Deconstructing Maxx's Mechanoid

Hot off the heels of a brand new Armory Deck, Maxx “The Hype” Nitro has been put in the spotlight for perhaps the first time since his release in Flesh and Blood’s 11th set release, Bright Lights.

It’s no secret that, following his immediate release, Maxx struggled to find a footing in the game’s ever evolving metagame, starved for an identity that he could call his own. But along the way, he's managed unexpected successes at Pro Quests and Road to Nationals events - even winning Battle Hardened: Bologna in July of last year! - showing that with the right builds and players, he can box with the best of them.

But any steam Maxx may have been building dissipated with the banning of High Octane. While this loss impacted the Mechanologist class as a whole, it perhaps affected Maxx most of all, as it was the 2nd half to his most reliable win condition.

Despite his uphill battles, Maxx has unfortunately not received much in the way of dedicated support. Aside from Supercell, he's received nothing outside of the general Mechanologist support of Arcane Barrier and Spellvoid - nothing to help his existing game plan, or offer anything new. 

With the advent of a new Armory Deck - and the promise of a refocus on Mechanologist in High Seas - things are looking up. There's real hope for a full-on revival of Maxx. That said, today we’re going to be looking back at a card that has been with Maxx since the day he was released, a card that has single-handedly convinced players to give him a spin - either because of how it performs in actual gameplay, or just the aesthetic that it brings. I am, of course, talking about…

Construct Nitro Mechanoid (or CNM, as it’ll be referred to going forward) is arguably one of the single strongest cards in the entire game of Flesh and Blood. Boasting a somewhat steep but easily achievable task of requiring any combination of 3 Hyper Drivers on the field, an entire set of Mechanologist equipment still available in your equipped zone, and a 4-resource cost on the turn you wish to play it, the upfront cost for this card can seem daunting - but I assure you, the payoff for CNM is astronomically high, and many decks in the game will struggle to compete with the sheer value CNM immediately brings to the board. The temper 5(!!!) it offers more than makes up for the loss of your armor, and its 0-cost 5-damage (which is usually 6) overpower attacks can be a brilliant end for any turn, while allowing you total flexibility with your hand.

However, that only scratches the surface of what players have brewed up in order to stand with our heads held high in today's CC meta!

Tried and true builds of Maxx typically run CNM; it's an incredibly efficient way to win games, as the combination of temper 5, a full grip of playable cards in hand ready to fire, and a 0-resource finisher for 6 overpower is an absolutely devastating combination to regain the tempo in your favor. However, there are many tricks to maximize the value of the Mechanoid (one of the most noticeable ones being that its attack is not limited to once per turn; if you’re able to stack action points, there is nothing stopping you swinging 6 overpower again and again at an opponent who simply won’t be able to stop the onslaught!)

Before getting into the meat of the deck, we’ll begin at the weapon and equipment choices. While the core of Maxx’s deck heavily revolves around assembling and winning with Mechanoid, everything else has its uses, from helping you assemble CNM to working alongside it after resolution.

Maxx’s iconic wrench and his only spec, Banksy is the weapon of choice. While some decks have found success using Teklo Foundry Pistol (I myself am a big fan of it), with new support from the Armory Deck, Banksy has found its way into most Maxx mainboards to efficiently keep space and present a reliable finisher/chain ender against decks that don’t want to block.

The headpiece of choice is Hyper-X3, a legendary head slot card from Maxx’s home set of Bright Lights. When you boost away a Hyper Driver from your deck, it tucks away nice and neatly under this helmet rather than settling in the banish area. Truthfully, while the text on Hyper-X3 can be relevant, this head piece is typically ran for its reliable 1 battleworn; any Hyper Drivers underneath, however, convert to the stack Mechanoid creates on resolution - providing an additional attack with it.

Teklo Foundry Heart is a tried and true Mechanologist chest piece - hailing all the way back from Arcane Rising with a convenient and welcome reprint in Bright Lights. Its battleworn 2 allowing us to block relevant on-hits, with the the text on the card allowing us to generate an additional resource where needed (which can be extremely helpful for that awkward resource cost of 4 that CNM asks you to pay).

The next 2 pieces of equipment, Galvanic Bender and Cogwerx Base Legs, might seem very unassuming in comparison to the previous 2 pieces of equipment, but Maxx players will be quick to tell you: these 2 pieces arguably outclass anything else Maxx could be running. Galvanic Bender itself has a helpful battleworn 1, but it's the text that we’re really looking at: when you resolve CNM, this bumps up the power of every attack from 5 to 6. As long as this is underneath your Mechanoid stack, this will always be live, providing (at an absolute minimum) an additional +7 damage CNM can do across the course of the game.

