Boosting Your Blitz Deck with a Sideboard

In a recent announcement, LSS has introduced some changes to the Blitz format for Skirmish Season 7. Those changes align the rules of Blitz more closely with Classic Constructed by raising the deck limit from 40 (with 11 more equipment slots) to 52 (with equipment now counted as part of that).

Like CC, we now have to present a deck of at least 40 cards - which means we can leave out cards for some matchups, or even bring in extras if we desire. Instead of locking in 40 cards for every matchup, we now have the option to bring some sideboard pieces to combat some heroes while dropping them against other decks. (LSS mentions Oasis Respite against Kano as an example.)

This is enough to get any Mechanologist's gears turning. Oh I am excited to talk about this...

Let me ask you this: if you were the most genius inventor in all of Metrix, would you only bring your favorite gadget? I would bring everything! You never know when you might need an Optekal Monocle, right?

But let’s be a bit more serious and take a closer look at Dashs hero ability - which is, essentially, the ability of any Mechanologist Item.

This ability scales really well with having a sideboard, in the way that we can literally bring another ability depending on who we play against - which led me to a hybrid build, with switching between my starting items as its core idea.

If we take a look at most current Dash Blitz lists, they have some things in common. They tend to be aggressive Blitz decks that heavily rely on the Boost mechanic and some strong boost synergy cards.

My preferred deck until now would be a Maximum Velocity-based aggro deck where I use all the cheap boost cards and try to pull of a really explosive MaxV turn. I typically use Plasma Barrel Shot when going first to load and potentially set up an item, or Talishar since it is often the same rate I expect from the Barrel Shot without having to Boost three times for it.

Another option would be a High Octane list, which typically consists of the same cheap Boost cards; but instead of the explosive MaxV, we play High Octane, which can be more flexible and consistent at the cost of dealing less maximum damage.

Both of these options can and are often played with a Teklo Pounder for more damage, or a red Hyper Driver for more consistency, as their starting item.

There are other options to play Dash in Blitz as well. Some Crown of Dominion + Teklo Core strategies aim to draw an additional card with the gold and resources these cards generate; other lists try to include generics like Art of War. But simple aggro Boost decks tend to have the best consistency in Blitz right now.

How does that change with the new sideboarding rules? The "no brakes" Boost plan has one big flaw: while you present really explosive damage, we are fueling our engines by burning our deck - and once we run out, we've lost.

Some decks are capable of fatiguing us out. And because there is a bit of luck involved in our Boosts - we could end up boosting away our good cards - we can find ourselves without our payoff cards when we need them most, such as facing durable foes like Guardians and Warriors

Once decks start to become more defensive, we could be at a huge loss when we don’t adapt to this. So let’s try to adapt.

Since getting fatigued is horrible and a real threat to us, what can we do to deal with that situation?

Since our hero ability is built around being flexible, we can counter some sorts of fatigue just by being able to bring a single item without giving up any win percents into aggro races: Induction Chamber.

I know I know, nothing new or fancy here. But who needs new, shiny toys if we can restore the old classic? This is recycling! And while the idea isn’t new, we haven’t seen much Induction Chamber in Blitz since Everfest brought us Pounder.

While more expensive than Pounder for the same amount of damage in the first 3 rounds, this one stays and helps you in the possible fatigue scenario, while also keeping you from reaching it as fast as you would with a typical full Boost list.

So depending on your current build, this little change only costs you one of your current armor slots (two if you run a different weapon). And since we already got another free slot from LSS, this won’t cost anything compared to your previous list, while having a huge impact on some of the scarier matchups.

But maybe you're looking for something that's actually new. For that, I propose your counter fatigue plan could be Cognition Nodes to try to recur some cards. This one will probably not help as much against block-heavy opponents, since we need to hit to recur our cards and if they let them hit, they might not be the ones we want back!

I’ve seen some talk about just bringing more than 40 cards as well, but personally I'm skeptical of that approach since we just make our deck less consistent for maybe a few extra turns of Boosting worse cards.

With all of this out of the way i think we should start theorycrafting a bit.

Lets say we start with a typical High Octane-based aggro deck to minimize sideboard slots.

