[{"text":"Hey everyone!  I wanted to give you the newest team that is poised to dominate the holiday season.  The strategy I am going to discuss today revolves around Cheetah, and abusing her ability to destroy cards every turn."},{"image":[{"src":"1-p6847651.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"header":"DESTROYING CARDS"},{"text":"The ability to destroy cards is one of the best \u2018mechanics\u2019 in the game.  Having the ability to rid yourself of your starting cards goes a long way towards winning the game.  In the early turns, it's often far better to buy\/gain cards that are able to destroy your other cards, rather than cards that just give raw power."},{"text":"Consider the following two cards, and let\u2019s say it's the first turn of the game and you don\u2019t have enough power to buy anything except a kick:"},{"image":[{"src":"2-p6319492.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"In the early turns of the game when your deck is small, Mera has almost a 50\/50 chance of being in your hand when your discard pile is empty.  The 4 power she gives you when that happens is going to be really good, and you can potentially pick up a powerful card with the extra power.  Unfortunately the longer this goes on, the less chance she has of providing the 4 power because your deck keeps increasing in size and the chance of her being in your hand when you have no discard pile becomes smaller and smaller."},{"text":"On the other hand, Atomica is going to be a \u2018live\u2019 card for a very long time.  You will be happy to destroy a starter either from your hand or discard pile every time you draw her.  We don\u2019t have any discard pile size restrictions like we do with Mera, so we\u2019re happy to have her in our deck and will gladly play her and destroy a card every chance we get."},{"text":"Atomica will really start to outpace Mera once Weakness cards start getting passed around.  Players tend to receive a Weakness after they\u2019ve drawn their hands, so just when you finally get Mera and and empty discard pile, someone else might come along and attack you, giving you a Weakness.  If you have Mera in this situation you\u2019ll be very sad, but if you instead bought that Atomica, you\u2019ll just destroy the Weakness and carry on winning the game!"},{"text":"So now that we appreciate what it means to destroy cards, it becomes apparent that we want to start destroying stuff as soon as possible.  So how can we find a way to destroy cards even when there are no \u2018destroy cards\u2019 to buy in the line-up?  We turn to our good friend Cheetah and let her do the hard work for us."},{"image":[{"src":"3-p2302013.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"Well, that\u2019s not going to be the easiest thing to pull off, especially early game, when we can barely afford to buy a card, let alone two cards in one turn.  Relying on the Line-up to be full of one and two costs cards isn\u2019t a good idea either since the main deck is so large that the odds of there being a single one or two cost card out there is already slim to none."},{"header":"WHO TO PAIR CHEETAH WITH"},{"text":"So let\u2019s use some of our remaining tier points and see who\u2019s available to help us with that goal.  Cheetah is a tier 3 character, so we still have three more points to work with."},{"text":"(Que frantic search of all \u20183-tier\u2019, \u20181 and 2-tier team\u2019 and \u20183x 1-tier team\u2019 characters)"},{"text":"I now present to you a holiday gift, from the DC Deck Building Gods:"},{"image":[{"src":"unt537633untitled.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"Let\u2019s walk through this one step at a time.  Aquaman is a tier-2 character, and Constantine is tier-1.  So we\u2019ve used all 6 points, but how are these two going to help us buy two or more cards per turn so we can trigger Cheetah?  Let\u2019s investigate."},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"You may put any cards with cost 5 or less you buy or gain during your turn on top of your deck."}]},{"text":"This definitely doesn\u2019t help us buy more cards, it doesn\u2019t provide power or anything."},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"Once during each of your turns, reveal the top card of your deck.  If it's cost is 1 or greater, you may play it and it has +1 Power.  If you do, destroy it at the end of your turn."}]},{"text":"Ok, so we can get an extra power, but that still doesn\u2019t go very far towards allowing us to reliably buy two cards a turn, especially not starting on our first turn.  So what\u2019s going to make this team up the real deal?"},{"header":"TYPICAL EARLY GAME SCENARIO"},{"text":"We\u2019ll assume we have a typical starting hand of 3 power:"},{"image":[{"src":"4-p8448434.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"Let\u2019s consider a random line-up, and see how our team handles it:"},{"image":[{"src":"unt275568untitled.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"image":[{"src":"unt263662untitled.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"To recap our team:"},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"Cheetah: We need to buy\/gain two or more cards in a turn to trigger her destroy ability"},{"caption":"Aquaman: We can put any cards of cost 5 or less we buy\/gain directly on top of our deck"},{"caption":"Constantine: We can play our top card if it's cost is 1 or greater and get +1 power from it"}]},{"text":"Our options are to buy Lady Blackhawk or Force Field, let\u2019s compare the two options:"},{"text":"If we buy Lady Blackhawk, put her on top with Aquaman, and then use Constantine on her we end up with two power (one from Lady Blackhawk and the 2nd from the +1 bonus given by Constantine), and have to pass the turn.  We end up destroying the only card we bought this turn, and not gaining anything meaningful by doing so.  This is unfortunate because we don\u2019t trigger Cheetah."},{"text":"If we buy Force Field, put it on top, and \u2018Constantine it\u2019, we get to draw another card which will be either a Punch or Vulnerability, resulting in us having either one or two power.  Again not great since it doesn\u2019t trigger Cheetah."},{"text":"So this team isn\u2019t looking to hot.  It seems we have no way to reliably get an advantage, because the line-up is so random and we can\u2019t count on it to give us what we need at the right times.  This seems a bit unfortunate."},{"text":"But wait, what\u2019s this?  