Last week, at the request of Gord, we decided to record some of our local matches for the YouTubes. You can check those out here:

This week, we continued this new tradition. I hope to have those up for you in the next few days. Tonight, we were thrown a last minute challenge by one of our local players. We were challenged to build our Teams using only cards whose name ends in the letter “R”. Handily (and again thanks to Gord’s observation) you can trim down the Team Builder search by using the “r:” to make your life easier. With that handy tool in place, I decided to hit the Team Builder and see what was available to me.

The first thing that I honestly thought of was, “God Catcher” ends in “R”. Not really wanting to play with this, and honestly seeing it as something that might show up, I decided to build to mess with anyone who brought this.

Intimidate and something to mess with actions would be first on the shopping list. There were lots of choices here, but I chose to grab the new hotness of Gazer (for the Intimidate) and Breaker The Magical Warrior (to remove action dice). Either one of these can help remove God Catchers (either the die or the token). The tricky part of the equation is timing these to come out when the threat is there.

You know who can make this really easy?

This guy! For better or for worse, this is now a Collector Team. With him in the Field, I can grab Gazer or Breaker at will (depending on the current need). No win condition yet, but I sure can piss off any God Catcher players now.

What Did You Play?

The Team: Doppeldouche.

Obviously, I needed to focus on “When Fielded” effects to maximize the use of Collector. This was actually hard to narrow down until I recalled some douchey shenanigans that have been used against me not that long ago.

We all know what this Doppelganger can do. Basically, you field him and get to copy any other die you have in the Field. The question is what is worth copying. Ideally, something big and/or nasty would be the first choice.

The card that immediately came to mind when I saw the card pool was BLAM (Black Lantern Anti-Monitor). This bad boy is basically a giant beat stick that drains life as he attacks. The biggest problem with the Card is the Max 1 die. However, that problem is easily overcome with Doppelganger.

So, the douchey part of the combo is this:

Field Collector, get a couple Doppelgangers in the Field as well.

Have a Doppelganger in your Reserve Pool, with 4 spare energy.

Use Collector to bring in BLAM.

Field your next Doppelganger to copy BLAM (you now should have 3 to 4 copies of BLAM in the Field).

Attack!

Bring in your final Doppelganger with Collector to keep your BLAM count high.

There’s the win condition. Flood the Field with BLAMs and make your Opponent’s life uncomfortable.

I still needed some accessory pieces to finish things off. Since I am using “When Fielded” effects primarily, I chose to include the new Nihiloor Global (this really needs a nickname… get on this MOD) in order to recycle my character when needed.

Stone of Golorr was added in to really just give it a try. In theory, if I could draw a DoppelBLAM, with a few already fielded it could be game over. I was not sure I could make it work, but I thought it was worth a try.

I decided to include Beholder on the Team for some more Collector Fodder. This one let me move action dice over to Prep. It also had some good basic stats that I could use with the Stone of Golorr if it ever came to that.

When looking through the BAC pool, there was not much there in the Ramp choices. The best that was available for use (in my opinion) was Create Food and Water. In this case, I was planning on buying the action itself. Hopefully ramp my way up to the Collector and the BLAM turn. The Global would help set the bag to some extent.

For the final addition to the Team, I went with The Outsider. My whole Team (well the important parts) are Villains, and the Global on this card could give me that little extra pump. This was not the most critical when I was planning on swinging with 7 to 9A, but still could be worthwhile.

Can I get the DoppelBLAM train running? Is it as douchey as it looks? Let’s see how it ran.

Game 1:

Up against the first guy to show me this horrible Combo… and he was running it himself. He was using the Uncommon Collector in order to buy Surtur or Obelisk, and copy those with his own Doppelganger. We both went for the early Cake to get some Ramp going. I got to Collector pretty quick with this tool, and he was fielded shortly after that. Once that hit, it took some time to get a few Doppelgangers in the Field. Then the BLAM turn hit. I brought BLAM in with Collector and followed that up by fielding a Doppelganger. Then swung with all the BLAM. Each BLAM caused 2 life loss and you pretty much had to block them. Rinse and repeat a few times and the field shrunk where I had plenty of stats for lethal.

