Format: Casual Golden Age (no Bard, Thief or Oracle)
To start, a disclaimer: This team was born of me and DMArmada poking each other; he insisted, repeatedly, that R The Bifrost is now a completely terrible and unusable card. So of course, I did what any mature adult should do: I set out to build a R Bifrost team out of sheer stubbornness. And out of this came…
The Zom-Bifrost
Yes, Zombies. On the Bifrost. Because I can. This team’s got bite.
Be warned: there are a lot of interactions, and they tend to happen at the same time. I recommend having a notepad with you as you play this to keep track and make sure you don’t forget to trigger effects. Yes, seriously.
The winning strategy is based on these three:
Essentially, Johnny+Cube means I deal 3 damage per character I field, and Bifrost allows me to field more characters to trigger Johnny. Which leads me to ask: How do I field more characters? After all, Wizkids issued an errata to specify that the Bifrost doesn’t trigger itself. So I need to field tons of characters, otherwise than with Bifrost’s effect, to trigger Bifrost repeatedly.
Which is where we get to these three:
Yes, we’re going there. I field T-Rex Zombie, trigger Johnny and Bifrost, buy and field Zombie for free, trigger Johnny and Bifrost. I have two triggers of Bifrost, which I will generally use to field a couple of freshly-purchased Chwingas from my Used Pile. And each of the Chwingas will also trigger Johnny. So that’s 4 triggers of Johnny, for 12 damage thanks to Cube.
And if I have the energy to purchase a Zombie and have a sidekick to field, I buy Zombie, field a sidekick, trigger Johnny, Bifrost AND Zombie’s effect, and if Zombie works, that’s another fielding that can trigger Johnny and Bifrost…yes, this is an odd setup, and it requires having a character active and two actions active at the same time to be optimal. But the shenanigans are beautiful.
For the rest of the team, Shriek and Slander serve to blank (I figured Hellblazer would show up, hence why Slander made the team), PXG for some old school ramp and churn that, when I’m lucky, allows me to reliably draw and roll Bifrost and Cube on the same turn. Speedy Delivery gives me a place to spend any extra bolts I might roll, to convert those into extra combat damage.
With that said, on to the games!
Game 1:
I started, again, versus Hulk+Babs (why does the WIN love pairing us up so much?). Hulk didn’t roll on his end. I didn’t even have the time to buy the Bifrost; Johnny + Cube, with R Zombie and his trigger when fielding sidekicks, was enough to rush him down and bring him to 0 life on turn 5.
1-0
Game 2:
I went up against old-school Avengers. Patch, Tsarina, Green Goliath, the whole gang. I was kind of scared of this team, since Johnny is wrecked by Hulk, and my Cube would buff his Hulk’s damage. But he never got the setup to buy his Hulk. He instead got some Tsarinas out in the hope of rushing me down. Except that on the turn before a rush of widows could hit me, I rolled Johnny, Cube, and fielded some sidekicks that got KO’d and replaced by Zombies, and it just added more burn for the win.
2-0
Game 3:
This time, I went up against a team of expensive 2-costs. Hellblazer, Tsarina, Multiple Man, Jubilee, Yuan-ti, Cosmic Cube…if it’s 2-cost, and it costs a fair bit of money, it’s on the team. This game was defined by terrible rolls on both sides. Neither of us could get any momentum going. Zombie continued to earn his keep, doubling my sidekick fieldings. I won the battle of horrible rolls in the end.
3-0
Game 4:
This game was against a newer player. And this time, all of the shenanigans clicked. To give you perspective, my last turn went like this:
-I started with only Johnny on the field, rolled Cube and Bifrost, 2 sidekicks, and tons of energy.
-Bought T-Rex Zombie, one Zombie, and 2 Chwingas.
-I field sidekick number one, triggering Zombie, Johnny and Bifrost.
-I use Zombie first, he rolls a character, is fielded. Now I have 2 triggers of Johnny and 2 triggers of Bifrost.
-I use the first Bifrost trigger to field a Chwinga. Now I have 3 triggers of Johnny and 1 of Bifrost.
-I use the second Bifrost trigger to field T-Rex Zombie. 1 trigger of T-Rex Zombie and 4 Johnny triggers.
-T-Rex Zombie buys and fields another Zombie. 1 Bifrost trigger and 5 Johnny triggers.
-Use Bifrost’s trigger to field my other Chwinga. I then use my 6 Johnny triggers to deal 18 damage thanks to Cube and wipe my opponent’s board (and KO a couple of my guys once I run out of targets).
-I field my second sidekick to do another Johnny trigger. So that’s 7 Johnny triggers on the same turn. 21 damage with Cube active.
Overkill? Yes. Absolutely. But so fun.
4-0
Post-Mortem:
-I cannot believe how insane the shenanigans got in this team. It’s even harder to follow than my old Bat Family team, and that’s saying something.
-I am very, very glad that Johnny Storm and Cosmic Cube were never legal together in competitions. Those two are just nasty together.
-R Zombie is the sleeper hit of this team. His stats are decent, and his ability both triggers a self-KO and potentially fields a character for free. He can do a lot of work for a 2-cost.
-I kind of want to do a similar concept in Modern, but we don’t have many effects that reward us to field just any character.
Overall, that was an absolute blast to play. It makes me want to work with Zombie and T-Rex Zombie in other teams in the future.