Cogwerx Base Legs, while having no block value, has a niche but extremely powerful effect when paired with CNM: after boosting, you may pay an additional resource (which can easily be covered by spare Hyper Driver resources or your Teklo Foundry Heart in a pinch!) to provide yourself an additional action point, which allows you to immediately swing your Mechanoid an additional time. An additional +6 damage for 1 resource I hear you ask? Yes please!

12 damage upfront, then a wall of temper 5 stares down your opponent while you sit with a full hand - knowing full well that no matter what card they want to throw your way, your block value far outmatches their own. If they can’t strip your hand fast enough, the damage they’ll be taking will far exceed what they can put together. That's the feeling Maxx lovers enjoy: the total oppression that comes with CNM and all of its tricks.

Is that all there is to it? Simply assemble the robot? Of course not!

With the sorely missed presence of High Octane, action point generation is at an all-time premium. While there are various ways of doing this in Maxx and across the wider Mechanologist class, they often come with hoops or negatives that make them either clunky or downright unplayable. However, an emerging path players have chosen to take is running a combination of Hyper Drivers, Gas Up, and Heist.

Hyper Driver, on its own, is a key piece to many of the lines Mechanoid-orientated builds will be looking to play, while also being a key piece to the overall game plan. It can be played early to accelerate your CNM assembly, it can be banished underneath Hyper-X3 for an additional swing (and later sent to the banished area to fuel your Mechanoid attacks), and it can pair dangerously well with Gas Up and Heist once it finds its way to the banished zone.

Gas Up is a 1-cost card giving +4/3/2 to an attack - somewhat on rate as it is, but if you’re able to play a Hyper Driver out from banish, you can crank it using Maxx’s hero text, providing you an additional action. For baseline context, every additional action point Maxx is able to generate while in the Mechanoid gives him 1 additional attack, essentially equaling an additional +6 damage. Gas Up, when paired with a Hyper Driver, may as well simply read "1 resource for an additional 10 damage". The best part is, this has almost no interaction with your opponent! They get the lovely privilege of watching you sequence your turn for absolutely maximum damage before they even get a chance to declare blocks.

Heist is a sister card to Gas Up: a 2-for-5 with a particularly unassuming on-hit. But anyone who has ever sat in front of a CNM before will tell you, if there's a Hyper Driver in anyone's banished zone, this card may as well read, “If Heist deals any damage to your opponent, give your CNM an additional +6 damage.” This makes Heist a particularly powerful on-hit that your opponent will always want to respect.

Combining all 3 (Heist, Gas Up, and Hyper Drivers from banish) can be an absolute powerhouse of a play. One of the single most powerful, yet hand efficient lines, this build presents is:

If your opponent is foolish enough not to respect what Heist is offering, this unassuming 3-card hand presents a damage line of 9/6/6/6 - a 3 card 27! However, even if they choose to fully block out the Heist, you’re asking for likely 2 to 3 cards from them minimum - and you still get to swing your Mechanoid for 6 then 6 after the fact, due to Gas Up already gaining you a 2nd action point! 

So, now that you're interested in the payoff, you’re probably wondering: how do we get there? Can it really be as easy as that? What’s the trick?!

The general game plan for this sort of build is very simple. You ideally want to go first in most matchups; You’re a setup hero this time around, so playing out a Hyper Driver or two is preferred.

Then we’re looking to nearly always arsenal a 0-cost boost attack until CNM is safely resolved. Other than being a very safe and efficient card to arsenal in the first place, the main reason for doing this is that they “unlock” your existing Hyper Drivers, allowing you to be very efficient with your hand and pivot where needed. Some hands the need to block will outweigh your desire to turn on the gas and go full throttle, but you’ll also want a way to boost and turn on your hero ability. The existing Hyper Drivers can create resources for more, and the loop continues!

After a bit of play, you’ll begin to understand when and why you should or shouldn’t be boosting cards away, to find a good balance between filtering your deck for CNM and to keep enough pressure on your opponent. This is something that's hard to teach, but relatively easy to feel.

Big Bertha, Crankshaft, and Fast and Furious (another brilliant card from the Dash I/O Armory Deck) all have a similar line of text: when this card is banished from the effect of boosting, put a steam counter on [an item] you control. This includes our token Hyper Drivers, and keeping those alive and healthy is key to our plan - both before and after CNM!

Supercell is one of the most helpful cards Maxx has received since his release in Bright Lights. With the stipulation of an X cost, you have to be up and running with at least 1 Hyper Driver for this card to work - but when it does, its multiplier effect can have you flush with resources for the rest of the game, as well as massively accelerate your way to CNM! Being a blue with a block value is just the icing on the cake.

