Sharing is Caring

This month's deckbuilding challenge provided me with an opportunity to use a class of character I barely think of - Mercenaries!  It all starts with one of the characters in the challenge - Axor:

Axor lets you move a weapon or armor from another character when they battle, and if that character is a Mercenary, you get to trigger their bounty ability.  This is great because one of the problems I've consistently had with Mercenaries is how hard it is to trigger them.  Editor's note: I had no idea who Axor was, and upon doing some research apparently he's from the live action movies and the IDW comics? And sometimes he's known as Axer?

Characters/Stars:

Axor (Bayformers World Strike) 8: Axor is here to trigger bounty abilities by taking weapon or armor upgrades from his teammates after they battle.

Lockdown Bounty Hunter 10: His bounty ability involves putting a card beneath him.  Each card beneath him gives him +2 attack in bot mode.  As a bonus, when he flips to vehicle mode he also draws a card for each card under him and for each upgrade he has.  While you scrap that many cards from your hand, it does allow you to sift for the cards you really want.

Bug Bite (Bayformers Wastelands) 7 - Bug Bite is pretty cheap at 7 stars and his bounty ability is nice.  He scraps a card from the opponent's hand and that card will either repair one of your team or damage the other team by one.

Battle Cards (pip)(number)

Official Cards:

Contract Contingency (BL,BL)(3): This action gives a character +2 attack.  If it is used for a Mercenary and the attack does 4 or more damage, you can use the character's bounty ability. 

Dual Wield (BL, BL)(3): This card gives a character a extra weapon slot until the end of the turn.  When it is played for a Mercenary, you are able to play a weapon from the scrap pile on it.  This is a great way to dig a weapon out, use it on a mercenary, and then shift it to Axor before the 'extra slot' expires.

Opportune Offensive (BL, B)(3): This card can be played because I have a Decepticon (Axor) and Mercenaries on my team.  I can play it on Axor to get +3 ATK and Pierce 3 until the end of the turn.  

Enforcement Batons (OG)(3): Scraps an enemy weapon when put on a character.  Since it says "when you put this on a character" I am thinking/hoping it will trigger when I put it on my Mercenary and again when I put it on Axor after the move.

Scrapper Gauntlets (O)(3): Same reasoning as above.  If moving to Axor counts to trigger "when you ut this on a character" then I get to scrap another weapon.

Shoulder Holster (BL)(3): If you've been paying attention you've noticed I have used a ton of weapons in this deck.  Shoulder Holster gives me an extra weapon slot, which Axor may need if he's going to keep taking weapons from my Mercenaries.  The nice thing is, when I put it on a character, if the top card on my deck is a weapon, I can play it on the character as well.  Hopefully I don't need to use this, but given the weapons I have in my deck, it could come into play.

Valuable Contract (BL)(1):  Odds are I won't be using this, but if I manage to knock a character out, I can use this card's bounty ability, which lets me bring in a star card from outside the game and add it to my deck.

Mining Pick (O)(3): Just a cool weapon, letting you plan 2 and giving an atk bonus when you do.

Ghost Armor (O)(3): This armor can replace a character's existing armor to give that character +3 Defense.  This could be handy if I keep moving defensive cards to Axor (I think I'd have to put an armor on a Mercenary, move it to Axor.  Put another on the mercenary.  Cover it with Ghost Shield, then move Ghost Shield to Axor).  Will that happen?  Probably not, but it does have an orange pip so there's that.

Bayformers Wastelands:

38 Amp Ionic Plate (BL)(3): Armor that gives Mercenaries pierce 1 on top of its defensive abilities.

Bayformers World Strike:

Black mail (BL)(3): If this armor is on a Mercenary and the character takes damage without being KOd, it shifts one damage counter to the opponent.

Dutch (W)(3): This weapon gives Mercenaries an extra card flip when a white pip is flipped to pair with an additional +1 attack.

Ark Wave 1:

Tsunami Blaster (OG)(3): This weapon gives bold 1 for each card under it. Given the machine I am trying to set up where Axor takes cards from Lockdown and triggers his ability to put a card under him, this can potentially be a powerful card.

Cloaking Screen (B, G - ranged only)(3) - I need some more armor upgrades to get the Axor/Mercenary bounty machine going. This one has the advantage of giving stealth, which can come in handy if I'm trying to keep someone alive.

Strategy: 

The plan is simple.  Get lots of weapons and armor on Bug Bite and Lockdown.  Battle with them first, triggering Axor's ability to take those items, which triggers their bounty ability.  I'm probably focusing on using Lockdown first to get as many cards under him as possible.  Bug Bite is going second, guaranteeing there is someone who can take advantage of his heal bounty ability if the person scraps an action.

