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Day 19: To Morph or not to Morph |
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Morphers are an interesting beast and one that I personally like a lot, barring a few complaints I have about them. While I won’t laugh at anyone who claims morphers are weak, at least not while they are around as that would be rude, I will heartily disagree. I think they are perhaps among the strongest monsters and are very, very powerful beasts in their own right. So, returning to the Monsterpocalypse Challenge with this particular post even before I’m done catching up may actually be appropriate for me.
My answers to Morphers:
Monsterpocalypse is a paper/rock/scissors game with a healthy dose of random thrown in. Keeping this in mind, some things just work really well against Morphers and some work incredibly well. Here’s a short list of units, monsters, buildings, and maps that are, or should be, anyone’s friend against morphers:
General Hondo Ultra: You can collide with 2 morphers on a rampage for 4 damage. Nice. His alpha also has follow through Brawl for an easy 2 damage option. Both his forms have armoured, virtually disabling the beat-back advantage of Osheroth and Tyrannix Morphers. Be careful if fighting Vorgax though as Vorgax’s Morphers could have a very easy time eating Hondo alive, being able to potentially deal 5 damage to one form and 2 to another, or 4 if the opponent is fealing really lucky, in a single activation.
Alpha Gakura: Punch a building, hurt a morpher, punch another building, hurt another morpher. Take a 2nd monster turn and deal 2 more damage to the morphers. Good potential for a lot of hurt.
Crustaceor: Crunch on Brawl with reach is a morpher’s nightmare. Very hard to screen against and he has it in both forms. Additionally, having access to demolish (brawl or blast, not sure) means that you can litter the board with 5 electrical plants and go to town for 2 damage or more if your opponent leaves any morphers adjacent to one.
Grindix: He brings Distract with him automatically which is a severe detriment to Morphers. If you have the mega, this can make a morpher player’s game hellish as he will have to deal with not only a boost die reduction, but a defense seven monster with crunch and supersmash that burrows. This monster works best against Tyrranix, Osheroth, and Vorgax, decently against Macros, but not so well against Legionairre or Galaxius-4 as these last two rely on blasting rather than brawling.
Leviathron: Radial attack in both combined with Armored in both forms makes this monster a beast against Morphers with a virtually guaranteed 2 damage every round he is adjacent to more than one morpher.
Blastik: Blitz Blast with Syphon. The alpha alone is the nightmare of Morphers but with Demolish Blast, Powerstrike Blast, and Beat Back Blast in the Ultra, hiding from this defense 7 monstrousity is not an option and power-dice are going to be a lot harder for your opponent to hold on to.
Dynastavus: She flies, has weapons master and power drain/syphon on Brawl, Charge, and Command on one of the agendas with the most debuffers. This is just a very solid anti-morpher monster. Take back to back turns rather easily with three to 4 brawl boost dice against flanked morphers. The Ultra’s hit and run can combined with synchronized move can be used for some real heck against morphers.
Xixorax: Super Rampage for destroying their powerbase. Possibly Juggeraught in a form (can’t recall), but most importantly, Beat Back Brawl and Blitz Brawl in the Ultra. Good lord but this bug was made to kill morphers dead. If you can knock out your opponent’s hyperform and follow up before they can relocate with a turn with Ultra-Xixorax, that’s an easy 6 damage against cramped together morphers and a solid win.
Cyber Khan: Easy 2 damage options, what’s not to love? In the case of the Ultra, pull off a Supersmash and followthrough brawl for 5 damage against clustered Morphers, or more if you can smash one through a few buildings and then brawl another. That’s a guaranteed form Kill on half the morphers with just one monster activation.
Xaxor: One of the original Morpher nightmares that doesn’t rely on Multishot, Xaxor instead turns the legion of Destroyers units into highly mobile threats to Morphers. That the Ultra can brawl a Morpher for 1-2 damage (with Chomper nearby) and then blast another Morpher for 2 damage is already a huge equalizer in the damage race. The he gives every last Destroy unit Jump and Charge just gives them a much easier time getting into range to flank, weaken, and penetrate an enemy morpher down to 2-3 Def for a massive amount of unit damage.
