Tonight, I decided to revisit a Team I played many moons ago. I remember writing about it back in The Reserve Pool days, but could not find the link with the original build. The Team centered around this guy:
The strategy with this guy is really simple. Field him and watch all of the Superman Affiliated characters march their way right into the Used Pile. Easy peasy! Unless you are not playing against a Superman Team.
This is where some other tools need to come into play. In order for you to destroy all of the Supermen, you need a way to make some Supermen. Enter the best Basic Action Card in the game…
This card really sucks as an action. I’m sorry… it really does. However, the Global is perfect for the shenanigans that this Team requires. Now, as long as I have some masks I will have Supermen to KO.
Since this requires many, many masks (likely) I included a good source of masks… and a card I feel got rotated out way too early: Super Rare Multiple Man. He really makes this engine run by giving me access to super cheap masks that can Swarm themselves.
This was the core to the original Team way back in the day. I decided to throw some more Modern tools to this and see if I could still have some fun with it.
What Did You Play?
The Team: The Used Pile of Doom.
The core combo is pretty straight forward here. I need masks to deal with my Opponent’s Field. If I have that and a Doomsday at the right time, I should be good. Since this requires as many masks as possible and I have a nice 2 cost mask as part of my core, the very first thing I added onto this build was Clayface. Now I can get an extra mask almost on command. This should make firing off Doomsday much more predictable.
This is still not enough masks for my liking, so Billy Club was next on the list. This was mostly for the Global, but the action itself could help deal with removal if necessary. Now I am feeling a little more confident in the amount of masks that I should have access to.
Doomsday himself is a pretty good body, but I decided to toss in a second bruiser in order to deal out more damage. Doomsday KO’s characters, so Ork Nob felt like a no-brainer here. Ideally, I KO a decent sized Field with Doomsday while my Nob is active, and all of a sudden I have two big bodies to hit my opponent with. Also, more 2 cost masks to fuel Clayface if needed.
Combat damage was my win condition and Static Field is still a thing. Since my major pieces were 2 cost characters, I decided to revisit another blast from the past. Elektra – Way of the Stick basically protects all of my two cost (or less) characters from being targeted by Global Abilities. Good-bye Static Field! Good-bye Bishtraction! Good-bye force attacks… etc!
I added in Malekith (to keep things Modern-ish) in order to help recycle Doomsday. In all honesty, Blue-Eyes White Dragon is probably the better inclusion here but I wanted to handcuff myself a bit.
Two slots left. I decided that I needed something to deal with that one annoying character. Kryptonite kind of fits the anti-Superman theme of the Team and will work for this need. It also has a very nice burst ability. In the event that I get some stats in the Field, I can use my Trustred Friend shenanigans to make much of my Field unblockable.
For the final slot, old reliable Resurrection made the cut. The Resurrection Global can be a little dangerous when you are aiming for Swarm, but I felt the extra energy was worth the risk.
Let’s see how it ran.
Game 1:
A neat Orbital Strike Team using Hope Summers/Thunderbird to keep his stuff alive after the Strike. He also brought Shriek he only intended to buy if he came across Bishop (his words). I went for Multiple Man as I should. He went for Shriek and shut down Multiple Man. He must have been disguised as Bishop. Easy mistake to make. So, my bag was wrecked and cycling became an issue. Even with Kryptonite, I could not gain Swarm until Shriek was removed. I was taking a few early Orbital Strikes to the face while I tried to get to Doomsday. I got a few hits in but without the large number of masks this Team required, I was not doing the damage I needed to. Even when I did manage to remove some things, he managed to bring them right back. It was one of those games. I fell after another barrage of Orbital Strike. Interesting use of Thunderbird’s ability here. Definitely something I might have to try out.
0-1
Game 2:
You know when you are building your Team and you think to yourself, “If someone brings Card X, I am totally screwed”. Card X in this case was the new Blob that prevents characters 2 or less from being purchased or fielded… but nobody plays that so I should be good. This guy brought it… and Sage. I thought we were done with her.
