Get the Scoop: Hercules

The official reveal article for Hercules just dropped today, and you can find that here. He looks like an interesting and unique hero, so lets talk about it!

Hercules is an avenger with the classic 14 hp archetype of having 6 hand size in alter ego, and 4 hand size in hero form. (like She-Hulk from the core box and Hulk from wave 1) Hit points are a resource, and having more of them allows you to spend less of your other resources just trying to stay alive. This is the reason that these heroes tend to have a lower hand size.

A printed hand size of at least 14 is notable as it allows him to run two cards: Unshakeable and Limitless Stamina. Hercules already can gain access to Steady (more on that soon), so I don't care about Unshakeable, but Limitless Stamina will be great with his base Attack value of 3.

His hero and alter ego abilities all revolve around his Labor and Gift decks, which are each three card decks that he starts the game with. In alter ego, he reveals the next Labor, and in hero form he can clear them for major rewards!

These Labors are some truly Herculean tasks for him to overcome. Seriously though, these are going to take a while to complete...but hey, that's pretty thematic! Out of the three, I think it could be helpful to get Protect Humanity first. This will give you Amadeus Cho for free on turn 1, who can start drawing you extra cards right away. This will give him some much needed extra resources in the early game. All you need to do to clear this is to defend for three turns. Three rounds does seem like a long time just to clear one Labor, but you can also use that time to build out your board. Play some allies, put out some upgrades and supports, like a Quincarrier. The other two Labors will likely take a similar amount of effort to clear. Embody Pathos will put out a side scheme that will likely have around 8 or 9 threat on it. Only Hercules can remove threat from this scheme and it has Assault, meaning he uses his Attack value to thwart it. So you should be able to clear it after 3 basic thwarts. Defeat the Hydra will put a minion into play that has at least 12 hit points, which will take 4 basic attacks to clear. But this might be easier to deal with than Embody Pathos, because you can also hit it with attack events. As much as I do like Protect Humanity, the other two will be easier to clear if you have ways to ready Hercules, like Limitless Stamina.

Once you manage to overcome a Labor, you will get rewarded with a Gift, and benefit from Hercules' hero ability Atonement. You will get to draw 4 cards from the Gift, and Atonement will ready Hercules and let you flip to alter ego for free. In effect, these rewards essentially give you an entire free turn. You ready up, draw a hand of cards, and can flip to alter ego to put the next Labor into play. Which is a great reward for all of the hard work you put into his Labors! But is it enough of a reward? On its own, probably not. But he has some other cards in his deck that gain additional benefits for each Gift you have received:

Son of Zeus, The Gift of Battle, and Gauntlets of Hercules are three cards that were revealed that get better for each Gift that you have received. Each of them are pretty bad with zero gifts, are playable at 1 gift, good with 2, and really strong with all 3 gifts out! Having so many cards that are not good early game will make it even more difficult to complete his Labors early on, but once you do, these will be so good! With 3 Gifts, The Gift of Battle becomes 0 cost for 5 damage, the Guantlets give you 3 retaliate (4 total since you will have his Shield of Perseus), and Son of Zeus will ready Hercules, give him tough, ready an upgrade, and draw a card.

They also revealed Herc's Helm, which is a pretty nice upgrade. Its another 0 cost card, which is always 4 hand size heroes always appreciate. He will also come with two copies of the Lion of Olympus upgrade. This gives him +1 to each of his stats but goes away at the end of the turn. This might seem underwhelming, but you can get extra benefit from it with any readying effects, such as his Atonement ability, Son of Zeus, or Limitless Stamina.

Deck Building ideas

That wraps up all of the hero cards that were revealed. I think he has a very unique and fun looking playstyle of "leveling up" by completing these labors, and the art all looks really fantastic. How strong he will be is a big question. Just from the cards that were revealed, it does seem pretty difficult for him to get through these Labors early game. Especially in solo, where you can't really afford to spend multiple turns committing all of your resources towards these side adventures. In multiplayer, at least your teammates can pick up some of the slack while you build up for a few turns. But there are still cards that have yet to be revealed. There currently isn't a good target for the upgrade ready on Son of Zeus. Perhaps he will get another? Hercules is known to carry a Club or a Mace. It looks like the 15th card will likely be an upgrade. This is total speculation but maybe its a "Mace of Hercules" and does something like "Action: Exhaust the Mace-> deal 1 damage to an enemy for each Gift card you control." This would be even more incentive to finish his Labors, and would be a great card to ready with Son of Zeus.

This hero is set to release in February of 2026, which seems like a long wait. But for now we still have the Civil War box that just released, which has a ton of replay value on its own, and we will be getting Synthezoid Smackdown very soon!

Hercules should feel right at home in Aggression. Two out of 3 of his Labors will be easier to clear if you increase your base attack with Combat Training and Aggressive Conditioning. Defeat the Hydra can also be burst down more easily with aggression events like Savage Strike or Full Body Charge. Once you do clear a labor, you get a free flip down to alter ego, where you can trigger Hall of Heroes to draw another 3 cards ON TOP OF the 4 you get from your gift, and then flip back up to hero form with 7 additional cards!

Justice probably isn't anyone's first choice for Hercules, but it does cover thwarting, which seems to be his main weakness. And you can use justice thwart cards to clear the side scheme brought out with Embody Pathos!

Protection builds will be really interesting, because Hercules can get 4 retaliate just from his own cards. This can stack on top of Dauntless. It's easier for him to meet the "remaining hit points equal to or greater than your starting hit points" with the +4 hit points from his Gifts. All of this retaliate will also let him utilize Change of Fortune. And I think that Pinned Down will be a useful card to protect Amadeus Cho from minions! I think there is a lot he can do in protection, and these cards are only scratching the surface here.

Avengers leadership has always been good, and has only gotten better in the Civil War wave. Amadeus Cho is potentially a really good Sidekick, which will not only give him some hit points to stay around longer, but let you use Side By Side to ready both characters so you can attack again with Hercules AND draw another card with Amadeus! There are also some events that let you sort of transfer stats from your allies into Hercules himself, which can help you clear your labors. I'm thinking about cards like "You got this!" and Mass Attack. There's also Push Ahead and Go All Out, which synergize with his Lion of Olympus upgrades, though I don't think that would be as good as it may sound on paper. You would need to have the event on the same turn that you play the upgrade (since it has temporary), so it would be hard to pull off.