaningful you run Daredevil, Man Without Fear as a typal payoff that draws cards?

Matt Murdock, Justice Seeker

Suggested Cut:

Matt Murdock, Justice Seeker makes targeting your creatures just annoying enough that your opponents might point their Beast Within elsewhere. It’s much more synergistic than Speed, Young Avenger since the deck’s fairly light on noncreature spells.

Night Nurse, Healer of Heroes

Suggested Cut:

Night Nurse, Healer of Heroes helps to rebuild after a board wipe or lets you make an aggressive attack that results in a favorable trade. Plus, it’s just a cheap hero for Herald's Horn and Kindred Discovery and so on.

Dismantling Wave isn’t bad, per se, but the deck could use more creatures and heroes.

Ripples of Potential

Suggested Cut:

I’m a big Arcane Denial hater outside of high-power decks where the extra cards your opponents get don’t matter because you win that turn. I’m much more interested in Ripples of Potential as a protection spell that synergizes with all the counter stuff going on.

Spectacular Spider-Man

Suggested Cut:

Tome of Legends has never impressed me, though I’d consider keeping it if Cap could attack the turn it entered. I’d rather run another protection spell to combat board wipes; Spectacular Spider-Man gets the position because it’s also a hero.

Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior

Suggested Cut:

Hawkeye, Avenging Archer requires support like damage doublers or deathtouch enablers that the deck doesn’t have and can’t add.

Spider-Woman, Stunning Savior is a cheap hero that’s meaningfully disruptive; you can slow your opponents’ mana acceleration and make blocking harder for them. It’s not flashy, but it’s better than a 4-mana dud.

Wave Goodbye

Suggested Cut:

The logic here is basically the same as Damning Verdict: Asymmetrical board wipes are better than the alternative.

Austere Command has more merit than Avenge due to its modality and I could see running it, but Wave Goodbye is just so much cheaper.

The Final Deck and New Cards

Here’s the updated decklist, plus the suggested upgrades in a separate list below. If you want to pick them up, click the shopping cart button in the decklist below and it’ll take you to TCGplayer!

Commanding Conclusion

Director Nick Fury | Illustration by Javier Charro

Avengers Assemble is a pretty easy deck to upgrade since the base is already solid; the curve didn’t need a major overhaul and there was no messy subtheme (or three) to cut. These upgrades focus on the core identity of the deck as a typal machine with +1/+1 counter synergies mixed in for a more aggressive, consistent gameplan.

Are you planning to pick up this deck? How you would upgrade it? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord! If you want more MSH coverage, check out Draftsim’s YouTube channel and newsletter, both called The Daily Upkeep!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!

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