Axor doesn't flip, so I can focus on flipping the other characters if need be.  But I have to be careful to make sure they are in position to use their bounty ability after they attack, so I'm probably not flipping very much.

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.

Get to Da Choppa

This deck, which I built as part of the Turbo Revving Old Punks deck building challenge,  is a departure from my normal approach because I'm using fan set cards.  I am including pictures of the fan cards so people who aren't familiar with those sets can see some of the cool stuff people have been making to keep the game alive.  Thanks to their efforts, I can finally make a helicopter deck! 

THE DECK

Characters (set)(stars)

Highbrow Appallingly Astute (TROP 1)(9)

Whirl (Wave 5)(12)

Tracer Ambitious Scout (Ark 1)(4)

Battle Cards (Pip)(Number)

Evasive Action (TROP Wave 1)(O - plane only)(3)

Arial Superiority (ARK Wave 1)(no pip)(3)

Trithyllium Drill (TROP Wave 1)(B)(3)

Armed Hovercraft (B)(3)

Brainstorm (B)(3)

Cooling Vents (O)(3)

Drill Arms (B)(1)

Energon Axe (B)(3)

Matrix of Leadership (OB)(3)

Roll Out (OB)(2)

The Bigger They Are (B)(3)

Tripwire (B)(3)

War of Attrition (GB)(3)

Anticipation Engine (W)(2)

Crystal of Power (BL)(1)

Why these characters:

The first thing I thought when I saw Highbrow was "Finally, another helicopter.  It's time to get to da choppa!"  (Bonus points if you get the deck title reference).

When I started looking at helo options to pair with Highbrow, a character I've never been able to build around due to his high star cost jumped out - Whirl.  At 12 stars, he's too expensive given that he's really not good enough to be the focus of a deck.  He inevitably ends up in tall teams (a few big bots), which I find tend to get eaten alive by wide teams (many smaller bots).  But it turns out he pairs quite nicely with Highbrow.  Highbrow's alt ability is to ping his attacker for 1 damage if he flips two blue cards when defending.  Whirl also loves blue pips - when you hit one while attacking, he pings each non-defending enemy.  This is a great way to counteract wide teams and make the most out of my blue card strategy.  

It would have been impossible to find a fitting third character before the fan made sets (and I've never really liked using star battle cards or stratagems that much).  The official cards are very light on helicopters, and none had 4 stars (This was especially frustrating given the potential for Tidal Wave to deploy a 4 star helicopter but I digress).  Alpha Bravo was the closest helo option at 5 stars but he obviously wouldn't fit.  Tracer is admittedly nothing to get too excited about, but he fits the stars, fits the theme, and packs a little punch at 3 attack.  His stealth ensures he can stay alive long enough to pick the best time to use him.

Why these battle cards:

This is a helicopter team so I tried to follow that theme first and foremost.  Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of helicopter support cards, so I'll take what I can get. Thankfully, the fan sets save the day once again, providing three cards for the deck.  While it doesn't have a pip, Aerial Superiority is pretty beast for helicopters (+4 attack and pierce) ... but only if they face tanks, cars, or trucks (I guess boats are impervious to planes!).  I'll take my chance that I face at least one those on the other team.  This would be a great card for Tracer to use to make his turn worth something.

 

Evasive action is a nifty little card that reduces attack damage to helicopters (and planes and spaceships) by two.  Normally its utility as a secret action is weakened by the fact that it goes away if the trigger doesn't occur, but in my case, someone will always be attacking a helicopter so it will always come into play. 

For the rest of my deck, my strategy was to use blue cards to trigger my characters' abilities.  I tried to pick cards that also had something to help offset the fact that I don't really have orange cards in this deck.  

Trithyllium Drill is a blue card weapon that has a plan ability.  This will only come into play in a few circumstanced given my deck, but when I use the ability my character gets +1 pierce.  Armed Hovercraft is a blue card that goes on either of my ranged characters (Whirl or Highbrow) which has the nice side effect of adding another ping damage when it is placed. Brainstorm allows me to play two actions, which can trigger Highbrow's bot mode ability if I need it. Drill Arms give me plus 1 attack, but more importantly it weakens my opponent by taking out their armor (or giving me a card if they don't have any armor).   Matrix of Leadership is mostly there to sneak some orange into my deck while maintaining near certainty that I'll flip blue every turn.  I don't have a leader on this team, but the +1 attack from a utility spot helps my two Autobots. Roll out is another orange blue card that is mostly there for pips, but you never know when a flip card will come in handy.  The Bigger They Are is there for Tracer, who will always be attacking a bigger bot and love getting pierce 4.  Hopefully he lives long enough to enjoy this card. Tripwire is another source of chip damage, and if I'm facing a wide team (which could cause this relatively tall squad problems) it will help even the playing field by tapping a 5 star character.  War of Attrition is usually hard to make use of because you really need to snag three to take full advantage of its chip damage, but since this deck is pretty low on attack power, I figured it's worth the risk.  Energon Axe is a beasty weapon and its blue pip is a bonus. 

