Midnight Suns Iron Man Build Guide: How to use Iron Man – In this Marvel’s Midnight Suns Iron Man Build Guide, you’ll learn how to use Iron Man in combat effectively, as well as which Iron Man Ability Cards you should use in order to get the best performance out of this hero. Iron Man is technically a “Utility” hero, but in this Midnight Suns Iron Man Build Guide I’ll show how to make him into a badass Damage Dealer!

Midnight Suns Iron Man Build Guide

Iron Man is in fact a Jack of All Trades as he can do a little of everything. He can Block, he can DPS, he can buff teammates and debuff enemies, etc. However I’m playing him as a Damage Dealer given he is one of the strongest characters in the entire game when it comes to dealing damage because of his Surgical Strike ability. But before we get to that, let’s talk a bit about how we set him up before this devastating Heroic Ability.

Redraws and How Iron Man Needs Them

The first subject of this Midnight Suns Iron Man Build Guide is Redraws. Iron Man has several abilities, such as Quick Blast, Blast, Mark Target, and Air Superiority, that become more effective if you Redraw them. This works by applying different combat modifiers to the Iron Man card (such as damage boosts) instead of actually discarding the card, thus making abilities more powerful at the cost of not getting a new card. This mechanic significantly affects combat assuming you already have the right cards.

Also, playing three or more Iron Man cards within the same turn will grant you more Redraws on top of the ones you already get each round, because of Iron Man’s passive skill: I’ll Handle This. The benefit being it allows you to significantly strengthen cards as you play them over and over throughout the rounds, or Redraw to try to get more Iron Man cards.

What Cards to use with Iron Man in Midnight Suns?

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s take a look at the cards you’ll build your 8 card deck with, beginning with the most important, Surgical Strike.

Surgical Strike

This is a Heroic ability, meaning it costs 3 Heroism points to cast at first, and 2 Heroism points once you’ve upgraded it. This means that you will not be able to cast it at will but will need the required Heroism in order to cast it. On the other hand, its number of attacks is based on how many Iron Man cards are in your hand, so you can deal tons of damage by stacking as many Iron Man cards as possible, therefore getting the most effect out of it.

What’s also great about this ability is that you can spread the damage across multiple targets or you can focus on a high-health target like a boss, but is not locked into either. So, it’s very effective in terms of how you can spread out the damage. For instance, you could take down a couple of weak targets and then lock onto a larger. The main theme here is that you need to have a lot of Iron Man cards in your hand in order to get the most out of it.

Another good feature about this ability is that you can add a modifier later in the game to have the cards returned to you on every KO, feeding you more cards, some of which are bound to be Iron Man Cards.

You can see the general strategy I’m employing here is drawing enough cards to make Surgical Strike worth casting and do as much damage as possible. And one of the ways to achieve this is by using Quick Blast.

Quick Blast

Once you have upgraded Quick Blast you get to redraw an Iron Man card from casting it. So, if you defeat an enemy with it, you are going to gain that card play back, Heroism, plus another Iron Man card – so your Surgical Strike damage will stay the same or you might have a chance of drawing Surgical Strike if it is not in your hand. Later in the game, when you can add ability modifiers, you’ll be able to add a specific one allowing you to draw yet another Iron Man card if you get a KO with Quick Blast. And since you almost get a KO when you cast – it because that’s what you’re aiming to do with any quick ability – then you’ll effectively get 2 Iron Man cards for using this ability whenever you kill an enemy, which will increase Surgical Strike’s damage if it’s in your hand!

Leave It to Me

Another great way to draw Iron Man cards besides Quick Blast is to use Leave it to Me. This allows him to draw 2 Iron Man cards and gives him additional redraws so he can upgrade Quick Blast or Air Superiority or Mark Target if he is using it. And then once you’ve upgraded it, gives you Fast – reducing the cost of Heroism by 1, which is fantastic. It also gives you 2 Heroism, so you can play Surgical Strike – which is a great feature.

