Piercing Flames (4 Wide Blue Pierce)

4 Wide Pierce is one of the newest decks to hit the Meta scene with surprise success! Today I take a crack at it and see if it's possible to improve on a guaranteed hit!

After seeing the deck in motion via Wreck N Rule's video, I decided to take a crack at it. After some playtesting, I came across my own variant that tanks a little more, while still keeping the damage output at a fairly even level. There will be a lot of callbacks to the original deck as it's serving the basis for which this was formed. All credit to the original deck goes to both  David Fox for the concept and Joe of Wreck N Rule for the updated version that worked out so well for him.

First off, we are still a 4 wide deck, and still trying to land decent-sized attacks with piercing to knock out the opposing Bots/Cons. What's changed in the line up is we now have Fireflight to draw enemy fire and Drag Strip as opposed to Alpha Bravo to hit for higher numbers. Flamewar and Trigger Happy remain in the deck as they are the backbones of the build still. While it sits at 2 fewer stars we trade out those 2 stars for the ability to hit harder and redirect damage for several turns keeping our damage dealer free of damage for several turns.

Fireflight comes to us as part of the Arielbot combiner team as one primary defensive cards. He does that same job for us by utilizing his brave ability to draw fire away from Drag Strip, Flamewar and Trigger Happy. He is further enhanced with Flamewar's ability to give him tough one, with his 2 defense he's able to tank roughly 4-7 damage depending on flips.  We use him in replace Mirage whose been shifted to the Sideboard swapping out one style of control(hand) for another type of control(attack redirection). We indeed lose some damage-dealing ability by not having Mirages 2atk Pierce 2 as an active attacker, however, we can make up for that by using Inferno Breath to tap Fireflight and deal a guaranteed 3 damage. He can also equip our numerous weapons as he's ranged making him a prime target for Armed Hovercraft to deal everyone on the opposing team a single point of damage or just equip Laser Cutlass to become 2 attack Pierce 3 effectively making him on equal footing with Mirage.

Drag Strip is our other change to the deck swapping him out for Alpha Bravo. Drag Strip sacrifices his armor stats for his attack stats. Drag's 4 attack is also accompanied with the ability to pierce 1. He greatly benefits from our weapon suite as he's ranged he can get Armed Hovercraft for a sweep of free damage and him sitting at a 5 attack. He is better suited, however, with both Laser Cutlass and Scoundrel's Blaster boosting him to a 5 attack Pierce 4 with Cutlass. He sits at 6 attack Pierce 3 should an Autobot at the end of the barrel otherwise he's still 6 attack Pierce 1 when armed with Scoundrels. Now we do have one critical draw from swapping him with Alpha Bravo, and that's mainly Drag Stip is a glass cannon. It's one of the primary reasons we have Fireflight on the team, sitting at just 7 health he's can easily be taken offline with just about anyone in an orange deck with the right flips. That's being said a glass cannon is still a cannon and he packs a punch that some times rivals that of Trigger Happy in the deck.

Tigger Happy and Flamewar are the only two Cons that have carried over from the original deck. Flamewar is universally known and loved in the game for her ability to bestow Tough 1 to the entire team making Blue decks even harder to kill. She's can be given Laser Cutlass to become a decent attacker to clean up at the final swing hitting for 4 attack with 3 Pierce when equipped. Trigger Happy is a newcomer from Siege 1 with the ability to pick up weapons out of the scrap pile to ensure we are always an armed strike force. His bot mode maybe 2 attack, but with Pierce 4 all we need is a scoundrel's blaster and we have a solid hitter at 4 attack Pierce 4. This can be further boosted by giving him a grenade launcher should we sideboard into it and once we use it we just pick it back up the next turn by transforming and using his alt skill. 

Our two standout battle cards are, "Inferno Breath" and " The Bigger They Are". Inferno Breath was added as every character can use this card and it's often used when we don't have a good weapon on Flamewar or we need Fireflight to actually do some damage dealing. This is to be mostly used with Fireflight really though, as since he only has 1 attack he doesn't really put in any offensive work as the plan is to never put him in bot mode, less we lose brave. We can easily tap him anyways when it comes back to our turn and not lose out on any power drain to the team.