Anticipation Engine is a white pip card (which shouldn't hurt my blue pip flipping because it allows me to flip more cards).  What it brings to the table is the ability to play an action card if that's on top of my deck.  With Highbrow's bot ability, I can set it up to make sure this happens (and this deck is pretty heavily weighted to actions anyway).  These actions help offset my lack of orange pips in the deck.

Cooling vents is an orange pip armor card that repairs one damage from ranged characters when placed on them.  This can help Highbrow and Whirl stay in the air.  Crystal of Power is just cool so I had to add it.

Strategy:

This deck is all about pinging damage with blue cards. I'm likely using Whirl first - he's guaranteed to nail everyone on the other team and it gives me time to collect some cards for Highbrow to potentially use with his bot mode ability.  If I get Brainstorm and some actions, I'll flip Highbrow, but otherwise, I like him defending in helicopter mode.  Tracer is lying in wait hoping I get some cards that can help him make his life worth something - like Aerial Superiority, The Bigger They Are, or Crystal of Power (which goes away when he uses it anyway so it doesn't matter as much if he dies).  Defense and healing cards are funneled towards Whirl if the opposing team is wide - if he can make it 4 turns he can really hurt a team of five star bots.  If the opposing team is tall, I'd consider propping up Highbrow because he stings the opponent every time he is attacked.

Will this deck win?  Who knows, but if you are losing, you can always ruuuuuun...goooo....get to the choppa!
 

Friendly Fire

The glory days of Transformers TCG featured deck building challenges held by the community.  Well, those days are back thanks to the Energon Hustlers.  This challenge involves using either Inferno or Private Red Alert and either Salvage for Parts (Wave 1) or Step Forward (Wave 4).  While the challenge only requires one of each, I took it upon myself to work them all in because I found the perfect episode to base my deck on.

Red Alert serves as the security director of the Autobots and is "paranoid."  Inferno is "fearless" which is kind of the opposite of being paranoid.  Despite these differences Red Alert and Inferno are described as "close friends" and actually have teamed up in quite a few Transformers episodes.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are both fire vehicles or maybe it's a case of opposites attract.  Either way, they are featured in so many episodes together (see Dinobots Island, The Revenge of Bruticus, Blaster Blues), I had no choice but to work with them both even though the challenge only required one.  But which episode would form the basis of the perfect deck?  After extensive research and my inability to fit a Dinobots into the team stars wise, I settled on the perfect episode: Auto Berserk.

In Auto Berserk, the Autobots thought it would be a good idea to create a super-weapon creatively called the Negavator (which I will work in as many times as I can because it is fun to say).  As literally anyone could predict, they were attacked by the Decepticons who tried to steal it.  Buddies Inferno and Red Alert stayed behind to guard the Negavator while the rest of the squad met the Decepticons in battle.  Inferno got lured away to help fight (not sure why they didn't just use the Negavator if it was so legit, but whatever).  The Decepticons lost, but in their retreat they managed to injure Red Alert.  His logic chips were screwed up, making him more paranoid than usual.

When the Autobots set out to take the Negavator back to headquarters, the Decepticons attacked again.  The Autobots beat them and the Decepticons booked out a second time, except Megatron ditched Starscream because he's kind of annoying.  Optimus asked some pretty reasonable questions about Red Alert's inability to detect a completely predictable attack, but Red Alert's paranoia caused him to run off.  This is where Starscream comes in.  He was able to bond with Red Alert by probing the depth of his Megatron insecurities.  The two erstwhile enemies were able to bond over their common ground, which is kind of heartwarming if you step back and think about it.  They decide to become bros and steal the Negavator and teach their respective horrible bosses a lesson.

The dynamic duo managed to snag the Negavator.  Megatron caught up to them and Starcream wussed out and said he was tricking Red Alert to get the weapon for Megatron (Starcream has a habit of doing this).  Then he shot Red Alert with his patented Null-Ray, which seems like a crappy thing to do, but it ended up stabilizing his logic circuits (kind of like when you hit someone on the head and they get amnesia and then hit them again and they are cured).  This is where Red Alert's original bro comes in, as Inferno saved Red Alert from being crushed.  Everyone apologized for their role in this fiasco and the world is all good again.

In addition to the rules of the challenge, I constrained myself to using official game cards to enable me to build the deck using the app.  The fortressmaximus.io visual depiction of the deck is included at the end of this article.  Behold, Friendly Fire (see what I did there with the name? It's very nuanced).