Laser Knight: Immune to Super damage is a plus, removing several of the stronger Morpher tricks and can potentially deal 2 damage/activation to morphers just by brawling. Can also be easily healed on a unit turn.
Nova ESR: Even after the Multishot nerf she’s still a solid threat. She’s very fast, very maneuverable, and can deal 2 damage in both forms.
Zor-Voltis: I never hear anything about Zor-Voltis and I often wonder why. Marker and good hit & run options combined with solid hit-die make him a good alpha, but his ultra is an obscenity piece possessing jump, Annihilate, and Hit and run options. That his hit-and-run blast is blue in both forms just makes him a superb buffer for the units of his agenda. A very solid choice against anything, Morphers included.
Zor-Magna: Fission is your friend for back-to-back Monster turns and there are few tactics that are more viable against Morphers. She also packs Sniper, further reducing the already low Morpher’s defense. Additionally her Ultra packs fling blast, and following fire Power. This means that she can either swat a unit into a Morpher and then blast it for an additional point of damage, or she can just flat out power-attack the Morpher for however many damage and then pot-shot one of its team mates for an extra point. Solid.
Mega Phobos-7: A little risky due to Low defense but a virtually guaranteed 3 damage/round and a lot of ability granting (red armor piercing and blue radar) to its allies. Any Morphers on Mega Phobos-7s side of the map are in for a world of hurt during either monster or unit phase.
Any Monster with Leach: Morphers have low defense as a general rule, some as low as 4, if you can gang up on these with your units, you can really turn a battle against morphers into a downhill attrition battle while using a monster with Leach. Yasheth/Ultra Yasheth can really dominate this field since he also has Vampirism.
Airborne Ape/Tanglix/Ulgoth/Incineros: Radial Attack for up to 4 damage, or more with Ultra Ulgoth and Ultra Incineros.
Any monster with Beatback, especially on brawl: This is one of those fun ones because Morphers are very hard to screen. Mega Galaxius 4 is especially fun for this tactic as it comes with Leach tacked on top of Beat Back.
Anything with Fling: Bypasses cloak, what more do I need to say. Kill an unit, damage a morpher, collect a P-die. Good times.
Electrical plant: Memories of dealing 4 damage to Tyrannix’s Morphers while ramming one with Zor-Magna will always make me happy. If you can litter these around the map, you can make positioning hell for a Morpher’s player.
Explodohawks: Easy 1 damage on a unit turn.
Explodomites/Spikadons: Units that can pretty much do 4 damage to a morpher on its own with little difficulty. Requires some careful positioning and luck, but having these out will make your opponent think twice before getting themselves near any unit, so pack a unit with tow/hoist to give them more heck.
Corrupter: Jam is almost a must when fighting Morphers as it removes a lot of their clustering advantages.
Water Avatar: Give your opponent a hellish time conserving the power dice so vital to Morphers and, with careful positioning, prevent them from healing.
Steelshell Crabs: They have reach and as such, can pretty much ignore Tyrranix’s terrify. They are also defense 4.
Cthulabite: Weaken and Distract. Gotta love it.
Squix: Distract works regardless of agenda so if you can’t afford a Cthulabite, consider splicing this into your force.
Fire Kami: Because Igniting a rubble tile that a bunch of Morphers are sitting on is golden. Failing that, it makes a nice revenge for when they hyper up just to crush your powerbase buildings that don’t produce hazards.
Anything with Amplify: Goes a long way to bridging the first-round Power-die race.
Boardwalk Brawl: Almost a third of this map is inaccessible to morphers. While it can be argued its great for the flex-teleport trick, it’s also really unfortunate for a lot of morphers in that it limits where they can be.
