Essentially, it was “Use it, then lose it” night, as we played a jank format where any dice purchased during a game would not be replaced for games in the following rounds (basic action dice excepted). No more than 3 dice were allowed on any card, global abilities on BACs could not be used, and using one of your own global abilities required you to remove a die from that card. If you had no dice left on the card, you couldn’t use the global. (Global abilities on the opposing player’s cards could be used freely.)
What Did You Play?
The Team: Parasite Poxwalker Attrition Night.
The format meant I needed a gameplan that wouldn’t require me to buy more than one copy of any given character die each game, and didn’t rely on globals.
I’d always intended to revisit my Parasite Poxwalker team, and this format looked like a good fit for it. The format meant I’d have to forego using Powalker’s Swarm ability and the idea of buying multiple Parasite dice in a game, but the core idea of the team was still workable.
Of course, I needed a way to buff one or both of these characters, and with using globals contra-indicated that left action dice. Since both Parasite and Poxwalker have two affiliations that led me to Team Up. Including Team Up led me in turn to include the promo Black Widow – very useful ability, reasonable cost, and two more affiliations to use with Team Up.
Having all three of those characters active when I use Team Up would give all my characters +5/+5 which would allow a Parasite buffed Poxwalker to hit for a minimum 13 damage. Not bad.
I decided to include 
one more means of buffing my characters – Howard Stark: Expert Businessman. If I have Poxwalker and Parasite active at the start of my turn I can Sacrifice Howard Stark to give both of them (and anything else I have in my Field Zone) +2A. That allows me to hit with Poxwalker for 7-9 damage, even if I’m unable to use Team Up.
I suspected the format would induce other players besides myself to bring teams built around one big unblockable (or one big Overcrushing) character. The normal defense for that is the Static Field global, but it was outlawed by the format. That global is also on a Kate Bishop card, but it was not an option I cared for, as I’d be limited on how often I could use it on the night while my opponents would not.
Lex Luthor: Kansas Native felt like the answer here. He can make life miserable for any opponent who plans to deal all (or even most) of their damage from a single big hitting character.
Rare Blob went on the team as protection in case any of my opponents brought Lex or something like him.
A lot of normal ramp options weren’t feasible for the format: Prep globals and Swarm for instance. That left action dice, so I brought Scarlet Witch: Careful What You Wish For and Eye of Agamotto: Mystical Conduit so I had some action dice hate to call upon.
My other Basic Action Card was Big Entrance. I like to use The Outsider with the Parasite Poxwalker combo in normal circumstances, but that’s because of the global ability, which I wouldn’t have been able to use given the format.
So how did things work?
Game 1:
Heimdall and Golden PXG with the dice to use them. His plan was to use those globals once each round to ramp to Bahamut. He had R Wasp which was supposed to prevent his opponents from using those ramp globals all game.
I did mention I had promo Black Widow on my team, right? I went for her first, so he never fielded Wasp, and I got to use PXG all game long.
He got Bahamut out once, wiped my field, and did me about 10 total damage. That left him with a field of two Sidekicks.
I drew and rolled Team Up, and re-rolled enough characters to give all my dice +4/+4. I used his Wasp global to KO one of his Sidekicks, which left me with more than enough for lethal.
1-0
Game 2:
Infinite damage Giganta team.
He wasn’t able to set it up and fire it off before I got Lex out, at which point his position became essentially hopeless.
I Poxwalkered him for 3, because my bag was thin and I’d draw him on my following turn. I drew and re-fielded Poxwalker on that turn, but I didn’t draw Team Up – it was left as the only die in my bag.
On the next turn, knowing Team Up was coming I sacrificed Howard Stark, then successfully rolled Team Up. That allowed me to hit with a 17A unblockable Poxwalker for the win, even with Parasite being Level 1. (+5/+5 from Team Up, +2A from Howard Stark for both Parasite and Poxwalker.)
2-0
Game 3:
SR Jubilee, Plague Marine that gives Sidekicks +1/+1 but KOs them at end of controller’s turn and Instant War.
I was scrambling a lot here to find something to block his Sidekicks until I got Scarlet Witch out to curtail his use of Instant War. I generally pulled as many Sidekicks as he did when he used Instant War.
I didn’t want to let any more of his 2A Sidekicks through than I could help. However since his Plague Marine meant his field was Sidekick free on my turns, I usually had the advantage of numbers, which together with the occasional Team Up meant my attempts to wear him down were generally more successful than his attempts to do the same to me.
Eventually, helped out a lot by Team Up, I got him down to 0.
3-0
Post-Mortem:
I liked the event. The need to preserve dice for use in later rounds made for an interesting challenge.
The team worked pretty much as intended, and would possibly be even better in a ‘standard rules’ environment where I could get some use out of Poxwalker’s Swarm and could at least consider buying multiple Parasite dice. The one caveat is I’d want to include Wonder Woman – Child of Clay on the team in such a case however, most likely at the expense of Scarlet Witch.
For the given format, however, the team as it was worked excellently. The only card I didn’t buy any dice from on the night was Eye of Agamotto, and it was on the team partly for the global.
Lex, Blob and Scarlet Witch were all situational choices, but I got good use out of each them in at least 1 game.
I only used Howard Stark’s ability in one game, even thought I bought one of his dice in each game. Even so, I think he’s a much better choice than the Legion of Doom action die I went with in the first incarnation of this team. I have much better control over when the ability gets used.
How would you plan to get your money’s worth from the dice you purchased in such an event? What sort of ramp would you use? Let un know in the comments.
Thanks for reading, and Happy Rolling.
-Son of L