1-0

Game 2:

This game was up against another Team that I considered on the night. Sylgar with Transfer Power. I would need to hold back shields here to prevent his fish from slapping me in the face. I started the game the same as the previous by buying Cake. This time though, the Ramp was just not playing nice. I eventually got Collector but missed him the first way through. He eventually hit, and I added some Doppelgangers (copying Collector for the low attack stats). The BLAM turn was not lining up this game. I made a critical error here and actually resorted to buying BLAM outright. This was an error as a couple turn later, the stars aligned but I had no other BLAM dice to bring in. BLAM missed his one and only time through the bag. I took paper cuts from unblockable Poxwalkers, hit by some beefy beefy fish, and was then eventually outnumbered for lethal.

1-1

Game 3:

The final game of the night was up against Gord, who was using some cards that I was not really familiar with. He had Minotaur, Martian Manhunter and Primaris Repulsor. This last one looked the most threatening as anything unblocked while he attacks gets +2A. Learning from my previous game, I told myself that BLAM was off limits even if I had the energy to buy it. The dice behaved more like the first game allowing me to set up my field (although T1 was a bust when I was forced to buy Gazer as it was the only thing I could buy). Eventually, I set up Collector and a couple Doppelgangers (again copying Collector for the stats). I needed to Collector in Gazer to remove Primaris Repulsor when a nasty looking attack was on the horizon. Then the BLAM turn hit. Collector in BLAM and field a third Doppelganger now copying BLAM. I believe I was called a name here (and rightfully so). Swing and thin the herd. Life loss along the way. The next turn added in my remaining Doppelganger thanks to Collector. It was over shortly after.

2-1

Post-Mortem:

Ever wonder why some of these Super Rare Cards only have one die? This is pretty much the reason. Having 3 to 4 BLAM dice attacking you meant you lost 6 to 8 life before any damage happened. Once it started, there was not much to stop it.

Having said that though, anything that can shut down Collector or “When Fielded” effects would make this Team struggle. Gazer could help here, but would make my life difficult.

Breaker was a dead card on the night. Nobody brought God Catcher and as a result he was not needed. Still worth having in all honesty, but did not see play.

Nihiloor was another one that I did not really need. Since I rarely hard bought things like Gazer, I really did not feel the need to use the Global. I would probably keep it around though as it can be useful if needed.

Beholder was another dud on the night. I may have used it once or twice to get something into Prep, but I rarely thought about buying it for the stats. DoppelBLAM was superior in every situation.

Create Food and Water was the only way I could get to Collector and set up the BLAM turn in this Format. I would not drop this. I used the action and the Global as much as I could. I could not have run the Team without it.

The Outsider was not used once. Not even the Global. Maybe there was something else to consider, but the small buff was still handy to have here.

Stone of Golorr was just too difficult to manage in this Format… at least for me. I found it difficult to set up my bag to have a Doppelganger in there when I could have made my BLAM army unblockable. I want to try this action again with something less restricted.

The core of the Team is amazing. Collector + Doppelganger + Almost Any Max 1 Super Rare = Fun. Other Black Lanterns? Sure! Stompa or Natalia Romanova? On my “to do” list. The possibilities are almost endless. It does take some set-up to pull off, and in a less limited Format will probably shine even more.

Would I play this again? Without a doubt yes. It is not a nice combo, but it is a fun combo to reach for these bigger pieces and abuse them. Would I play it regularly? No. This feels like something to draw out every now and again.

If you could instantly turn your army of Doppelgangers into something special with Collector, what would you choose? What is your beatstick of choice? What cards would you build with that only ended in the letter “R”? Let us know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!

– jourdo

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