You can now see how all of this works. You may start out casting Leave it to Me, draw 2 Iron Man Cards (one is a Quick Blast), you use Quick Blast and get 2 more Iron Man Cards. Maybe one is Quick Blast, you use this and you get 2 more Iron Man Cards. Maybe 1 Surgical Strike and use it to wipe out a bunch of enemies on the battlefield and get cards back from the KO: you now have a bunch of cards in your hand again. Maybe you cast another Surgical Strike and finish off any enemies left. In conclusion, Air Superiority looks great on paper although Surgical Strike plays better in practice. Air Superiority’s damage is lower, but a great option when you don’t have many Iron Man cards.

Which Heroes to Use with Iron Man in Midnight Suns?

Iron Man excels when combined with other characters that make it easier to draw cards or increase damage. Dr. Strange, Captain America, or Nico are good to go with Iron Man, as they make it easy to draw cards from these characters, or just general cards that could be Iron Man cards.

Dr. Strange

Agamotto’s Gaze: Draw the last 2 Attacks played. Start next turn with 4 Card Plays.

The first one is Agamotto’s Gaze that draws back the last 2 attacks played, so you’ll have 4 cards instead of 3 on your next turn, as well as 2 more Heroism points. Once upgraded these attacks will also deal additional damage, which stack with Blessing of Vishanti’s damage, allowing you to really stack up damage. And an extra card play on the following turn is huge and can often be the difference between winning an encounter or falling behind and being overwhelmed.

Blessing of the Vishanti: Give hero cards in your hand +damage until played or discarded

The other is Blessing of the Vishanti, which increases the damage of all Hero cards in your hand. The nice thing about this is that it increases the damage of each chain of Surgical Strike, as well as each hit of Air Superiority. So all of these hits will deal increased damage. Therefore you can defeat enemies more easily and get more KO’s, allowing you to you draw more cards, etc. Once you upgrade this it will last for the whole mission, and you can use it repeatedly, allowing you to keep boosting damage.

Captain America

Tactician: Gain Block. Give Block to all allies. Draw 2 cards.

Captain America has the Tactician ability – which gives him and his teammates block, once it’s been upgraded. It also allows you to draw 2 cards. This is very important because you want to draw Iron Man cards and, although this card doesn’t really allow for his cards specifically, any card could be an Iron Man card. Then the more Iron Man cards you have, the better Surgical Strike will perform. Or maybe you take a Quick Blast and then use it and draw Surgical Strike afterwards. Captain America has many other cards as well that Draw more cards, allowing you to really get the cards you need.

Nico Minoru

Blood Magic: Apply 2 Strengthened to you or an ally. Roulette, Draw 1 of their cards.

You can pair Iron Man with Nico’s Blood Magic ability, which provides 2 buffs to Iron Man when casted on him. Iron Man can get stronger if you get lucky and get the Strengthened modifier, which greatly increases his damage – that’s our focus here. He also draws 1 Iron Man card and gains 2 Heroism from this ability, allowing you to get another Iron Man card that might be Quick Blast or Surgical Strike.

 

Double Up: Generate a copy of each Heroic in your hand. Roulette. Exhaust.

Another Nico’s card that can benefit Iron Man is Double Up ability, that randomly chooses from Attack, Skill, or Heroic when you draw, and it generates a copy of that same card type in your hand. This allows you to double your Surgical Strikes, Quick Blasts or even Leave it to Mes, depending on which you get!

 

Final Overview

In conclusion, Iron Man is a very self-focused character, as he needs to play and draw of Iron Man cards in order to be the most effective – so it’s best to bring other characters to support him and use his skills primarily to defeat enemies easily. This strategy makes Iron Man the center of the action, while the other characters can play more of a supporting role – so you should be comfortable with this. But since it allows to clear his way so easily, it seems useless not to take advantage of it.

There are other Damage Dealing characters that aren’t so focused on their own cards, so if you don’t want to play primarily Iron Man cards, I recommend choosing one of them.

Check out our other Marvel’s Midnight Suns Build Guides here, if you’re looking for a specific Hero!