Marshawn

I'm taking a quick break from Trypticon to write about a Transformers deck I'll be running this Saturday at the Red Castle Games event!

Raiders Runamuck and Runabout: a delightful pair from Siege I and the very first cards I stumbled on when my buddy Adam suggested making pauper decks. They have good synergy together and reasonable stats so I figured that I'd give this a go.

Turns out, just goldfishing the characters feels pretty powerful and I had room for a five star character! But while there are a lot of interesting places to go, I quickly narrowed the field because of two criteria.

First, an all Decepticon team would open up some cards that otherwise wouldn't be available to me. Second, as a flip-heavy deck, having a character that I didn't need or want to transform was important, since I need to spend those actions transforming Runamuck or Runabout.

With the initial build, Raider Road Hugger took the spot, because it has the highest health and power over the other characters. However, with the arrival of Siege II, Raider Tailwind may take that slot, because its health is one more and there are no car-affiliated battle cards at common. 

So I collected the Raiders and named the deck after Marshawn Lynch, because he's awesome.

Upgrades
Improvised Shield 3
EM24 IR Laser Launcher 2
Erratic Lightning 2
Spare Parts 1
Basic Combat Protocol 2
Enforcement Batons 1
Primary Laser 3
Security Console 1

Actions
Repurpose 3
Ready For Action  2
Frag Toss 3
Defensive Formation 2
Battlefield Report 2
Brainstorm 3
Leap Into Battle 3
Rapid Conversion 2
Surprise Attack 3
Swindled 2

As it turns out, using Raider Road Hugger appropriately is important, since attacking with it at the right time can give you more opportunities to flip the Battlechargers. However, there isn't a rule for doing so that I've noticed, yet. Sometimes, it should attack second but this is usually only true once everyone had has a chance to untap. Generally, Road Hugger attacks third because then you can sculpt the hand to provide it with the strongest possible attack, loaded up with Upgrades and Actions.

That said: the big help in this deck is Ready for Action. I am reluctant to add a third, since this is a mixed-pip deck. If it was heavy orange or blue, the piplessness would matter far less. However, without a lot of Bold or Tough, and without a focus on aggro or defense, eking every bit of color out I can matters. 

On the other hand, every time I get to untap one of the Battlechargers I feel as if  Marshawn is in a fantastic position to win the game. The extra turn step is huge. It's possibly worth testing, and definitely worth putting in the sideboard.

The cards with the green pips are in there mostly to swap out, in case I get an Improvised Shield in hand. There are also cards from Siege II to consider, Kinetic Converter and Kinetic Intensifier Whip being highest on my radar.

However, this is the casual version of the deck. There's a tournament on Saturday! That means I need to do two things: shape up this deck for a tournament and figure out a sideboard. Thursday, I'll show off what I came up with.