An idea was born

Neil and I were flying back from PPG Orlando when we had an extended layover in Chicago. During this layover, he and I were discussing Transformers TCG as we do quite frequently. Ultimately our conversation landed upon what are we going to do now that the competitive season is over and we are a good 10-12 weeks from Wave 5 (Disclaimer: Wave 5 spoilers had not started yet) From this conversation, Slippery When Jet was born.

We talked about whether we would take our competitive decks into the locals and continue to play them and refine them. Neil had played Galaxy Prime at PPG Orlando, and I had played Springer Aggro. We both felt that the competitive community as a whole had both of these decks solved. 

Our attention turned to crafting new deck ideas using the current card pool. For me, this was an opportunity to brew. I love to brew up new ideas, and if you ask Neil, I bother him quite frequently with these mostly terrible decks. I’m quite convinced at this point that Neil humors me on these ideas.

Idea number one was a way to build a three-wide aggro deck that would have the ability to one-shot threats in the meta on the opening play. I called this deck Green Light Go, and I will come back to this deck in a future writeup. 

I also spoke to Neil about wanting to build a Slipstream deck. He and I have made this attempt so many times that we both knew the deck would probably fall on its face. In his words, and I’m paraphrasing here. “This deck is a joke; it will not be good.”

The Initial Bot List

The initial list was about understanding that Slipstream has a more significant impact on the game, the wider that you go. But at eight stars, she prevents us from going 5-wide. Due to Slipstream’s star cost, we accepted a 4-wide team and started looking for the fourth bot. Now you might be saying, “wait for a minute Jesse, how did you get narrowed down to just one bot?” My answer, dear reader, is that Wave 4 printed the best plane to ever grace the Transformers TCG meta, Raider Tailwind.

Now that’s a pretty bold statement, but Tailwind has been a dominant force in the meta ever since Wave 4 dropped. Tailwind was in 23.08% of the top 8 decks at the EI. He was on the winning team at PPG Las Vegas, and while PPG Orlando is still compiling decklists, he was in 50% of the decks posted so far. 

Because of Tailwind’s overall power, I knew that the deck would have three bots already figured out. Slipstream, Tailwind, and Nightflight. These three would occupy 17 of the decks 25 stars. With eight stars remaining, it was time to dig into the options.  

8 Stars

• Blackwing
• Dreadwind
• Dirge
• Raider Needlenose
• Raider Triggerhappy
• Sergeant Skywarp
• Thundercracker

I wasn’t ready to drop down to seven stars just yet in the decision process. However, we could quickly narrow down this list even further. We are not interested in the Blackwing/Dreadwind planes because we don’t have room to run both, and running both would take the team to a three-wide. I’ve also played the Slipstream Dreadwing team before. It never quite got there for me overall. I like the overall stat power of Dirge in Plane mode, and his ability is not dead, but it’s also most likely the first plane to die, and I felt we could be doing something better overall. 

We cut Needlenose because we don’t have room for star cards in the list. Sergeant Skywarp is an exciting choice, but one that I think hurts the deck too much if we are playing too many blanks, which leaves us with Thundercracker and Triggerhappy. I believe Thundercracker wants to be in this deck, but I do think that the battle card choices to support him are different. You most likely have to look at playing Leap into Battle, The Bigger They Are, and other pump actions. 

While Triggerhappy can’t fling damage in bot mode from the Slipstream trigger, his two attack with pierce four is very relevant in all matchups. In a worst-case scenario, you can keep him in plane mode to attack with Energon Axe or Scoundrel’s Blaster, netting very nearly the same amount of damage.

Initial Battle Cards

With the bots settled in, we can begin constructing the base deck. Because of Triggerhappy, we decided to load up all of the direct damage weapons into the list. We pushed Sturdy Javelin, Armed Hovercraft, Multi-Missle Pod, Energon Axe, Laser Cutlass, and Scoundrel’s Blaster.

With the Airstrike Patrol on the list, we landed on the Extra Paddings for armor. Mainly here for the green pip, they offer an outlet for additional double blue pips on defense or double orange pips on offense. 

When looking at utilities, I decided that we didn’t have great options here since we were not running an Autobot leader for Matrix of Leadership, and landed on a sole Pocket Processor. 

Moving into Battle Cards, we automatically included all the cards that would deal damage to our opponent. They were Photon Bomb, Bombing Run, Marksmanship, Bad Attitude, and War of Attrition. 

Of course, we wanted to run all of the double pip cards as well, so we included the playsets of Security Checkpoint and Handheld Blaster.

If competitive play has taught me anything, it’s that Blue decks want Hidden Fortification and Sabotaged Armaments. 

We then included a playset of Brainstorms to create dominant blowout potential with Photon Bomb and Bombing Run. 

Initial Plays (Gold Fishing)

Whenever I craft a deck, I goldfish it against other decks. In this case, I was gold fishing against Greenlight Go, the deck I believed was more powerful than this one. Slippery When Jet crushed Greenlight Go over and over again. Which deck went first didn’t matter. It was also mainboard capable of beating this three-wide aggro deck. 

I then decided to turn up the heat and play my four-wide Springer Aggro deck against it. Slipper When Jet, managed to steal a single game win in 3 games, but it opened my eyes to some glaring deficiencies in the deck. First, the two Bad Attitudes, put too many blank pips in the deck, and the payoff for healing all of my bots by one point was not worth the outcome, particularly against another airstrike deck that was mostly Decepticons. 

