by Jay Solomon
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Why Don’t I Play This Piece? For this iteration as well as next’s, I will be going over a very overlooked father and son with some interesting and useful power sets. These characters are the Rag Dolls from the Flash set. The common is a favorite of Tom Kerr’s, my fellow Meta Lab tech, while I prefer the Gravity Feed one. I hope to demonstrate why they are both worth using on your teams. Today I will be starting with the main set version.
Rag Doll has one trait and no special powers:
CONTORTIONIST AND OPPORTUNIST: Characters that move in a square adjacent to Rag Doll and then a square not adjacent to him are dealt 1 unavoidable damage after actions resolve.
While this trait appears to be meant to damage opposing characters, like Frog-Man and Blind Al, Rag Doll can be used to get through friendly characters’ activation clicks. The trait can also be used to damage opposing characters of course, and unlike some other adjacency based effects, this one can affect opposing characters that have Improved Movement: Ignore Characters. Rag Doll is also a wild card. The most useful team abilities for him to copy would be Mystics for free damage, Batman Ally for Stealth to go with his Combat Reflexes, and Sinister Syndicate/Batman Enemy to increase his attack value to be able to hit.
As for the dial, Rag Doll’s consists of powers that allow him to be an extremely effective tie-up piece, with a bit of Perplex to help the rest of the team. His decent movement with Plasticity can get him where he needs to be, while his 17-Defense with Combat Reflexes and Shape Change will help him further annoy and keep opposing characters tied up with him for as long as possible. His being a wild card can also help him be tie-up and an overall nuisance with my personal preference being Mystics to deal back damage when they do manage to hit him. He also gets some Incapacitate, which can also be used with his 2-Range if necessary to keep an opposing character token’d up. Perplex is always useful as well. Overall, Rag Doll is a great package of utility and tie-up that deserves more recognition.
Unfortunately, Rag Doll does not have the best keywords for making theme teams. Keystone City and Opal City are almost non-existent, while Injustice Society has some variety, including The Wizard, who I wrote about here: The Wizard. Even so, Injustice Society is not currently a keyword that I would say is usable in the competitive environment.
Because Rag Doll is not a piece that should be run on a named theme team, I decided to use a team to maximise his potential for annoyingness that allows him to get Mystics as well:
Rag Doll 60
Mephisto 130
Klarion the Witch-Boy 70
Pandora’s Box (Full) 40
300
Paris’ Mephisto will be played at his full points on this team, so he will be the main threat. Rag Doll’s trait will allow Mephisto to get himself off of his initial clicks if you want. Mephisto’s movement special power can also be effectively used with Rag Doll, to place opposing characters adjacent to Rag Doll. Klarion and Teekl with be the tertiary attackers while your opponent is busy with Rag Doll, who will probably be assigned the Envy Relic to assist with his attack values. Mephisto’s healing will be helped with the Sloth Relic, while Klarion gets Lust in most scenarios, to assist with his Sidestep break away rolls as well as getting Combat Reflexes to go with his Stealth. If Rag Doll can hold your opponent off long enough, you should be able to empty the Box, so the +1s will make Mephisto even more of a threat while Rag Doll becomes a threat.
I hope that this article was informative and you stay tuned for the next iteration, starring the other Rag Doll. Until then, try out those fringe pieces and take your opponent by surprise!
