Help vs. Mech Rider

[Nef]

Hey. So I would describe myself as fairly competent. I do, however, have major issues with mech rider.  It's definitely powerful (and in my opinion maybe a bit too much).  But I want to learn how to better handle it. Any advice or thoughts or discussion is appreciated!  Also feel free to tell me I'm wrong if you can explain why. 

[Fetid Strumpet]

From my experience, assume any faction that in anyway has ANY ability to take it will and plan how to deal with it. So bring models that can get to it no matter where it hides, as early as possible, and kill it or lock it down. I'd suggest bringing the equally silly TT option Yasunori, as with all the pushes and repositioning TT are capable of you should just about be able to charge it turn one almost no matter where it hides.

[Nef]

So essentially push a beater up to where it can get to it turn one?

[Fetid Strumpet]

If you plan to deal with it by killing it. The earlier you can get to it the better because as turns move on it gets harder to deal with and it has more opportunity to have a greater effect on the game. In ressers when I was running the Molly Bomb list my normal way of dealing with her was to drop Killjoy on her turn 1.

[Bengt]

Ohaguro Bettari's aura denying Df triggers makes any rider easy to kill whenever you want to.

[InvokeChaos]

Just be careful on the commit. If you don't have the cards in hand to put a full hurt, and threaten death... you may need to try to postpone. You can't rush in praying the card gods will help you. 

As simple and obvious as it sounds, I see that happen a lot. This is a game of positioning and resource management. So you need to make sure you're paying attention to both. And cards are a resource.

Yasunori one rounds a rider if all his attacks hit, even on min damage, unless they flip their trigger 3 times on def.  Bettari two shots it with flay and two severes in hand. Both models get where they want to go. But you have to be prepared for the backlash... Huggy, Lynch, Misaki, Kang and several other models of ours wreck it's face. Another thought is snipers. They have the potential to put him down in two shots as well, though not as consistently.

The idea is put the fear in them. And early. Or decide your willing to make the piece trade and go full bore. Just remember the black joker ruins all carefully laid plans.

Trading Yasunori for a mech rider is actually a decent trade because of mech rider's summoning. And I'd consider trading bettari for the mech rider as a total win in general. 

The problem is that you can't really neutralize it, as it's a summoner. So once it can start summoning, it get's its' value unless you paralyze it, which we have no consistent/easy way of doing. Brewmaster can swill it, and that pretty much neuters it for the game, but other than that, kill it with fire.