Characters (Stars):
Inferno (12)
Private Red Alert (7)
Starscream Decepticon Lieutenant (5)
Mounted Missiles (1)

Battle Cards (number)(pip):
Data Pad (3)(W)
Drill Arms (3)(B)
Field Repair (3)(O)
Hand-To-Hand Combat (3)(B)
Increased Durability (3)(BL)
Kinetic Converter (3)(W)
Mining Pick (3)(O)
Rapid Conversion (3)(W)
Ready For Action (3)(none)
Roll Out (3)(OB)
Salvage for Parts (3)(none)
Security Checkpoint (3)(BL)
Step Forward (3)(B)
Mounted Missiles (1)(OO)

Breakdown: 11 Orange, 18 Blue, 9 White, 3 black, 6 blank.  24 Actions, 6 Utility, 7 Weapons, 3 Armor

Why these characters: Well, to be honest, there doesn't seem to be a lot of synergy between Inferno and Red Alert. But they are buddies, so I had to keep them together.  I needed a Starscream to be Red Alerts new best friend, and the only one that can fit stars wise is Decepticon Lieutenant.  With these mismatched bots smashed together on a team, I had my work cut out for me with my battle cards.

Why these battle cards:  Red Alert has two abilities.  The first is pretty lame.  You need to flip at least an orange, white, and blue to get him a +3 attack.  That isn't very likely but I did try to have a fair amount of each color to give me a chance in case I wanted to go for it. I also added cards that let me stack the deck to give me a better chance - Data Pad, Field Repair, Mining Pick. 

Red Alert's other power is better (and more thematic for a fire chief's car).  When you flip, you get to repair one damage.  This led me to add a bunch of flip cards, as I now perceived my best chance at success as crafting this as a healing deck - Rapid Conversion and Roll Out give me good chances I can flip Red Alert a few times for some healing.  Field Repair and to a lesser extent Increased Durability also help. 

It turns out all this flipping is potentially good for Inferno as well.  His bot mode has no powers, but flipping to alt-mode allows you to return a characters upgrades to their owners hand.

I decided to add cards to my deck that interacted with upgrades. Drill Arms allows me to scrap an owner's armor. That's kind of duplicative of Inferno's powers.  But the kicker is, if there are no armor to scrap, then I can draw a card.  This would allow me to flip Inferno to knock off an enemy armor, and then play drill arms to snag a card.

Salvage for Parts and Hand-to-Hand Combat also has some interesting synergy potential with my healing deck and Inferno's ability.  First, I use Inferno's flip to knock off one of my enemy upgrades - the one with the most upgrades gets targeted.  Then I use Hand to Hand Combat on one of my weaponless characters to attack a different defender, giving me +3 attack and knocking off their weapon.  In the alternative, I can use Drill Arms to knock off an enemy armor.  With these upgrades gone, I can play Salvage for Parts on my next turn.  This card scraps ALL upgrades, and gives a +1 healing for each upgrade scrapped.  In this case, I have reduced the healing from my opponent while getting the maximum healing for my team.  Because I'm knocking off my own upgrades, I included cards that get me more cards such as Data Pad.  Kinetic Converter is there to help gain additional benefit (a card) from all the flipping I'll be doing.

Inferno also loves Security Checkpoint.  After Inferno returns a character's upgrades to their owner's hand, I can play this card to force them to scrap them all, ensuring they won't simply be added back on.

Ready for Action is included to try to squeeze the most out of Red Alert (or Starscream if need be).  Step Forward is there for one purpose.  Sneaky Starscream is pretty weak, so if someone is going to come after him, this would allow me to route the attack to one of my Autobots. This fits the theme of the episode - Starscream is using Red Alert for his own nefarious purposes.  

Strategy: Starscream's team up with Red Alert means you try to keep him alive as long as possible but once he's done, Red Alert can be free to reunite with Inferno.  This has nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with theme.  Starscream has to be the guy who bites it first if you are trying to follow what happened in the episode.

Your first move will probably be dictated by what cards you draw.  If you get healing cards, you're going to probably flip Red Alert first to set him up to heal when he flips back.  If you get some of the card that work with Inferno, you'll want to flip him first to take advantage of them the next turn.  Field Repair only works on Autobots, so if you have that, you may want to route the attacks towards the Autobots if you get that card in the early going.

If you manage to collect a ton of cards and you have some of the 'plan' cards in the deck, you can try for Red Alert's orange, white, blue attack bonus.  This would be a nice surprise if you can get it, but I wouldn't count on it happening as you form your strategy.

Ideally, you can get both Red Alert and Inferno into bot mode when you have Roll Out, which allows you to flip both of them at once, taking advantage of both of their powers.  How cool would it be to have Starscream get KO'd and then they reunite for a cool heal and upgrade stripping combo move?

