It’s been aaaaaaaages since I dropped a random team build on the blog so I thought it was high time I rectified that: so here’s a team largely based on one I played at a recent theme event down my FLGS.
The theme was what we call “Battle of the Titans”, which is essentially that all cards in your core team of 8 characters & actions must have a purchase cost of 5 or higher. Basic Actions were excluded from this restriction so they could be any cost. And finally: we set it as a Modern event.
I love the team building challenge of a restricted theme event and I’m particularly partial to using it as an opportunity to use cards I don’t often dig out or a chance to experiment with new stuff (For more of my thoughts & feelings on this check out episode 14 of the BritRollerSix blog podcast The Ministry of Dice HERE ) so when it came to choosing a win condition I tried to be a little less obvious and went for ‘Larfleeze – Avarice’ and ‘Insect Plague’.
I’d been playing around with ‘Insect Plague’ a little bit on unrestricted builds for its global, and while I had some success with it using cards like ‘Foot Ninja’ I had found the idea of combo-ing it with the game-text on ‘ Lafleeze’ a touch too difficult because of his purchase cost. In a “Battle of the Titans” theme, however, I knew we were all going to be striving for the big ramp purchases, and crazy 7 cost win cons was positively encouraged in this format. The plan was this: ramp up to ‘Larfleeze’, make a Sidekick unblock-able with the ‘Insect Plague’ global, and turn them into a big hitter with the ‘Larfleeze’ game-text.
Ramp was next on the list then to reach for the purchase cost of 7 on ‘Larfleeze’. I knew with the event theme that there was going to be plenty of global and BAC ramp knocking about so I chose to be a little selfish and look at ramp only I could use. After considering a few options I decided to go for ‘Darkseid – Force of Entropy’, because, simply, once he’s out I’m rolling lots & lots of dice.
He was still a stretch at a 6 cost though, so I decided to add ‘Resurrection’ too for some extra dice to roll early doors. I also had another plan, which I’ll come to later.
That was now two cards that I was going to need to guarantee Sidekicks for, so it seemed the obvious choice to throw the new PXG; ‘Professor X – No More Magnus!’, in there for his Sidekick generating global.
I was now set to get a Sidekick into the field early game for ‘Darkseid’ to give Swarm to, and then in a position to relentlessly grab Sidekicks late game to fuel my ‘Larfleeze’/’Insect Plague’ combo. This was also going to contribute to my early ramp towards ‘Darkseid’, as my next choice of card, placed on the team for defensive purposes, brought a little added value with his global: ‘Cyborg – Technic Imperative’
With the event theme it was inevitable that I was going to be seeing some big nasty hitters and possibly some “Overcrush” too and ‘Cyborg’ was just the man for the job to keep those large stompers at bay. Plus his “Energy Fixer” was going to help with early ramp. It wasn’t a perfect fit: he fixes Sidekicks to Shield energy and my two desired purchases were Bolt & Mask respectively, but I felt with his stopping power it was the overall best fit.
I mentioned before that I anticipated quite a lot of Basic Action ramp floating around so with my next card I decided to pop something in to turn it to my advantage: ‘Carnage – Cletus Cassidy’.
The aim was pretty straight forward then: if my opponent starts by buying up ‘Investigation’ or ‘Superhero Registration Act’ dice I’d grab my ‘Carnage’ for some cheeky extra damage.
I now felt I needed something that could help clear away anything that was on the other side of the table irking me. Removal’s tough with a high purchase cost restriction in place, but I found a beauty I had heard talked about but I’d not used yet: ‘Batman – Always Prepared’.
He’s not perfect: it’s a 50/50 shot and I’d have to be disciplined with remembering to flip him for the right side when I needed it, but the possibility of clearing more than one character to set up a big attack was too good to pass up.
Next up I wanted something to mitigate direct damage. I anticipated that I’d maybe see cards like ‘Hulk – Power of Attorney’ or ‘Bane – Genius Tactician’ in my opponent’s teams. The obvious choice was ‘Bishop – Butterfly Effect’, but I’d been using him a lot lately so in the interest of trying something new out I elected to go for this guy.
He may not stop the damage, but he would certainly give my opponent something to think about before they initiated it. He’s also a 5 cost so would be easier to grab in a pinch. And, most importantly, it’s fun to try out new stuff.
My last slot had originally been filled by ‘Samantha Wilson – Civilian Air Patrol’. I had thought she might have made some bonus ramp when my Sidekicks went through. However, after playing the team it turned out I really didn’t need her, and what I found myself wishing for was something that disrupted my opponent’s global use. We were all using Globals A LOT. Every team had an energy Fixer on it and my new PXG got used by everyone too. So in hindsight I’d probably go with something like ‘Enchantress – Fatal Attraction’. In a “Battle of the Titans” theme every bit of spending energy is precious, so a little bit of tax on Globals should go a long way!
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There we are then folk – my Titans team for the restricted theme format I played recently.
For anyone interested: it went 3-0 on the night, which is the sort of performance record I rarely pull at a WKO.
Let me know your thoughts on the team in the comments below, and also let me know if you want me to do more of this sort of post.
Tata for now.