Multi-Missle Pod was too slow to be considered anything other than the second playset of Armed Hovercrafts. Marksmanship, as a three of, was just dead more times than not, especially against the Springer Aggro matchup. However, I did believe that Marksmanship copy two and three should be in the sideboard for specific team-ups. 

Finalizing the List

After this experience, I was ready to refine the list and create a honed in attempt to take to my local tournament. Below is the text form of the list to review, and you can find the list on here:

Slippery When Jet

[Characters]

• Slipstream-Strategic Seeker
• Raider Nightflight-Air Strike Patrol Spy
• Raider Tailwind-Air Strike Patrol Strategist
• Raider Triggerhappy-Air Force Gunner

[Weapons]

• 3 Armed Hovercraft
• 2 Energon Axe
• 3 Handheld Blaster
• 2 Laser Cutlass
• 3 Scoundrel’s Blaster
• 2 Sturdy Javelin

[Armor]

• 3 Extra Padding

[Utility]

• 1 Pocket Processor

[Actions]

• 3 Bombing Run
• 3 Brainstorm
• 3 Hidden Fortification
• 1 Marksmanship
• 3 Photon Bomb
• 2 Sabotaged Armaments
• 3 Security Checkpoint
• 3 War of Attrition

[Sideboard]

• Raider Ion Storm-Infantry Rainmaker
• 3 Hijack
• 2 Marksmanship
• 1 Sturdy Javelin

Local Tournament Result

On February 2nd, 2020, I took this deck to a 3-0 finish at Legendary Wolf Games in Omaha, Ne. I finished the 6-player tournament in first place and was surprised overall with how well the deck performed. 

Round 1 – Jetfire Thrust

As I was paired up Round 1 with Keith, a very competitive player who is still learning how to play Jetfire Thrust. He and I talked about it before the tournament, and I helped him with some card choices overall. I hope that it helped Keith, and I know he’s going to keep working on Jetfire Thrust.

Game one – I went first and lost, and in this game, I offered up Tailwind on my second attack and saw him get KO’d. Nightflight was now turned off for the remainder of the game and put me way behind. The mistake made, lesson learned. 

Game two – I boarded out Nightflight and Trigger Happy for Ion Storm. I needed a more substantial body to soak more attacks to give me more Slipstream triggers. I won this game on the back of a triple War of Attrition. I had also boarded out a Photon Bomb and two Brainstorms to put in Marksmanship x 2 and Sturdy Javelin. Jetfire is just in bot mode more often, so Marksmanship helps me deal additional damage, and Scoundrel’s Blasters are critical to the matchup.

Game Three – I made no changes to the lineup. 

Round 2 – Battle Master Galaxy Prime

Round two has me playing Jeremy, the owner of the store. He is a great guy and a very friendly competitor. He has posted his deck for all to look at here:

Game One – The piercing damage combined with moving damage was too much for the little Battle Masters. But Jeremy played a Spare Parts into my face down Sabotaged Armaments, which prevented me from killing off his Smashdown. The game came down to both Airstrike Patrols, piercing for 3 – 4 damage each turn. 

Game Two – I made a similar board decision and dropped two Brainstorm’s for two Marksmanships. Marksmanships allow me to handle the Prime deck without much of an issue. My most notable play was Bombing Run to put Smash Down within Two, flip Triggerhappy and get a Sturdy Javelin, attack Vanguard, kill Smashdown, and put Vanguard within one point of death, to Armed Hovercraft on the next turn. 

Round 3 – Blitzwing/Thrust/Arcee

I apologize for not remembering my opponent’s name. Still, when I saw this lineup, I expected a very aggressive aggro deck, with Blitzwing absorbing as many attacks as possible on his Brave side. Instead, my opponent was digging for inverted to put on Arcee, while defending with Blitzwing. Once you drop Blitzwing on this team, then the rest of the lineup folds up pretty quickly.

Game One – I made two critical play mistakes here. When the Thrust tapped with Arcee, put my timing off on Triggerhappy. This lineup neutralized Scoundrel’s blaster for piercing on anyone but Triggerhappy. And I found my flip sequence off. I was in plane mode with no piercing into Blitzwing for two rounds before I realized my error. Against another Decepticon Energon Axe and Laser Cutlass are crucial to winning the game, and Triggerhappy attacking for Pierce 4. With Blitzwing only having 13 health, he gets dangerously low in health after one round because of four damage moved by Slipstream, plus any additional damage done by piercing. 

Game Two – I boarded in 2x Marksmanship, and cut one Scoundrel’s Blaster for Sturdy Javelin. This game went much smoother as I pushed Trigger Happy with Pierce into Blitzwing. Arcee/Thrust got two attacks before Blitz was down. And then with inverted on Arcee, she crumbles as any other aggro character would. 

Final Thoughts

Slippery When Jet is a great casual list as a whole, I’m not sure at this time if I’m prepared to throw it into our competitive gauntlet. It is a more aggressive archetype than playing aerial bots, which was well-positioned in the three-wide control meta of wave 2. This deck may be a potential answer, but I’m leaning towards not. I took brainstorms out so much on the day because I always wanted them to be another card. I don’t think main decking additional Marksmanships or Javelins is best for the deck overall, which means this deck is probably looking for a good playset of something else.  

Perhaps you have some additional ideas on how to make the deck hum even better? We’d love to hear your results and what changes you would make!