No More Monkeying Around

And our Legacy League continues on; we were in Week 4 this time. After the intensity went down last week, people ramped things up this time around. And I…sort of did too, I guess? Let’s just say that after we got started, I quickly decided…

No More Monkeying Around

The Team:  My opponents will be Seething after this one.

Format: Legacy League, week 4

Ok. There’s two main approaches I can take here: I can take a crowd and rush in, and if that’s not available, I rush in with big unblockable bruisers.

Let’s first talk about the crowd approach: Jubilee, used with Mutation, allows me to damage my opponent’s entire field. Used with Seething Corruption, I destroy all of my opponent’s characters.

But wait, I hear you say. What you described isn’t a win condition; it’s just removal! Quite correct. That’s where Gnome Ranger comes in. Her good stats and buff were intended to get me to 20 damage more easily. I also put in Nightwing (to get around OP Black Widow if needed) and Thor (to discount Seething Corruption) to support this first strategy.

However, I know that my local meta loves Green Devil Mask, and that it would be the Achilles Heel of this team. So I built in a secondary (and eventually main) strategy: Enter R Grodd. This guy needs no introduction; one of the best near-unblockable bruisers in the game, with a nice global to boot, he can win a game on his own, easily. To support that strategy, I threw in Goliath (to use the global on Grodd, though I could buy cheap Goliaths in a pinch thanks to his ability) and Kobold (to give me ramp to get to Grodd and to give me fists for Goliath’s global).

The last card I threw in was Chalkboard. I figured it would be a logical complement to both strategies: I could prep a Seething Corruption when the first strategy’s ready, prep Kobold for ramp, or even prep Grodd if I get enough ramp!

And with that said, on to the games!

Game 1:

Let’s begin against Boom Boom + Ultraman. Despite his odd choices for BACs (he has Resurrection), this team can get real deadly real quick. I went for Jubilee + Seething Corruption for control, with Kobold ramp (weird rolls didn’t help). One turn, I saw the chance to Chalkboard a Grodd. I took the opportunity and never looked back. When Grodd hit the field, the game turned on its head; my opponent had set up preparing for the slow, large field, and dealing with sudden unblockable damage was something he didn’t expect. In the end, my ramp (and his lack thereof) made the difference, as I dealt massive damage before Ultraman could do anything. I won.

1-0

Game 2:

Next up, I faced off against a Superman (and Supergirl) + Jimmy Olsen team. That looked like a nightmare of a match up. I was giving him Chalkboard to prep his Superman dice, after all. And with his GDM, my strategy of going for numbers…yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. However, on a couple of crucial turns, he couldn’t get his big purchases going as he rolled no shields. I primarily went for Kobolds for ramp early game, to pivot to Grodds later. After all, my only chance was trying to race for damage while keeping some board presence to stop his Superman dice (until his Lois gave them Overcrush, of course). Thankfully, forcing him to get Lois slowed him down just enough. My lean Grodd-rushing machine got the win.

2-0

Game 3:

Next up, here be Dragons with tons of control pieces (including that blasted GDM again!). That looked like it would be his week to win. Except…on turn 2, he rolled sidekicks. Oh so many sidekicks. He was forced to pivot to control. So my strategy here was literally: buy all my Kobolds and all my Grodds and, before he can field his stuff and recover, charge charge CHAAAAARGE! The heck with defense. T3, he took a Grodd to the face, then T5, he took 2 Grodds (the first plus a second I bought T4), leaving him with 4 life. The following turn, I charged in with tons of sidekicks, using what fist energy I had to buff what would go through. And I won.

3-0

Game 4:

And now, Johnny Storm + TMT Hulk, Cheetah, Wind Rider…this might as well be called “Burn: the team”…and of course, that blasted GDM again. Yet again, Grodd was the guy to get, because GDM would shut my main win con down. So I did go for him, and the fact that he couldn’t be blocked…left my opponent less than impressed. He was giving me Kree Captain, and he couldn’t deal with Grodd; after all, my Grodd would be off the field before Dwarf Wizard could blank him (Shriek’s banned now). So, as with previous games, he took Grodd after Grodd to the face and couldn’t keep up with the damage. A really, REALLY lucky Swarm draw gave me way too many fists to pump Grodd, and that, ladies and gentlemen, was that. I won.

4-0

Post-Mortem:

-As you can probably tell, there was way, waaaaay too much GDM around for me to use my team as intended. I didn’t buy Gnome Ranger once all evening because GDM was everywhere. Good thing I’d planned a secondary strategy, or I would’ve had a miserable evening.

-Goliath’s ability…was not great. But the global? Oh did that ever help. Granted, with Grodd, any buff global would’ve been just as effective. But adding defence helped keep some of my other stuff on the field.

-Using Chalkboard’s global, with Kobolds, made my Grodds arguably too easy to buy. Keep in mind that I managed to buy all 3 Grodds in 2 of my games. With this good a ramp engine, no wonder this won quickly. It couldn’t keep up with a disgusting T3 mess, but it took me by surprise.

So overall, despite not being able to run the strategy I wanted, I had some fun with this. Some of my locals are cursing me for getting Jubilee and Kobold banned. Things are starting to heat up around here!

By the way, I realize that I’ve been describing my teams, but I haven’t shared the full list of what is currently banned. Would there be interest in this? If you’d like me to post that list, let me know in those comments or on Facebook. In the meantime, keep on rolling!