Colorful Windblade

For my entry in the Windblade Unsung Heroes Deck Building Challenge, I had to go beyond my G1 comfort zone to work around a character that first appeared in the IDW comic, Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye #26: Windblade.  Windblade is known as a "Cityspeaker" because she is able to communicate with dormant Titans.  In the comic, Chromia was Windblade’s bodyguard. They came across Alpha Trion, who let Windblade know that Metroplex was wounded and needed help.  Windblade and her crew sped off and took up residence inside Metroplex and started trying to fix him.  Later, they were found by Autobots from the Lost Light ship captained by Hot Rod.  The ship provided the crucial jump start needed to give Metroplex enough power to create a space bridge back to Cybertron, where a big battle was taking place.

Characters: Windblade Combiner Hunter (12), Chromia Special Ops (8), Private Smashdown (5)

Battle Cards (Pip Colors)(Number):
Attack Drone (WG)(3)
Combat Dagger (O,BL)(2)
Dismantling Claw (BG)(2)
Enforcement Batons (OG)(3)
Escape Route (WG)(3)
Extra Padding (BG)(3)
Fight for Position (O, BL)(2)
Personal Targeting Drone (WG)(3)
Reactive Armor (OG)(2)
Rock Toss (O,BL)(3)
Roll Out (OB)(1)
Scrounge (OG)(3)
Secret Dealings (WG)(3)
Smelt (BG)(2)
Steady Shot (BL,B)(2)
War of Attrition (BG)(3)

Breakdown: 16 Orange, 13 Blue, 30 Green, 12 White, 9 Black.  22 Actions, 10 Weapons, 5 Armor, 3 Utility.

Why these Characters: The challenge was issued to use Windblade Combiner Hunter, so my team started with her.  She uses up a lot of stars, so it was a challenge to build a squad around her.  Chromia was Windblade’s bodyguard so she seemed like a natural partner. I went with Special Ops because I am hoping I can force a battle card synergy between her and Windblade.  I also liked Chromia’s flip ability - return a white card from scrap pile.  Sadly. I couldn’t fit a character that related to them in the comics within my star limit.  Hot Rod seemed like a fun choice since his Lost Light found Windblade in the comics, but he had too many stars.  I gave up on a Transformers lore team-mate and pivoted to a character who could benefit from the battle card strategy I am going with – Private Smashdown.

Why these battle cards: Since I’m guessing the odds of facing a combiner team is pretty low, I focused on WIndblade’s flip ability in which she reveals the top card on the deck and if it has two different color pips, she can play it.  I decided to make a deck with only multi-pip cards to guarantee I would trigger this ability every time I flipped Windblade.

Smashdown’s Airquake Hammerclaw loves this strategy, because the odds are good that I will flip more battle icons than my opponent, which gives the upgraded character a +2 attack.

Chromia’s bot mode ability is to draw two cards if she gets two white pips when attacking.  To fold this into my strategy, I first prioritized double pip cards with a white pip. This added Attack Drone (which is cool because it is stackable in one weapon spot), Personal Targeting Drone, Secret Dealings, and Escape Route to my deck.  Escape Route is helpful because this my gameplan requires both Chromia and Windblade to flip a lot – Chromia to return a white pip from scrap into my hand and Windblade to look at top card of her deck, which I have guaranteed will have a two pip color card. 

With the white two color pip cards accounted for, I tried to get double pip cards that could help me.  Combat Dagger allows has Bold 1.  Putting it on Chromia gives me another chance at getting the two white pips.  Action card Fight for Position does the same thing, giving me Bold 2 for a turn.  Enforcement Batons, Reactive Armor, Smelt, and Dismantling Claw have scrapping abilities. Extra Padding is a stackable armor that lets you flip more cards on defense.  This is necessary given the lack of consistency in pip pulls because I have so many different colors.  Rock Toss has 1 chip damage and it would be great if Windblade activated it on her flip ability. Roll Out allows me to flip both my bots to alt mode, meaning I get to return a white pip card to my hand and trigger Windblade’s two color deck reveal power at the same time.  Scrounge helps me dig for the upgrades in my deck.  Finally, War of Attrition is a powerful card if I can get three in my hand.  A dream scenario would be to have two in hand and then find the third on Windblade’s flip, which would allow me to play all three and heal one of my characters.

Strategy: This deck is built around flipping to trigger powers.  Having Smashdown means i have one less bot I have to flip and helps get a weapon on one of my other bots when he is Ko'd.  In round one, I’d flip Windblade to set up her flip back. In this mode, she gets an extra attack point, so it sets her up to fight as well.  I’d attack with Smashdown to hopefully get him into Hammerclaw mode, which will love the many different colors my attacks will be sure to have.  If I pull a weapon, I’ll give it to Smashdown to get the most out of him before he dies.  Round 2 would be a decision between flipping Windblade back to trigger her ability or flip Chromia to get her in position to flip back and take advantage of her ‘flip two whites during attack’ ability.  This decision would depend on what I have in my hand and what my bots' damage situation is.  If I have one of the flip battle cards like Roll Out or Escape Route, I could flip them both in Round 2.  Either way, I am probably attacking with Chromia before Windblade to keep the theme of her being a bodyguard. Plus, I think Windblade’s flip power will hit more often (100%) than Chromia’s, which is based on getting two white pips, so I want to keep her alive the longest.