Hit By A Dove

Have you ever wanted to build a Team just to see if it would work?  I decided to revisit one of my SP//dr builds that I was previously working on.  This time I wanted to focus on this guy:

So, I need for figure out how to make best use of damaging Villains.  I could either go with making their characters Villains and knocking them off, or figure out a way to make damaging my own Villains advantageous.  Flipping through my cards I came across this young lady and the creative juices started flowing.

There is some potential with that level 3 defensive stat.  I am sure I could do something with this.  Let’s see where it went.

What Did You Play?

The Team:  Hit By A Dove.

Once I saw the 10 defence here, I knew where this build was going to go.  It was going to be a OTK (one turn kill) Team using that number to my advantage.  How would I do that?  By pairing Dove with this blast from the past:

Now I needed a way to get Dove to damage Jocasta.  I fell back on one of my favourite removal actions S.T.A.R. Labs.  It would allow my Bolt and Shield characters to deal their attack to a target character.  That works perfectly here, as Dove is both of those energy types.  So, the obvious problem was getting the attack and defence to swap.  It was either going to be Kal-L or Ant-Man for their Globals.  I went with Ant-man for two reasons:  1.  His Global only affects characters you control, so no shenanigans from across the table; and 2.  He pairs nicely with Knowhere.  This is a fairly essential piece of the puzzle.  I need an easy way to actually purchase Dove.  Using Knowhere on Ant-man gets me a Dove.  The win condition was set.  Swap a Level 3 Dove A & D, use S.T.A.R. Labs to deal that 10 A to Jocasta, that 10 A damage is doubled by SP//dr because Jocasta is a Villain.  Instant death.

That left some accessory pieces for the Team.  I need to guarantee Dove is on level 3.  Giganta is the best tool for that job.  Lex was put on the Team because our area tends to like direct damage.  I didn’t know how slow this Team would be, so Lex might help out if things take a while to set-up.  Resurrection was for ramp.  Take That Villain was a back-up plan to damage Jocasta.

These were the pieces of the puzzle.  Let’s see how it ran.

Game 1:

The first game was against a Dragons Team (Red and Silver).  Those were the big threats, so I would have to work quick before the Dragons showed up.  Turn 1 Ant-man.  Turn 2 Knowhere.  Things are going great!  And then the dice stopped rolling.  The whole game, I could not roll Knowhere or roll the energy necessary to buy Dove.  I had to resort to using S.T.A.R. Labs on SP//dr and Take That Villain to do the heavy lifting.  They did the job, but it took much longer than it should have.

1-0

Game 2:

I will keep the details brief on this Team, as I have a funny feeling there will be a write-up on this one.  The basics were using the 7 cost Flash as a beast to wreck me.  Again, the first two turns were the same as before.  However, on turn 3 I rolled the magic White Lantern roll.  I had to decide to either purchase Dove outright or buy something else and hopefully hit my Knowhere roll on a later turn.  Due to my ineptitude in the previous game, I went with the guaranteed Dove.  I eventually got the other pieces in place, but had yet to purchase S.T.A.R. Labs.  I bought it much later than I probably should have.  He was able to pull some impressive Flash shenanigans before I could get Jocasta to fire for lethal.

1-1

Game 3:

I was up against a Titans Team with a stupid Ring of Magnetism, Evil Wasp, and Green Devil Mask.  I had a couple of plans here.  If the Ring came out, I would go for Take That Villain.  If not, I would work towards Dove while watching what I had in the field due to GDM.  I bought an early SP//dr and Jocasta here… and then the lightbulb went off.  This was really all I needed.  It wouldn’t be OTK, but 2TK is not that bad.  A level 2 or 3 SP//dr would do the trick here.  I got them both out and purchased my S.T.A.R. Labs.  One hit took him down to 10.  I used the S.T.A.R. Labs Global to cycle my bag and get some cheap blockers.  As soon as I saw that GDM was going into his bag, I attacked will all my Sidekicks to leave SP//dr and Jocasta behind.  The next turn, S.T.A.R. Labs rolled and the remaining life was gone.

2-1

Post-Mortem:

Sometimes you build something that you plan to go one way and it evolves as you play it.  I was so focused on using White Lantern Dove as an instrument of death, that I missed the obvious one in front of me.  SP//dr has high enough attack values that he alone works as the damage tool for Jocasta.  Not a OTK like I wanted, but it sure does the trick.

If I were to build this again, I would focus on Jocasta, SP//dr, and S.T.A.R. Labs.  Leave Giganta on the Team for the Global.  That frees up a lot of options to help the Team.  Chalkboard seems like a good idea here.  So many good options are available to improve this build.

How would you fill out version 2.0 of this Team?  Let us know in the comments below!

As always, thanks for reading!

– jourdo

P.S.  As a friendly reminder, our submission deadline for the March Team of the Month is this Friday.  Get your Teams in before the deadline.  Here is the link.