Hye-larious

Format: Casual Golden Age (Modern recommended)

If you’ve been following my posts these last few weeks, I’ve gone undefeated for three weeks. And the same player winning all the time gets boring. So I wanted to go for a jankier, funnier strategy and give the others a better shot. So why not go for something…

Hye-larious

The Team:  I got nothing; this one is just weird.

To be clear: Yes, I know DMArmada literally just uploaded a video with a similar team built by Chris Clubb. Funnily enough, I already had my team built before watching his video. DMArmada’s team shows a different approach to the Hyena, and you can find here.

As for how I went about it, the core idea is fundamentally the same. Use Tabaxi Rogue, alongside Heist, and deal damage to my opponent because my opponent drew dice. Attacking with the Hyena also triggers a draw, meaning that Tabaxi will hit my opponent. And with the version I chose, if I’m lucky, my opponent will take another 2 damage from the Hyena’s ability. It can deal a deceptively large amount of damage.

Now, what to build around this? I wanted to experiment with Target Lock, as I’ve had it in my sights for a little while now. The effect, combining control and ramp, just seems like it has tons of potential. To complement it, I chose The Question, to use Gadgeteer as a way to (hopefully) bring back Target Lock turn after turn and keep shutting my opponent down.

Since I have a card with Gadgeteer on this team, I added Green Devil Mask for control; it just seems like a logical fit. Additionally, since I will rely on my BACs a fair bit, I added Boom Boom to leverage these BACs into extra damage. I also added SR Mimic, primarily for laughs (oh, you brought Thanos? Here, I have Thanos now too!), and also to double the effect of either Tabaxi Rogue or Boom Boom and thus add further damage.

As for the last two cards, Shriek serves for blanking as usual, and Kate Bishop is there for her global; it can help me defend against more aggressive teams, and it can allow me to pull back my Hyena or Question dice to attack with them again and again.

With that said, on to the games!

Game 1:

I started off against a double Overcrushing Thanos team which brought Investigation (which I probably should’ve put on this team). I ended up just buying Boom Boom, Mimic, and a ton of Investigations and Target Locks. Mimic copying Boom Boom meant I dealt 4 damage per Investigation and Target Lock. This ended up dealing so much burn damage that I didn’t even have the time to go for the Hyena; I burned my opponent to 0 before Thanos could hit the field. I won.

1-0

Game 2:

For this match, I was matched up against Batiri Battle Stack + Doppelganger. A good opportunity to test just how annoying Target Lock can be. Thanks to some early sidekicks (meaning I had a thin bag) and decent luck, I had Target Lock on Batiri almost every turn. Since my opponent bought a ton of them for ramp, this ended up giving me a lot of ramp and giving him some nasty headaches. My opponent used Shriek on Boom Boom (he heard about the last game), I went for Tabaxi Rogue + Heist, as well as my own Shriek to free Boom Boom, and started doing lots of damage through Tabaxi and Boom Boom (the Hyena did get purchased, but it didn’t end up doing the heavy lifting). When the damage started, it just went nuts really quickly and I won.

2-0

Game 3:

For my last match of the night, I went up against Immortals. Hela, Jane, Jarnbjorn, these kinds of shenanigans. I really should’ve gone for Green Devil Mask, and I didn’t. It ended up costing me, as my opponent went for his own GDM. Then, while I was stuck at three characters, he used his Fandral to KO my best stuff and force me to refield it, and over time, I missed some key rolls with Boom Boom. I also used the Hyena a lot more this game, and due to some bad luck, it backfired on me (my opponent just kept drawing his expensive stuff!). Eventually, my opponent managed to get Hela + Jarnbjorn, and since I made a misplay the previous turn (should’ve kept more masks), he swung in for more damage than I could stop. He won.

2-1

Post-Mortem:

-So I apparently failed at not winning; I was tied for 1st place (with me getting the tie-breaker because the player I was tied with was the one with the Thanos team from earlier). Note that we had no undefeated players due to weird pairing shenanigans (someone had to leave early).

-Boom Boom + SR Mimic (copying Boom Boom) is disgustingly strong. I don’t even want to imagine what I could do with these two and Thrown Brick…No. Not doing it. I don’t want my FLGS crowd to hate me.

-Heist + Tabaxi Rogue is hilarious. Heck, just having Tabaxi around against The Spot teams is good for a laugh. It’s also great that it taxes Resurrection and other similar effects.

-I wanted the Hyena to be the key of this team, but it ended up backfiring on me too much, so I ended up relying on the rest of the team.  Maybe I should’ve gone for the one that gets an attack buff like in DMArmada’s video. Either way, it sadly didn’t work like I wish.

-Target Lock seems like an absolute winner of a BAC. This is a really rare form of control. Not only can the character not be fielded; it can’t be rolled or used at all. Sure, it’s a tricky die to use, as it’s very much reliant on luck, but it could be really, really disgusting to play against.

-Speaking of which, Target Lock actually gives me a good reason to use Gadgeteer. Sure, it’s a 50-50 chance, but with Boom Boom + Mimic active, that’s a 50-50 chance of shutting down a character die that’s coming, and drawing a die, and dealing 4 damage from Boom Boom + Mimic. That’s a gamble worth taking.

-This team felt like two different strategies melded together (Tabaxi + Heist on one hand, Gadgeteer + Target Lock on the other). It worked out well considering this, but the team did seem a bit unfocused.

Overall, I’m impressed; this was fun, and stronger than expected. To think that I was one roll away from going undefeated with this (my opponent was down to 6 life before he could get his combo) is pretty crazy. Lots of cards here that I will look at again in the future. Maybe not that particular Hyena though.