Still… no… WWE… at… our… local… store. However, I went the online route and managed to find a Campaign Box for myself. No Team Packs, but I will take what I can get.
While sleeving my cards, a few odd ball cards jumped out at me. I decided instead of jumping to some of the obvious choices to try out for my first go (*cough* Becky *cough*), I wanted to play with the odd ducks. The first one that I wanted to try was this young woman…
She is kind of a reverse Jubilee – Mallrat. Why not just pair her with Jubilee? Let’s do that and see what other shenanigans I can come up with to make this as fun as possible.
What Did You Play?
The Team: Girls’ Night Out.
The foundation of the Team would be Charlotte and Jubilee. That way, no matter who fields a Sidekick, my Opponent is taking a damage. This is good, but it could be better. Searching through Team Builder, I came across Scarecrow from the Justice Campaign Box.
This version of Scarecrow causes my Opponent to lose a life whenever their Sidekicks get KO’ed. That paired with Charlotte is a 2 life swing in my favor. However, how to I ensure that I can KO their Sidekicks easily? Enter Valindra Shadowmantle. She seems to be very popular with Mr. England from the MOD. If it is good enough for him… why not give it a try? Basically, with Valindra in the Field Zone their Sidekicks are immediately KO’ed. This triggers Scarecrow and makes the Charlotte machine work.
Now… what if they see what I am doing and choose not to Field Sidekicks? We have a card for that. Instant War is everyone’s favourite Sidekick fielding machine. If everything lines up in my favor, a single Instant War has the potential to do 9 damage to my Opponent (3 from Jubilee for my Sidekicks, 3 from Charlotte for their Sidekicks, and 3 from Scarecrow for the KO’s from Valindra). Is this overly complicated? Yes. Is it worth trying to make work? Absolutely!
Ok, I’ve got a 5 card combo in place, a 6 cost character I need to reach for and multiple 4 cost characters I need out. I need Ramp in a bad way.
I hear Mimic Ramp is kind of good. I decided to load up on all of the tools to make this work. Mimic, Professor X, Billy Club, and Create Food and Water. These pair well with Jubilee and should make getting to Valindra and Charlotte fairly easy. Billy Club was also my emergency removal tool if I came up against something I did not like.
With only one slot left, I decided to dedicate it to Batman. It was honestly a toss up between “Plays Too Rough” and “Strikes Terror Into Criminal Hearts” here. I went for the super beefy version of Batman because… why not?
The plan is in place. Focus on Mimic first and work my way up to Jubilee, Charlotte, Scarecrow, and Valindra in whatever order I could get. Burn away until I could get to my Instant Wars and then turn up the heat. Batman would only be used in case of an emergency.
Let’s see how it played.
Game 1:
Up against Gord’s unblockable Wongs with Tag Out buffs. Mimic decided to play early on, but Jubilee did not (I think I started tracking and it took her third time through before she finally rolled). I got Charlotte out before Jubilee came to play. Once Charlotte hit, he already had a Field of Wongs so he avoided fielding further Sidekick. I took some Wongs with Tag Out buffs to the face before I my machine was set. Then the Instant Wars started to play. My first shot was not the dream shot. I only managed 7/9 I was hoping for. The regular drain of Jubilee was helping to wear him down. My final turn was set up with 2 Instant Wars in Prep and his bag full of Sidekicks. He swung at me with another Tagged Out Wong to bring me down to 2 or 3 (I think). I missed both of my Instant Wars the next turn but had exactly enough in stats for the win.
1-0
Game 2:
FUS Beholder for free Globals, Jinzo to make general life miserable, and Sidekick capturing Blob were next on the night. Again, the Mimic Ramp engine built me up to my tools. This time though, I had to watch when I would leave Sidekicks in the Field. I needed them to trigger Instant War, and could not risk Blob taking them. He also had tools (and stats) necessary to keep taking out Valindra. Luckily, she liked to roll back as often as she was removed. Instant War definitely helped make the burnination effective. I kept trying to get Mimic KO’ed so I could swap him to some better stats, but he refused to oblige me. Eventually he was burned down plenty that I could swing in with lethal stats.
2-0
Game 3:
An Ally/Sidekick based Team was the final match of the night. This was one of those unfortunate situations where my Team was almost tailor built to make his night miserable. Charlotte was definitely the heavy lifter here early on as he needed his character out, and it cost him life to do so with her in the Field. He was using Sam/Spot ramp/churn to roll a crazy amount of dice. On what was probably the turning point of the match he rolled close to a billion dice with that machine and had Yawning Portal active. He could buy ANYTHING for 1. His Grodd and Shannon Carter would have put an end to me easily… but he rolled exactly zero fists. He ended up buying his Professor X out of frustration, which actually made me pivot to Batman. Valindra would not be able to KO his Sidekicks now with Professor X active. Thankfully he had Spot around to give Batman Overcrush in addition to the huge Sidekick buff he was getting. Jubilee burned him further while I swung with Batman over and over again. It was just a matter of time before I was able to break through.
3-0
Post-Mortem:
This was a fun Team. Sure, it needed a lot of pieces in order to work. But… if you managed to get them all out it was well worth the payoff.
Mimic Ramp is still the best Ramp in the game. When you include all of the tools in order to make him his most efficient, there is little you cannot buy. If you can fit Professor X, Mimic, Billy Club, and Create Food and Water onto your Team, you will be swimming in more energy than you can use. Watch the latest video from Dice Masters with James and Zack about Mimic Ramp here if you want to learn how to best use this tool. The only real downside to this engine is you are committing 4 card slots to make it work at it’s best. However, it is well worth it on the right Team.
By itself, Mimic Ramp pairs so naturally with Jubilee that including her on this build was a no brainer. Although, to be fair, Jubilee was on the Team before Mimic. Either way… they work so well together.
Charlotte Flair was actually really interesting to use. When she hit the Field, my Opponent definitely thought twice about Fielding Sidekicks. Even when she was not dealing damage, she was indirectly controlling the Field by keeping Sidekicks out.
Scarecrow and Valindra were a perfect couple here. Without Valindra, Scarecrow would not have worked. However, with her… he was great! Andy might be onto something here.
The Team would not have been what it was without Instant War. My Opponent could easily sidestep my wincon by just choosing not to Field Sidekicks. Instant War took that decision away from them. It also was a little more effective as there were more Sidekicks in circulation as they were keeping them out of the Field because of Charlotte.
Batman was an excellent back-up plan. I did have to resort to him once, but I never wanted to focus on him as my win condition. He might have been the easier way to go, but was not the goal tonight.
Overall, I think the Team ran really well. Getting to the pieces was never really an issue thanks for Mimic. Firing off Instant War for a crazy amount of damage to my Opponent was very satisfying. I liked every piece of this build for what it was. I honestly don’t see myself swapping out anything out on this build. It worked that well.
Is it competitive? Probably not. It is still slow to get the pieces out, but when it hits… it can hit hard. Would I play it again? Probably not locally. It is one of those “been there, done that” Teams. Would I recommend playing it? Absolutely! If you love complicated machines, you will love this Team.
What do you think of these ladies? Is Charlotte Flair one of those sneaky control pieces? What changes would you make to this build? Let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
– jourdo