Why Not Be More? Upgrading Dash from Scraps

Welcome, fellow futurists, mechanologists in pursuit of knowledge, the curious drawn in by the Bright Lights. We assemble to establish a methodology, to give parameters for the development of upgrades, and to jumpstart your journey from the scrapyard to the major leagues.

If you recall my budget Dash article, consider this an update and upgrade, at least from the Classic Constructed side. We will take a deep dive into the underlying machinery that powers this potent deck, and examine where we can improve those cogs bit by bit until we arrive at a full-powered engine.

We'll begin with, essentially, the list we've already presented. Since we have mostly the same card pool as before, there are not a lot of changes to be made in a budget list. This list was created by cutting my own deck down to its core and exchanging a few "expensive" cards to craft an affordable entry point. There are some cards I would immediately replace - more on those later - but this is the bare minimum you would need for a functioning hybrid list.

Since this is a hybrid list, we will generally choose one of our two 'packages' based on our opponent.

1. We go with an aggressive boost plan, anchored by Maximum Velocity and Overblast. These are the big boost synergy payoffs and the main reason this deck includes all cheap boost cards we can get.

1. Or we choose the more defensive plan, where we build up our pistol with Induction Chamber and Plasma Purifier while blocking with our array of 3-blocks or generic defensive cards like Sink Below and Reinforce the Line.

The exact division of the two packages is annotated in the notes found with the decklist on FABDB.

We'll be using this core as we move forward, but as I've already written extensively on this list, I'm not going to go through every detail of it again here, and instead devote the rest of this article to the shiny upgrades. They're not presented in a meaningful order; though I'll offer recommendations on where to focus, you really can tinker with whichever piece stands out to you.

Let's get the premium upgrade options out of the way first.

When it comes to equipment, there are a few higher-prices option to consider. Let's clear the lowest-cost Majestic first.

Viziertronic Model i is not necessarily the first one you would need to upgrade to, since it's mostly used to get access to up to 3 total arcane barrier. The way our current core list would achieve this is by running two Nullrune equipment pieces, which is the reason i would overall recommend this relatively cheap upgrade. Currently, we're kind of wasting a sideboard slot on that 2nd piece of Nullrune, which we could use for other great includes - there are some matchup specific cards I would recommend for these one-of slots. Essentially, Viziertronic's biggest benefit is giving us another deck slot.

Another equipment that sits in a similar spot is Teklo Foundry Heart. This would be a great upgrade that not only replaces our budget equipments Ironrot Plate and Vest of the First Fist, but upgrades the block and, arguably, the resource generation as well. For these reasons, the Foundry Heart is a nearly no-brainer upgrade - but before you boost off and buy yourself a shiny new Heart, I would advise you to consider other, more impactful upgrades before this one.

Because Mechanologist is only now receiving its spotlight, generics form a core piece of the equipment profile of the class. Both Crown of Providence and Arcanite Skullcap are direct upgrades to the currently-equipped Ironrot Helm, with Skullcap generally being preferred for defensive strategies and Crown generally preferred for aggressive plans - but they are both a lot more expensive too! If you own one of both already, you should obviously play them; and if you have multiple decks that want them, you can get more mileage out of the money spent on this upgrade. If we're only talk about Dash, I would strongly recommend looking at other upgrades first; at least buy Teklo Foundry Heart before you get one of these.

We'll turn our attention now to the generically good Mechanologist cards, ones that will slot directly into your core deck and transform it.

If you take a look at the base list, you will see that there are currently three copies of Spark of Genius in the sideboard section - and not a single in the core list itself. Since Spark is such an essential part for assembling your pistol items in the defensive plan, there was no way I could have cut those out for the budget build; but without Teklo Core, Spark can’t really shine in the aggressive plan. This means Spark is taking up key sideboard space, as we have to get rid of it in our Boost-focused build.

When we add Teklo Cores to the core decklist, they justify moving Spark in as well - and together they make one of my favorite combos of the aggro plan! There is nothing as satisfying as ending a strong boost turn with a "Spark for 0", fetching a Core while setting up a great card in arsenal and the resources to pay for it.

Another fancy upgrade a lot of people will think of when talking about Mechanologist is High Octane. Currently, this list runs the generally fine Overblast, which can threaten similar damage numbers for less money and less flexibility. A typical and most desired use case for both will be to boost up to three times with cheap cards and then finish with up to four pistol shots; if we compare that to the damage output of Overblast - which would come in for 8 total damage after three boosts as well - we can see why I use it as a budget alternative. But if we only boost twice, our pistol could only deal 6 in total compared to 7 from Overblast; in that case, our damage would increase compared to High Octane.

