Secret Skies (4 wide Blue Specialist)

Like a lot of kids growing up in the 80s, I loved Transformers! Especially the Decepticons, however, unlike most kids Skywarp was my favorite. He had the best powers of all the planes, so today we're gonna look a deck that makes the best use of his newest incarnation! So hit that link and warp into the deck!

Once again we delve back into the ranks of the Decepticon forces as we take a look at another blue deck, intending to always have secret actions no matter what in play and the ability to recur them at our whim. To do that we need a little help from my favorite Seeker, Skywarp, more specifically Skypwarp during his time as a Sergeant in the early days of the Cybertronian War.

Skywarp dictates a lot of this by being not only the key card of the deck by recuring secret actions and drawing cards, but his typing also gives us what we're striving for in terms of bots as we will be focusing on the Specialist class Decepticons to be our elite squad of ruthless killers...I mean it's not the first time he's been apart of an elite fighting force.....Yo Joe.

All this aside one of the many reasons Skywarp was chosen to be point Con in this build is first and foremost his ability to constantly recur two spent different secret actions when flipped to alt mode and allows us to draw a card when transformed to bot mode when we play one of our ill-gotten actions. While this doesn't give us a plus to the hand it does allow us to break even. As you can see from above the guy is a bit of hoarder after. This allows us to gain plenty of options and spring a near-constant stream of surprises and control the flow of the battle in our favor by hindering opponent at every turn of the game. 

The other reason is Skywarp is one of the few Transformers who doesn't have a stat change between Plane and Robot mode, this is a large bonus for when we attack or defend. Sitting at eleven health for eight stars isn't too bad either. This means regardless if he's attacking or defending he's solid either way around. As we are a blue Specialist deck we gain a large amount of defense via tough through Flamewar and lots of defensive buffs. Tossing in some pierce too helps a bit meaning that he'll be doing 3 to 4 damage will be getting through each swing.

The ever paranoid Breakdown is our next Card in our specialist line up. (Who's there?! Show yourself!?!)

Breakdown continues our trend of Specialist with some decent stats. Unlike Skywarp he's a little weaker and will probably never leave car mode for his easily activated combat skill. (Who keeps talking?! What's that clicking noise?! Wait a minute, who's easy?!) He sits at decent stats for a 5 star Con and part of the combiner. He when armed with a weapon such as piercing blaster he becomes 2 pierce 3 plus with his combat skill he becomes a 4 pierce 3. The same can be said when he gets to hold a laser cutlass becoming a 5 pierce 3. (Finally! A sword to cut all my enemies with...whoever they are...They're everywhere, watching me.) Again With Flamewar's help and some armor he can stick around for a bit with increased defense to absorb attacks and keep going. (Alright whoever you are! I'm outta here and you'll never find me!)

Aimless is our only non-specialist in the list of Cons but nevertheless fits into this band of misfits. Since we are constantly using secret actions it's a good time to throw Aimless onto the field as we can constantly redirect attacks into him via hiding spot with Flamewar he sits there and absorbs even the biggest blows by having tough 4. Plus when he does get knocked we have the potential to trigger his ability pretty easily by all the double blue pips we have in the deck. His role in this deck, however, is more for the damage sponge ability as we keep our other Cons safe by redirecting everything to him and he just buffs out.

This was the best picture I could find of Aimless. Plus who doesn't love Misfire?

Rounding out our band of Killer Cons is Flamewar, whose also our final Specialist. There really isn't too much to say about her, as she's widely used in the community. I'll try to keep it brief best I can. We have her here to give everyone tough one while she's in bot form to help us survive just a little longer. She can do decent damage once she gets a hold of either a Laser Cutlass or Piercing blaster letting her break even with 4 pierce 3 or 3 pierce three. Much like Skywarp, she's here for a single purpose, but it's a purpose she does well.

As we are a team of specialists...And Aimless. We get access to their specialized equipment. These let us get equipment and actions played quicker via multi-tool and field communicator. Sturdy armor while not giving us the ability to double equip or play a free action does give us additional armor against ranged opponents which is proving more beneficial as the sets pass. An interesting interaction is with Field Communicator and Skywarp, sure you lose the element of surprise since it's no longer a secret, but you still get potentially free draw just for attacking. Multi-Tool can let us equip two Bots on the same turn letting us drop a Laser Cutlass or Pierce Blaster onto another con making them that much more deadly.

Secret actions are the name in this deck, as such one-quarter of the deck will be secret actions. We'll be using the max of 3 for Infiltrate and Hiding Spot and 2 of Battlefield Report and Dampening Field.  Infiltrate and Hiding Spot are maxed as they hinder the opponent the most, Hiding Spot lets us constantly redirect to Aimless who can soak damage the most efficiently of any other Con especially with tough 1 or some extra paddings on him. Infiltrate is our other big go-to card since this is the Transformers equivalent of counter-spell. This says no to all orange actions and right now there is a lot of them we are still in a very orange heavy meta and we need to be able to shut down as much as possible if we are to survive.  Battlefield Report and Dampening Field are backups to help our draw and stacking defensive flips and to slow down the bold enhanced bots and cons from flipping too many cards.

The Bigger They Are...

. Is in the deck, but I really just added the picture because I like Tarn. I mean it's a good card gives us a decent attack and pierce bonus for most of the cons save for Skywarp.

Deck

O= Orange B= Blue G=Green W=White BK=Black

Characters

Sergeant Skywarp - Black Ops/Seeker 8 Stars
Break Down - Paranoid Scout 5 Stars
Raider Aimless - Airforce/Weapons 7 Stars
Flamewar - Veteran Decepticon  5 Stars
Total = 25 Stars

Upgrades = 18
Weapons - 10
3 HandHeld Blaster B/B
3 Laser Cutlass B
2 Multi-Tool B

2 Piercing Blaster W

Armor - 6
3 Extra Padding B/G
3 Sturdy Armor B/G

Utility 2

2 Field Communicator W

Actions = 22
3 Inspiring Leadership B
3 Hiding Spot BK
3 Infiltrate B
2 BattleField Report B

2 Dampening Field W
3 security Checkpoint B/B
3 Steady Shot B/BK

3 Bigger They Are... B

A big thanks to Computron's Lab for supplying the pictures and of course Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro for making the card game. See you guys next time! (GAH!!!! PEOPLE!!!!!).....Dang, it Breakdown.