Controlling the Tempo

Nick Wiedeman June 15, 2020

Wave 5 is now on sale, and I hope everyone has been able to crack some packs and finally get their hands on some physical cards. For some, this may be their first experience with analyzing and playing the Wave 5 cards. I highly encourage those new to building with this wave to check out the Tournament Decks section on the site to see what has been doing well in the online and webcam tournaments that have been taking place. This is a great resource to see what has been performing well, and what decks you should expect to see at a tournament. It also shows what defensive/control decks need to start adapting to counter in the new format. 

Last month, I covered some of the characters that are seeing a lot of play and a few potential counters for each. This time we’ll look at what decks are making the cut for aggro and then cover two defensive/control decks I have been working on that can match up against them.
 

Public Enemies

The first deck that has been all over the scene is [[Horri-Bull Ground Trooper]], [[Sky Shadow (Plane)]], and [[Sky Shadow (Tank)]]. This deck shoots out direct damage and also hits for high attack and pierce. I would say if your deck struggles to win this matchup, you might need to rethink bringing it to a tournament. It does a fantastic job at being able to take exact KO’s and not waste resources during games. It can also clean up damaged bots outside combat easily. It is also effectively a 6 wide deck after you factor in the Sky Shadow combination and the heads that pop off upon KO. It also might be the best deck at utilizing [[Peace Through Tyranny]] since you can use it combine into [[Sky Shadow Elite Warrior]] after the two parts have already attacked to get another big swing. It can also be played to KO Horri-Bull or the combiner to pop the head off off for an attack if the situation calls for it.

The second deck that has shown up a lot is [[Perceptor Precise Sniper]], [[Sky Shadow (Plane)]], and [[Sky Shadow (Tank)]]. This deck trades the direct damage for the massive card drawing ability of Perceptor. Perceptor also ends up as a much beefier attacker than Horri-Bull as the game goes on due to Perceptor’s attack buffing ability. This deck uses the extra draw to stockpile resources and reliably find what it needs most turns. The same [[Peace through Tyranny]] aspect as noted earlier also applies to this deck. The consistency and hard hitting nature of the deck make it a strong play.

The third a general 4 wide orange/black archetype. There have been multiple variations of this to pop up. The version that won Corona Cup 4 featured [[Horri-Bull Ground Trooper]], [[Fangry Sky Tracker]], [[Nightracer Gunner]], and [[Ravage Saboteur]]. This version made great use of the new battle card [[Nitro Booster]] since every character besides Fangry can untap with it. It also made great use of Horri-Bull's abilities by having 27 cards with a black pip to trigger his ability. The other common variant has been a 4 wide deck featuring Sky Shadow and two 5 star partners. These usually have a high +3 weapon count and squeeze in a lot of the new orange and black direct damage cards. They play similar to the 4 wide aggro decks of the last wave, but fit in more pierce and are able to get the benefit of the Sky Shadow combiner.

Shields Up!

Before I share my two lists, I want to go over a few of the ideas that have been going around that defensive decks need to incorporate to compete this wave. The first is that high tough numbers have become useless the majority of the time. Most of the top aggro decks deal way too much pierce and will counteract all the blue pips flipped. For this reason, [[End Hostilities]] has replaced [[Hidden Fortification]] in my decks. The goal is to limit the pierce to no more than the attacking bots base attack. [[Stable Cover]] has also become one of my favorite inclusions to help blunt these high pierce attacks. Combined with armors that add a static bonus like [[Reflex Circuits]] and [[Sturdy Armor]], a defensive deck can still effectively reduce the amount of attack damage taken.

The second is that defensive decks need two strong attackers. Since your characters will be taking a good chunk of damage almost guaranteed, defensive decks have to be able to take KO’s (hopefully multiple) early to limit the number of attacks against them. It is very tough for the 3 wide defensive style deck from last wave with only 1 major attacker to keep up in this format. Ideally, if playing a 3 wide defensive deck in this format, you want your first two attacks to add up to a KO, and then your third attack to also take a KO.

