Ramos heavy hitter 35 SS crew

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

Hello! I plan to attend a novice-tier 35ss tournament this weekend. The prize pool looks very tasty, so I would actually like to win it if possible. And I am trying to find a good combo. The tournament simply uses current GG2018 rotation. One of the rosters that I am considering is this heavy-hitting one:

Ramos (3+1=4) Pool
- Leviathan Power Core (1)
- Arcane Reservoir (2)
- Electric Summoning (1)
Brass Arachnid (4)
Joss (10)
Howard Langston (12)
- Well Rehearsed (1)
Mobile Toolkit (3)
 

Obviously, Joss and Langston are intended to kill everything they can reach under the reactivates of the Brass Arachnid, Ramos summons the spiders, and Mobile Toolkit gives the best fitting Construct +Flips to melee.

The cards needed (ideally):

- 7 Tomes for Ramos to summon the Electrical Creation, then we have two action points to shoot it dead, or we can use a medium card

- 11 Tomes and a Soulstone to summon the spiders, then we can have 1 more AP if we killed the Creation with one shot

- 1 card is to be discarded by the Mobile Toolkit. If it gets the Reactivate condition instead of Joss, 1 more card is to be discarded.

- 3 cards of at least 10 for the reactivates. Or one 10 for 1 reactivate, if we are short on cards.

- 1 or 2 cards to discard for Langston's flurry.

 

Would like to hear your opinions.

[WWHSD]

That's a hell of a hand that you'll need and it leaves you without any cards to cheat with. 

If you are having Ramos generate the scrap from an Electric Creation that he summons, you should probably make sure that you are taking into account the cards his attack will need to hit the TN. Ramos's Electrical Fire needs a 7 or higher to go off. If you are trying to kill the Electric Creation with one shot, you'll potentially need to spend 3 cards to do it. The Electric Creation can't relent and Ramos needs to beat it's duel total by 6, so you may need to cheat up for Ramos and down for the Electric Creation. 

You're also running a really low SS cache. You'll potentially be spending 3 the first turn (1 to draw cards, 1 to summon the Electric Creation, and 1 to make sure that you can summon at least two spiders).

You should probably have a Plan B for having a crappy hand. I'd think it would go something like this:

Activate Mobile Toolkit. Buff Howard and walk forward. (1 card, any value)
Charge Mobile Toolkit with Joss to generate two scrap  (minimum damage kills it, the second attack is there in case you black joker the first damage flip)
Activate Ramos and summon at least two spiders (1 card, 8 or higher, may need to stone for  ). Drop a scheme marker to get a push for Howard and walk up.
Brass Arachnid uses Rewire and then gives Howard Reactivate (1 card, 10 or higher). Try and top deck an Electric Creation. Ramos can use it to move with Magnetize turn 2 if needed.
Activate Spider 1
Activate Spider 2
Activate Spider 3 (if you had a card that allowed you to summon 3)
Activate Electric Creation (if you got lucky top decking) 
Activate Howard
Reactivate Howard   

That's 1SS if you didn't have a to summon with, 1 8+, 1 10+, and 1 card of any value. If the only card you have that is 10 or higher is an 11+ of  and are holding at least another 8+ I think you'd want to prioritize the Reactivate on Howard over the third spider.

I haven't used Leviathan Power Core much so it may be better than I think it is. You don't have many soul stones of your own to power it up, and stones spent to draw cards or reflip initiative don't count for the ability. You'll end up depending on your opponent to stone to get much use out of it. You may want to consider swapping it out for Seize The Day to increase the chances that Howard will get to activate first turn two.

[BFOmega]

That's a low stone pool for Ramos. I might consider dropping the Electric Summoning, I've never gotten much use out of it personally, and that puts less pressure on your hand and gives you an extra SS to use. Summoning is extremely strong in smaller pool games as well, so you want to be getting those spiders out there. Buffing Howard with the toolkit and then killing it with Joss for the scrap is probably the way to go, consistent and gets you 2 scrap right off instead of 1 so you have turn 2's scrap ready as well.

Right now, it looks like you're alpha striking with Howard, which is a damn good strategy, if you know where to hit. In the lower SS games, he's also less likely to die from their counterstroke. Even less likely if you kill your target, so I think I'd maybe swap out Well Rehearsed for Imbued Energies, just to ensure that kill. Just make sure to save him till the end of your turn so they can't do much to him till the next turn.

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

I didn't really plan sacrificing the Toolkit that early. I could get some use of it later by giving +flips to Joss, perhaps even giving Reactivate to the Toolkit and Joss too, so Joss has two activations with +flips to MI and Dmg. 

Electric Summoning lets me spare the Toolkit, which is kinda expensive to sacrifice it for a mere scrap marker... Not only does it cost 4 SS, it is also Rare 1.