At my normal Wednesday night event last week, one of my local guys was flipping through his binder and flipped past a card mentioning it as a card they liked but never really used. I took a look and came up with a semi-stupid idea that I wanted to try out. This card was:

Blink In-Betweener has a pretty unique ability allowing you to potentially clear out your Opponent’s Field… assuming you can match the energy type that they are using. What better way to maximize your chances of this by loading up with Crossover dice? Sure, the odds of success drop from 50% to around 30%… but you are able to cover two potential energy groups at the same time. I am willing to play with those odds.

So… Tonight’s combo is all about attacking with Blink and hopefully rolling out my Opponent’s Field by rolling Crossover characters on their double energy side. Not really a “win-con” on its own, but definitely sets the table up for some potential fun.

What Did You Play?

The Team: Blink & You Miss It.

Blink In-Betweener has a cool ability, but a horrible purchase cost. Also, she is a Max 1 die. Neither of those are good for this combo. I am going to have a low chance of success here triggering the ability, I need more than one die to make it worth while. Luckily, Blink is also an X-men. You can probably guess where I am going with this. Enter Hope Summers… every Dice Masters player’s favourite X-man. Now, all of a sudden I have access to four easily purchasable dice with this ability.

Since I was going to pair Blink’s ability with Crossover dice, I wanted to get the best bang for my buck and spread across as many energy combinations as I could. Without WWE being available, I was dipping back into Green Arrow/Flash. The first addition was S.T.A.R. Labs (Bolt/Shield) for both a secondary removal option as well as some ramp/bag thinning. Hal Jordan (Bolt/Mask) was next because every Team needs a 2 cost character. Also, his stats on his top end are not too bad. I will be going for combat damage and he will help out in the muscle department.

I still did not have fists covered in my combinations. This is where Zatanna (Fist/Mask) comes in. She also plays a secondary roll here. Her actual ability will help me clear out Sidekicks, who are not affected by Blink. Between the two of them, I should be able to thin things out for my attackers.

Lastly came the every popular, but difficult to see, Cold Gun (Fist/Bolt). It gives me another energy combination and can help stop something nasty from doing bad things to me when needed.

With all of my energy options now covered, I only had a couple of slots remaining. I debated on what to include here, but finally settled on Ork Nob. He is a cheap character, that is easier to purchase than Hal, AND will benefit from Blink’s board clear ability. When Blink/Hope clears things out, she KO’s them. Ork Nob is a fan of that and becomes bigger with each KO.

The final slot was actually not hard to decide on. I am loaded up with Crossover dice. I have to include King Shark here. With Hal or Zatanna active, he becomes a serious threat. Beefy stats become beefier and he gets Overcrush. Yes please!

To get to the Shark, I need Ramp. Resurrection was really one of the better options here. I thought about Thrown Brick, but decided I already have way too many dice to purchase here. I needed the Global option.

Finally, I knew that one of the biggest threats to a combat driven Team would be Bishtraction or Static Field. I pulled Nefarious Broadcast out of the archives (thanks to Ben’s use at Worlds for reminding me how good it is) to put an end to that.

We’ve got a fairly complicated machine that really depends on rolling specific die faces at the right time to work. Let’s see how it ran.

Game 1:

First up was what could best be described as a Black Lantern Martian Manhunter Team. Using Doppelganger to make more Black Lanterns, and Grodd to force your stuff into them. Both of us had slow builds here. I went for the early Hope and got her out quick and turned her into Blink. His Field was a mix of Masks and Bolts, so I armed myself with some Hals. An initial attempt at thinning things out failed miserably. Zatanna and the Shark hit soon, but I had lost my Hope due to a force attack and failing the reroll. It took some time to set up the return. I was also staring down the Mera Global, which pretty much neutered my Shark. Nefarious Broadcast to the rescue here! I had to wait until the stars aligned. I forced his Martian into my Shark with his own Global to get rid of it for my next turn. That left him with only mask character in the Field Zone. I got everything I needed to use Zatana’s Synergy ability to rid myself of his Sidekicks, then purchase an Ork Nob, trigger Nefarious Broadcast to shut off Mera and swing. Since I was using the Ork Nob with Blinks ability, I was up to 50% success and it hit. Away went all of his dice and I had plenty of stats for lethal. I was glad he missed out on his Grodd a few times or this could have been a much different game.