Conclusion: While Inferno and Red Alert's cards, like their characters' personalities, don't seem to have much in common, this deck sets up some opportunities for some cool combo moves. You might not win, but you do have the opportunity to make a lot of fire quips when you attack - like "Fire in the hole!" "Where there's smoke, there's fire!" and when you KO someone "You're fired!" If you like this deck, you may like some of my other Starscream decks: Starscream's Ghost, Oh How It Pains Me To Do This, and Starscream's Brigade.  This deck has a lot of flipping.  For a deck with literally NO flipping, check out Un-Transformers.

A Star(Card) Is Born

The Needlenose back of the binder challenge is particularly difficult for me because Needlenose doesn't appear in an episode of the show. This means I am robbed of my normal theme deck article structure.  The best I could do is share this Dinobot-a-riffic comic cover:

Even without the benefit of TV, the power of the internet reveals that his slogan is "Get hip or get hit!" That is worth something! He is apparently cool and trendy, which means I have to come up with a deck befitting his attitude.  Does this deck do the trick? Sure!

Characters:

Needlenose (8)
Nightracer (5)
Flamewar (5)
Raider Laserbeak (5)
Villainous Spotlight Stratagem
Stealth Mission Stratagem 

Battle Cards (Pip)(Number):
Ancient Wisdom (O)(3)
Armed Hovercraft (B)(3)
Cooling Vents (O)(3)
Crystal of Power (BL)(3)
Data Pad (W)(3)
End Hostilities (B)(3)
Energon Mace (B)(3)
Grenade Launcher (O)(3)
Grenade Launcher (O)(3)
Hold the Line (WG)(3)
Pocket Processor (G)(3)
Spymaster's Ruse (BL,BL,G)(3)
Unleash Potential (B)(3)
Even the Score (OO)(2)
Mounted Missles (OO)(1)
Pincer Movement (OB)(1)

Why these characters:

One key ingredient to the Needlenose back of the binder challenge is ... Needlenose.  His abilities both trigger on star cards, so my goal was to get as many as possible into my deck.  My first stop was Nightracer, as she (along with her stratagem) brings two star cards into my deck.  Villainous Spotlight is a means to two more star cards, so I needed to make sure I had all Decepticons on my squad (I could have gone with Beachcomber, but I couldn't find a partner to make his abilities work).  With my ten remaining stars, I picked the always versitile Flamewar and Laserbeak, because he's awesome.

Why these battlecards:

The only star card that works with Nightracer is Even the Score.  To hide which secret action I play, I added Hold the Line (which gives some healing and damage limits), End Hostilities (which will help my orange skewed deck defend agaisnt orange decks).  To make the best use of these cards and Nightracer's abilities, I added Spymaster's Ruse, which will keep them in play.

Since Needlenose is hip to star cards, I added Unleash Potential and Ancient Wisdom to bring some more into my deck. I admit I am kind of obsessed with this combo, and I haven't really gotten it to work, but there's a first time for everything!  I also added cards to help draw cards to get these into my hand, Pocket Processor, Data Pad.

Strategy: 

The goal is to get secret actions and star cards into my hand.  When this happens dictates when I play Needlenose.  I'm probably flipping Flamewar into bot mode and keeping her there to help everyone defend.  If I can get star cards into my hand, I'm Needlenose is doing all the flipping, which lets me do 1 damage when I play a star card and then retrive it when I flip him.

Dino DNA

Transformers.  Robots that transform into vehicles.  While it would seem there is no way to improve on that concept, in "S.O.S. Dinobots," the cartoon upped the ante.  Robots that transform into dinosaurs!?  How is this possible?

Here's how.  Remember how the Autobot base is really a ship that crashed into Earth and lay dormant for a long time?  Well, right outside the base were some fossils, which Ironhide found.  Spike helpfully explained that the fossils were from dinosaurs.  Just like that, the Autobots were hooked.  Wheeljack and Ratchet decided to construct robot versions of dinosaurs to help fight Decepticons.  After much work, Wheeljack proudly unveiled Grimlock, Slag (which is apparently a British curse word so now he's Slug), and Sludge.  Apparently Wheeljack didn't spend much time learning about dinosaurs, because Sludge is a sauropod (the category of dinosaurs that Apatosaurus and Diplodocus fall in) and they were vegetarians who didn't fight, so I'm not sure how useful that would be in the ongoing war with the Decepticons.  I'll give him a solid B, because a Tyrannosaurus Rex is pretty legit, despite its tiny arms.

