[{"text":"Hello, friendos! LRock here this week, and I wanted to use this article space to shine some focus on one of the most versatile tier-2s (and characters in general) in the game! Let\u2019s take some time to talk about\u2026 "},{"header":"chameleon boy"},{"image":[{"src":"cha460553chameleo.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"In this article, my primary goal is to expose the amount of synergy that this character can provide his team, including worthwhile partners and cards in the cube that you always want to focus on obtaining. First off, let\u2019s have a gander at that ability text, shall we?"},{"header":"ONCE DURING EACH OF YOUR TURNS, YOU MAY DISCARD A CARD TO TIME TRAVEL A CARD IN THE LINE-UP WITH COST EQUAL TO OR LESS THAN THE COST OF THE CARD DISCARDED THIS WAY."},{"text":"So what are our obvious pros? Well, Chameleon Boy (hereafter referred to as &#34;CB&#34;) is a discard outlet, and a premium one at that. There are more than a handful of characters in DCDB that can discard cards from their hand to fulfill a cost or effect, but being able to discard any one card during your turn cannot be overlooked. You can even discard a worthless card like a Vulnerability or Weakness if it provides you an upside for discarding it, and we\u2019ll be looking into that over the course of this piece. Personally, when I\u2019m playing CB, one of my goals is to always buy the highest cost card if possible, regardless of play text, and only if it\u2019s worth the VP you\u2019re gaining for it. Cards like Bizarro Power and Earth-3 are good and all, but their cost-to-VP ratio is intentionally weak, so I generally will pass on those for other 6-costers that provide two VP at the end of the game. You\u2019ll always see me going for high-cost cards of limited use like Tim Drake or Conner Kent simply for the fact that they\u2019ll always have a second use via CB. You also get better use out of expensive reveal Defenses such as Impervious and Willpower, and be sure to always buy Arisia or Mister Miracle if you see them as they\u2019re just straight bombs for CB. "},{"double":[{"src":"con344321conner-k.jpg"},{"src":"tim309386tim-drak.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"imp658885impervio.jpg"},{"src":"r02450898r02-will.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"r02413401r02-aris.jpg"},{"src":"mis117535mister-m.jpg"}]},{"header":"time travel"},{"text":"Now, the key term here definitely lies in CB\u2019s ability to Time Travel. For those unfamiliar with the term, or anyone who is new to DCDB, to Time Travel a card means that you\u2019re playing the card from the Line-Up as if it were played from your hand; it adds the card to your play area for the remainder of the turn under your control, with the balance coming in the form of being unable to buy or gain the card this turn since you\u2019ve effectively removed it from the Line-Up. But\u2026 what if we had a way to obtain these cards after &#34;playing&#34; them? Glad you asked!&nbsp; Let\u2019s have a look at some key cards in the cube for CB to abuse this, regardless of the team you\u2019re running:"},{"double":[{"src":"aza830617azarath-.jpg"},{"src":"bum691894bumblebe.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"lad923677lady-vic.jpg"},{"src":"mol913774molecula.jpg"}]},{"text":"This is a nice place to get started. Any of these cards can be discarded from play for an immediate benefit, so being able to Time Travel any of these cards is an excellent play for CB.&nbsp; (Detonator also qualifies, but it applies slightly less if there are no cards in your discard pile that you want to destroy.) Here\u2019s how it works:"},{"list":[{"listType":"bullet"},{"caption":"Discard a card of applicable cost to play any of these cards from the Line-Up"},{"caption":"Discard the card from play at some point during your turn to gain its stated effect"},{"caption":"Since the card has changed zones and is now in your discard pile, the card is now yours!"}]},{"text":"Easy, right? Free VP is the best VP after all. It\u2019s certainly never a bad thing to have these cards in your deck, as they will now serve dual function to either provide you with the stated effect OR you can use them to Time Travel cards during future turns! Nothing but upside here! But as it turns out, that\u2019s only a small trip down the rabbit hole. Let\u2019s dig a little deeper\u2026"},{"double":[{"src":"mar607613mara-al-.jpg"},{"src":"nig465693nightsto.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"pla990832plague-c.jpg"},{"src":"sil871489silent-a.jpg"}]},{"text":"Now HERE\u2019S how we cook with gas! For these cards, you get to apply the same principles as the previous set of Ongoings, with one big twist: in the case of the three Villains listed here, playing any Ongoing out of the Line-Up provides the player an outlet to discard them right away for the benefit of the card listed, whether it be an Attack for Nightstorm or Plague, or extra Power in the case of Mara al Ghul. You\u2019re essentially cheating your way to free victory points AND getting another card in your deck to boot! Silent Armor follows a similar philosophy, though it is a bit more difficult to setup since you need to have Silent Armor in your hand on the same turn that you Time Travel the Ongoing card; the upside, however, is arguably the most powerful of any of these since you gain the top card of the main deck in addition to everything else you just obtained!&nbsp;&nbsp;EZPZ! Another card that needs to be investigated for CB: the almighty Hourglass. "},{"image":[{"src":"the570432the-hour.