When looking at the defenders spoilers, one thing certainly stood out to me and I've been a fan of it since the hour it was spoiled: Luke Cage Main Character. After testing him in over 50 games, some even before the set was released, he has always stood out as potentially the best MC in the game. That's right; you didn't read the caveat of "except Thanos" or "with Thanos banned".

Stats

Starting with 4 power at level 1 is amazing. You can attack many MC's your first turn with no help from a team attack or plot twist. Many other MC's won't even stun you back if you do this. I think that LC might even be broken in this regard, because you can play no cards at all and force some other MC's (Magneto, Prof X, Green Goblin, ect) to defend themselves from turn 1. Nothing looks more unfair than having a massive hand and still having the opponent spending cards or taking wounds. 3 defense is a slight liability, but as you will see below in the Super Powers section, one that he covers pretty nicely.

Level 2, Luke is a 6/6. This is pretty standard, nothing too exciting about this. As you will read in the Level Up section, the fact that you get here on turn 3 is good, and it's a solid base for team attacks.

Level Up Power

Hero for Hire
Level Up (5) - During your Build Phase you may pay any number of resource points to give Luke Cage that much XP.

The defining characteristic between a playable and unplayable MC is the level up power. If you have a bad one, (almost) no amount of cool abilities or stats will help you to be playable (sorry Daredevil!) Luke Cage has a unique ability for experience: you pay resource points to level him up. There's no variation in when you can gain experience. There's no dependence on your opponent to do certain things or play characters you can stun. If you want to (and you will) level up on turn 3, you will (baring scarlet witch shenanigans.) This, combined with his great stats and level one power, will mean that you can have LC fight for himself and not come away too worse for wear for the first turns of the game. This will free up valuable deck spots for other things.

Super Powers

Impervious Skin
Combat : If Luke Cage gets stunned this combat, he doesn't get wounded.

Luke Cage has a great level one super power. It is good at every point of the game, it is good against aggro and against late game decks. Priority does make it a little bit of a pain when you're team attacking, since you have to decide if you want to have impervious skin before you know if he will be struck back. But it's a great ability, and probably gives the deck something like 25 or 30 percentage points better matchups against aggressive decks than it otherwise would have. It covers his 3 defense very nicely.

Power Man and...
Build : Search your hand, deck, and KO pile for an Iron Fist supporting character and put him into one of your rows.

Defenders MC's typically have much worse level 2 super powers than main characters in the base set. Luke cage is not an exception to this, as his is actually pretty mediocre on the surface: you get a 2 drop. However, this 2 drop is pretty awesome, and the fact that you have this option means a few things. Your opponent will have to play around Iron Fist even when he isn't in your hand or in play, but you only need to bring him out when you want to. This is an overlooked but great bonus for effects like this. Also, this power means you only need 1 Iron fist in the deck to still make effective use of him, buying you more deck slots. (Just don't put him as a resource, because he will be stuck there.) One thing to note about Luke Cage's second power is that combined with Iron fist using , Luke Cage has effective 3 location types locked in to being played.

The Deck

The main strength about Luke Cage and the motivation to play him is that the deck has many more slots to work with, because you don't need early drops. This allows you to play more locations, more plot twists, and more late game characters. You will be more consistent and have more firepower at the end of games than you would piloting almost any other deck.

Now for what most of you scrolled down from the second the page loaded to see: The list. This list has performed so well as to cause me to dismantle other decks that couldn't beat it.

Hero for Hire

Deck Archetype: Luke Cage Midrange
Deck Author: GameTheoryGuy

Main Characters

• Luke Cage (MC Level 1)
• Luke Cage (MC Level 2)

Supporting Characters (25)

• 1 Iron Fist
• 4 Beast
• 1 Moon Knight
• 2 Cable
• 3 Punisher
• 3 Iron Man
• 2 Valkyrie
• 2 War Machine
• 2 Adam Warlock
• 4 Ghost Rider
• 1 Thanos

Plot Twists (15)

• 2 Find Cover
• 2 Hidden Weapons
• 3 Savage Surprise
• 4 Shock to the System
• 4 Super Senses

Locations (20)

• 4 Academy
• 4 Fortress
• 4 Sanctum Sanctorum
• 4 School For Gifted Youngsters
• 4 Training Ground

This deck focuses on letting Luke Cage brawl for a few turns before leveling, and then curving from there. Cable and iron fist help to deal with problem support characters or defense pumps, though cards like think again and uncanny defense still stop the effect while costing you the resource. (Thankfully for this deck, no more effects like that from the expansion.) Some cards to consider finding a spot for would be uncanny defense, offensive plot twists (if you're into being more aggressive), or more of a guardians splash (currently the xavier's schools are only useable by cable, but it plays out pretty well, as cable is useful and somewhat easy to defend.)

The ability for Luke Cage to provide a strong team attack makes cards like War Machine, Ghost Rider, and Punisher much better. Team attacks with punisher are still lethal, so you can take down a big venom SC or Drax with no problems. Team attacking with punisher and iron fist is a good way to KO anything. And late game, look for that chance to Ghost rider stun their MC, since they can't do anything to stop it (no stack in this game, and it's outside of combat.) Also, Iron fist works with range from hidden weapons to iron fist punch people from the back row, though the pump will still not put him out of range for shock to the system. (A character needs at least 1 attack to be considered "striking", according to the most recent post by game designers.) Also, hidden weapons doesn't let ferocious characters strike first from range, as ferocious says "melee combat".

Other potentially good team pairings are the other "good" teams. Ghost Rider is too good to not fully utilize, so I would steer clear of pairing with an evil team unless you are trying to completely take the deck in another style, which is almost like a whole new deck. Guardians are great, though the 4 drop you would want most wants to play the blue location. Avengers are good but the Hulk is a pretty bad 7 drop so you would still play Adam Warlock. Spiderman is a pretty awesome addition to a deck that's got Iron fist, so that has some potential, and Dr Strange SC gives you some anti-counter play.

It is possible to play some 1 drops in the deck, as leveling on turn 3 still gives you 1 resource point to use in the first 3 turns out of the 6 you will have. Luke Cage is not particularly good at protecting cosmo early, so that's a bit dubious. Yondu might be a good fit if the meta favors cards like Scarlet witch or aggressive cards in general. The same is true against aggro for Ice Man, and since Valkyrie is good without him, he would only make her better with him.

Overall, Luke Cage is a great MC, bordering on potentially broken. His abilities are great and his level up ability allows for flexibility in deckbuilding that will make him always have an edge on other decks.