Block War/Grapple in the Guardens: Open space is not a Morpher’s friend and makes for hellish screening
Wrecking Ball: The position of the spawn points doesn’t make it the best for quick securing, and the layout of the structures actually turns this map into somewhat of a pain for morphers. Bring a monster with movement options.
So now that I’ve talked a bit (lot?) about stuff to use against Morphers, let’s look at why one might have trouble with Morphers:
Remembering all their abilities – I think this is where a lot of people have trouble, keeping track of four mini-monsters is generally harder than keeping track of one big monster. A lot of players I’ve met try to remember what all the Morphers can do and I think this is the wrong approach for most of them. Most of the Morphers have a key attack member, or two, of the 4 who is generally the better option to make the driving force of a Morpher AttacK:
a. Shield 3 & Shield 4 on Legionaire
b. Rolling Ranch & Gearjammer-BTO on Tyrranix
c. Dismay Tentacle & Dread Tentacle on Osheroth
d. Barreller & Mastigatapede on Vorgax
e. Galaxius Core on Galaxius 4
f. Zor-Fractus on Zor-Macros
This doesn’t mean that one should ignore the other Morphers, but it’s better to think of these ones as the real threats. Why? They all have 2-damage options. In the case of Galaxius Cor it is in the form of Toss Blast.
Now that we’ve looked at those, look at all the red abilities that can be granted to a monster on the other Morphers. You now know the sum total of their threat level as attackers. While there are other abilities to keep in mind, these are the main ones to focus on as they will be what allows your opponent to get the most out of morphers. Otherwise, they are low-defense, 1 damage/round monsters with some soft disruption options.
Another reason I’ve seen people struggle against Morphers is a failure to take advantage of the action-die dilemma faced by many Morphers. This dilemma is even more emphasized by Now buildings with green abilities that allow the draining of action dice and power dice through brawl attacks. Grindix and Gakura can have particular field days even without securing these buildings as they already have some of these options.
Basically, orient your tactics around dice deprivation to maximize effectiveness against morphers. They need a lot of dice to work. Force them to move every time they take a Morpher turn and that’s 4/10 of their action dice gone already. If you can hit them up with energy drain or energy sap right before they want to take their Morpher turn, that’s even more dice deprivation.
Perhaps the biggest challenge when facing Morphers is that they can easily secure buildings before their unit turn even starts. To mitigate this, try to bring maps with fewer buildings or buildings that are not near spawn points. Bring along Electrical power plants and sprinkle them on your opponents side of the map as much as possible to make securing a nightmare for them. This works especially well if you have fast units that can close in on your opponent’s powerbase and blow up the electrical plants (Vanguards, G1s, Katanas). Another sprinkling option is Cathedrals, they do next to nothing for Morphers and prevent them from healing. Five of these on your opponent’s side of the map has suddenly turned it into a deadly field of igniteable spires. Leviathron and Hondo will particularly love this tactic. No matter what, try to mitigate the validity of their powerbase as much as possible. When the Big In Japan buildings come out, consider sewage plants against any force that does not have Galaxius 4 in it, especially if you are playing Martians or Savage Swarm. In any event, be a jerk and place buildings on your opponent’s side that make securing less viable.
The final reason someone might struggle against a Morpher is because they are on a teleporter map. Sometimes this can’t be avoided and it can really make life hell for a non-morpher. I should know as I have been abusing these maps since Rise and only increased my rate of abuse once AYB came out.
The Morpher I think I’d do best against:
As things stand right now, this one is probably Legionairre. I personally find him somewhat crippled by the multishot nerf and having two Morphers that are def 4 is a real hindrance for the poor guy. I love him to pieces but I have a lot of trouble winning against him and his general lack of options makes him one of the easiest Morphers to beat. Laser Knight is probably his worst enemy in a lot of ways but good use of units alone can tear this poor Morpher apart.