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"Now, on the surface, this card is kind of tricky due to its wording. It allows you to choose a card that you played this turn of 6 cost or less and effectively &#34;add&#34; it to your next hand as a 6th card at the end of the turn. How does this work with CB, you ask? Simply put, you can choose the card you Time Traveled this turn as that card and put it to your next hand at the end of the turn, effectively adding it to your deck and netting more VP just by simply playing DCDB! Treat it similarly to how the Ongoing exploit works, except that this works for ANY card of cost 6 or less, so don\u2019t let this beauty slip through your fingers if it hits the table! Finally, we have this gem of a Location that\u2019s been discussed in an article from the past (https:\/\/www.dcdeckbuilding.com\/article.php?id=10816), so consider this a refresher. If you have Cadmus Labs in play, you can Time Travel a Hero or Villain of cost 3 or less from the Lineup, then use Cadmus Labs to put it into your hand for even more free card &#34;gaining!&#34;"},{"image":[{"src":"cad727514cadmus-l.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"header":"TEAM SYNERGY"},{"text":"Now that some of his key cards have been discussed, let\u2019s look into some team synergy. CB\u2019s primary synergy comes from not only the ability to discard any card from his hand without a condition (think White Lantern Deadman), but also from Line-Up interactions, so that\u2019s what we\u2019ll be focusing on. First, the discard synergy\u2026"},{"header":"Harley Quinn (Tier 4)"},{"image":[{"src":"har569109harley-q.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"This shell is a classic. The plan is simple: in the early game, you\u2019re discarding the worst cards in your hand to try to dig to the cards you want. Think about how much better your turn gets if you discard a Vulnerability and draw a Punch. You\u2019ve effectively ramped yourself at no additional cost. In addition to that, it gives you very favorable discard pile interactions for limited destruction cards like Huntress or King of Atlantis, so that you\u2019ll always have something to destroy with them!"},{"double":[{"src":"hun782429huntress.jpg"},{"src":"kin494977king-of-.jpg"}]},{"text":"Cards like these can apply to any CB strategy, but Harley is one of his better all-time partners, so I\u2019m choosing to talk about them here. The rest of the game is business as usual: ramp your way to bigger stuff so you can play bigger stuff in the Line-Up AND draw off of them to boot, plus Harley provides the additional bonus of protecting you from nasty discard spells like Bane and Yellow Lantern Corps Power Ring. Hard to go wrong, right?"},{"header":"Arsenal (Tier 2)"},{"image":[{"src":"ars760831arsenal-.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"Arsenal was already covered extensively in a recent article (you can find that article here: https:\/\/www.dcdeckbuilding.com\/article.php?id=10877), but I\u2019ll talk a little more about what CB gets out of the pairing. While I think more proactive discard outlets like Beast Boy and Weather Wizard are a bit better for Arsenal, CB certainly has his place considering the fact that the synergy is two-fold, in addition to the fact that Arsenal provides both discard synergy AND Line-Up synergy like no other MC can. As mentioned before, Chameleon Boy is a reliable discard outlet, allowing you to discard the worst card in your hand on turn 1 and then affordably buying the lowest cost card in the Line-Up to destroy it. This can end up being great in the short run, but it can tend to cause problems over the course of the game. For example, if you have to continually buy 2-cost cards to support Arsenal, then Chameleon Boy isn\u2019t getting a lot to work with outside of being a discard outlet; in the mid-to-late game, you really want those midrange cards to allow you to make bigger plays. In the event that this does work out for you, that\u2019s where the second bit of synergy comes in. Being able to discard a midrange 4 or 5-cost to play the cheapest card in the Line-Up can be great if you don\u2019t want to buy it. This can lead to less powerful early turns, but can also allow you to buy other cards of 5 or 6-cost assuming they\u2019re now the cheapest cards in the Line-Up, allowing you to destroy Starters or Weaknesses with Arsenal. Is the shell powerful? Sure. But I also think it\u2019s gimmicky. I can\u2019t fault anyone for liking it, though. For a good tier-2 partner, feel free to try Deadshot, Red Tornado, or The Flash. Now, let\u2019s have a look at some committed Line-Up synergy pairings... "},{"header":"Starfire (Tier 2)"},{"image":[{"src":"sta13877starfire.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"Starfire has always been a remarkably solid tier-2 MC when she wants to be. Her power is apparent, but she pays for it by being inconsistent due to being too reliant on the Line-Up. Drawing an extra card every turn can certainly be great, of course, but if a Super Power hits the Line-Up during the turn rotation, you\u2019ve effectively lost one of your Main Characters for the turn. This is where Chameleon Boy steps in. Provided you\u2019re able to obtain a card in your hand that\u2019s expensive enough to do so, Chameleon Boy can use his ability to Time Travel a Super Power out of the Line-Up and play it, as opposed to just letting it sit there. This allows Starfire to draw a card as intended, assuming there aren\u2019t multiple Super Powers in the Line-Up, but we can look past that aspect for the moment. In some ways, this is actually worse synergy than just using Harley instead, who\u2019s always