It’s me. Back again. Last time I covered X-Men, AKA Team Wolvie, and now I’m moving on to one of my playgroup’s most annoying pieces of metallic destruction. The Sentinel deck is interesting because of the large number of members with the designation “army.” Army, as I’ve been told, makes notice that this particular robot can be used in multiples, which mostly means that your best and brightest little bots can be used in enough quantities to overwhelm the opponent. We do not have a great deck list yet, but I’ll post our roughest ideas at the end of the article.
The Sentinels are interesting because
they have many useful one-drops, 2 of which are even good later in the game.
Boliver Trask is, in my opinion, the worst, because
he’s not very good in the late game, and you can usually rely on drawing into
your curve. Senator Kelly is the Shepherd of Rot of Marvel, causing your
opponent to take 4-8 damage every turn in the later game. Last, but not least
is Wild Sentinel. Wild Sentinel is a decent one-drop for some early damage, but
then graduates to bait for your Orbital Sentinel Base.
The 2-drop slot is exclusively filled
with Sentinel Mark I, a great option for Sentinels because he has the range,
flight, and a minorly useful stun ability…he’s also pretty much all you’ve got.
Another idea we are working on is running Wild Sentinels in his stead, to allow
you to drop out tons of Sentinels for a good Mark IV! The Sentinel Mark II is
your three-drop, and he’s really just exclusively useful as a 4/3 beater, pumping
your Sentinel count up. The Sentinel Mark IV is the big beater of the army, and
you will be relying on him to get you a stable board position on turns 4-5. If
you cannot achieve this, if you do not have enough Sentinels out to get him big
enough, you will most likely lose, because most other decks’ 5 and 6 drops are
better than yours, and you need the room for time.
Nimrod and Bastion are the big guns of
choice, but neither fit the term very well. Nimrod is ok, but at least won’t
die once, and can get better with pumps. Bastion is just a 12/12 with no useful
abilities really, unless he’s getting attacked for exactly 12. The best guy
you’ve got is probably Master Mold, who cannot attack but does have great
defense, and an effect that lets you quickly drop out Sentinels to pump
Kelly/Mark IV.
Therein lies the inherent problem of
Sentinels; they are capable of quickly and easily gaining an advantage in the
early game, but as the game progresses, your opponent(s) will be dropping
better bang for their buck. Most 2 drops have a 3 somewhere; yours don’t. Most
good 3 drops are better than 4/3. All 4 drops of worth have stats like 6-8 on
each side. And all other decks have 6-drops and 5-drops with more powerful
abilities and stats.
Fortunately, Sentinels is by no means
all about its villains. Sentinels are made more powerful because of their
awesome plot twists and locations. Orbital Sentinel Base is insanely good, and
when you add in the recursive powers of South American Sentinel Base, your
opponent will be wishing those Wild Sentinels would just stay dead, rather than
coming back to kill more characters.
Finishing Move works just as well as ever.
Reconstruction Program allows you to use your damaging locations, and to gain
back the advantage despite the weakness of your characters. Finally,
Micro-Sentinels can be devastating if used correctly, usually allowing for the
destruction of 2 characters, sometimes just one really big one, allowing Sentinels even more devastating control of the board. The
plot twist Prime Sentinels is interesting, allowing an ongoing plink at the
opponent’s life, but probably will never deal any more than 4 or 5 damage,
making it not very worth it; not to mention it can be played around. Primary
Directive is too hard to get off consistently, but Combat Protocols can be a
huge boon in the group attack department. And finally, I like Cover Fire in the
deck, for a monstrous defense boost.
As far as equipment goes, I’ve only found the need
to use Dual Sidearms or Borrowed Blade, though Advanced Hardware may earn a
slot. Oftentimes, Sentinel draws a very good curve, and therefore does not have
time to pay for its equipment.
Sentinels, from the games I’ve played,
seem to have tons of good early game, in fact are ridiculously hard to stop
early on, but about the time my 4 and 5 drops start rolling out, the Sentinel
force stops attacking. Usually they hope to have down the Base(s), and start
killing every powerful guy who comes down, which is manageable. Sentinels is a
deck very reliant on its Plot Twists and Locations, and that may be its biggest
problem, because you can’t always have them ready to drop down, or maybe your
opponent has ways to stop them.
Here is the deck my friend is working
on:
6
Wild Sentinels
4
Senator Kelly, Anti-Mutant Advocate
8
Sentinel Mark I
7
Sentinel Mark II
6
Sentinel Mark IV
2
Nimrod, Mutant Hunter
2
Master Mold
4
Reconstruction Program
4
Micro-Sentinels
4
Finishing Move
4
Cover Fire
2
South American Sentinel Base
3
Orbital Sentinel Base
4
Dual Sidearms
I’ve already gone over virtually every card you
could/should run in a Sentinel deck, so now I’m just going to summarize this
deck’s choices in the matter. This version of Sentinels is very much an
aggro-control deck. I’ve seen some people try to make their Sentinel decks
purely aggressive, and quite frankly that doesn’t work very well. You are
forced to rely on Plot Twists, and will run out. This version gets in quick
points where it can with Wild Sentinels and Sentinel Mark I and II, but then
once Mark IV, Nimrod, and Master Mold especially come down, its time to move
everyone but one or two big defenders to the support line, and start using
those Locations to take out powerful characters that could break through the
Mold, while using Senator Kelly to plink away at your opponent’s endurance. I
am considering replacing Sidearms with Blade, because defense is more useful
later in the game, but as of now I just like Sidearms for that early game push.
Group attacks are used to manage a good stun on the opponent, and then obliterate
with the base, in most cases.
Well, I’m all out as far as Sentinels
go, and need to get cooking on some other work. I don’t know what my next
article will be about, but I’m thinking probably Doom. Cheers!
-
MagicWeasel
Glenn Jones
Please, I beg of you, email me! I’m going to run out
of ideas eventually, and I would love to at least be sure that it’s helpful to
someone.