It looks like we just received another gift from the DC Deck Building Gods, for they feel sad that our holiday team isn\u2019t able to do it's thing:"},{"image":[{"src":"5-p315795.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"My oh my, what a card.  Let\u2019s play this out and see how we get along:"},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"Play out our three Punches = 3 Power"},{"caption":"Buy a Kick = 0 Power"},{"caption":"Use Aquaman to put the Kick on top of our deck"},{"caption":"Use Constantine to play our top card"},{"caption":"Play the Kick on top of our deck, this gives 2 Power from the Kick + 1 power from Constantine = 3 Power"},{"caption":"Buy Force Field = 0 Power"},{"caption":"Put Force Field on top of our deck with Aquaman"}]},{"text":"Now let's see what happens when we end our turn"},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"End our turn"},{"caption":"Discard our hand of two Vulnerabilities"},{"caption":"Destroy the Kick we played via Constantine"},{"caption":"Destroy one of the Vulnerabilities we discarded with Cheetah"},{"caption":"Put the three Punches from our play area into our discard pile"},{"caption":"Draw a new hand of five cards"}]},{"text":"To summarize:  We started our turn with three power and ended up buying a Force Field and destroying a Vulnerability on our first turn. That is no joke! This is going to be a very good game for us.  Some extra \u2018perks\u2019 of this combo also include:"},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"There are 16x Kicks in the game, we can expect to be able to repeat this combo every turn for quite a while."},{"caption":"If there are no cards you can afford, simply buy another Kick.  As long as you have three power in your hand you buy a Kick, Constantine it, and then buy another one.  This still \u2018gains\u2019 you one kick per turn while letting you destroy a card."}]},{"text":"So in the worst scenario, you burn through the Kick stack, destroying a card every turn until it's gone.  This will put you well on your way to winning, because you will be rid of your starters long before anyone else is.  Prepare for lots of free VP from anyone playing with a teamwork Main Character, as they will quickly realize you have the best deck.  The only downside is that you have to count all these VP tokens at the end of the game.&nbsp; <br> <br> <br>Pro tip:  Keep lots and lots of 5x and 10x VP tokens where you can easily exchange them throughout the game."},{"header":"PRO PLAYS"},{"text":"I\u2019ll admit, playing this team can be a bit boring.  Every turn seems to be the same: you destroy a Starter, collect all sorts of VP from teamwork, and then wonder if your going to have one or two hundred VP by the end of the game.  Here\u2019s some tips to help keep the game from feeling to monotonous as you steamroll the competition."},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"You will be destroying Starters faster than anyone else, by a long shot.  Even if someone buys a destroy card on turn 1, it\u2019ll usually be turn 3 at the earliest before they can use it, and then another 2-3 turns before they draw it again.  This is where you gain the advantage.  Mid-Late game you will be drawing pure gas while they are still fumbling about with Starters."},{"caption":"Once you run out of Starters and Weaknesses, Cheetah has a 2nd ability that allows you to draw an extra card instead of destroying something.  I\u2019d only recommend drawing an extra card on the turns when you have nothing to destroy, otherwise it's pretty much always best to destroy a card.  This will gradually begin to happen as you run out of Starters."},{"caption":"This team is not a card-type specific strategy, meaning that you can pick up Heroes, Villains, Equipment, etc.  So...if you grab an early Sciencell then you can shift your attention to picking up every Villain you see."},{"caption":"You can use this team to hate out another player\u2019s strategy.  Is the player to your left on an Equipment strategy? "},{"caption":"As the mid-end of the game comes around and you have nothing left to destroy, it's best to continue triggering Cheetah to draw a card. "},{"caption":"Keep an eye out for any cards that let you interact with the Destroyed Zone.  As a Constantine player, you can create some interesting situations."}]},{"image":[{"src":"6-p3318926.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"The only time I buy \u2018expensive\u2019 cards with this team is if I am defeating the Super Villain, or if it's to pick up a high-VP yielding card.  Larfleeze fits the strategy well, as we are buying lots of small power cards and our deck can get quite big.  His ability to gain cards also helps us trigger Cheetah, further pressing our advantage."}]},{"image":[{"src":"7-p8329527.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"Once your out of Starters, you can destroy all the cards from the Rogues crossover too.  Buy the card, gain a few VPs from it, then destroy it.  Loot is a great starting point if you\u2019re into that sort of thing."}]},{"image":[{"src":"8-p8404558.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"If you\u2019re out of Starters and see a Bizzaro Power come around it's a fun card to pick up and ruin people\u2019s day with.  Everyone gets to have a Weakness party but then you destroy yours every turn.  Achievement unlocked:  Make all your opponents rage quit"}]},{"image":[{"src":"9-p1421879.png"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"In conclusion I\u2019ll say that I don\u2019t recommend this team to anyone who doesn\u2019t like counting, because if your opponents are using Teamwork strategies you're going to have to count a lot of VP at the end of the game."},{"text":"Until next time, here\u2019s to hoping you can dominate your holiday DCDB games with what otherwise appears to be a weak team with no real synergies, but is actually deceptively powerful.<br>"},{"spoiler":"Medium"},{"text":"Many of you have already noticed that we\u2019ve improving https:\/\/www.dcdeckbuilding.info but in case you haven\u2019t then you should head on over and see for yourself.&nbsp;"},{"text":"We\u2019ve added some 'Advanced Search' functionality and optimized the card loading time. We\u2019re also working on producing a better streaming setup where we\u2019ll have an enhanced viewer experience. We\u2019ll be busy coding and are looking forward to next year when we can roll out lots of new content!"}]