One of the most epic scenes in Transformers the Movie is Starscream's coronation. After years of scheming to take over the Decepticons, Starscream finally made it to the top. Megatron was dead (see my deck, Oh, How It Pains Me To Do This) and he was taking over...until Megatron came back as Galvatron and blew him up. But you can't keep a good character down and the following season of the TV show brought ol' Starscream back in the form of a ghost in the episode appropriately named "Starscream's Ghost." In that episode, Starscream's ghost was awakened by Octane (who we TCG players know as Octone) and mischief ensued.
Starscream Decepticon King (13)
Ghost of Starscream (7)(Ark Wave 1 card)
Starscream Decepticon Lieutenant (5)
Battle Cards:
Decepticon Crown (WG)(3)
Escape Route (WG)(3)
Conversion Expertise (W)(3)
Roll Out (OB)(3)
Kinetic Converter (W)(3)
Data Pad (W)(3)
Treasure Hunt (O)(3)
Improvised Shield (O)(2)
Inspiring Leadership (B)(3)
Mining Pick (O)(3)
Secret Dealings (WG)(3)
Reinforced Plating (B)(3)
Rapid Conversion (W)(3)
Bombing Run (B)(1)
Null-Ray of Starscream (O)(1)
Summary: 14 Orange, 10 Blue, 9 Green, 21 White. 19 Actions, 4 Weapons, 5 Armor, 12 Utility.
Why these characters:
You can't have Starscream's Ghost without him dying first, and you really can't built a deck around him dying unless you have the King. I considered other 5 star characters to round out the deck (The Ark's 5 star Rumble would have fit the theme since I recall he was playing the trumpet at the coronation). At the end of the day, I went with the 5 star Starscream to maximize my chance of getting the Ghost to come out and play, and to take advantage of his Tough 1 bot ability, which will allow me to cycle through more cards. But let's be real - the biggest draw is I can have a team full of Starscreams!
Decepticon King is the initial focus of this deck (because Ghostie starts off on your KO pile) and he has two powers that largely drive this deck. First, he needs to be able to dig cards to find the Decepticon Crown, which gives him +3 ATK/DEF if he flips it while battling. For this reason, I've loaded the deck with cards that help me dig for cards when fighting: Conversion Expertise, Improvised Shield, and Reinforced Plating add to the number of cards I draw while fighting, which gives a better chance of flipping Decepticon Crown. Mini Starscream (the five star one) can have his Null Ray (you kind of have to have at least one in the deck, right?), which lets us see two more cards when he attacks (but don't put it on the King!). Having 21 white pips will cause us to see a few more cards as well.
Drawing cards is great, but King Starscream relies on another ability to stack the deck. When he flips to plane mode, he can return a card that lets him plan from the scrap pile and put it in his hand - this includes Decepticon Crown and Mining Pick, which is the weapon we HAVE to get on King Starscream. The Crown can plan too, but we'd rather have that ready to flip during a battle. Data Pad also has a plan like ability and can be put on the King if you haven't seen Mining Pick yet, but it only works when attacking. Getting that plan card is key, because it allows us to stack the deck to ensure we hit the Crowns when he fights. As such, flipping him is important to get the card, but we want to flip him right back to take advantage of his powers. So I added Rapid Conversion, Escape Route and Roll Out (whose pips are nice too).
Planning really helps if we have the Crown in our hand. While it is a green card, the best way to maximize our chance of finding it is to draw a lot of cards. Inspiring Leadership and Kinetic Converter help get cards in hand. Secret Dealings lets you draw a card as well as plan one.
Finally, since this deck is basically two wide planes (until one Starscream dies), I threw in one copy of Bombing Run to try to keep them alive. Plus it's a plane card so it made sense!
You may notice I don't have a ton of upgrades. This is partially by design, because when one of my Starscreams dies, his upgrades go to the Ghost. In that way, I don't need to fill my deck with enough upgrades for three bots, only two. I do have a lot of utilities, but remember I'm not going to put the Crown on anyone, so they don't really count.
Strategy:
Unless you get really lucky with your initial draw you are probably leading off by attacking with mini-Starscream to help you build your scrap pile and possibly see a Crown before using the King. Plus, this ensures you can avoid a round of attacks against your big guy. We may want to flip King Starscream in the first round to get him in position to flip back once we find a Mining Pick or Crown. If there's no reason to flip, he's better in bot mode anyway. Ideally going forward, we'd flip Starscream to plane mode, grab a Decepticon Crown, and use a transforming action card to flip back to bot mode. Aside from Starscream's Null-Ray, you will spend most of your upgrades on King Starscream. Just remember, we really want the Mining Pick on the King and we probably want to avoid attaching a Crown to a character, at least until the King dies.
The nice thing about having Starscream's Ghost is, if the other player goes after the King early, you can keep all his upgrades when the Ghost comes out. This will take some of the sting out of losing your big gun. On the other hand, if they knock out the softer target first, you can pair the Ghost, who is actually better than the bot he is replacing, with the King - a paradox perhaps, but a good team. Either way, by the time Ghost comes out, he will quite possibly be the only undamaged bot in the game.
Ghostie's best ability is his tap ability. If you are outnumbered (which seems likely in our two wide squad), he helps level the playing field by tapping an enemy when he attacks. This will cut down on the number of hits your guys take from wider teams. Since it says 'you may tap an enemy' you likely also get to decide who is tapped. This can open up a bot to attack on the next turn, or waste the opponent's best attacker's turn before he can attack you. These strategic decisions will make you excited when a Starscream is KOd and he gets to come out!
Random Musing: I don't recall if there is a character who starts out in a mode where he benefits from someone being KO'd (Quake's KO ping ability is triggered in body mode). If there is, it would be interesting to see if pairing him with Starscream's Ghost would trigger that ability at the start of the game (He is technically KO'd before the game, so we'd need a ruling from the rules overlords).
