Team List (ROC Regional) – Beta Ray Bill – Warren Ginn

By
Majestix

by Warren Ginn

All right this will be broken down by team specifics then strategy then some small tricks with it and then possible modifications and the way it fits into the Nats meta.

I was looking for something to play that was out of the box at the Texas Regional and I settled on Beta Ray Bill. I wanted to run theme so Robot turned out to be the way to go. Beta Ray has some great keywords to work with but Robots seem to have the best support options. The team ended up being:

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This gives the team a +5 Map Bonus so I chose the Stark Tower Location Bonus with the thinking that I could always get a Hypersonic pog in the form of Bolt for maps where I lose roll. And on maps where I win roll I could go to the Stark Tower and have Beta Ray call in pogs like Tank and Bolt and Crimson Sage.
 
In this build Beta is the boss, granting the team immunity from range attacks opposing Outwit and Probability Controls as long as they are adjacent to him. He also packs some useful abilities in Probability Control, Energy Explosion, Quake, Charge, and Super Strength and he can reduce penetrating damage. At 125 points he calls in some decent hitters to help the team out. Irma is a cheap Perplex and Sidestep. The Tri-Sentinel is a fantastic Retaliator and is able to Sidestep and carry and Skyscraper Wonder Woman is a Sidestep carrier. Both of these colossals can cut through blocking terrain with their movement. ISAAC is a terrific piece that makes 3 very useful pogs, from Psychic Blast for offense to Barrier for defense to Chaos, which is great for TK and a substantial range attacker. ISAAC also starts with Perplex and can push into Outwit, which can be used on your opponent’s team in their starting zone without line of fire and proved to be very useful. The true workhorse of the list though is President Rickard with his 4 + Leadership special ability that can remove tokens from my team up to six squares away from him. He also pushes into Perplex and has 18-Defend.
 
The strategy for the team was to use my pogs to try to score points while remaining safe from range attacks and prepping the team for a big turn of retaliation and call ins. If I won map roll this would be accomplished by the Pogs generated from map combined with Isaac’s pogs. Layered on with the generous use of Barrier and having access to three Perplexes and some solid retaliation I feel that the team could trade up well in exchanging pieces with my opponent. Tri-Sentinel alone has the ability to score a lot of points and still move back across the map in base with Beta Ray.
 
Generally I used my call-ins, which were SR Cyclops, 90pt Chase Jean Grey and Rachel Summers as well as Rusty for Energy Explosion, to score points and support my pogs as they moved up the map. Rachel Summers provided a useful Running Shot ability to either my Tri-Sentinel Beta Ray Bill or Skyscraper Wonder Woman which has a surprising ranged attack that catches some people by surprise. Another neat ability was the option to carve out blocking terrain on either side of the Stark Tower map Starting Area and took my team into a safety pocket and Barrier myself up while every turn making pogs and using Leadership to pull action tokens off of my team.
 
I feel with the addition of Black Panther in the Illuminati equipment the team can be improved to flow better with more offense or better defenses. I will say that several times Beta Ray reducing penetrating damage caught my opponents by surprise as well as the ability of President Rickard to remove action tokens really put my opponent behind the 8-ball in tempo. But the biggest advantage is the ability to ignore Hawkeye teams and Starro Mind Control builds or any other team that relies on range call ins. This kind of immunity coupled with double Barrier can suppress even some of the strongest teams in the meta. During the day I faced a Sam Cap Soldier team, an Undying team, Penguins, a Cosmic Captain Marvel build and various other standard set ups. Winning map roll 4 out of 6 times and facing 3 Themed Teams out of six games. The team performed very well especially seeing as I only had two practice games before leaving for Dallas so I feel that someone could really work with the team and make a substantial impact at Nationals.