The Bigger They Are is always a fantastic card as it lets us swing upward into higher star targets such as OPBL or well, just about everything in the game at the moment. Giving us a plus 2 bonus to Attack while giving us Pierce 4 if we swing into anything with a higher star value and in this deck unless you're swinging with Trigger Happy nearly everything is a higher star value. This means we can hit for decent numbers across the board....Except for Fireflight....Maybe. I mean, he'll be 3 Attack Pierce 4, but this is assuming Fireflight is still around to use as he is drawing all the fire from the opposing team.

As stated earlier in the article Mirage was moved from mainboard to sideboard in this deck in favor of controlling the flow of battle over the ability to hit for 2 damage no matter what and the ability to rip a card for the opponent's hand. This is not to say that after further testing he won't reclaim his place in the mainboard and we ditch Drag Strip for something a bit more sturdy. Mirage, when tested, did garner a lot of attention by constantly harassing the opponent with hits for 3 to 4 damage when armed with Cutless and Noble's Blaster. Once dead he would become a further annoyance by transforming every other turn to see the opponents hand and taking an action usually a PTT or Supercharge. The reason I moved Mirage is that he was competing for transformation time with Trigger Happy. In this deck, you need to be able to recur weapons as much as possible, so Mirage got bumped so Trigger Happy to take all the transformation time, and Fireflight became our more active Control piece.

Match-Ups

Bugs: This is honestly in their favor and our hardest match up, it was also the deck that made me realize the deck needed Fireflight. You're still susceptible to Kickback's outrageous attack power and Skrapnel's alt mode can tap any of your team. You do have an uphill battle, however, it's not a total shut out as once you deal with Kick Back and Skrapnel the rest fall easily as if you were a can of raid. Still, their outrageous attack power is a problem.

2 Tall: This is in our favor its 2 bots/cons to 4 and again the redirect plays a heavy factor. We also have Flamewar to make Fireflight even harder to kill. The other reason I believe this is in our favor is we have so much pierce and a longer attack turn on multiple Bots/Cons that they can't the damage of racking up, plus, The Bigger They Are really does it work here.

Cars: This is a tricky one, we have a good chance of doing decent damage if we can get weapons early and start to knock out bots fast, but the longer it goes on or the more draw power the battle turns in their favor. The constant re-readying of Wheeljack or Prowls bold ability will cause our downfall if not dealt with quickly.

Blue Decks: We have a great time against this as we are dealing pierce and they can't do much to stop us. We don't need to worry about dampening as we're not flipping a lot, and aside from Drag Strip, we're not dealing enough big damage that force field is an issue.'

3 Wide: Depending on what your facing this is all about who goes first. If we go first we can flip flamewar and make Fireflight tank a little quicker allowing us to force them to keep tapping to take him down. If we go second, Fireflight will be able to take 2  solid hits before it becomes a 3 wide vs 3 wide. If this happens then it's who can get what upgrades fastest and who hits the hardest.

Deck
Drag Strip-5 Stars

FireFlight-5 Stars

Flamewar-5 Stars
Trigger Happy-8 Stars
Total 23

Battle Deck

Weapons:12
3 Armed Hovercraft (B)
3 Laser Cutlass (B)
3 Scoundrel's Blaster (BG)

3 Handheld Blaster (BB)

Armors:11
3 Extra Padding (BG)
3 Smoke Cloak (BLB)
2 Reinforced Armor (B)
3 Force Field (W)

Actions 17
2 Inferno Breath (B)
3 The Bigger They Are (B)
3 Pep Talk (B)
3 Security Checkpoint (BB)
3 Steady Shot(BLB)
3 Dampening Field(W)

Sideboard
Autobot  Mirage - Counterintelligence  7 Stars
1 Inferno Breath

2 Noble's Blaster
3 Escape Route
2 Grenade Launcher

2 Infiltrate