New Feature:
If you think this review is too long to read,
just skip straight to the scores and then read
the summary for a concise overview!
Yes, the summary now lives up to its name.
MegaMan is still a relatively new game. As
such, some of my terminology may be confusing,
as I plan on using the game specific terms to
refer to cards. For example, Energy refers to
cards in your deck, but Power refers to cards in
your Power Gauge. Confused? You can download
the current rule book
here,
from Decipher’s MegaMan TCG site. If something
doesn’t make sense, make sure the game meaning
is being applied to the word.
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Name :
ElecMan
Title :
Fully Charged
Set :
Power-Up!
ID :
1 C 1
Type :
NetNavi
Emblem:
[El]
Strength:
1
Defense:
0
Blast :
1
Effect :
Whenever you play a BattleChip, you may power up
twice.
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Electricity: is it in you?
Please note that I have not played as ElecMan,
though I have faced it.
Stats
: This
is the only ElecMan in play, so its title serves
as little more than a colorful descriptor.
Since he’s the only ElecMan, he misses out on
some bonuses that Navis like MegaMan (and so
far, only MegaMan) get by having a larger pool
of Navi-specific cards. He also can’t benefit
or be penalized like ProtoMan: a ProtoMan promo
came out before the Starter deck version, and
some cards favor one version over the other.
ElecMan naturally provides an ElecMan Emblem,
which looks not unlike a “pointy” question mark
missing the dot. The official abbreviation from
Decipher’s own spoiler is [El]. I will try to
use their choice of symbol representation. You
can find their spoilers on their site.
Aside from his own unique Name, Title, and
Emblem, ElecMan also has memorable “side”
stats. His Strength is the lowest in the game,
just one. It is shared by six other NetNavis,
making it the most common as well. His Defense
is the lowest in the game, zero! The only Navi
he actually hurts without any powering up is…
himself! Finally, he has the lowest Blast we
have seen: a Blast of one is sweet indeed! You
could Blast every turn if you wished. The
downside is you are stuck with what you get, so
Destiny Numbers will matter much more.
Card Effect
:
This is why ElecMan has such a horrid Strength
and Defense. Well, some of that went to paying
off his sweet B1 (Blast one), but the lion’s
share of his stat penalties (assume 2/2/2 is
baseline) went to paying of his sweet, sweet
effect. Each battle chip lets him power up…
twice! With four of them, you could Area Steal
from one Power to five Power in your Power
Gauge. There is one downside: every time you
power up, it’s basically one damage to yourself.
Uses/Combos
:
Here’s a brief rundown of ElecMan’s
Navi-specific cards. Since this is only the
third NetNavi we have covered, I want to explain
one bit of wording: when I say something like
“you must be running [Insert NetNavi Name/]
to use this card” it would mean that said card
requires one of that NetNavi’s Emblems, since
currently there is no way to play an Emblem with
the Navi it matches already being in play.
Charging Up
and Count Zap, Metal Head are Green
Resources. Both only require you to be running
ElecMan. Charging Up Spends it’s self
and burns a Power to recharge to Energy. Count
Zap is a NetOp, triggering a Recharge when you
play ElecMan cards. Both also have good Destiny
Numbers (4/5 respectively), and aid in
recharging, something you’ll need to do a lot of
with all the Powering Up and low Defense.
Failure to get these cards into play, from what
I have seen, will make winning nearly
impossible: ElecMan tends to be to Energy
inefficient to last very long.
Double Zap
and Shocker let you bend the rules of
Blasting. Double Zap is an inexpensive
Yellow Resource: just be using ElecMan.
Spending it let’s you Blast once without it
counting against your Blast Limit (i.e. the rule
saying you can only Blast once on your turn).
It even has a solid Destiny Number of three.
Shocker is a Yellow Event, and somewhat pricey.
You need three ElecMan Emblems in play and three
Power in your Gauge to put it into play and two
Power to burn in order to use it. It’s worth it
though, since it not only let’s you get Blast
two extra times, but those times are from your
opponent’s Power Gauge. To top things
off, it has a Destiny Number of five. Please
remember that you are only allowed to Blast in
your Main Phase, and it has been confirmed that
is the only time you can play these two cards.
