Welp, Renegade did it. They made Gen 2 Ranger decks.
Awesome!!!
What'd they do with Adam?
Well, the big things didn't change: newbies hate Adam. If you're new to the game and disagree, comment! Tell me I'm wrong! I'd love to hear it! All I can tell you is what I've seen. Which I find sad, because Adam, once properly mastered, can just wreck everything in sight. I know, 'cause I've done it. The blood flowed, monsters screamed, and Adam's white portions of his suit went pink from the river of crimson he stood in. He's an offensive powerhouse, able to destroy pretty anything that stands in his way.
Oh, I didn't say it would be easy. Adam is not an easy guy to master; if you don't he's a mess.
Adaptable, Adam's ability, is... complicated. Once per battle, you can swap the top card in your discard pile for a card in your hand. Six of your ten cards have effects that are relevant, so long as they're the top card in your discard pile. The other four, however, do not. Keep in mind that you play the card, and then discard it; you cannot activate an effect as you are playing it, because it's not in your discard pile. I don't know about anyone here, but Heroes of the Grid is a huge adrenaline rush for me. Stopping to think is not a forte I have, just in general, nevermind in the middle of a game that gets as intense as this. Now, others may not experience this. But, even after dozens and dozens of games, I still do. I have totally gone and put down a card with no real thought to what that does to Adam's discard pile.
Please don't be stupid like me. Please.
Watch what you put into that discard pile.
Rapid Hit is not an easy card to parse. I generally do not put up card text. Part of it is that I'm lazy. But the other? I want you, the reader, to already have familiarity with the character. That doesn't cut it here. This is the most complicated card I've come acrost so far, and so I'm going to put the text up.
ATTACK: 1D
After you resolve this attack, perform a second attack with 1 die.
While this card is the top card of your discard pile, add 1 die to each of your attacks.
So, first off, it's not one attack, but two, at one die apiece. Now, normally that's not going to matter too much, but this is Adam, so this isn't normal. Suffice to say that, for Adam, this is an amazing card. You can generate two energy with Leapfrog Strike, start chains against multiple GUARDED opponents (others can then throw modifiers onto both attacks).... or do a total of four dice with a previous Rapid Hit...
Or four native dice with Power Axe. Given the nature of how Power Axe works, that extra die can (and does) make all the difference. Without outside buffs Adam can out-damage Zack with the Power Axe. With outside buffs he can make Zack's damage look like a joke, with less outside help.
Leapfrog Strike is just your typical 2D attack. You play it to set up so you can get a free Cosmic Cannon or Power Axe, or a crapton of energy from Rapid Hit. Or, y'know, a no energy 3D attack. It's really that simple. And useful!
Cosmic Cannon is at its most useful when being augmented by Leapfrog Strike, or being used for defense. There are better cards to attack with otherwise, but when being used for defense or a free 3D attack? Or being augmented by Rapid Hit into a one energy 4D attack? Okay, that last one is better. There's some interesting combinations you can get from this card, just can't look at it directly.
Exploit Opening is essentially Hip Hop Kido turned into a card. It's a Reaction, so it's got one use: exactly what you see on the card. If anyone doesn't think there's a use for this card, this isn't the character for you. You should already be paying attention to the board state already. And this card allows you to focus on another card that you know you can kill, altering the flow of combat. This can be a really useful card to have, allowing Adam to one up Zack, once again.
Okay, let's get this out of the way: the Mastodon Zord is one of the best zords in the game. You just kill a footsoldier, flat out. If you do this during a combat, however, the card "linked" to that figure is not destroyed. This means that the Mastodon Zord really only has one use, at one time: right at the beginning of the round, lower the area with the highest amount of figures. It's useful, but it's boring. The other zords usually require at least some strategy, something more than just remembering to use the darn thing.
The Lion Thunder Zord is not as good, technically. You can't just shut down a figure whenever you want, you have to destroy the card, in the action sequence. But this has some more interesting choices. You can team this up with Adam's ability to ignore GUARD to give complete and total access to the board, or just get rid of that one footsoldier that would make things so much easier. They do exist, especially in boss fights. It's not functionally worse than the Mastodon Zord but this is a lot more interesting.
I always found Adam more interesting the Zack, but with this new deck I think he's actually a good deal better. Adam doesn't quite have the defensive capability of Zack, but he's more self-sufficient than Zack. Adam takes a bit more work to pull off, but he's got a diverse toolkit that pays off the investment.
The fact that Adam is my second favorite ranger has nothing to do with it. At ALL.
Promise.
Really!
No comments:
Post a Comment