Now that everybody is focused on the new X-Men set, I thought I’d take a card from Justice, and a card from the Warhammer set, and see how well they worked together.
Format: Routine Golden Age Constructed.
What Did You Play?
The Team: Poxwalker and Parasite.
The core of this team revolves around these two cards:
Unblockable is a useful ability, but it’s not that useful on a character whose A is 1 on all levels. A single active Parasite die allows me to brings that up to 3 or 4, which is still not great. Fortunately, Parasite is cheap enough buying multiple dice for him is a viable plan.
And
also, Parasite is a Villain, eligible to use the global on The Outsider BAC. So, attack with a Poxwalker supported by a Parasite who has been buffed by use of The Outsider global we get to 6A (5 if Parasite is Level 1). If I have two Parasite dice out, I can use the Outsider global once on each and potentially get the total damage as high as 11.
So, the ideal scenario goes something like: Field a Poxwalker die each turn so I can send one through for damage and have another in the field to trigger Swarm on my next Clear and Draw step. Get a Parasite die out to boost Poxwalker’s attack – more than one if possible.
So, how to round out the team? With my two most important characters being 2 costs, I opted to include Big Entrance as my other BAC. Then Supreme Intelligence for its global. Wonder Woman – Child of Clay for any opponents who bring Static Field.
Scarlet Witch went on the team, primarily as a counter to Green Devil Mask. Kree Soldier – Stagnant Evolution went on the team because he allows me to field characters with fielding costs of 3 or less for free. And, also, fist energy, and, as such, potential fuel for The Outsider global.
Then I decided to include Hall of Doom: Base of Operations. Parasite is Legion of Doom affiliated, and 2 of the 3 action faces give LoD characters +2/+2. If I have two Parasite dice active and roll Hall of Doom on burst or double burst that’s a +4/+4 buff to Poxwalker.
Now, I actually brewed most of this team months ago, but I delayed playing it, partly because there were other teams I wanted to play, and partly because Parasite saw a lot of play in our local scene when Justice first came out, and I got a little bit tired of him.
Since X-Men Forever has come out burn damage has been all the rage, so I tweaked my original build in order to add Rare Bishop as my eighth card.
How did it work?
Game 1:
X-Men team with Hope Summers and the Cyclops who both buffs and gives a discount to buying other X-Men. Also the new Jubilee that does two points of burn damage when fielded.
After a decent start, I had consecutive turns where I pulled two character dice and couldn’t roll character faces on either of them.
Somehow, I survived that and got the Poxwalker-Parasite engine running.
Facing near certain defeat on my next turn if he did nothing, my opponent attacked with his entire field, which did take me down to one life.
But I rolled enough characters on my next turn to romp through his empty field for the win.
1-0
Game 2:
Jourdo’s Fish Fight team. I went first and bought a Big Entrance on Turn 1. I did not draw it on Turn 2 and wound up buying Scarlet Witch the conventional way. I managed to draw the Scarlet Witch die on Turn 3, only to whiff on actually rolling her.
On Jourdo’s next turn, he rolled an Atlantis die on its action face and three of four Sidekick dice on their pawn faces on his initial roll. Which set him up for a ridiculous turn. With purchases of Wongs and a Black Widow intermixed with his field a Sidekick, draw and roll two dice shenanigans, he must have drawn and rolled ten or more dice on this turn.
As I only has one measly Sidekick in my field, he wound up hitting me for 11 on that turn. On my next turn, I drew two character dice and whiffed on both of them (yet again).
This was a quick game. But not a fun one.
1-1
Game 3:
Infiltrate team, being run by a player who was having as miserable luck with his rolls on the night as I was.
This iteration of the team didn’t have anything that prevented me from blocking his Infiltrators, so I did that.
His alternative plan was to resort to the Yellow Power Ring that grants Intimidate characters in the Reserve Pool, but he couldn’t manage to draw it and character dice on the same turn.
That gave me sufficient time to get the Parasite/Poxwalker engine running, after which it was little contest.
2-1
That was it for the official rounds, but we stuck around for a couple of un-official ones.
Game 4:
Re-match against the Infiltrate team, except he swapped in SR Angela.
He got Angela out by his Turn 3, but I somehow managed to get Bishop out on my next turn.
He was running the Black Tom Cassidy with Fast and Call Out which he used regularly to try to remove Bishop. There were two problems with that: Bishop tended to come out on Level 3 this game, so Black Tom, even on Level 3, didn’t have enough A to KO him without a buff, he wasn’t rolling many fists to use to buff Black Tom (with my The Outsider global).
There was another, more important problem for him. Even on the turns, where he was able to KO Bishop he wasn’t able to deal any damage from Infiltrate. Infiltrate damage is resolved immediately after blockers are assigned, i.e. before combat damage is resolved. So, Bishop is still active at that point, and his ability nullifies the Infiltrate damage.
My opponent did manage to KO Bishop twice during the game, but I successfully re-fielded him both times.
While my opponent was butting his head ineffectively against Bishop I was setting up the pieces for the Poxwalker-Parasite combo.
Once they were in place, it didn’t take long.
3-1
Game 5:
Re-match against the X-Men team.
He had Cyclops and Hope Summers acting as a second Cyclops out for most of the game.
He’d done a lot of burn damage from fielding Jubilee in the first game, but in this one, with her D being buffed by Hope and Cyclops, his Jubilee die was stuck in the field for essentially the entire game, as I was always able to block it without KO’ing it.
A big hit from a Poxwalker got him down to one life, after which he attacked with everything on his turn. Since I never managed to get Bishop out this game, it came down to a Dani Moonstar that forces a re-roll on character dice that block it. If my blocker rolled a character, I’d survive with my life total down to one. If it came up energy, I’d take two damage, costing me the game. It came up energy.
3-2
Post-Mortem:
This was a pretty effective team. The core combo works well. The one game I was never in was the result of one extremely lucky turn for my opponent, and some pretty terrible rolls on my part. I know it’s a dice game, and luck is always going to be a part of it, but that was a pretty extreme case.
What would I change? Hall of Doom didn’t prove to be of much use, so I’d be willing to punt it. Kree Soldier wasn’t terribly useful on the night, but in situations where I might have to block regularly with Parasite dice I can see it pulling its weight, so I’m not in a big rush to replace it, but I could be persuaded.
I’m not quite sure what to add that would improve the team however. What do you think are good support cards for ‘character is unblockable while attacking alone’ teams? Let us know in the comments.
Thanks for reading, and Happy Rolling.
Son of L