Energized
is a Destiny 4 Yellow Resource. It requires 3
Power in addition to ElecMan being your Navi.
This is kinda expensive for its effect: it just
places itself in your Power Gauge. With its
good Destiny, this isn’t terrible, just not that
awe-inspiring.
Finally we have ElecMan’s custom
BattleChip, Thunder1. It requires you
run ElecMan (naturally), and requires two Yellow
Resources be in play. Here’s where it crashes
and burns: while it gives you +2 Strength for
each Power in your Gauge, you must discard two
Yellow cards. There are two general BattleChips
with similar effects. BoysBomb, which
just needs one Yellow Resource and two Power to
gain a +1 bonus to your Strength for each card
in your Power Gauge, and has a Destiny of
three. You could also use BoysBomb3. It
has the same Destiny as Thunder1 (Destiny
5), and requires three Yellow Resources and four
Power. Then, you must lose two Energy to make
your NetNavi Strength +3 for each card in your
Power gauge. In the long run, that’s about as
pricey as Thunder1 is.
Using ElecMan is difficult. The
“expected” path is to go Yellow/Green. Green is
used primarily for its Recharging properties,
though some might use its search aspect as well:
ElecMan is very combo intensive. I have seen
people try and use his Yellow side to fill his
Power Gauge quickly, but I wonder how wise that
is: ElecMan can do that pretty well on his own,
and the effort would be better spent destroying
the opponent’s Resources and Power. Doing so
keeps your opponent from smacking ElecMan upside
the head. ;)
When I get around to running
ElecMan, I’ll naturally run most of his cards.
I’ll most likely run Upload: with all the
damage I take and Power I burn, my discard will
likely have everything I need. Upload
also ahs a good Destiny. With a Blast of one,
you need to avoid Destiny’s of less than three
if at all possible. I’ll use most of ElecMan’s
cards other than Thunder1: it’s just too
over-priced. I wouldn’t necessarily run
BoysBomb3 either: it needs a lot to be
played. Hitting hard with simple BattleChips
like the Boomers and keeping the opponent low on
Power and Resources sounds like the way to go,
topped off with massive “chain” Blasts from
Double Zap and Shocker.
Ratings
Casual :
1.5/5-ElecMan decks are very pretty thanks to
all those shiny, foil cards. Yeah, you need
large amounts of Super and Ultra Rares to run
this bad boy. This translates to him being
nearly useless without sinking a lot of cash
into setting him up. He also is difficult
(although rewarding) to play. This makes him
painful to play for the casual gamer.
Tournament :
3/5-Since I assume players spend a lot here; I
am not punishing him heavily for that. Where he
really takes a beating is the differential
system used to score Decipher MegaMan
tournaments. You “score” from winning depends
on how many cards are left in your deck when you
win. You play two games, and you add the
differentials together: if each player wins a
game, you subtract the lower score from the
higher score. Finally, you get three bonus
points for being the winner. This kills ElecMan,
who basically wins by throwing his deck at the
opponent. You can win consistently, even
spectacularly, but the margin won’t be that
high. So decks that win less but by bigger
margins will come out ahead.
Limited :
1/5-No. Don’t touch him. You have to have a
ridiculous amount of ElecMan support to even
consider it in casual. Doing it on the fly is
insane.
Summary
ElecMan has what may arguably be thought of as a
perfect Blast score (it leaves him stuck with
whatever he gets), but no arguments that zero is
the worst Defense. His deck style is Suicide
Beatdown: at least if you consider Blasting to
fall into that category. You keep powering up
and Blasting and hope that your opponent runs
out of Energy before you do. ElecMan is for the
skilled and the rich.
One last thing: ElecMan scores low, but it’s not
his fault. He suffers from the few blemishes on
the MegaMan game: a poor rarity scheme (but far
from the worst), the differential scoring
system, and perhaps how the Life Decks have been
executed in this game. At least two of these
things could be changed with relatively little
trouble…
