"Tremble before the power of Power Man!! That sounded weird. Luke Cage. Tremble before Luke Cage." - Luke Cage (Marvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular Vol 1 #2)

His imperious skin and close ally Iron Fist both come out in stunning flavor in this Main Character. Let's move forward shall we? Always.

Leveling

Level up (5) "Hero for Hire": During your build phase you may pay any number of resource points to give Luke Cage that much XP.

This level up condition has confused people in the past, especially when Defenders set first came out, because they haven't understood the concept of what paying resource points meant.

Resource points are gained during your Build Phase - Recruitment Step, for the number of resources you have out. This is how you play Supporting Characters and Equipment. Instead of paying for those items, with any you do not spend you can give Luke Cage that much XP instead of using those points.

Super Powers

Level 1 Power: Impervious Skin - Combat : If Luke Cage gets stunned this combat, he doesn't get wounded.

A very flavorful ability also seen on his Avengers Supporting Character card. Luke Cage has a low DEF until he has leveled up but this ability balances it out. Not being able to be wounded is very strong and can make you outlast your opponent while you keep hammering on them.

One thing to note is that the plot twist "Build the Hive" can be used to turn your face up producing location face down before you have a change to use it. To combat this against a deck you think might be running "Build the Hive" you can try to keep those locations in your hand during crucial moments.

Level 2 Power: "Power Man and..." - Build : Search your Hand, Deck, and KO pile for an Iron First supporting character and put it into one of your rows.

Generally searching for things in your deck in card games is pretty powerful depending on what that thing is. Iron Fist is a solid supporting character that can get you out of a bind. Reminder note though, this power only works during the Build phase.

For a , as long as Iron Fist strikes the enemy character you get to stun it. To strike, he has to survive to the part in combat where he does 1 or more damage. Shock to the System and Ferocious characters that strike him first in melee combat can both stop him from striking as long as the criteria to strike is no longer met. There are other cards such as Phoenix SC or Vision which can be activated to not let him strike either. How frequently all of those effects will stop Iron Fist truly depends on the Meta.

Deck Construction

A common strategy with Luke Cage is to spend no resource points through turn 3 to level him up on turn 3 as a 6/6 which is pretty sizable that early in the game and start playing characters on turn 4. He can usually stun most 3 cost and under characters without assistance. You will have 1 left over resource point between the first 3 turns that is sometimes used dependent on your deck and your opponents deck.

If you go with the curve starting at 4 strategy, you will notice you can pack in more plot twists and bigger characters to help push and keep your board position making him a real menace in the late game. Typically things that can protect Luke Cage and things that are hard to get rid of are played in his decks.

Being that Luke Cage can search for Iron Fist, Luke Cage decks typically only run one copy of him as no matter where he is, you can get him when you need him for a .

For locations, you already are probably going to use a , a for Luke Cage himself and a for Iron fist. That combined with 4 wilds and you are already looking at 16 locations if you run four of each. You'll have to take that in consideration when choosing which supporting characters to pair with him.