Aside from our current deck, we probably need a sideboard with at least:

1. Teklo Plasma Pistol

2. Crown of Providence or Arcanite Skullcap (whichever you prefer)

3. Teklo Foundry Heart (in my MaxV-based list, I like Vest of the First Fist as well, but we will probably drop that one here for flexibility instead of explosive damage)

4. Achilles Accelerator

5. Goliath Gauntlet or Galvanic Bender (preference as well since both can be great in their own way)

6. Viziertronic Model i (to be able to bring at least AB3 in total with our boots)

7. and our anti-fatigue Induction Chamber

This claims 7 of our 12 sideboard slots. So what shall we do with our remaining 5?

If we take the typical hybrid approach, we might think about adding more pistol items and some defense reactions, trying to build our endgame that way.

We could bring a second Chamber and up to 2 Purifiers into our Blitz deck. If Oldhim were still legal in Blitz, this would be amazing to counter him; but since he is no longer around I don’t think we need a 2 and 2 pistol item setup. So what does each of these additional items offer us?

A second Chamber would let us attack a 3rd time by only pitching 2 cards in total, which sounds like a solid endgame plan already. Meanwhile, the first Purifier would bump our Pistol from 2 to 3 - which isn't an impressive breakpoint. So we would really only benefit from the second Purifier, at which point we would attack twice for 4.

The 2 Purifers alongside 1 Chamber would be as pitch efficient as 2 Chambers, while either leaking damage against 3-blocks and that way fatiguing our opponent.
But since we're talking Blitz, there is something to consider in the form of our lower life total.

Can we really risk setting up 2 additional 2-cost items?

I think the second Chamber lands in an amazing sweet spot, since we can force 3 cards by using only 2 cards to pitch when the opponent is low enough - and all of that with only 1 additional sideboard slot!

While talking about items, I will quickly mention one card that, at least in CC until now, has a special place in my Teklo Foundry heart since i first saw it being spoiled. Bios Update is a little buff, but with the huge upside of not only removing the risk of Boosting an item, but instead cheating it into play. I love this in a more midrange-oriented sideboard plan in my CC deck, where I use it alongside my pistol items to try to cheat them into play while pressuring my opponent with Boost attacks - which now seems reasonable in Blitz as well!

With that said, it can mess with our Boost synergy cards like High Octane and especially MaxV - which is not as important if you cut a non Boost card for it, but since Blitz at least until now was mostly a racing game for us, getting another Pounder out wasn’t as impactful since you probably used up most of your gas at that point and probably won’t get to use up all charges.

Teklo Core might be more synergistic, since it could guarantee you being able to pay for something if you are forced to block. In the full boost plan, we typically wanted to win before being forced to block - which made getting the core a bit awkward, but still gave us the opportunity to play as much of those cards as we were able to keep. But in a more defensive list, a Core can help us play the second Chamber or load our items without pitching from hand at all, essentially cheating out our optimal endgame.

In this way, Bios and Core are really quite compatible. If we went with Bios, I might even think about including it in my main board, as it's fine in aggro. We maybe want to use our sideboard slots on more matchup-dependent inclusions.

So what do we do then with our 4 sideboard slots?

One option would be to include d-reacts like Sink Below and Fate Foreseen to really transform in the same way hybrid does. The thought of a 6-card sideboard that transforms your deck into a defensive plan makes me laugh, but it might just work! Another option would be to include more blues against Wizard. You could also drop High Octane or Bios Update for some Maximum Velocity in particular matchups, to threaten more damage in race matchups.

I think those last few slots need some experimenting, and will ultimately depend on the meta you are expecting. Personally, I propose a balanced plan that includes MaxVs and some defense reactions, and you can refine for your local meta from there.

Something I’ve always been sad about was the linear playstyle of such a flexible hero in Blitz, so I am really happy that our beloved Mechanologist can finally unlock her full potential in Blitz as well. I am really happy about this change, and hope that it can become part of the core Blitz rules going forward.

Through the influence of the sideboard, we've added a lot of flexibility to our Mechanologist gameplan, and made progress against some of our worst matchups - without needing to compromise our existing strengths.

This is where we sit now, but imagine where we might go from here! The first time an opponent of mine sideboards into a Nitro Mechanoid plan for our matchup, I think I'm going to flip. I'm excited for this change to the Blitz formula, and I hope you are too!