Swoop (the third member of my squad) was introduced later.  While the original Dinobots were kind of dim witted, Optimus Prime considered them pretty cool and asked for more.  In "War of the Dinobots" Wheeljack and Ratchet pulled another Dr. Frankenstein and made Swoop and Snarl.  Technically, Swoop is a pterosaur (pterodactyls are a type of pterosaur) which isn't a dinosaur, but having four Dinobots and a Pterobot doesn't have much of a ring to it so I'll give them a pass.  Perhaps due to their sloppy paleontology, the Dinobots didn't really dig the Autobots at first, but when Prime saved Grimlock, they came around.



I'm a big dinosaur fan (if you can't tell from my science links above), so this deck celebrates everything Dinobot.  The fortressmaximus.io visual depiction of the deck is included at the end of the article.

Characters/Stratagems:
Grimlock Powerful Commander (9)
Sludge Mighty Stomper (8)
Swoop Fearsome Flyer (6)
Jurassic Punch (1)
Heroic Spotlight (1)

Battle Cards (Number)(Pip) Note: the Heroic Spotlight Stratagem allows me to use two blue star cards which would otherwise exceed the star cap:
Dinobot Enigma (3)(G)
Dino-Chomp! (3)(B)
Electrified Spikes (3)(O)
Emergency Repair Patch (3)(B)
Enforcement Batons (2)(OG)
Enhanced Power Cell (3)(BL)
Grenade Launcher (3)(O)
High Five (3)(G)
I Still Function! (3)(no pip)
Improvised Shield (3)(OO)
Medic's Protective Field (3)(W)
Minor Medic Kit (3)(BL, BL)
Ready For Action (3)(no pip)
Energized Field (1)(BB)*
Fuel Cache (1)(WOB)*
Breakdown: 15 Orange, 9 Blue, 8 Green, 4 White, 9 Black.  22 Action, 5 Weapon, 10 Armor, 3 Utility.

Why these characters:

Dinosaurs are cool. Transformers are cool. Dinobots should therefore be the coolest.  But I've never been able to make them work in the game. Perhaps Wave 5 has some tools to help.  To keep with the theme, I wanted to have all dinobots but I didn't like the other combiner dinos very much. I chose Sludge because he can heal dinobots when they attack in his bot mode (and transfer damage to his alt mode when he flips).  Hopefully, that can help keep Grimlock alive.  I picked Swoop because his star count fits and I liked his alt mode ability to move a damage from him to an enemy when he flips.

This deck tries to use Sludge to keep Grimlock alive long enough to bring the other combiner Dinobots into the KO area so he can combine. Swoop is around to either draw an attack (because he's the squishiest target) or stay alive with his flips. His 3 atk, 10 HP, and 2 Def compare favorably with the wave 2 Dinobots and he costs fewer stars (Snarl is 3/9/2 and Swoop is 3/11/1 for 7 stars). Since I wanted to try Jurassic Punch, I can't use the 8 star combiner Dinobots.

I toyed with using Me Grimlock, You Grimlock to put a head on someone else to get them into the KO area as a Dinobot, then using I Still Function! to bring them to life for an attack, which could in theory spring the head into action when he dies after the turn ... but that seemed to be a lot of work and a lot of stars to bring a headmaster into the battle and I'm not sure if it is even legal.

With my extra stars, I used Jurassic Punch, because it seems like the only proper thing to do with a dino deck, even though I don't think the card is very useful and I doubt I'll make it to combination.  Since the team is all Autobots, I used Heroic Spotlight to get some more star cards into my deck.

Why these battle cards:
Let's start with the obvious.  Dinobot Enigma, Dino-Chomp, and Electrified Spikes are Dinobot specific cards.  That means they have to be in, even if they aren't that great.  The Enigma is there on the off chance I can pull off my strategy and get into position to combine.  I really like Electrified Spikes, as it allows me to hurt my attacker if I pull two orange pips while defending.  Dino-Chomp is meh, but it could come in handy if I only have one card in my hand anyway.

Because I only have one of the combiner Dinobots in my lineup, I need to try to get Grimlock to attack as many times as possible.  To do that, I need Ready For Action so I can untap him.  I also need to keep him alive.  So I included Medic's Protective Field, Minor Medic Kit, High Five, Enhanced Power Cell, and Emergency Repair Patch.  The goal is to keep Grimlock alive so he can keep attacking and bringing out more of the Dinobots into the KO area.

To deal some damage, I added Enforcement Batons (which also has the nice effect of scrapping a weapon), Grenade Launcher, Improvised Shield (2 orange pips).  I tried to include a fair amount of orange to trigger Energized Field and Electrified Spikes, but I admit I didn't put enough in to count on it reliably.  I used Heroic Spotlight to fit Energized Field and Fuel Cache into my deck.  I am hoping that is legal, as Fuel Cache has a blue pip and orange.  I selected it for its pips, as I felt I needed more orange in the deck.

I had considered adding Swap Missions to get more attacks out of Grimlock, so that is an option as well. I didn't include it because it ends up tapping someone else, and I felt like that could be counterproductive on a 3 wide team.

