Deck
Major shockwave 14*
Raider sights 6*
W1 Flamewar 5*
Upgrades-
3 terrifying resilience
3 LV gamma-disruptor
3 Field communicator
1 bashing shield
1 sparring gear
1 energy pack
Actions-
1 disarm
2 espionage
3 hidden fortification
3 leap into battle
3 reclaim
1 reprocess
2 sabotage armaments
1 scrounge
3 security checkpoint
1 smelt
3 bigger they are...
3 unconventional flying..
2 underhanded tactics
1 vaporize
sideboard
Caliburst 6*
2 jam signals
2 stable cover
2 backfire
1 sturdy armor
2 w-5 gyro blaster
1 callous leadership
Hello everyone and welcome back! Well I guess at this point I'm back...I have been super sick the last few days and luckily I have this awesome website so you don't have to listen to my terrible voice to get great content! Today we are going to be talking about the deck I ran at the Energon Invitational! I ran Major Shockwave, now the funny part is people were surprised I brought this deck but let me remind you I have been playing Major Shockwave since his release and have helped 4 different people win their qualifiers with a Major Shockwave deck so I have had lots of experience with the character. So my team for the event is listed on the left and my reason behind sights as my 6 star is because he becomes a utility when he is KO'ed. Now this is important because I have my weapon slots full of Gama launchers and my armor slot with terrifying resilience so my utility slot is open (assuming I don't have a field communicator here, but even if I do it is easily replaced by this. It also gives me a +1 attack and defense, bringing my attack in bot mode to 8 and defense to 3! That is really good, or if in alt mode, 7 attack and 4 defense...Yea also good. Now if that isn't good enough it also allows me to focus 2, so I can make sure my defense and offense flips are always showing the right battle icons. The next character is Flamewar, not much to talk about here except she is a specialist for field communicator and gives my team tough 1. Yeap that's about all...Now the reason behind Major Shockwave, Big stats, perfect build for a control style deck which is my bread and butter, but mainly because I felt he was positioned very well for the big tournament. The biggest reason was because the deck has access to many of the most important cards going around right now, plays around a lot of the cards going around. For instance, secret actions are really good...And Major Shockwave can play them off the top if the deck...Shockwave is also really good at making sure you opponent is top decking most the game and hand disruption in this game is very good. Just think what's better then making your opponent scrap a card from their hand, oh yea adding +2 attack to Shockwave, or even +4 attack and making them scrap 2!
Lets be honest making our opponent scrap 1 card is nice but what about 3 cards in one turn? How? Well we have to make sure Shockwave is in bot mode, we play a weapon, flip for turn, then play ufo! Being able to play Decepticon cards off the top of your deck is really strong as well, especially since their is 11 of them in the deck! Now if you add secret actions to that then there are 16 cards that we can play off the top of the deck. Now as far as how well it was positioned goes, Major Shockwave has a great match up against a lot of the field. First off if it came down to a mirror match (Shockwave VS Shockwave) then I had backfires in my sideboard, 2 espionage in the main to hit those specific cards I don't want my opponent to have and sights help win the long game. Also in testing we found whoever went second had a better chance to win. Against the aggro match-ups I run hidden fort to allow tough 3, flamewar gives a natural tough 1 so that makes tough 4, which means Shockwave is taking minimal damage, I also bring in callous from the side to move 5 damage off Shockwave. Now against those upgrade heavy decks (Shockwave, Tanks, Galaxy Prime) I had a disarm in the main, I bring in the additional one from side and the two backfires which handles those decks pretty well. I do remember hitting another Shockwave for 5 off backfire then on my turn disarming him. Although always playing that player (will remain unnamed) is always one of my favorite opponent because he is legit one of the best people to play against.
Now I know you like ok well how did you do in the constructed side? Great! So round 1 I went up against an aggro match and won the match 2-0. Round 2, I went up against a battlefield legend 3 wide and took game 1. He sideboarded in warpath and mad that hurt! I lost game 2 but it was super close and game 3 I saw 0....and I mean 0 upgrades. Coming out of sealed I was 3-2 (lost 1 in sealed) So at this point I need to win the next 4 straight for a chance at top 8. Round 6 I play against an Octone deck, now if there is a deck that beats this one up, its black blue octone. I take game 1, in game 2 its a race and I am losing but I look at the top of the deck and see a bigger they are.. I also have 1 in my hand and a field communicator, thinking what I'm thinking? That's right pierce 8 in at his Octone, no way I lose! I lose game 2 because it just wasn't enough. Game 3 was a close game but I ended up taking it in the end. Round 7 was against a friend and he was also running Octone except this time I knew I was going to get stomped! I saw his deck the day before and we chatted the day before about specific matchups and yea I got destroyed. So now I'm 4-3 and my hope is for top 32. Round 8 was the shockwave match I talked about and it came down to my backfires being able to get enough damage in. If it wasn't for that card I think I would have lost in game 3. Going into round 9 I was under the impression I would not make top 32 so I didn't play to win. Now this was my mistake, if you are playing in a big event you always play to WIN!! so in game 1 going against a wide aggro deck (Kevin Allen's deck from Gen Con) I needed to attack for 12 and I had a leap into battle in my hand that would have allowed for me to do so. I didn't play it and lost game 1, game 2 I played a gyro blaster and he cant recover. Game 3 I again have a card to win and just don't play it, it was a close game but because I chose not to play those cards I lost. Now mentally I was ok with losing, however it turns out I was 31st at the start of that round so if I would have won I definitely would have been in the money. Oh well, again I am still ok with this outcome because I was missing top 8 I didn't mind what place I came in. If you aint first yer last right!
All in all the deck performed really well and if I would have dodged a little better I think it had a chance. The deck is really powerful, really consistent and I love playing the deck. I hope you guys enjoyed this article and me breaking down how it performed. I suggest if your a fan of control style decks you give it a try. Just remember to play it against something comparable because you don't want to crush an opponent running something weak and put them off the game. Shockwave is a very oppressive character and its a bad feeling to be topdecking every time so use this and other top tier deck correctly. I will be making a deck power level video on 12/22 so if you are seeing this after that date make sure you check out the channel to give it a watch!
