Mini-Masters Tournament - Little Bots, Big Prizes
What does one do with a handful of outstanding CCG veterans and an already great game? Think up new and bizarre formats to force upon each, of course!
This happened to be round two of our heinous theme-based tournaments and for our sophomore outing here we went with "only little bots!" Our thought on the theme was that by taking only support characters with stat lines very different from the base characters it would really force some interesting teams and clever deck building. Also, the idea of toddler-sized robots fighting each other (and some of them getting knocked out so hard they turn into guns) was kinda cool. We also assumed it would just be all of us showing up with Lionizers and Aimlesses (Aimlessi ?) but spoilers... that didn't happen.
What actually came out of the tournament was a really good study on individual tiny bots and building unique deck themes that don't normally see play in regular ole' constructed. We ran best-of-three matches competing for an admittedly very cool prize. Winner gets his Soundwave 35th Anniversary box paid for by the rest of us. Also, Eric got four cupcakes of different flavor, each with a mini bot toy on top. Cupcakes were then drafted in tournament rank order. So, free box of cards and the opportunity to get that glorious Red Velvet instead of some BS vanilla were all on the line.
The Teletraan-Fun team each provided me with their lists and some thoughts about their decks after a bunch of really passive-aggressive reminders from me. Let's take a look at those now and how they placed.
First Place Deck
Our winner was Eric, gracious host of the event and buyer of the cupcakes. He was kind enough to put together some really outstanding analysis on the game and his own deck which I encourage you to check out here. . The man knows his stuff when it comes to brewing up a great deck.
Having played against his deck in the final round I can say that while the games were close he really built something that I couldn't catch up to. It just had too good redundancies to support the win condition he was after and it was able to close the victory just a turn or two faster than I was able to in both games.
Second Place
This is the deck I was able to cobble together and the primary theme was just drop as many bombs on baby transformers as possible. When thinking out this format the thing that seemed to be the most consistent among all the variables was health. Low health. None of these bots had more than eight and many had six or less. To me, that math added up a pretty simply answer to the equation... Blow. Them. Up. Two actions and an attack automatically seals the deal, no mystery, no chance of defending. Just two bombs and one attack. It meant I didn't have to worry about Bold, or tough, or combat tricks, or getting the right thing at the right time.
As many actions as possible that do direct damage and ways to trick them. Anticipation Engine and Leap of Faith were the workhorses of this deck and Ravage in cassette mode became the punching bag which worked out well. Also, Enemy Combat Analysis seemed like a no-brainer since almost everybody would be five stars. That card in this format was bonkers helpful.
I'm not sure what kind of opportunity Direct Damage has in regular constructed as far as the primary win condition of a deck. It seems like a destination to far to travel as far as though bigger HP totals go. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was super effective here though. So, long story short... nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure
Third Place
Our very own Joey G put together a deck based around a few very simple, killer concepts: Have great stats per star, have solid upgrade potential and go blue/black for a solid defense. He took a very scientific approach to building this deck out, spreadsheets and all, and I highly reccommend taking a look at his thoughts on this deck .
Joe was my first opponent and going into it I had a bad feeling because among the Teletraan-Fun crew he's the one who takes the most calculated (icy, machine-like) approach to initial deck concepting. And, I wasn't wrong. That deck was pretty much immune to any basic attacks I threw at it and it was certainly picking away at my people the way Joe intended. In the end, I think my direct-damage build just got to the finish line slightly quicker.
Fourth Place
John's summary notes on this deck that he wanted me to share is that, and I quote, "This is a very bad deck. I suggest no one play it. No matter how advanced the meta gets, do NOT play it." And, to be fair, YOU'RE NOT MY DAD, I'll PLAY WHATEVER JANK I WANT!
I think John was going for Blue Pip/Pierce over all. Having played against it I can say it wasn't horrible but I never felt any kind of pressure fro it, likely because none of his bots were hitting hard enough to make full use of the pierce effects. Smashdown was pretty cool to see in action though, that's a neat bot with a cool weapon side that I wish saw more play.
Also, this deck went a similar way as me with regards to Star Cards. They were so powerful in this format being able to load up on six or seven of them was an insane thing to see on the table. I thought that was brilliant of him.
Final Thoughts
Make up weird stuff and than find some really great people to play it with.
Many of us are fortunate enough to have pretty big communities or regular opportunities to play the game and I think it you find yourself in that kind of situation like we do it's worth it to get creative once in a while. Have fun. Get crazy. Find a way to force yourself to play with elements of the game that you don't normally touch. Sometimes that's just building a new deck but I think there's one step further you can take and it's changing the way you actually play. Minibot Masters was for us, a really exciting switch-up in deck construction and having to choose bots from a very limited roster. A roster meant to be support characters, not front line heroes.
Do weird stuff with your games and tell us about it! PLEASE!
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