guaranteed to draw a card, but keep in mind that Starfire only costs 2 points for your team and can also be paired with another tier-2 to do your bidding. Efficient partners for this pairing generally include those mentioned above with Arsenal, outside of The Flash (Crisis 4) since he effectively &#34;turns off&#34; Starfire without careful play. Deadshot is my personal favorite, since you can stack a card of appropriate cost 5 or less, then draw it with Starfire unless you anticipate hitting something bigger, plus you have a free counterpick for other discard characters like Beast Boy and Weather Wizard. Red Tornado can provide more of a midgame bulk of power, if that\u2019s your thing, and it can be quite effective because getting +2 Power (via Tornado) and drawing a card (via Starfire) during a single turn is nothing to be overlooked."},{"header":"Bane (Tier 3) + Phantom Girl (Tier 1)"},{"double":[{"src":"ban900540bane-mc.jpg"},{"src":"pha689318phantom-.jpg"}]},{"text":"We\u2019ll close out our team analysis with another all-timer of a shell. The team of Bane + CB + Phantom Girl has been around for quite some time, and it can be extremely powerful if it goes unchecked. Phantom Girl is merely here to provide an additional Power on most turns just because she can, but Bane is the real backbone of the team, as his brute force style can allow for some very explosive plays. It works like this: use CB to discard a card and play a card in the Line-Up via Time Travel, generating an additional Power with Phantom Girl. So discarding a Kick to play something like Aquaman\u2019s Trident is already generating upside just for the free +1 Power. "},{"double":[{"src":"kic754829kick.jpg"},{"src":"aqu265576aquamans.jpg"}]},{"text":"But since that card is the first card played of the turn, you can then use Bane to destroy it and get another +2 Power, effectively gaining an additional +3 Power for a card you would\u2019ve otherwise just played out of your hand for its play text. Due to the context of Bane\u2019s ability allowing you to destroy the first card played of your turn as long as it costs 1 or greater AND provided it\u2019s still under your control, CB is a perfect character for this setup. This team has secretly been one of my favorites to play, but it does have its downsides. For one thing, a well-positioned Red Lantern Supergirl team is a very good counter pick given that she herself can just be played as a hard counter to Bane. In addition, the midgame can become extremely cluttered if your deck ends up full of Starters and Weaknesses, given that this team has no way to naturally get rid of them in the same way that Arsenal can, so obtaining a consistent destruction source is important to being consistent. It can also peter out if the first SV you kill doesn\u2019t allow you to snowball, as this deck is always looking to turbo the stack as quickly as possible before anyone else can try to catch up with you. That all said, it\u2019s certainly an effective team in the right metagame, and will always do well at a table where no one else is doing broken things."},{"header":"MATCHUP analysis"},{"header":"when to avoid drafting cb"},{"image":[{"src":"dea697542deadshot.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"Much like any discard outlet, Chameleon Boy can be left in the dust by a well-positioned Deadshot player. His ability will allow him to stack his deck with the cards that he wants to use, generally every single turn. The counter to this is to try taking Deadshot first (assuming you didn\u2019t choose a 1) and building your own team with an extra 2 points since that\u2019s something you\u2019re allowed to do, plus you get to retain all of your own synergy. It also may not be truly terrible in this case, since Deadshot can be beaten out by pure aggression, but this can be mitigated for him if there are additional discard teams at the table, so a good table read here is required to ensure he doesn\u2019t have the same 12-power turns every turn."},{"header":"favorable draft positions"},{"image":[{"src":"swa774474swamp-th.jpg"},{"caption":""}]},{"text":"On the other side of the coin, we have Swamp Thing. Chameleon Boy is the one character that Swamp Thing never wants to see at the table and he\u2019s always forced to draft carefully because of the fact that they\u2019re both at the same tier. Why, you ask? Well, let\u2019s have a look at the facts. Swamp Thing relies on having Locations in the game to be efficient; doesn\u2019t matter where they are, because he gets to use them, whether they\u2019re in the Line-Up (before anyone else gets to even think about using them) OR once they\u2019re in a foe\u2019s play area. But, CB has a way to play around this. In this case, you buy Locations as CB, which are fairly expensive for the most part, then instead of playing them and allowing Swamp Thing to use them, use them to Time Travel expensive cards from the Line-Up instead, thereby not allowing the Swamp Thing player to ever gain anything out of a given Location. This strategy is old as the cube is itself, and it isn\u2019t going anywhere anytime soon. Swamp Thing will always be a presence, and for that, we have Chameleon Boy."},{"header":"CLOSING THOUGHTS"},{"text":"That\u2019s all I\u2019ve got for you fine folks today! I hope you enjoyed this little romp through strategies for one of the most synergistic characters in the game. Be sure to always keep your tier-2 selection open in case you anticipate a Swamp Thing, and definitely give Chameleon Boy a spin if you\u2019ve never experienced the joy of gaining free cards! Until next time, this is LRock signing off... "}]