Spiral with Parallax, Felix Faust with Entity, 30 pt. Loki, Phoenix Force on Spiral and Faust. That’s the team that took me all the way at the 2015 HeroClix World Championship, I’ve received a lot of questions about it, so I figured I’d take the time to write an in-depth explanation of why and how I built the team, and what all it does.
The Beginning: Felix Faust
When I got back from Nationals and really started looking at Faust, I soon started to believe he was the best figure in the game. I knew he had weaknesses. Defensively he has 5 clicks, no reducers, and no Senses or Shape Change top dial, very easy to get one-shotted. Offensively he as has good stats, but no move and attack severely limits his capabilities. And then of course, his d20 is too random to rely on without rerolls, so I had to keep in mind as I was building to try to have everyone with prob. So I looked at how to fix this. Phoenix Force is always my first choice when I need reducers, so I looked at it and decided it went perfectly with Faust. Colossus Fragment gives him Invulnerability, not the best reducer but at least it’s something. The next to last dial gives Running Shot which he sorely needs, Energy Explosion and +1 damage for even better offensive capabilities, and defend to share that nice 18 defense. Plus the fragment itself gives him Flight and Poison, for even MORE offensive options, as well as another power dependant on which fragment I give him. Looks like all his weaknesses are either gone or moderately dealt with, now he just needs prob! So I look at the 2 entities that give Prob, Entity and Adara, put those aside in the back of my head, and just throw Atomica on for now, cheapest Prob in the game basically. So thats the start, Faust with some sort of entity, Atomica, and a full Phoenix Force assigned to Faust and someone else, leaves me 137 points left.
The Counterbalance: Spiral
So I have 137 points left. I figure that’s enough room for someone with an entity, leaving me 112 for the figure itself. The main thing I’m looking for right now is a good attacker, someone to take full advantage of those turns Faust locks my opponent down. I also really want one more prob though, and as I’m already using one prob entity on Faust, and neither Entity nor Adara are the best entities for heavy hitters imo, so I need someone with printed prob. I eventually run across Spiral, who I felt gave me everything I needed for 106. High mobility, Pulse Wave, Prob. What are her weaknesses? No move and attack, no reducers. Good thing I have the Phoenix Force! She also has average stats and no willpower and is vulnerable to outwit, so Parallax fits like a glove, being able to take +1 to almost any stat and giving her Quintessence along with a -1 Perplex to make her average values go even farther. And my favorite part, she has 8 clicks. Perfect counterbalance to Faust’s 5, and a perfect fit for the Mystics from the Magik Fragment. It’s close to impossible to one shot Spiral, so if you focus on Faust and manage to kill him, you’ll have to deal with Spiral retaliating for at least a couple more turns, and usually more. If you go for Spiral first, that’s gonna take a while, especially if Faust is locking you up, and by the time you get through her you’re probably mostly dead. She also benefits from the defend and Faust’s 18 defense. This also leads my to playing Entity on Faust over Adara; I’ll probably be giving him the Emma Fragment to tk Spiral anyway, so the tk on Adara doesn’t help me, the defend I already have, and she has no speed power. Whereas Entity gives me the ability to heal Spiral making her 8 clicks of invuln (or better) mystics go even farther, and Barrier if I need it, as well as the prob that I’m after. I’d like to talk about Spiral’s portals real quick here. They’re a backup plan, and not the reason I played her. I love the way they work, and they can be game changing, but I rarely use them except in the most specific situations. However, when I did, it was either to place on under Faust and one around row 13 (assuming I’m in row 2, Faust has a 4 speed Running Shot and a 7 range meaning he can hit whoever they place in the portal, or jump to the portal and hit anyone in the back row (2-13-24), not counting Entity bonuses and his Perplex), OR to escape from a situation if they were going to be locked down my next turn anyway thanks to Faust. That’s about it for the portals. So that covers Spiral. I now have Faust with Entity, Spiral with Parallax, Atomica, and Phoenix Force on Faust and Spiral totaling at 294.
The Final Team
294. 5 points is enough for an ID card, I like that chase Goliath can lock my opponent down during a turn Faust doesn’t and that spiral can bring him in, so I throw on the Ronin ID Card. This was my original final team. After I went over it in my head and played it on the map a few times, I decided Atomica wasn’t quite carrying her weight, and I almost never used the ID card. I consider Bizarro at 25 for a while so he can carry, bust out blocking, and attack, but prob is too important. So I replace both with Loki. I have to push to prob, but he gives me so much more. He’s a better attacker and pick off small or weakened pieces without clicking up the Phoenix Force if I want to stay on the same click, can bust out blocking with Faust’s Perplex, can carry my main two pieces around, benefits immensely from Faust and Spiral’s defend, and gives me the option to outwit if I need it. I play this team out on the map and decide it’s the best version I’ve had. It ends up being literally the only team I build for Worlds. I usually build upwards of 20-30, but I was confident in this one and stuck with it the whole way.
Closing Comments
All in all, I’m happy with my team and it performed as best I could hope for. Thanks to everyone I talked to and practiced the team with, primarily all of Team Ragnarok. Any other questions, PM me on HCRealms (mourir). Thanks for reading (and to Majestix for doing me the honor of putting it up on the site)!