The third is that your deck needs to have some sort of answer to the high amount of direct damage going around. [[Holomatter Projector]] has quickly become a staple in many of my defensive builds to protect a key character from direct damage. [[Reflect Damage]] has also been very good against Sky Shadow decks to send their lightning bolt back at them. [[Take Cover]] is another solid option to protect the entire team from direct damage. If decks centered around [[Decepticon Quake Ground Assault]] start to become more prevalent, I believe [[Take Cover]] will be at least a very good option for that matchup.

This is the first list defensive list I have had success with against this wave’s aggro variants.

[[deck]]
NAME Pouncing Perceptor
1 Decepticon Pounce Infiltrator
1 Nightracer Gunner
1 Perceptor Precise Sniper
1 Grax
2 Armed Hovercraft
2 Energon Axe
3 Handheld Blaster
2 Scoundrel's Blaster
3 Sturdy Javelin
1 Holomatter Projector
1 Reflex Circuits
1 Sturdy Armor
1 Enhanced Power Cell
2 Brainstorm
1 Camien Crash
2 End Hostilities
2 Heroic Resolve
1 One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall
1 Reflect Damage
1 Reprocess
1 Sabotaged Armaments
3 Security Checkpoint
3 Showing Off
2 Spymaster's Ruse
2 Stable Cover
1 Take Cover
2 The Bigger They Are
1 Stealth Mission
[sideboard]
2 Belligerence
1 Counterespionage
1 End Hostilities
1 Holomatter Projector
1 Ominus
1 Stable Cover
2 Take Cover
2 Tripwire
[[/deck]]

Pouncing Perceptor by Nick Wiedeman

The deck has two strong attackers in Pounce and Perceptor. The secret actions defensive decks already want to be playing double as attack bonuses for Pounce. The ideal turn 2 play for this deck is to play a weapon, usually a [[Scoundrel's Blaster]], on Pounce and ruse out a secret action to give him a 9 attack. Bonus points if you have the [[Brainstorm]] in hand to get an extra secret action down. Nightracer and her stratagem help fit in two copies of [[Heroic Resolve]] to give Perceptor a chance to stick around for a potentially crucial extra attack. [[Showing Off]] actually pulls double duty in this deck. Perceptor gets extra flips to draw more crads and buff his attack, and it can be used to let Pounce hunt for a secret action and stack the deck so you know what the next flips will be. The deck also sports a fair amount of direct damage of its own to help clean up missed KO’s and to also get rid of low health heads. 

The second deck I have done well with has been based on Thomas Jempty’s Shadow Perceptor from the vectorsigma.info TMA Presale Champs.

[[deck]]
1 Perceptor Precise Sniper
1 Brisko
1 Sky Shadow (Plane)
1 Sky Shadow (Tank)
2 Armed Hovercraft
2 Energon Axe
2 Grenade Launcher
3 Handheld Blaster
2 Scoundrel's Blaster
3 Sturdy Javelin
1 Holomatter Projector
1 Reflex Circuits
1 Sturdy Armor
1 Enhanced Power Cell
2 Brainstorm
1 Camien Crash
2 End Hostilities
1 Hold the Line
1 One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall
3 Peace through Tyranny
1 Reflect Damage
1 Reprocess
1 Sabotaged Armaments
3 Security Checkpoint
3 Showing Off
2 Stable Cover
1 Take Cover
1 Sky Shadow Sync
[sideboard]
2 Belligerence
1 Counterespionage
1 End Hostilities
1 Holomatter Projector
1 Sabotaged Armaments
1 Stable Cover
1 Take Cover
2 Tripwire
1 Windsweeper Air Defense
[[/deck]]

SkyCeptor Blue by Nick Wiedeman

You can see there are a lot of similarities between this and the Pouncing Perceptor deck shown earlier. The biggest difference is that this deck can make use of [[Peace Through Tyranny]] amazingly well due to Perceptor increasing the chance of it being drawn and having the perfect targets for it in the Sky Shadow pieces. If you flip that [[Peace through Tyranny]] for his ability, you really put the opponent in a bind. It puts them on an even quicker clock to deal with the Sky Shadow pieces This deck has a lower number of blue pips, but I think of it as more of an aggressive control deck than a defensive one. 

As a final note, I firmly believe Perceptor to be the best defensive/control character in the set. Simultaneously buffing his attack while drawing more cards opens up so many more potential plays per turn. I expect to see him as the centerpiece of the majority of successful defensive/control decks in this format.

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