Walloping the Walled Up

A favorite old team of mine involved the UC Flash from the Justice League set, 1-cost Kobolds and the Teleport Basic Action.  The latter was an OP Basic Action w you to swap characters of the same energy type.  That Flash became unblockable when attacking alone if you had used a Basic Action Die that turn.  So I’d field Kobolds, buy a Flash and use Teleport to swap it in for a Kobold, then send it through unblocked.

I mention this because it was pointed out to me this week’s team is a reworking of that team (something I hadn’t consciously realized beforehand.)

What Did You Play?

The Team:  Misdirected Surtur

Use this area to give an explanation of what the plan for the team is.  How are the parts supposed to work?  As little or as much information as you want.

Here’s the core of the team:

Well, there’s a third piece, but there’s a lot of choice about what it can be.  This time I chose to go with

It’s a fairly straightforward strategy:  Attack with a lone Poxwalker, which due to its ability, will be unblockable.  In the Global/Actions Window of the Attack Step, use Misdirection to swap out Poxwalker for a big hitter, in this case Surtur.

Using this Surtur means the more dice in my opponent’s field there are, the harder he gets hit.  Unless my opponent has 7 character dice in his field, however, it doesn’t guarantee lethal.

Plus, Surtur isn’t exactly cheap.  Poxwalker also has Swarm to go with his other ability, so that should help some with ramp.

But I didn’t think that by itself would be enough, so I included Golden Age PXG.  Then I added common Morphing Jars, primarily to fuel that global.

I also added Gnome Ranger.  I’ll be wanting to keep one Poxwalker die (and only one) in my Field Zone to trigger Swarm.  But I should be able to field a second Poxwalker die and remove it from the field by attacking with, since it will be unblockable (if I don’t attack with anything else).  If I can get a Gnome Ranger into my field, each such attack will two damage instead of only one.  So not only keeping my Poxwalker dice in circulation to trigger Swarm, but wearing down my opponent a little bit faster.

Wonder Woman:  Child of Clay was on the team for when opponents brought Uncommon Kate Bishop or other globals of that ilk.  White Tiger went on the team for her global – potentially another +2A for Surtur.

The last slow went to uncommon Acererak for the global.  Mostly as insurance against Scarlet Witch.  She’s not as common in our local meta as she once was, but this team relies on using Misdirection.  If Scarlet Witch made a reappearance it could really spoke the wheels.

Final BAC was Mutation.  Backup plan in case my opponent decided to buy Misdirection dice out from under me.

Game 1:

Dragon team.  I hit with a Level 3 Surtur while he had 3 dice in his field, dealing 14 damage.  He’d taken a couple points of bag burn earlier, so that took him down to 4.  Then he hit me with a Level 2 Red Dragon, buffed from a Half-Dragon and 3 damage from its Breath Weapon, for a total of 11.

Buying Surtur had killed my ramp, so I had a full bag with a lot of dice in it.  Surtur came out on my next turn, but no Misdirection which was unfortunate.  Also unfortunate, I wasn’t able to roll a character face on Surtur, which would have given me something in my field able to withstand Red Dragon’s Breath Weapon.

He drew his Red Dragon, but he couldn’t get a character face with it.  He wasn’t rolling a lot of dice that turn.  Even if he had landed a character face, he might not have been able pay the costs for both fielding and breath weapon.

Anyhow I drew and landed a Misdirection die on my next turn which was all I needed.

1-0

Game 2:

Villains team.  Hush, Black Manta, Catwoman.  I think he was looking to do some burn damage by using Hush ramp while Black Manta was active, but he had some terrible rolls and never got it set up.

I bought some Poxwalkers and a Gnome Ranger.  Bought a Morphing Jar, attacked with a Level 3 Poxwalker and swapped it out for the Morphing Jar.

Then I managed to hit with a Surtur for 11 or so.  Finished him off the next time a Misdirection die came out.

2-0

Game 3:

Venerable Dreadnought/Instant War/Tabaxi Rogue/SR Jubilee.

I don’t think this could have been more of a mismatch if the opponent (Jourdo, FWIW) had known exactly what my team was and built his to counter it.

It didn’t help at all that the Wonder Woman die I bought early (he had UC Kate Bishop) refused to land on a character face.  Without her my chance went basically went from vanishingly small to nonexistent.

2-1

Post-Mortem:

Instant War stops Golden PXG hard.  Without it however Golden PXG and Poxwalker Swarm give you a ton of ramp and churn.  Word of warning if you have Morphing Jars on the team, be careful about how many of them you buy – they can end up clogging your bag. If you’re not careless about that you can usually depend on being able to draw the dice you buy quickly.

I love the unblocked Poxwalker/Misdirection combo.  Using it with Surtur was tremendous fun, but he’s hardly the only worthwhile option.

Players are unlikely to be able to do 20 damage in a single pass with that tactic, but Poxwalker and Misdirection dice are cheap enough that’s not a serious problem.

What do you think would be good characters to Misdirect in for Powalker this way?  Let us know in the comments.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Rolling!

Son of L