WHYP: I Crossed The Line

As you may know, we’ve recently had to submit our team lists for the “All Out” Two-Team Takedown tournament. So I did a lot of brewing, and only two teams made the cut. So of course, that led me with several teams I wasn’t going to use. For lack of time, I decided to just throw one in this week’s event. And in doing so, I think…

I Crossed The Line

The Team:  …The Front Line, that is.

Ok. This is a sidekicks team, but with a twist. First, the sidekicks core: Atlantis works as a crazy ramp engine, and Plague Marine serves to buff my sidekicks and KO them (so they can be re-fielded to trigger Atlantis). Of course, there’s also Collector, to field sidekicks and trigger sidekicks in the early game, who can also help filter sidekicks out in the late game.

But now we get to this team’s main plan: The Front Line. In short, I’m trying to overwhelm my opponents with numbers. With Plague Marine active, sidekicks will deal 5 damage each if I use The Front Line. 4 unblocked sidekicks = win. I included SR Thor for the global, to discount The Front Line. He also serves as a backup win condition.

With that said, this strategy cannot win without removal. I included two cards for this purpose: Venerable Dreadnaught (who deals more damage the more characters I have active) and Slingers (for the global, obviously).

The last three cards are miscellaneous pieces: Kree Captain to discount my Dreadnaught (and Thor if I get to him), Supreme Intelligence to Prep Atlantis and keep the ramp engine going, and Gladiator to shut down Static Field.

So in short, in testing, this is very much feast or famine, all or nothing. Either things click or they stall forever. Going in, wasn’t sure which would happen. I’d learn quick enough…

With all of that said, on to the games!

Game 1:

I went 2nd and the game ended in 3 turns.

T1: Atlantis + Supreme Intelligence global.

T2: got 2 sidekicks + a mask and Atlantis rolled. Got my engine going, bought Plague Marine, landed on energy, got Front Line (thanks to Thor’s global – had bolt + 3), Front Line also landed on energy when I drew it by fielding a sidekick, saved that energy to Supreme Intelligence my Atlantis.

T3: Atlantis rolled alongside some sidekicks. Went through my whole bag. By the time I was done, I had 5 sidekicks active alongside Plague Marine (on lvl 2) and Front Line. 30 damage. On TURN 3! In Modern!

1-0

Game 2:

Went second again.

T1: Atlantis + Supreme Intelligence global.

T2: Got Atlantis to roll with sidekicks again, Plague Marine and Front Line again, but this time both rolled, which was weird. My opponent had blockers, so I only got 1 character unblocked for 5 damage. Didn’t get to Prep Atlantis.

T3: Drew Atlantis and some sidekicks. Got the shenanigans going. My opponent had some blockers, but by the time everything was done, I had Front Line, lvl 1 Plague Marine, and enough characters for 2 sidekicks + the Marine to sneak through, which should have been 14 damage, which would have left him at 1 life…except I had a fist to use The Front Line’s global, so he had to pay 1 life to block. I won. T3 again.

2-0

Game 3:

I went second again. Ok, no play by play here, because it actually went past the third turn this time. But I did deal 15 damage on turn 3 (same general pattern as game 1, but my opponent learned about previous games and kept blockers). My opponent fielded control characters after (R Blob from DPS plus R Drax), so the two energy I saved was used for Slingers instead of Supreme Intelligence. T4 was boring, but my opponent’s bag was a mess by that point. Then on T5 I rolled Front Line and had enough characters to deal the last 5 damage and win.

3-0

Game 4: 

I took the bye on round 4 to facilitate matchups. And also because no one wanted to play against my garbage by that point. Which I understand completely.

Post-Mortem:

-Holy heck my sidekick dice came ready to play tonight. I was rolling sidekick character faces like there was no tomorrow. In testing the team never really worked reliably (which is why I didn’t use it in TTTD), but here everything ran smooth as butter, I couldn’t believe it.

-Let me give you some perspective on the speed: I won 3 Dice Masters game in, on average, less than 4 turns per game (11 turns total in 3 games). In Modern. This is not how things are supposed to roll in Modern. It was gross.

-The team was very much lacking in good defence and control. You’re the aggro, all the time, every time. I suspect against higher level teams this would’ve struggled hard. No regret against not using it in TTTD.

-Front Line didn’t make the biggest splash when we learned it was coming to Dark Phoenix Saga (seeing as it’s a 5-cost BAC), but that buff is enormous. 5 sidekicks, with no other buffs, win you the game. Anything other than sidekicks has such a damage output that you can get to 20 damage without even thinking about it. Don’t forget about this BAC, it is stupidly strong in the right build.

-The biggest pain for this build was the lack of a good 3-cost to support the strategy. There was simply no space for one! I wonder what my “flex spot” would’ve been. Kree Cap perhaps? This is a recurring issue with Atlantis builds. Your core strategy eats up so many card slots that you run out of space.

-I sincerely apologize to my locals for this team. Your glares were crystal-clear, I’m not running Atlantis + Front Line again in our local events.

After this week, I promised my locals my next team would have:

• No SR Thor
• No Becky
• No Front Line
• No Atlantis
• No God Catcher
• No Hope Summers
• No R Colossus
• No Master Mold (obviously, don’t have him)

So, what do you think? Did I go too far this time? What should I do next with the above restrictions? (Ideally something I didn’t run yet)

Let us know in the comments below, on our Socials (@dmNorthTV), or join the conversation on our Discord.