This week, it’s my last one for for a little while, so let’s take a nasty combo for a test drive. If you think you can stop this, get ready to…
Meet Your Maker
The Team: She-Hulk can help…”Make” this happen.
This combo is simple in theory, but devastating if it works. First, you have the Maker. Field him and spin any number of targets from both sides of the board to energy faces of your choice. I clog my opponent’s bag and get energy that I can use for purchases, fielding, etc. Then, there’s She-Hulk. By having her active, I can field a character from my Used Pile (such as Maker) at the beginning of my turn. So the idea here is to field Maker and spin himself to double energy (and others as needed). That way I have energy available when I need it, and I should be able to re-field Maker each turn to keep my opponent’s field lean (or better yet, empty). Plus, by using She-Hulk, I get around Maker’s fielding costs.
For this to work, I need a good way to build board presence and to use the masks Maker will give me. First, the Batman global. Costs 2 masks (conveniently, what Maker will give me on double energy), and gives me 2 sidekicks. But admittedly, most of the time my opponent will benefit as well. This is where Jubilee comes in. She triggers off the sidekicks that are fielded and means that Batman will build one-sided board presence. And then there’s Poison Ivy, who is inexpensive and will almost always result in a character being fielded (which will add Jubilee triggers). The damage from Jubilee triggers should be my primary way to win, or at least a great way to soften my opponent up before winning with combat damage.
Of course, since my main strategy requires me to purchase a 6-cost and a 5-cost, I need some ramp. Hence why the trusty combo of Villainous Pact and Dark Phoenix makes an appearance, both for their globals, so I can roll more dice and discount my purchases. Plus, if I can’t use She-Hulk with The Maker, I can use Dark Phoenix to get Maker off the board.
The rest of the team is to answer opposing threats. First, Spider-Gwen serves as backup removal if Maker is targeted by opposing control (she’s also relatively inexpensive and a backup target for Greeny). Next up, Angela shuts down a lot of popular control and removal cards such as Drax, Typhoid Mary and Spider-Gwen. And last but not least, since my strategy relies on keeping characters active, Distraction allows me to keep my control pieces on the field, while hurting opposing aggro strategies. It’s also another use for the masks I should get from Maker and Ivy.
And with all of that said, on to the games!
Game 1:
First off, I went up against a heavy control-focused Villain team. SR Mystique made things really awkward for my team. My opponent would spin Jubilee or She-Hulk down to energy and I didn’t have anything to spend said energy on. It doesn’t help that Maker refused to roll on more than one occasion. But Jubilee still showed up more than once and slowly wore my opponent down. Jubilee would also KO Mystique, so my opponent had to tie up most of his energy to re-field her some turns. So he was mostly re-fielding his characters…until Maker showed up. He didn’t trigger through She-Hulk, so I would just spin out my other characters and then use Dark Phoenix’ global to KO him. After I fielded Maker a couple of times, my opponent simply couldn’t keep enough of a board presence. I eventually wore his life down enough with Jubilee and charged in for the win.
1-0
Game 2:
Next up, Franklin’s Galactus. I got an early Gwen to force my opponent’s control off my main strategy, then used her Sinister global to ramp heavily. I got She-Hulk on the field and set up Maker and Angela. Once Angela was active, Maker spun out her control and I started bringing her numbers down heavily. Distraction was key in stopping one or two big Galactus dice, and it turned into a war of attrition, which played in my favor seeing as Maker gave me double energy while giving her single. On the last turn, I had Batman and Jubilee active. My opponent used Sinister to field sidekicks, and I then used Dark Phoenix to take out my own sidekicks and used the Batman trigger to KO hers. I then swung into an empty board for the win.
2-0
Game 3:
For my last match, time for Spider-Friends (and Pip!). I fielded way too many sidekicks early and bought She-Hulk T3. From there, Angela was on the field shortly after. And then Maker shenanigans started. With my opponent’s removal neutralized and mine firmly in place, I whittled his field down to nothing, fielded Batman alongside She-Hulk, and I swung into an empty field for the win. Angela shut him down so hard he literally could not do anything all game.
3-0
Post-Mortem:
-This combo is devastatingly effective, but not conducive to pleasant gameplay. After the third round, no one wanted to play against me. And I don’t blame them. (it was too late to start a fourth round, but my prospective fourth opponent was just going “nope nope nope” when he saw the team)
-This looked simple to run in theory, but in practice, it’s a delicate balance knowing how many characters you can or should spin out with Maker. Don’t go for an empty field every time, or you’re going to mess up your own bag.
-Jubilee was the key to softening my opponent up before the big swing. Batman was useful, but felt a bit more secondary. Still very useful in pinging opposing sidekicks out by using Dark Phoenix on my own sidekicks.
-It felt like I was a bit too slow in setting up. The Sinister global would have helped with the speed for sure, but then I would lose Batman unless I took something else out. Still, I guess speed is secondary when Maker can slow my opponent down so much.
-Could this win with Maker without She-Hulk? Maybe. But then I would presumably be using Dark Phoenix on Maker instead of spinning him down. Which would involve paying his (horrible) fielding costs. The pace would be weird. But it would set up the recurring removal much faster.
-Angela is a terrific control choice against my local meta. Almost a bit too good to be honest. If I’m not careful she could become a crutch.
And there you have it. My last What Have You Played article until mid-July at the earliest. I won’t be writing articles for a couple of weeks. I’ll be back right in time for Dice Fight XL, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to participate. Do you plan on playing in that event?
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