Format: Casual Golden Age (No Bard, Thief or Oracle; you know which ones)
Early disclaimer: I did not read jourdo’s write-up when I built this. I just locked myself in my office 20 minutes before leaving and frantically built a team. I had wanted to built with UC Absorbing Man for some time, so I just looked for whatever would work with him. And I ended up with…
Knock Knock, You’re Out!
Time for Crusher Creel to shine
The centerpiece I wanted to build around was Absorbing Man and his ability to copy “when KO’d” effects. I decided to use Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s global to trigger said “when KO’d” effects (which also helped me purchase more dice to use Absorbing Man with).
Now, I’ll be honest: I rushed preparing this team, literally flipping through my binders looking for good cards for this. I ended up putting these in:
Human Outlander was intended to be the win condition, thanks to strong stats and direct damage potential. Ultron Drone was a last minute addition; I honestly didn’t envision how I’d use it, but thought it would be fun to capture an opposing character once in a while. (Oh boy, did I ever underestimate that one) Beast was meant as a way to send dice back into my bag, either after they’d attack or right after they were purchased.
Now, keep in mind that Absorbing Man copies those when KO’d effects, so take whatever effect you see here, and multiply it by 2. That’s 4 damage for Human Outlander, 2 dice captured by Ultron Drone, and 4 dice sent to the bag by Beast. That gets out of control real fast, and puts your opponent under a lot of pressure.
Polaris serves to send KO’d characters back into the field to do their effects again and again. I’d used her before, but in this, she was just ludicrously good.
Shriek and Bishop serve as control. Resurrection serves for ramp, and Haymaker is a way to use any excess fists I get from Beast.
I was afraid that the team, while well-rounded at first glance, would be slow and clunky. I was wrong.
Game 1:
I faced off against Jubilee+Cube to start off. I went for Shriek and Bishop as early as I could (Blue-Eyes’ global really helped), and I eventually started building up my field. Bishop + Shriek was really hard for him to get around, giving me time to buy Blue-Eyes outright. I KO’d Ultron Drone with Blue-Eyes’ ability while Absorbing Man was active, and captured both of my opponent’s characters (he kept a lean field). I then swung in for exactly 20 damage for the win.
1-0
Game 2:
Game 2, against a Bolt Ring team with 2 blankers, making Bishop less viable. Yeesh. I went for Human Outlander early along with Ultron Drone. She shrieked Outlander, but then I’d use Ultron Drone to capture Shriek and have Outlander KO’d for 2, and eventually 4, damage (thanks Absorbing Man!). I wore her down that way until I captured her whole field with repeated Ultron Drone KO’s (thanks to Polaris returning him to the field) and swung in for the win.
2-0
Game 3:
I went up against Golden Age Dragons this time. With that common Baby Dragon, he can load up his field really quickly. I got Human Outlander out early, wore him down to 10, and he gambled on a big attack to wear me down as he saw I’d outpace him if this continued. It almost worked, but on the following turn, a bad draw and bad luck meant he had no blockers. I swung in for the win the next turn.
3-0
Game 4:
Up against Babs+Hulk this time. That game was really fast. Early game, I bought Human Outlander and just rushed him before he could get Babs or Hulk on the field. After Babs hit the field, I used Ultron Drone + Absorbing Man to empty his field and keep attacking. I wore him down for the win. This game was so quick he didn’t have the time to get Hulk on the field.
4-0
Post-Mortem:
-Ultron Drone + Absorbing Man is insane. Just…insane. It empties opposing fields so fast and as it’s a when KO’d effect, it’s really hard to stop.
-UC Absorbing Man as a whole is insane. I thought it would be slow, but with Human Outlander, I dealt 4 damage per KO’d character (if I had used Cube, that would be 8 damage per character). That’s not too shabby, to say the least.
-It’s interesting how this team doesn’t win in one big alpha strike. You wear your opponent down, and wait for the right time to just capture as much as you can with Ultron Drone and charge in for however much damage you need. A great change of pace from one-hit-KO combo teams, for sure.
-If doing a Modern variant on this, SR Malekith would be an obvious replacement for Blue-Eyes, but I would definitely suggest using Fabricate. I didn’t have much spare energy in this team, and Polaris eats up a fair amount of energy when using her. Not having to spend energy to KO characters would definitely be welcome.
-On Rarecrow: I avoided using him because I genuinely had no clue how to rule his interaction with Absorbing Man. Same issue with UC Wolverine from XFC; I wasn’t sure if the copied ability would look at Wolverine’s attack or Absorbing Man’s. I went with cards where the interactions were easy to rule on. Both of those could definitely be cool depending on how they’re ruled.
Overall, this was a tremendously fun team to play. I never expected to win against such competitive teams with this build, and yet it somehow worked. I will definitely revisit Crusher Creel in a future team.