High Octane has other advantages beyond simple, raw damage. The first would be that it allows us to split our damage into small pieces of 2 each, which can be really awkward or inefficient to block for decks that run a lot of 3-blocks and defense reactions. Second, the drawn card can make-or-break our whole turn, netting us enough boosts or blues to bring everything together. Finally, there's my beloved Spark combo: play High Octane, boost a cheap card, play Spark with your second action point. You will typically just get a core and draw another card without needing to end the turn, but that's a lot of value.

In your defensive gameplan, High Octane is just a blocking card. Since we don’t intend to boost, and since we play Reinforce the Line, there are some non-bos compared to Overblast.

Overall, i would still recommend getting some High Octanes, since this one is a well known staple for a reason; but I would prioritize the Cores first.

One of the newest additions to the Mechanologist staples is Pulsewave Harpoon. This card is amazing - but even so, it hasn't quite lived up to the hype it received at Dynasty's launch. Since we generally want to play cheap boost cards for our synergies, this one fits right into our lists as another 1-cost 4-attack boost - essentially another copy of red High Speed Impact. But unlike Impact, we have the upside of an ability that matters a lot more, and even cares about our boost synergies. If it won’t come up, it’s not the biggest deal, but in general you want to play this as your third boost to force a strong card from your opponent's hand to essentially be discarded.

This ability especially shines in aggro mirrors, where both players generally avoid blocking and deal more damage with their cards than they could have blocked. In a defensive game, this one can be used alongside a blue to either just load up two pistol items or maybe load pistol and Chamber specifically and shoot, gain go again, and then attack for 4 - which is a fine two-card hand.

Teklo Pounder is kind of a hard one for me to rate, since it's fallen significally in my personal importance ranking after being the very reason I picked up hybrid Dash during Everfest. This was my starting item for a long time in the aggressive plan, and at one point I had lists that ran up to 3 of them. But things changed, and since I began starting with Chamber instead, I gradually cut more and more of them.

For now, I hold the opinion that I generally want one - besides my starting items - for the potential setup on turn one; and since I would generally use Chamber as my starting item, I just want a single one to keep my non-blocks as low as possible. Since I want all my blues in the defensive plan as well, this seems like a fine compromise.

After all those general upgrades, we should talk about matchup-specific upgrades too.

Bios Update makes our mixed plan a lot more consistent, which is why I personally rank this one very highly, even if it is a matchup-specific upgrade. The most prominent matchup where this plan is used will be Dromai; if your meta has a bunch of scary dragons, this could be the upgrade you were waiting for. While it might be a bit counterintuitive to cut a phantasm popper, Ilusionists are the only real reason for me to even run red Payload, and we can threaten a lot more if we cheat out a scary boardstate which is why I cut them for Bios in my list. If you are more comfortable with popping illusions feel free to skip this upgrade.

Meganetic Shockwave is the reason you might want to consider keeping your yellow T-Bones instead of yellow Zero to Sixty. The T-Bone/Meganetic combo is the main reason we run Meganetic Shockwave at all, and it can mess with our opponents' plans a lot. This is especially significant in the match against Lexi. You can cut a few blue 2-costs for these, and obviously keep your yellow T-Bones.

Remember how we gained 2 slots in the sideboard from upgrading to Viziertronic and Heart? These cards make great inclusions and only occupy a single deckslot.

You want to deal more damage in an aggro race where you don’t necesarily want the block value from Galvanic Bender, like against Kano for example? Try punching them with a Goliath Gauntlet!

You're tired of Brutes coming along and Argh… Smash!-ing your hopes and dreams? Show them how probability works with the Gambler's Gloves!

You like the Item boost plan and want to make sure you have enough items in case you boost some as well as have some spares if someone smashes or steals them? Bring an extra!

To conclude my upgrades, I will summarize them all in my preferred order of importance. But feel free to stray from this roadmap and upgrade them the way you like instead!

• 3 Teklo Core + 3 Unmovable in | 3 blue Payload and 3 yellow Zero to Sixty out

• 3 High Octane in | 3 Overblast out

• 3 Pulsewave Harpoon in | 3 yellow Throttle out

• 1 Viziertronic Model i + a specific upgrade, in my case 3rd Chamber in | Nullrune equipment out

• 3 Bios Update in | 3 red Payload out

• Teklo Foundry Heart + a specific upgrade, in my case Gamblers Gloves in | Plate and Vest out

• 3 Meganetic Shockwave in | 3 blue Throttle out

• 1 Teklo Pounder in | 1 blue Combustible Courier out

• 1 Crown of Providence or Arcanite Skullcap in | 1 Ironrot Helm out

Now is the perfect time to start your journey through Metrix, the city of tomorrow. Maybe I helped ignite some sparks of new fellow Inventors Extraordinaire? What you take from this article is up to you. My mentioned upgrades are definitely not everything to consider, especially with those Bright Lights on the horizon.