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An Approach to Team Building


Last week after the Dice Fight, in Aftermath, some questions arose about team building so this week I am going to look at team building, as for some it is one of the greatest struggles when it comes to preparing for games. Hopefully many of you will benefit from some of the resources, and points made here on in. I'm going to start with laying out some bullet points.

  • Win Conditions
  • Power Cards
  • Ramp & Churn
  • Fixing
  • Control
  • Cost
  • Synergy
  • Card Stat's
Before we dive in a bit deeper, I will start by saying that I normally keep some boxes with a pool of cards I like playing with, and a select number of dice to go with those cards. This not only saves time but these are battle tested cards and are generally the best in their set. This pool is for the most part made up of ccm00007's Essentials List, I separate these into 3 piles.
  • Modern
  • Golden
  • BAC's
Once I know the format I remove any cards that are banned, then I split down further depending on format, for example if its affiliation I split into those, if its dice colour's I split into those and so on. Then I assess each pool of cards for Win Conditions, Power cards, Ramp, Churn, Fixing, Removal and Control. Ideally I will find a pool of cards that provide multiples of these things on 1 card.

Win Conditions
A reasonable place to start, how are we going to win our game? Unblockable characters, direct damage, both? Some players like to stick to one win con, but personally i'm not adverse to using two, as this can help negate some control issues such as Shriek, Bishop, and  Black Widow amongst others. Having different angles to come from is never a bad thing.

Some personal favourites:
  • Boom Boom - Time Bomb
  • Mr Fixit - Muscle for Hire
  • Spider-man - War of the Heart

Power Cards
These cards will generally be cards that fit into any of the categories, and will generally be on a banned list at some point, if they're available to use, then abuse them, it's likely your opponent will.
If they are banned you can usually find a weaker version somewhere with a stricter building constraint.

Some personal favourites:
  • Lantern Ring - Limited only by Imagination
  • Professor X - Trainer
  • Imprisoned
Ramp & Churn

Some personal favourites:
  • Kree Captain - Lost Purpose
  • Mimic - Borrowed Talent
  • Professor X - Trainer
  • Resurrection

Fixing
In my opinion there is a right time and a wrong time to use fixers, baring in mind that you give your opponent the same resource, you want to bring the right fixer for the moment. if your mainly one type of energy, then I would definitely consider the main fixers, if your more of a mix on energy types then I would look at the new Intellect Devourer - Brain Eating Monster.

Some personal favourites:
  • Billy Club - Tool of Justice
  • Mjolnir - Possess the Power of Thor
  • Gorilla Grodd - Brains and Brawn
  • Merlyn - League of Assassins
  • Cyborg - Technis Imperative
Control
Probably my favourite group of cards, these are wide and varied, and you generally want at least a couple to provide protection in your weakest aspects of your build.

Some personal favourites:
  • Wonder Woman - Reflections
  • Wrecker - Enchanted Crowbar
  • Shriek - Sonic Beam
  • Black Widow - Agent
  • Bishop -Butterfly Effect
  • Scarlet Witch - Careful What You Wish For
Cost
This is fairly basic, is the character worth the investment, if no then get rid and move on. Also making sure you spread the range of cost through the team especially on the lower end, will help with energy management, because rolling extra dice to throw them in the used for no effect is pointless. 

Synergy
A team should work together to get the job done, so having cards that work together and not against each other is key. Your not going to run Wonder Woman - Reflections in a team that focuses on fielding effects and attacking effects, its counter productive.

Card Stat's
This is a basic and often overlooked aspect, but stats matter I don't like over paying for something unless the card text is good for cost, you can work out if the stats are good by reading my last article.

Some personal favourites:
  • Morphing Jar - Canopic Jar
  • Guy Gardiner - Blinding Rage
Hopefully there are some things that people can take away from this.

Special thanks to James Blore for the videos, and cmm00007 for putting together the Essentials List. 

Also worth checking out the resources page at Rollin' Thunder.

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