Strategy: The idea is to keep Grimlock alive and get as many attacks out of him as possible.  I am going to need to squeeze four attacks out of him to make it work, which will be very tough.  Sludge should help, as should all the 'keep him alive' cards I put in my deck.  Once I get Grimlock into bot mode, he doesn't need to transform anymore.  Similarly, once I get Sludge into bot mode, he will only have to flip if I really need him to transfer some damage from Grimlock to himself.  That leaves Swoop free to flip back and forth to heal himself or to transform the bots in the KO pile to get into combiner position.  The first two turns, I'd transform Grimlock and Sludge, with the order varying depending on if I go first or second and what the opponent does.

This strategy is reliant on hitting two cards - I Still Function! and Ready For Action.  Once I get some of the combiner Dinobots into the KO area, I can use I Still Function! to bring them into the playing field, transform to get into bot mode (which they need to be in to combine) and get an attack in before they die again.

Ready For Action will hopefully let me untap Grimlock, which is needed to keep him from being targeted by everyone and allow him to attack again, bringing another combiner Dinobot into my KO area.

The health and healing effects are all funneled to Grimlock (and Sludge if I need to siphon off some of Grimlock's damage).  If I can pull this off long enough, I just might be able to combine these guys into Volcanicus.  He should be able to one shot anyone on the other team, so I'm hoping it has become a 1 on 1 at that point.

Note 1: Slag/Slug is not on the team, but he had a sweet line in Transformers: The Movie:

Note 2: If you use this deck against a plane team, use the picture of Grimlock biting a plane out of the air to argue he should get to immediately K.O. a plane.

Master Builders

The third Back of the Binder challenge stars Grapple, who presents challenge on two fronts.  First, his card abilities are quite difficult to trigger.  More importantly for me, his appearances in the original cartoon were quite limited, making a theme deck more difficult because theme decks based on the original cartoon is what I do!

Grapple is kind of a lame character.  He likes to build stuff. He whines a lot about people messing up the stuff he builds. His only true 'showcase' episode was one where he basically is an idiot.  Naturally, that's the episode I went with!

In "The Master Builders," Grapple designs a solar power tower.  He showed it to Optimus Prime all excited because he designed something cool.  Instead, Prime shot down his idea because he was busy learning basketball from Spike (WHAT?!?) and because the tower would be too difficult to defend against the inevitable Decepticon attack.


Grapple and Hoist went off to pout and got captured by the Constructicons. But apparently the Constructicons had left the Deceptions.  The master builders (see what I did there?) decide to team up on a project and build the brilliantly designed and creatively named solar power tower.  This actually isn't inconsistent with the IDW Transformers Galaxies Rise of the Constructicons characterization of them, but in the context of the show, it made no sense. I guess Grapple's love of building stuff blinded him to all reality. To quote Agent Burns in Bumblebee 'They literally call themselves Decepticons. That doesn't set off any red flags?"

Megatron figured out what the Constructicons were up to and forced them to rejoin his squad.  He gave them some energon to use to convince Hoist and Grapple that they were all in on the Lego Masters, I mean master builders partnership.  Amazingly, showing up with some energon did the trick and they got to work on the tower, using supplies the Constructicons stole from humans. Again, this doesn't seem like something Grapple should be cool with, but whatever.

When the tower was complete, Megatron showed up and claimed the it.  I guess Optimus wasn't so stupid after all, Grapple!  The Autobots managed to get Devastator to accidentally destroy the tower, and they didn't even need Omega Supreme to bail them out.  Grapple and Hoist were forced to clean up the mess they caused while reminiscing over what might have been.

This deck is an homage to Grapple's stupidity, using his design skills to pull off a feat of engineering while reuniting him with the Constructicons to build a tower .

Note: The fortressmaximus.io visual of the deck is included at the end of this post.


Characters:
Grapple (12)
Scrapper (5)
Longhaul (4)
Scavenger (4)
Constructicon Tower card

Battle Cards (Pip Color)(Number):
Bashing Shield (GO)(2)
Kinetic Converter (W)(3)
Pocket Processor (G)(3)
Attack Drone (GW)(3)
Enforcement Batons (GO)(2)
Mining Pick (O)(3)
Heavy Landing (B)(3)
Master Plan (BG)(3)
Overwhelming Advantage (GO)(3)
Pep Talk (B)(3)
Secret Dealings (GW)(3)
Reclaim (B)(3)
Treasure Hunt (O)(3)
Work Overtime (W)(3)
Breakdown: 13 Orange, 12 Blue, 12 White, 19 Green.  24 Actions, 2 Armor, 6 Utility, 8 Weapons.