This was a tough game. I bought as many Multiple Men as I could before Blob hit. I then needed Kryptonite cycling in order to just purchase my other low cost characters. I also needed the green rock to blank Sage in order to realistically be able to afford to field my characters. He also had the new KO Mimic to keep taking out Multiple Man.
This one was a slog as I had trouble rolling Sidekicks on characters in order to get them out of the bag and my 2 cost characters loved to roll on their character faces when I needed them on energy. I did manage some Doomday board clear, but I never had enough stats on the board in order to do some serious damage. I even ended up buying Clayface in this one. The game probably went way past time, but I did my best to hang in there. I eventually fell when he attacked with Dani Moonstar and I whiffed the roll to bring my character back.
0-2
Game 3:
The final match of the night was up against a Mystics Attune Team. Thrown Brick was going to be the big part of his damage engine. I did manage to win the roll off, and chose to go first and pulled off the two Thrown Brick’s on turn one. At least I could slow down my death here by limiting his actions. I went again for Multiple Man early on and realized almost immediately that Swarm would not work well with Thrown Brick Prep. I shifted gears in this one and dropped my focus on Multiple Man and went for Ork Nobs instead. The minute I could afford to buy Doomsday, I did. Multiple Man would only be purchased when I needed to load up on the cheap masks. I took some Attune damage from Zatanna and her Amazing Friends, and then Doomsday came to play. I managed to wipe his Field and sent small monster through for some damage. Thanks to his Bricks, I was cycling better in this game and Doomsday came out again relatively quick. The second time he hit the board, I had the stats to swing through for lethal. I had to count it up a couple of times because I didn’t believe it at first. I didn’t honestly think that I had a chance in this one.
1-2
Post-Mortem:
After my final match, my Opponent asked why my previous match took so long. My original answer to him was that the difficulty with Multiple Man in this one was what killed me. That may have been true, but I am not sure that answer is now accurate. I think I did not focus on the right part of my Team in that game. I am not even sure now if Multiple Man is even needed here. Ork Nob himself can have up to 5 dice. Maybe that is enough. Thrown Brick was way superior to Resurrection and Swarm when I had access to it. Definitely something I need to look at here.
Let’s talk about the core combo though: Make Supermen and KO them to the Used Pile. That last part is so punishing when it hits. Clearing the Field is one thing, but clearing it to the Used Pile is just so much worse. When it worked, it just messed up my Opponent’s flow so much. This combo is my absolute favorite use of Trusted Friend. It really makes this card an All Star.
Clayface was just fantastic on this build. There were times I needed just that one extra mask and he gave it to me when needed. That paired with Billy Club meant that I should have had access to the energy I needed (when things rolled properly).
Ork Nob was a perfect addition to this Team and as I mentioned earlier, I think that I would make him a bigger focus in another version. The best I hit with on the night was a 9A Nob. That is not bad. Now imagine an army of Nobs coming at you. This needs some testing.
Kryptonite turned into a great back-up win condition. When Doomsday got stuck in the Field, I was able to send him through or at least force my Opponent to block with something they may not want to lose. The blanking ability is obviously helpful too, but was not the actual focus here.
Malekith is good, but Blue-Eyes is better. I am already in Golden here, and I would 100% include the Dragon over the Elf in another version. Likewise, I think I would look for something different than Resurrection in the next iteration of the Team. Thrown Brick worked so well, that I would be tempted to give that one a try.
Elektra did not come into play all night, but I would keep her on the build in the future. If the Nob is going to be one of my heavy hitters, Elektra keeps him from being bounced at an inopportune time.
While the record did not show it tonight, I think this is a good Team to play around with. I think that this specific version of it requires a little help, but the core is decent. A few tweaks and I think it can be that much better. Would I play this again? In a heartbeat! I do love this version of Doomsday and loved trying him out with some of the newer tools in the toolbox.
Have you built a Team with this Doomsday? What pieces did you include on it? What pieces would you change out on this one? Let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
– jourdo
Thrown brick has become a staple. Some other BAC has to really fit the team for me to not include it anymore.