The Morpher I do worst against:
Hands down this is Tyrranix, whom I’m consistently surprised isn’t dominating the meta as the most horrific beast in monpoc. I consider him to have the deadliest alpha I’ve ever encountered, bar none and his mega-form is almost as obscene. Perhaps its the somewhat average Ultra that keeps him from attaining the King of Monpoc status or just that I particularly suck against him and everyone else finds him a cakewalk. Either way this Morpher is a nightmarish opponent for me in general and I tend to have a lot of trouble with him.
Morphers Good or Bad?
I’d say Morphers are good but not overly good. There are a few things I don’t like about them, such as the flex-teleport trick, which really only works for a couple of them, but then I hate flexing on general principle as I find it breaks away from the proper Kaijuu feel. Godzilla does not flip between Hyper and non hyper every 5 seconds! *Rant! Rave!*
Er yeah, so back on topic I’d say that Morphers have some good points:
1) Sentai feel.
2) Easy power dice accumulation in the first round.
3) Versatility of action choices
4) They make one think more than a regular monster, either as the user of the morpher or the opponent.
5) When combined and in the right circumstances, they do a ton of damage. Their damage potential is probably the highest of all monsters...in a perfect world where your opponent leaves themselves open.
6) They are just plain fun.
There are also some bad points:
1) Meta: Morphers have this insane, twisted, and convoluted public spectre much like the highly overated Mega Zor-Maxim. As such they are a huge intimidation factor to new players. I periodically ban their use when we get new players at my playgroup events. Having played with Morphers more than anyone else in my playgroup events, I feel that they are generally either over or under-rated, but I don’t control public opinion and it has a lot of power.
2) They are glass cannons. Morphers can gang up and do a lot of damage, they don’t take damage very well though so using them can be very risky. I’ve had one-round form kills against Morphers before when I underestimated an opponent. They go down fast. ...Then again, if you’re playing monsterpocalypse right, so does any other monster.
3) No power attacks. And for me this is the biggest downside to playing with morphers. They cannot power attack, but they can be power attacked. It’s a pretty significant penalty.
4) Hard to screen. This one also relates to point 3. Morphers are easier to get at, occupying only a single base than monsters are so careful positioning is an even bigger must.
Anyhoo. Those are my thoughts on Morphers. To anyone who is still reading, thanks and congratulations, you made it to the end of this entry. ^_^ |
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Rank Another Blog Average Rating: 5/5
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Bobb Beauchamp says: I think the biggest challenge to morphers is the Airborne Ape. It punishes the morpher player for trying to use their morphers they way they were designed to be used, supporting each other in teams of 2. |
Apr 2, 2010 |
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Brian Curtis says: I wouldn't say it "punishes" them so much as it forces them to think more. Kind of like how seeing a Cthulabite and Corrupter on your opponents force while their monster is Osheroth, makes you think a lot more carefully about where you're going to let Defense 5 Kondo end his turn on the map.
It's not "punishment", it's a test of adaptability. ^_^ |
Apr 2, 2010 |
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mrfroggies says: Brian that was a great blog! You put a lot into that. I'm not sold on Teleporter maps being the best things for morphers. Sure they can get around easier, but I can get to them easier too. It makes it a lot easier to disrupt there power base which is one of there advantages. If they pick killer canals then I get to place first. I'll spawn 5 units and place them on all of their spawn points which is going to nerf their first turn. Maybe I'm jaded against that map because my first time playing morphers I got destroyed by Xaxor on it. |
Apr 2, 2010 |
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Brian Curtis says: Thanks. ^_^
I've had people pull that trick on me before and been able to turn it around to a certain extent. It's a nasty move but still recoverable. Depending on what I want to do, I can either eat the units for power-die or push spawn something annoying and get it over to my opponent's side. If I'm playing PE, it's not much of a setback as I only need to get out 1 Explodohawk every round to make good use of my unit phase on that map.
Xaxor is a great monster who will only get better as time goes on IMHO. His hyper forms are pretty good at laying on the hurt to Morphers and he gives excellent unit support in all forms, so I'm not surprised he gave you a hard time. |
Apr 5, 2010 |
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