My Head Is Spinning

Format: Theme night

A return to this format we tried a few weeks ago. As a reminder, here are the rules:

• All characters and non-basic actions must follow a specific theme. Single-affiliation is allowed, but non-affiliated characters can be allowed if they fit within the theme (e.g. Casey Jones in a Turtles team).
• Basic actions are exempted from the theme.
• Golden Age cards are allowed, with the same restrictions as usual (no Bard, Thief or Oracle; you know which ones)
• If choosing to make a villain team, you are required to choose villains that normally have a common foe (so no putting Shriek, Hush, Collector and Foot Ninja in the same team, for example).

This week, I just really wanted to make something based on the Arrowverse (the universe with the TV shows Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, etc.). After some thinking and tinkering, I decided to throw together some heroes from those shows and when I was done, I kept thinking…

My head is spinning

Time to take this out for a spin.

There’s a lot going on here, but the core of the team is based around R Vibe. This guy punishes my opponent for having characters spinning up or down.

So as you can guess, the team is based around forcing my opponent’s characters to spin up or down. And this leads me to the bread and butter of the team: Felicity Smoak, Mutation and…Hawkgirl. Yes, Hawkgirl. If my opponent attacks, I can spin up his own characters (so long as they’re not villains) to potentially KO them with Vibe’s effect.  Messed up? Absolutely. But quite effective at stopping my opponent from attacking.

On Mutation, the way the global is worded, you spin down your character die to spin up another target, that can either be your own character or your opponent’s (read it carefully; it doesn’t say the other target must be yours!). You can probably see where this is going; spin up an opposing character, and KO them with Vibe. This only works on characters with low toughness, but when it does, it’s glorious.

So far, this team is all removal. So how do I win? Enter Firestorm. He wears down opponents for 2, 3, 4 damage each time he attacks (keep in mind that I have a character of each energy type on this). That damage wears life down pretty quickly. Add to that the amount of removal on the team, and after Firestorm softens up my opponent, I can swing in for the win.

Hellblazer served as a great defensive tool, and Atom served as further removal. Rip Hunter was going to serve as churn, but I brought the uncommon by mistake, so he was useless all night. And finally, Star Labs and Resurrection serve as ramp and churn.

Game 1:

I went up against an old-school X-men team. With an overcrushing Colossus as a beatstick, some nasty removal with the old-school Storm: Goddess of the Plains, Bishop for protection, and the old PXG for ramp, I anticipated a rough matchup. And I had to use all my dirty tricks. Thankfully, I could field Felicity, spin down and thus KO an opposing character, use Mutation’s global to spin her down and spin up an opposing character to KO that character, and then I’d attack with her, and reasonably expect to draw her next turn thanks to PXG’s insane churn.

Hellblazer kept Colossus at bay until I’d draw Mutation (yes, I bought the action that game) to get him off the field, and little by little, my opponent was unable to keep up with my removal. I eventually wore her down with Firestorm after getting Bishop off the field, and after mostly emptying her field, I swung in for the win. My toughest match of the night, but very satisfying.

1-0

Game 2:

Faced off against C Hulk + Babs (the player who’s exempted from theme teams). His rolls were bad; he kept getting characters on energy, and not getting the type of energy he needed. Once I got my removal out, he couldn’t keep things on the field. I managed to attack into an empty field for 20 damage before Hulk was out.

2-0

Game 3:

I faced off against a fun lantern team which relies on Batman: Bruce Wayne of Earth, using Improvised Weapon to buff Batman and deal massive unblockable damage. This game, I just used Hellblazer to slow my opponent down while I bought all of my Hawkgirl dice. I managed to get one of his Improvised Weapon dice, further slowing him down and increasing my offense. My opponent had few characters on the field, allowing me to be very aggressive, and I outpaced him for the win.

3-0

Post-Mortem:

-R Vibe is an incredibly cool card; it’s too bad that he’s from Justice League, and that he thus never had a chance to shine in Modern. His synergy with Felicity is crazily good, and his synergy with Hawkgirl is both fantastic and quite thematic. Cisco’s removal is extremely effective.

-It had been a while since I used Hellblazer. He’s the reason I won, though; people just aren’t used to playing around him anymore. He’s so good against when fielded effects that it’s ridiculous.

-I really want to find a way to use that R Hawkgirl in a competitive team, but I just haven’t found a good fit for her yet. It just feels like there’s potential there. At least she’ll still be legal after rotation.

Overall, I was, and remain, a fan of that R Vibe. He’s just so cool to build around. There’s a lot I could do in casual builds outside of the theme (Small Step for Man, anyone?). I’ll have to look at him for casual Golden Age sometime.