By Nathan Gardner
Fire Ferrets team ability is Counter Bend. An ability so powerful, it rightfully only exist on the signature cards.
- First, target any Space with your opponent's tokens matching the Active Bender's element and flip them to your side.
- Then, you may move the stack 1 adjacent Space from its original position following Spread and Token Annihilation rules.
The Fire Ferrets Signature cards are hands down the best in the game. Each has an explosive amount of damage output and each can counter bend.
Counter Bending is the best because:
1) Infinite range: The Space you target can be anywhere on the board.
2) Shield Infinite: No matter how many tokens of one element is placed down on any one of your benders, you get to flip all of them to your side.
3) Defend + Attack: After flipping tokens to your side, move them at or near opponents benders to add onto the damage output you already sent out.
4) Defend + Defend: Say one of your benders has 4 fire tokens on their space and another adjacent bender has 4 earth tokens. If you counter bend one of the elements, you can move it to the adjacent space for Token Annihilation. With one card, you got to attack and with Counter Bending, defended two people.
The Fire Ferrets opening basic techniques have a damage output of 6, no matter which 3 cards you drawl. Even better they are all Normal damage, which I much prefer over Piercing damage on the first turn. Easier to defend yourself against bursts of damage. Their basic techniques also comes with a weakness, which is the teams overall weakness. Low range. Each basic card only has a range of 1. Getting a bender stuck on the sides or knocked back 1-2 spaces will have a hard time assisting the team.
Korra's Range Average 2.2
High Tide - 1
Liquid Lash - 2
Reverse the Current - 2
Flow as Water - 3
Serpent's Breath - 3
Bolin's Range Average 2.5
One-Two Punch - 1
Slate Slammer - 2
Rock Barrage - 2.25
Earthen Roots - 3
Kick Back - 4
Mako's Range Average 2.6
Flash Flare - 1
Solar Burst - 2
Spiral Flare Kick - 3
Firetrap - 3
Firestorm - 4
Each Team's Range Average
Fire Ferrets - 2.4
Wolfbats - 2.5
Rabaroos - 2.6
Tigerdillos - 2.8
Boar-Q-Pines - 3
Buzzard Wasps - 3.2
As we can see, the Fire Ferrets have the lowest ranges in the game. How big of a weakness is this? Hard to say. Most of the time, you only need to be shooting 1-2 spaces away. When Korra gets knock back to the final zone she won't be able to help her team mates until she buys more cards. If you have Liquid Lash or her signature card showing, do you really want to buy those? At the moment you need 3 range to help attack and both of those only have 2. For the most part I don't think the low ranges will effect them to much, just every now and then you might find yourself in a tight spot.
Lets take a look at the card options?
Korra the Waterbender
Starting with High Tide, you get to move then shoot for 2 Damage at 1 range. Hopefully the move can get you in range of your main target. As the game moves forward, we will need better options.
Liquid Lash for 1 cost is a small yet nice trade up. Instead of moving, you'll being Shielding one. Instead of 2 normal damage, 2 piercing with a plus one range. On top of all that, follow up with a hold token.
Flow as Water for 3 is Korra's bread and butter. Move, Shield, 3 Piercing at 3 range with 1 damage follow up. Good damage, defense and range really keeps her options open on the board.
Serpent's Breath for 4 has the same damage out has Korra's signature card, but with 3 range instead of 2. At first glance the card could look bad, high damage sure, but your a sitting duck...well no. The follow attacks make good back up blocking, defending 1-2 spaces for 2 each. The first part is piercing, so the follow up should always work.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Mako the Firebender.
Mako starts with Flash Flare; Move. Shoot. Move. From there he gets two similar options each costing 2.
2 cost Solar Burst; Move, then shoot 3 normal damage at 2 range.
2 cost Firetrap; Move, then shoot 2 piercing damage at 3 range with a hold token follow up.
It comes down to what role is Mako playing on the team. If it's offence, 2 piercing for the guarantee hold is the way to go. If hes instead defending the other 2, then Solar Burst will help you do that. If no on needs saving, sending out 3 damage is a great back up attack. In either case the damage out put of both cards is 0 to 1 better then the basic. Instead of buying for damage, your getting these 2 cards for that extra range.
If you want a little more damage then look to Spiral Flare Kick for 3 cost. Mako still gets a move icon and two piercing attacks of 2 at 3 range. If your going offence your choice of each Firetrap or Spiral Flare Kick will depend on your Pro Bending school of thought. Pile on one space with hold tokens, or spread out damage on multiple spaces.
-------------------------------------------------
Bolin the Earthbender.
Bolin starts off with One-Two Punch which is a shield and two small attacks.
His first upgrade is Earthen Roots. 2 cost which gets you a 2 shield, with 2 piercing at 3 range with a follow up hold token. Very similar to Korra and Mako's hold cards.
Rock Barrage for 3 falls a little flat. Its 4 overall damage, but they can't go into the same space. It is Bolin's only move card, so even though the 3 cost feels high for what your getting, its most likely a balance thing.
Slate Slammer is a strong 4 piercing with 2 hold tokens and sadly only 2 range. I can't see ever wanting to pic this over Earthen Roots. Roots costs 2 less and is pulling double duty defending and attacking at plus one range. Sure Slate Slammer does two more damage, but with your team mates that shouldn't be an issue. Having one more hold token will often seem like overkill.
Trick Cards
How do Trick cards help?
Counter Bending is great. One strategy to try is to only buy those 5 cost cards, filter out the rest of your deck and draw nothing but those cards. To help speed that process up take a look at: Tremorsense (earth) and Trail Blazing (fire). Each discards cards from your main deck. When the Fire Ferrets are drawling nothing but Counter Bending cards each turn, its near game over.
Other tricks to consider are anything to defend yourself while setting up your build. Fluid Form (water) and any of the movement tricks work really well.
Fire Ferrets
Strengths
- Counter Bend
- Each Bender has access to Hold Tokens
- Very low starting range
- Low range in general
Fire Ferrets are the face of the game and are the most welcoming to new players, yet can still be a strong team. They don't have to worry about the Cheat Flag on any of their cards, which opens their Trick selection up nicely.
Recommend Deck Build
Water
2x Flow as Water
1x Liquid Lash
1x Reverse the Current
Fire
2x Solar Burst
1x Firetrap
1x Firestorm
Earth
3x Earthen Roots
1x Kick Back
No comments:
Post a Comment