Another Unlimited Constructed Week.
What Did You Play?
The Team: Boom Boom Bricks
Use this area to give an explanation of what the plan for the team is. How are the parts supposed to work? As little or as much information as you want.
I decided to begin this week’s build with the Thrown Brick Basic Action Card from the Harley Quinn Team Pack:
It’s a decent form of ramp by itself, but I wondered if there was some way to use the damage it was dealing to my advantage. What about
If I could get Kingpin out and keep throwing bricks at him, that should complicate my opponent’s life. Of course Kingpin is a 7-cost, so I wasn’t going to rely on him alone.
I decided to include common Emma Frost to see how it would work with Thrown Brick.
Next came Boom Boom and Yuan-Ti Pureblood. On an action dice oriented team, they’re pretty much givens. I went with common Yuan-Ti partly because I didn’t want to be the guy that was bringing the SR every week and partly because it’s a 2-drop that becomes unblockable when I use an action die – and the plan involves using action dice.
Shriek went on the team primarily because Scarlet Witch is a thing. Rare Mr. Mxyzptlk would allow me to copy any basic action dice my opponent used, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the ‘buy your opponent’s action dice out from under him’ strategy.
Tabaxi Rogue was included as a way of slowing down opponent ramp. Rare Sif becomes unblockable when one of my other characters is damaged, so I decided to include her as well.
For my second BAC, I decided to go with Candlekeep as another ramp option. If my opponents decided to buy them I had Mr. Mxyzptlk or Tabaxi Rogue as counters.
How did it go?
Game 1:
This was a Villains team, most of whom were from the Kree Invasion Team Pack, but he also had the annoying Scarlet Witch and a Carnage with Overcrush.
I got Shriek out early and consequently kept his Scarlet Witch blanked for most of the game. Other than that I didn’t play particularly well this game. He was using Relaxing with The Spot and I never bought my Tabaxi Rogue all game. He was running the 9-cost Thanos whose cost gets reduced by 1 for each of his Villains, and also buffs other Villains.
He was attacking with Thanos, Kree Captain, and Scarlet Witch just about every turn. I kept chump blocking as he had nothing to give any of them Overcrush, or make any of them unblockable. I managed to re-establish enough of a wall every turn that he wasn’t getting any damage through. But with paying fielding costs, I never managed to find 3 energy including a mask to buy a Tabaxi Rogue.
I was buying lots of Boom-Booms and (especially) Yuan-Tis as my plan at this point was to get 3 or 4 Yuan-Tis in my field at the same time and use an action die to make them all unblockable. The hope was that combined with the 2 damage from Boom Boom’s ability and 1 from Yuan-Ti’s attune that would be enough to get me to lethal.
It wasn’t put to the test, however. Time was called with me ahead on life 18-15. He was unable to deal me any damage on his one post-timecall turn so I got the win.
1-0
Game 2:
This team relied on the OP Poison Ivy and the Batwoman who deals 2 damage when the opponent draws 2 or more non-Villain non-Sidekick dice, at least in this game.
I went first and began by buying all three of his Improvised Weapon dice, so they wouldn’t be there when he got his SR Yuan-Ti out. I ended up sending Yuan-Tis buffed by (and made unblockable by the use of) Improvised Weapon through his field on two separate occasions, totalling around a dozen damage points (including the Attune damage).
His Batwoman and Poison Ivy were doing plenty of burn damage to me, but not quite quickly enough. With both of our life totals running low, he made an attack that was more designed to KO my Sidekicks and reduce the numbers advantage I held in terms of size of wall.
Unfortunately for him, I drew and rolled two Improvised Weapon dice and landed about four Sidekick dice on their pawn faces. That gave me the ability to deal about twice as much damage as he could take, as he was already down to 5 life when the turn started.
2-0
Game 3:
Old school (i.e. Golden Age) X-Men team. All masks except for Cyclops: If Looks Could Kill and Phoenix (who was only there for the force attack global).
He’d forced Boom Boom to attack through his empty field the first time I got her out, I’d also done some other damage with Boom Boom’s ability and Attune.
He used the ability on Storm: African Priestess to force me to reroll Boom Boom, but Boom Boom wound up on a higher level.
Shortly after, I fielded Shriek and blank his UXM Professor X, making the 4 masks in his Reserve Pool essentially useless. Then I realized:
- I had a Thrown Brick Action Die available
- He had only one Sidekick die in his field.
- I had Shriek, Yuan-Ti, Boom Boom, and at least two Sidekicks in my field, Together they had a total of 10 A.
- My opponent was at 13 life.
- When I used Thrown Brick, Yuan-Ti and Boom Boom between them could deal my opponent 3 point of burn damage.
So I threw the Brick at his Sidekick, and sent my attackers rampaging through his empty field for a combined 13 points of damage and the win.
3-0
Post-Mortem:
Boom Boom, Yuan-Ti Pureblood and cheap action dice are a nasty combination. Thrown Brick, as a 2-cost is a cheap action die, but I’m not sure it’s the best option to work with those two characters.
I never bought Kingpin all night, as I could never spare the 7 energy. That’s the tricky part of getting some kind of synergistic effect out of the damage dealt by Thrown Brick – finding a useful ‘when X takes damage’ ability on an affordable card.
Nor did I buy Sif. It was somehow easier to buy 2-cost Yuan-Ti Purebloods than 6-cost Sifs when I wanted unblockable characters. I did buy Mr. Mxyzptlk, but he was a late game purchase and between that and some unlucky rolls, I never managed to get a Mr. Mxyzptlk into the field in any of my games.
I actually did buy and use Emma Frost in one game. I found her ability to be useful, if not game breaking. But Emma and Thrown Brick can be a way to spin up other characters, as long as they have 2D to begin with.
Are there any other overlooked character cards you think should be taken out for a test drive? Let us know in the comments.
Thanks for reading, and Happy Rolling!
-Son of L