1-0

Game 2:

Angry Red Lanterns here. The Team was all about getting to cheap Overcrushing Supergirls. Again, we both have a little bit of a slow build here so there is some time to set up. I needed to get to the Sharks as quick as I could as they were really the best stats to stand up to the Kryptonian. This time, I went for Hope on each of my first turns. I found in that first game, having just the one die did not work well. I then started to buy my Crossover dice based on what he was buying Fists, Masks, and Bolts seemed to be his mix. Hal, Zatanna, and Cold Gun were my buys. I got the Shark out before I had a Crossover character out so I did not have the benefit of the buff. He was willing to eat the Shark damage to weaken my board state. He did miss out on Supergirl on his first attempt, but was loaded up with them for the second shot. Thankfully, we never got to that. He had all three energy types in the Field and I gambled on a full push. I rolled my spare Zatana and took his Field down to one. Again, the stats were there to deal plenty of damage.

2-0

Game 3:

This was against a Swarm Team using Soul Monger to deal damage and Drizzt to KO them. I love this idea for a Team. He also had a Red Dragon for a big bruiser if needed. I used the same strategy as in the previous game: Hope-Hope in the first two turns. All of his Swarmers were Fists and his protection was Elektra (Mask), so Zatanna and the Shark would be the main players here. I worked my way to the Shark but he only wanted to come out on level 1 in this game. He was willing to eat the Baby Shark (doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo) damage. I had to eat some damage myself as I didn’t want to get stung by the Soul Monger (which was rolling double bursts every single time). Again, I had everything I needed in the Field to strike. Zatana’s Synergy ability took care of the lone Sidekick and it would come down to rolling the other Zatana in the Used Pile. If she rolled double energy, I would clear the Field and win. If she missed, I would be in some trouble. Luckily, the odds worked out for me and she did what she was supposed to. Away went the Field, and through went the damage.

3-0

Post-Mortem:

I had some doubts about this Team going into tonight. I thought it would have been better to include one of each energy type character instead of my Crossover shenanigans. That probably does hold true, but it would not be nearly as much fun as this was to run.

It took me some time to figure out the flow of the Team, but once I did it ran fairly smooth. Definitely having two Hope/Blinks in the Field early on was key. Then the threat of clearing out things was always there. Then it was a matter of building to the Shark and sprinking in a Nob for the damage. The Crossover purchases really depended on what my Opponent brought. I tried to maximize my mix of options for each game.

Not one single time on the night did I have the energy to purchase Blink on her own. Without Hope existing, I could not have run this Team. Zatanna was a perfect fit to compliment Blink’s ability. Making a thin Field even thinner really helped out.

The Shark is just a natural fit on any Team that makes use of Crossover characters. His base stats alone give some serious punch to a Team that depends on combat damage, and the Overcrush option is just icing on the cake. Throwing on the Ork Nob as a back-up plan for stats helped too. As soon as Blink’s ability fired, he was usually getting at least a +4A buff.

S.T.A.R. Labs and Cold Gun were never used for their abilities, but I did need their energy options a couple of times (Cold Gun, at least). If they had been needed though, both abilities could have come in handy.

Nefarious Broadcast is what helped me win Game 1. Without it, I don’t think I could have made it past Mera’s Global with enough damage. This is a really underutilized card for Teams that want to just shut down Globals on their turn.

Is this Team competitive? Not in the slightest. It is way too slow for any of the official Formats out there. Is this Team fun? Yes it is. Hope Summers make this viable to try out at your local store. With her, you will be clearing out characters with some ease. You just need something to hit with once you do that.

Have you played with Blink In-Betweener? How did you get the best bang out of her ability? Was Crossover the way to go, or would you have stuck to the better odds of rolling a single energy type? Let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!

– jourdo

Coming next week….

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