Swarm of Bees

Bumblebee.  If he isn't the most popular Transformers character, the Transformers people think he is.  He's got a ton of Transformers TCG cards (5 plus a battle card).  He's got his own movie. He's in the new War for Cybertron Series on Netflix. And now, he has his own deck.  And by own, I mean literally because he's the only one in it. Bonus points if you catch the references in this post.

Note, the fortressmaximus.io deck visualization is at the end of the post.

Characters:

Bumblebee Brave Warrior

Bumblebee Courageous Scout

Bumblebee Legendary Warrior

Battle Cards (#)(Pip Color):

Agility of Bumblebee (3)(O)

Attack Drone (3)(WG)

Data Pad (3)(W)

Diagnosis (3)(W)

Emergency Repair Patch (3)(B)

Energon Axe (3)(B)

Force Field (3)(W)

Fusion Borer (3)(BL)

Grenade Launcher (1)(O)

Last Stand (3)(BL)

Peace Through Tyranny (3) (OO)

Start Your Engines (3)(B)

Treasure Hunt (3)(O)

Turbo Boosters (3)(O)

Stats: 16 Orange, 9 Blue, 3 Green, 12 White, 6 Black. 15 Actions, 10 Weapons, 6 Armor, 9 Utility.

Why these characters: What's better than one Bumblebee?  Two Bumblees!  What's better than that? Three Bumblebees!  Luckily, none of the Bumblees talk via poorly edited radio snippets.  And the best part is ... no Agent Burns! 

Why these battle cards: I have three Bumblebees so I need three Agility of Bumblebee cards to make them ... agile.  After that, it helps to look at the character abilities.  Legendary Warrior likes being the last bot standing.  Peace through Tyranny and Last Stand can help with that by sacrificing Brave Warrior. Courageous Scout likes to flip and get white cards.  Start Your Engines helps with the flipping (and gives us an untap). Emergency Repair Patch is a white Autobot healing card, along with the defense of Force Field, the draw power of Data Pad, and the stackable attack of Attack Drone.  Turbo Boosters is added because all these dudes are cars.

Strategy: We start by flipping Courageous Scout.  Brave Warrior better be brave, because we are attacking with him first. Once he gets some damage on him, we canmake him fodder for Peace Through Tyranny or untap him with Start Your Engines to squeeze some more value out of him.  Courageous Scout flips back to car mode to snag a card and plan.  Then it is time for Legendary Warrior to do his thing. Legendary Warrior gets first dibs on armor because odds are it will be up to him to win the match.  If you can pull this off, you will stay alive and graduate to head of the Bumblebee class.

Random Bumblebee Musing: Volkswagen Bumblebee > SportscarBumblebee.  This cannot be debated. Volkswagen Beetles were known as 'bugs.'  Bumblebees are bugs.  It just fits.

Random Bumblebee TCG Musing: Bumblebee might have the strangest subtitle names:

1. "Least Likely, Most Dangerous" - Objectively false because that card isn't very dangerous at all.

2. "Brave Warrior" AND "Legendary Warrior" - I guess you can be brave and legendary, but neither really fits Bumblebee.

3. "Trusted Lieutenant" - As opposed to an officer you don't trust? He may not be very good at anything, but at least we can trust him!

Random Bumblebee Fact: Approximately 1/3rd of the food we eat is the result of honeybee pollination.

 

Fury Road: Daring Escape Cars

Taking a break from Gen1 themed decks, this is my attempt at a Daring Escape deck (which is admittedly hard when I only have two copies of it).  I have no idea if it would work, but it was fun getting to use some cards I haven't been able to use in a deck yet.  The fortressmaximus.io deck depiction is included at the end of this post.

Characters:
Cliffjumper (8)

Sunstreaker Bold Warrior (7)

Prowl Military Strategist (6)

Private Stakeout (4)

Battle Cards (Pip Color)(Number):
Daring Escape (BG)(2)
Diagnosis (W)(3)
Energon Axe (B)(3)
Escape Route (WG)(3)
Grenade Launcher (O)(3)
Increased Durability (BL)(3)
Kinetic Converter (W)(3)
Pep Talk (B)(3)
Pocket Processor (G)(3)
Rapid Conversion (W)(3)
Repurpose (BL)(2)
Roll Out (OB)(1)
Start Your Engines (B)(1)
Team Up Tactics (B)(3)
Treasure Hunt (O)(2)
Turbo Boosters (O)(2)
Breakdown: 8 Orange, 13 Blue, 8 Green, 12 White, 5 Black. 23 Actions, 6 Weapons, 3 Armor, 8 Utility.

Why these characters: I finally got Cliffjumper from the Energon Edition and was looking for a way to try him out. He looks great as a leader of cars, so I then tried to go wide and cram as many Autobot cars as possible into his team. Once I decided to combine his flipping car teammate ability with Daring Escape, Sunstreaker was my next choice.  I chose Prowl because his bot ability can help keep his fellow teammates alive when one goes down and his car mode gives them a nice flip Bold 2 bonus, which can help dig for Daring Escape cards. Stakeout's 4 stars fit, but even better, I can toss a white card (there are 12 in the deck) and flip another character if I want to trigger an ability (such as Sunstreaker's draw card ability).

Why these battle cards: I'm trying to thread the needle between having a good fighting deck but trying to trigger Daring Escape's win condition.  So, most of my cards are geared around drawing cards, even if I never use them, if they are in my hand, they won't be in my deck or scrap pile. Drawing cards include Diagnosis, Kinetic Converter, Pep Talk, Pocket Processor, Repurpose, Team-up Tactics (because this squad is all cars), and Treasure Hunt.

Because Cliffjumper and dead bot mode Sunstreaker reward flips, I included Escape Route, Start Your Engines, Rapid Conversion, and Roll Out.

In the likely circumstance I don't pull off that Daring Escape, hopefully the cars specific upgrade Turbo Boosters, Increased Durability, Grenade Launcher, Energon Axe, and Diagnosis can help.

Strategy: This deck is all about drawing cards and flipping ... to draw cards.  or the first turn, Prowl flips, triggers Cliffjumper draw power, and Sunstreaker attacks.  I don't mind if Sunstreaker dies because he can still flip and draw cards for me.  Second turn, I'm flipping stakeout (to trigger Cliffjumper's draw ability) and attacking with Stakeout.  If Sunstreaker is then killed, I can use his KO flip/draw ability.  If my opponent takes out Stakeout instead, Prowl heals Sunstreaker (or whoever my opponent attacked first if they went first).  Cliffjumper can chill out in car mode until he's the last man standing, at which time he will flip and take advantage of +3 attack for each of his dead car buddies. 

In the meantime, each time I play a Daring Escape, I can KO cards on the top of my deck.  If I get one early enough, this could be 3 or 4 cards.  Combining that plus my draw cards and abilities, and I just might be able to escape before my team dies.  Then again, being on an Autobot Shuttle isn't what it is cracked up to be, especially for Prowl (see Heroic Nonsense).

Note 1: I only own one copy of Roll Out and Start your Engines and two copies of Daring Escape. Would you recommend playing more in this deck?

Note 2: This deck was largely completed before Wave 5.  Would you swap in any Wave 5 cards to improve this deck?