Gigawatt and Re-Charge! are cards similar to Gas Up, but without the incredibly high ceiling. However, they both come with their own uses. Gigawatt reads, "the next Mechanologist attack" - meaning it can work on both Banksy and the Mechanoid, as well as all your attack action cards! Overpower for 10 is a damn sight scarier than 6 overpower, lemme tell you. Re-Charge is the polar opposite, affecting only boosted cards - however, its additional line of text (putting a steam counter on Hyper Drivers) can let you keep your aggression up, while also helping you keep your Hyper Drivers healthy as you build towards CNM.

Rev Up and Jump Start are 2 staples Maxx players will be familiar with. When you control a Hyper Driver, their cost is reduced by one, making them far more playable than they were previously. The stat line for these cards is fairly above rate; it might not seem like much, but Mechanologists have been running Throttle and Zipper Hit for years now and I don’t think anyone has a bad word to say about either of those cards.

Speaking of which...

The tried and true trio are back! Yes, even in Maxx, Throttle, Zipper Hit, and Zero to Sixty continue to be some of the most valuable cards the Mechanologist card pools offers: good on-rate damage, and a nice chunky 3-block if your gameplan calls for it. So good that blue Zero to Sixty even managed to sneak its way into the deck!

T-Bone has been an incredibly high performing card for the Mechanologist class since it released in Everfest, keeping heroes who rely on blade break equipment (Ninjas, I’m looking at you!) on the edge of their seats, wondering just when they’re going to lose more and more pieces to their gameplan. The joy of sniping a Fyendel’s Spring Tunic is beyond compare.

Some of you experienced Mechanologist players won’t be surprised to see these again, but I also don’t think you’ll be disappointed! Pulsewave Harpoon is one of the Mechanologists class' most reliable forms of disruption, capable of devastating entire hands and potentially punishing your opponent for not blocking earlier. Particularly strong once you’ve assembled the Mechanoid, Harpoon lets you strip more cards from their hand before going in for the kill with your 6 overpower!

Meganetic Shockwave has come and gone, but it finds itself a reliable staple, combo’ing dangerously well with T-Bone and capable of tearing an entire set of equipment away. Being a 2-cost 4 in blue, as well as blocking 3, it’s useful in any circumstances.

Data Link (blue) is a personal favorite, an incredibly unassuming card that fires on all cylinders: blue block 3, 0-cost arsenal card, with a relevant on-hit to dig deeper and find that CNM - and let’s be real, no one is blocking this card when your real threats are still to come. It may as well be unblockable!

While the Armory Deck provided plenty of new cards, the stand-out one that is looking to be welcome in every Maxx deck, regardless of direction, is Clamp Press. Truthfully, in this iteration of Maxx, this has been relegated to a sideboard option. But for all its strengths, it does unfortunately clash with CNM, hindering both when used together. Setting Clamp Press up early doesn’t accelerate the CNM plan, and drawing it post-CNM resolution, the cards only use is to pitch. Still, it's not without its uses...

It's no surprise that Maxx struggles with arcane heroes - and truthfully, he struggles with it more than others. For how amazing CNM is, it has one fatal flaw: you lose your equipment. This includes anything that prevents arcane (even exposing your equipment area when it comes to Jarl!). This is where the strength of Clamp Press shines in this iteration of Maxx! There are simply some matches where resolving CNM is not the answer, and we have to rely on good old efficient value gaming!

Banksy for 5 - or maybe even 7 or higher - is a very real on-hit that your opponent needs to respect: do I block it now and give tempo back, or keep taking the damage while the Clamp Press potentially never leaves the arena? These blocking decisions - that are on your opponent to deal with - offer a totally new way for Maxx to approach certain matchups.

Maxx is also a very polarizing hero; he can be in total control of some matchups from start to finish, comfortable to play midrange until his win condition begins to pay off, while in others, he will wish it was anyone else across the table from him (looking at you, Azalea!). Our sideboard, while unfortunately limited, has to cover as many of our bad matchups as possible. Signal Jammer can hinder Rangers and Wizards, Dissolution Sphere is particularly strong against Runeblades and their 1-damage pings, and Maximum Velocity can help us race aggro, pop Illusionists, and even win clashes against Victor Goldmane.

All in all, a CNM-focused Maxx build has been one of his most reliable ways of being played, and it’s historically been the closest Maxx has been to becoming a truly competitive build. The loss of High Octane has hurt him, however; and the new Armory Deck, while offering plenty of new tools and a potentially totally different approach to him as a hero, feels somewhat lacking for this current direction, while also being a little underbaked for the new direction LSS seem to be wanting to take Maxx. (If you want to lean into that new direction, watch early next week for another Maxx article by George Morehead!)

Thankfully, with High Seas on the horizon, there is every chance we see a bit of support, dedicated or not, which might just be enough to get all the gears in place for Maxx to really crank his way to the top!