[Stacking the Deck: Mega Man TCG] A Hard Life at Sea

Welcome back to Stacking the Deck! The idea behind these articles is to present deck ideas for various expandable card games that involve building your own deck to play with. Like the first article in this series, this second article will also present a team and deck for the Mega Man Trading Card Game. If you’re not familiar with this fun TCG you can read my Design Review here.

Between a Sea and a Hard Place

I’m creating this as a defensive team/deck combination, so the primary focus will be on preventing your opponent from scoring Victory Points by attacking your Characters, while you slowly rack up points yourself. The two Characters I’ve chosen for my team are Dive Man (Set 4, #3) and Hard Man (Set 3, #8).

Dive Man has an Armor of 4, so that makes him pretty defensive right there. He can also discard Tactics cards of the water element to give Hard Man a bonus to his Armor. This will require you to discard a lot of water Tactics cards over the course of the game, though, so you’ll need a way to draw more cards than usual. Fortunately, Dive Man’s ability doesn’t require the use of an action, so he’ll be able to attack or focus (which gives you more Resource Points) every turn.

Hard Man is even more defensive than Dive Man, with an Armor of 5. He can also discard a card to prevent your opponent from targeting Dive Man with basic attacks. This might seem a bit unnecessary, since Dive Man also has a very high Armor, but with their two abilities combined, Hard Man will have an Armor of 7 on most rounds, and your opponent will only be able to attack for a few points each. Like Dive Man, Hard Man’s ability will necessitate finding a way to get more cards in your hand each round. Hard Man’s ability also does not require an action, so he’ll be attacking or focusing every turn.

In a Hard Rush to Dive

Now let’s look at our deck. I’m going to start by simply listing all of the cards in the deck, and then I’ll discuss how to use them.

Minions

Battan (Cost: 2; Set 4, #11)

Foot Holder (Cost: 2; Set 1, #22)

Lightning Lord (Cost: 2; Set 2, #20)

Tactics

Bubble Ambush (Cost: 2; Set 2, #64)

Dive Decoy (Cost: 2; Set 4, #58)

Dive Depth (Cost: 3; Set 4, #59)

Dive Missile (Cost: 2; Set 4, #81)

Hard Knuckle (Cost: 1; Set 3, #86)

Hard Shell (Cost: 2; Set 3, #74)

Rush Jet (Cost: 1; Set 3, #92)

Rush Marine (Cost: 1; Set 3, #93)

Water Crush (Cost: 1; Set 2, #62)

As I mentioned above, both Dive Man and Hard Man’s abilities will make it necessary for you to draw more cards each round in order to keep them going. The three Minions listed above will help with that, as they each have or grant the Platform Keyword. You can draw an additional card at the start of the round for each instance of the Platform Keyword on a unit you have in play. Rush Jet can help you get just the right card you need a lot sooner (I suggest Dive Decoy if you don’t all ready have it in play). Rush Marine can help you get a bunch of Tactics cards, especially those with the water element, into your hand quickly. This will help out with Dive Man’s ability a great deal. Bubble Ambush provides a useful special attack, and can help you get more cards.

Hard Shell, Dive Decoy, and Dive Depth will further enhance your defensive options. If you can put Dive Decoy into play on Dive Man, you can use it to redirect any basic attacks targeting him to Hard Man. This means Hard Man won’t actually have to use his special ability, and it will cut down on the number of cards you need to go through each round. Use Hard Shell and Dive Depth on Hard Man to further enhance his already formidable defenses. Lastly, Water Crush, Hard Knuckle, and Dive Missile provide a number of special attacks that will help you score Victory Points for yourself.

That’s my idea for a defensive deck. I haven’t actually played with this team/deck combo, but I would be curious to see it in action. Have any thoughts on how this deck could be improved? Is there a better way to make use of these cards? Please share your thoughts in the comments.