Why These Characters:
Grapple is a dude who just likes to build stuff - as his card notes, he is the 'Autobot Architect.'  I needed to find some bots who shared his love for building, because absent that, any teammate would probably find him annoying to be around.  Even without "The Master Builders" the Constructions fit the bill. They are construction vehicles, perfect for helping bring architectural plans from paper to reality.  If you've read the Transformers Galaxies Rise of the Constructicons comic, you know the Constructicons had humble origins as a group of dudes who just liked to build stuff.  Having a Gen1 cartoon episode throw them together was icing on the cake.  I obviously couldn't fit all the Constructicons on this team (Thanks for the insane 12 star count Grapple!), but Scapper had to be added to make use of the Tower (which also is great thematic fit for the episode).  Scavenger and Longhaul fit stars wise and had the best mix of health and defense. I also like their bold and tough powers if I ever flip them.






Why These Battle Cards:
This deck has two goals, triggering Grapple's powers and building a Construction tower to take advantage of Heavy Landing.  Here is how the deck tries to accomplish both goals.

Grapple

Architectural planning through double pips: Grapple's ability requires either flipping or discarding exactly four different colors.  I've never even tried to build a deck around this because it is too easy to screw up. One color too many or too few and you whiff.  To maximize my chance at triggering his abilities, I added multi-color pip cards: Attack Drone, Bashing Shield, Enforcement Batons, Master Plan, Overwhelming Advantage, and Secret Dealings.  I avoided black pips to increase my odds of getting only 4 pip colors.  Maybe I'll get lucky between the double pip cards and my white cards and hit four different colors during a battle.  If I have two cards in my hand with two pips at the right time, I can flip to truck mode and spring his ability without tossing away too many cards.  Given my deck's pip ratios, I should at worst be able to pull that off with 3 cards.

Architectural planning through ... planning: Grapple's abilities require careful planning, which makes sense given his architect background.  I included as many planning cards as possible to allow me to stack the deck and trigger his bot mode ability: Mining Pick, Overwhelming Advantage (which takes advantage of this team having 3 Deceptions), Reclaim, and Secret Dealings.

Constructicons

Can we build it? Yes we can .. by dying: Constructions aren't great, but they have this thing called the tower.  While that doesn't sound scary, what if the tower is a solar power tower?  Now we are cooking.  Thanks to having Scrapper on our team, each time a Constructicon dies, it builds a layer on the tower.  This will happen because these guys are pretty weak.

Can we build it? Yes we can ... by fetching cards: Each time a Construction attacks, they can scrap a card to build the tower.  I added fetch cards to make sure I have some in hand to pitch: Work Overtime, Treasure Hunt, Pocket Processor, Pep Talk, Reclaim, and Kinetic Converter.

Why am I trying to build the solar power tower when I can't form Devastator?  Heavy Landing! Heavy Landing benefits from a high tower. Yes, focusing on building the tower in the hopes of getting that card is a speculative play.  But so was Grapple's decision to team up with these guys.  Even if my tower plan fails, the fetch cards will help Grapple, because you have to have cards in order to stack the top of the deck with them using plan cards.

Strategy:

The plan is to get cards in my hand as fast as possible.  The order I play my characters will depend on which cards I draw.  In the early going, if I have two cards with four pip colors, I'll flip Grapple, discard them, and deal 4 damage and attack with Scrapper.

If my early hand is not conducive to that, I can get to work on my tower by attacking with a Constructicon and discarding a card.  When he inevitably dies, my tower will move to 2.  It will take some luck to get my tower to 6 - I'll need Longhaul or Scavenger to somehow get two attacks in because Scrapper doesn't have the discard a card to increase the tower ability.  If I get an armor, it is probably worth throwing it on a Constructicon to try to get that additional attack out of him. It may also make sense to attack with Grapple to try to draw my opponent's fire.  If  I can make it, this will make playing Heavy Landing satisfying.

If my hand has the right pips and I have a plan card to play, I can use Grapple's bot mode ability to stack the deck and ensure I get +4 Attack.  I'm not sure how I can plan for the Defense side of a battle, so that may just come down to luck.

Analysis: The partnership between Grapple and the Constructicons was like the meteoric rise of a one hit wonder band. They got together, made a sweet solar power tower together, only to have the band (and the tower) break up.  The one synergy in this deck is, both Grapple and his decepti-bros want to draw cards.  Hopefully these guys can work together long enough to get some licks in before Megatron comes in and screws everything up.

I had considered different builds where I used stealth/brave/more armor to keep the Constructicons alive, but at the end of the day, that took away from Grapple's mechanic.  Since Grapple is the focus of the deck, I felt that wouldn't be right!

Should you enter this deck into a tournament?  No.  But if you are looking to use Grapple in a deck that tells the story of an episode, this is the deck for you!