Wheelie Say Find Friends Today

Transformers: The Movie introduced a slew of new characters (while killing even more, which for some reason I keep making decks about - see Passing the Matrix, Heroic Nonsense, and Oh, how it pains me to do this).  Unfortunately, recreating a lot of epic moments from this landmark film remained frustratingly out of Transformers TCG players' reach because the game failed to make cards for guys like Wheelie and the Sharkticons (and Kranix - somebody get on that) ... until now!  Thanks to fan sets, we now can recreate even more G1 goodness in deck form. 

This entry into the Turbo Revving Old Punks Deck Tech Challenge - King of the Road focuses on the movie sequence taking place on Quintessa. Hot Rod, the dinobots, and Kup crashed on a water planet filled with dangers. Kup got his arm broken off and tried to woo the Sharkticons with the universal greeting of friendship - ba weep gragna weep ninni bong. That didn't go so well and he and Hot Rod got captured to be tossed in the Sharkticon pit because they were "innocent" (I never figured that part out). Meanwhile, Grimlock and the other dinobots met a little dude named Wheelie who speaks only in rhymes. They broke into the Quintesson lair and bossed them out to the point that Slag said "excuse me" when he straight up crushed a Quintesson. How polite.

At the end of the day, the Autobots showed enough dominance over the Sharkticons that they turned on their masters when self appointed new king Grimlock said "Me Grimlock say execute them!"

This deck takes us to that special point in time when Hot Rod, Wheelie and the gang harnessed the power of the Sharkticons!

Characters - set (stars):
Savage Wheelie - Bayformers Worldstrike (6)
Sharkticon X3 - Ark Wave 1 (4 = 12 total)
Autobot Hot Rod  (7)

Battle Cards - broken down by set (number)(pip)

Ark Wave 1
Death to the Weak (3)(no pip)
Sharkticon Mace (3)(BL)
Dare to Believe (3)(O-cars, B-truck)
Bayformers Worldstrike 
Guilty or Innocent (3)(O-Melee, BL, BL)

Bayformers Wastelands

Razor Wings (3)(O)
Official Cards

Body Armor (3)(O)

Emergency Maintenance (3)(O)

Energon Slingshot (1)(B)

Erratic Lightning (3)(O)

Grenade Launcher (3)(O)

Improvised Shield (3)(OO)

Opportune Repairs (3)(O,BL)

Start Your Engines (3)(BL)

Turbo Boosters (3)(O)

Why these characters:

I would have loved to work Grimlock into this deck, but his star count and abilities just didn't mesh with Savage Wheelie.  So, I populated Wheelie's team with the Sharkticons he shared Quintessa with and Hot Rod because he changed the paradigm by crash landing on the planet (and getting Prime killed but whatever).  I also liked Hot Rod because he has a ping ability of +1 damage whenever he flips in the KO pile.  I haven't built a deck with the horde Skarkticons yet, so this was a fun challenge.  With Horde, you can have up to three of the same named character on a team, which is very thematic to the movie since the Sharkticons swarmed in a mass group.  These dudes have a nasty little Revenge ability that let you untap a tapped Sharkticon (or draw a card) when they die.  

Why these battle cards:

Lets start with the easy one.  Energon Slingshot is here because Savage Wheelie gets it added to my hand before the game starts.  That makes it easy to give it to him (and get the 1 ping damage that comes with adding it) very early in the game.

Wheelie also likes blue cards if he's attacking and orange cards when he's defending.  Instead of trying to have it both ways, I went heavy on orange, figuring I'll leave Wheelie in alt mode where each orange I flip reduces the attack of the bot who is attacking by 1, up to the number of orange they flip.  I figure most opposing decks will lean heavy on orange which will give me a fair amount of utility for this power.  To this end, I have 28 orange pips. Speaking of orange pips, Turbo Boosters is great because it allows cars to untap when it is placed on them, which will help me get an extra attack out of the cars on my team, Wheelie and Hot Rod.

As befits their mercurial nature, the Sharkticons are mercenaries, which allows me to use Opportune Repairs, a cool card I haven't gotten to use very often because there are so few mercenaries.  This will come in handy in keeping Hot Rod and Wheelie Alive (as will Emergency Maintenance).

Wheelie and the Sharkticons are melee, so I added orange pipped Razor Wings (which does 1 damage to each tapped enemy when placed on a melee character) and Body Armor (which allows them to flip 3 more cards on defense and will go great with Wheelie's ability). Improvised Shield does the same thing, but is only Tough 1, which is ok given the fact that it has two orange pips.

Having stocked my deck with cards Wheelie likes, I included some that go great with horde Sharkticons.  Guilty or Innocent allows me to choose to render a defender's Defense 0 or remove tough.  Sharkticon Mace is a neat weapon - if it is placed on a Sharkticon, after it attacks, it gets removed ... and put on another Sharkticon.  In this way, you can cascade one mace down the line as each Sharkticon attacks.  Then as they are killed off, they can untap each other as well.  If my opponent doesn't want to tangle with them (or they are down to 1 HP), I can use Death to the Weak to KO them. This triggers their revenge ability and allows me to repair 3 damage from another character.  Weapon wise, this is also the first time I've been able to use Erratic Lightning - it's -1 Defense won't hurt the Sharkticons who already have 0.

Once Hot Rod dies, I want him to flip to chip in damage, so Start Your Engines was included.  This card is awesome because it also allows me to untap one of my cards (Hot Rod or Wheelie)

Finally, this deck is pretty heavy on orange, so Dare to Believe's bold 1 will help get more of those orange cards out (plus it has Hot Rod on it, so there's that!).

Strategy:

This deck is built around getting lots of extra attacks in, like a swarm.  I'd lead with Hot Rod to try to get him killed first, which seems likely since he's the best bot on the team. Since none of the other characters will be flipping, I'll just flip Hot Rod every time to ping 1 dmg.  Wheelie gets his slingshot and can do some early damage as well.  Meanwhile, I'm loading my Sharkticons with weapons so they can go down in a blaze of glory.  My goal is to make the most of their few attacks (the guys only have a 2 ATK in alt mode, so they'll need some teeth to make a dent).  Attacking with them back to back will allow me to make use of their revenge ability.  With a five wide team, the Sharkticon revenge ability and Start Your Engines, I hopefully will have enough attacks to swarm my opponent even though the individual characters are weak.