How would you make Wong and Wizz-Bang tier 1?

[Math Mathonwy]

You get a call in the middle of the night. It's Mr. Wyrd! He has an urgent mission for you! You need to make Wizz-Bang tier 1! Not quite Nexus or Dreamer level but more like Kirai or something. What's your plan?

There were some ideas in the errata thread but they weren't aiming to tier 1. Getting there would need quite a few tweaks or something major across the board (Hard Knock Life gives Fast, two Glowy Tokens, and Shielded +1 ).

• Wong - needs quite a bit of boosting
• Olivia - depends on how you go about fixing Wong
• Alphonse - pretty fine in general
• Sammy - probably more of a tone down rather than up.
• Burt Jebsen - definitely needs quite a bit of boosting
• Pigapult - mostly fine, I guess. Kinda weird and sorta dangerous from a balance perspective.
• Swine-cursed - pretty fine in general but maybe not quite tier 1 material. Nothing major needed.
• Taxidermist - could use a bit of a boost or a lower price.
• Stuffed Piglet - probably fine.
• Flying Piglet - pretty fine in general.
• Lightning Bug - definitely needs quite a bit of boosting
• Gautraeux Bokor - probably more of a tone down rather than up.

Which ones would you tackle? You could consider both, a realistic errata scenario or a complete overhaul of almost all profiles. Bonus points if it makes the models sing in Wizz-Bang but not autotakes into all Bayou crews.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I've played one game with Wong, so I am clearly an expert now 😜

The crew over all feels very powerful. I would maybe give a better way to get Pigapult out of combat, and then maybe just buff Wong.

As we saw with Reva's crew, simply buffing the master actually boosted the crew to Tier 1 all by itself. Wong already has hugely useful activations - if he could do a bit more in terms of damaging the opponent, that'd be pretty amazing. Maybe he should be able to launch stuffed piglets into space, but they die on impact? Coupled with Sparks' explosive upgrade, would be hella potent (perhaps too potent?)

[Math Mathonwy]

Is Reva generally considered tier 1? Better than Yan Lo? So the only non-tier 1 Resser Masters would be McM and Seamus?

Also, I believe that Reva's keyword still isn't considered all that amazing and that she kinda tends towards the "super friends" stuff so I'm not sure that she's a perfect example anyway. Boosting Wong in a way that makes Lightning Bugs competitive would be awfully convoluted  

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Is Reva generally considered tier 1? Better than Yan Lo? So the only non-tier 1 Resser Masters would be McM and Seamus?

Also, I believe that Reva's keyword still isn't considered all that amazing and that she kinda tends towards the "super friends" stuff so I'm not sure that she's a perfect example anyway. Boosting Wong in a way that makes Lightning Bugs competitive would be awfully convoluted  

Yeah, Reva's keyword is a bit weak, but she pairs well with stuff.

Some people have considered her the best master in Ressers, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't rank her at least 4th in the faction (most would possibly put Yan Lo, Von Schtook, maybe Kirai above her). But also Ressers are blessed with having every master playable, it's pretty sweet xD

To avoid the superfriends issue, Reva at least pairs up with lots of models in unique ways thanks to her corpse theme. You could do similar with Wong - he pairs really well with the Sow and Sparks, even though they're not in keyword, but not just because they're generically good?

Again, I have no idea what I'm talking about though.

[GrumpyGrandpa]

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

You get a call in the middle of the night. It's Mr. Wyrd! He has an urgent mission for you! You need to make Wizz-Bang tier 1! Not quite Nexus or Dreamer level but more like Kirai or something. What's your plan?

There were some ideas in the errata thread but they weren't aiming to tier 1. Getting there would need quite a few tweaks or something major across the board (Hard Knock Life gives Fast, two Glowy Tokens, and Shielded +1 ).

Ol' Mr. Wyrd and his late night quests! I've played quite a few games with Wong, but I'm far from an expert - Please take my opinion with a grain of salt

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

• Wong - needs quite a bit of boosting

Agreed. He should be the center piece of the crew, but often feels like he is a short-term enabler that becomes horrible in the end-game. I've tried spitballin' a few ideas with my local playground, and we've come up with a few buffs for him:

Wong feels like he suffers horribly when he gets engaged (Don't we all, boys? 😁 ... My bad). Havin' to land a Stat 5  with a Tome or Disengage feels horrible. We considered making Fzzzzap (Did I miss a Z?) castable while engaged. This would allow him to continue enabling his crew, while being engaged with the enemy.

Or perhaps remove enemy only from Quick Getaway. He'd then be able to slip away from the enemy, but at the cost of friendly fire (and potentially a card).

Also his Shockwave-attacks feel so weak. I've nuked Olivia in the middle of 4 enemy models, and the end-result was a few pings of damage. Maybe damage shouldn't be the main goal of the abillity, and we should focus on making his attacks support his crew better? Adding triggers like "Friendly models affected by this attack with gain Regeneration +1 until the end of their next activation" could help. 

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

• Taxidermist - could use a bit of a boost or a lower price.

I honestly like Taxidermists. They can put out a lot of damage, summon models on a bonus action and have a good mix of ranged and melee damage. They are glass-cannons, sure, but they seem really good to me. 

Plus they work wonders with the Pigapult.

Also:

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

• Gautraeux Bokor - probably more of a tone down rather than up.

Yup. I'd hate to see the healing go away, but the easy card-draw is just too good.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Could add a trigger to Wong's shockwave that he discards a few glowy tokens from the shockwave maker to obey them?

That way the shockwave can be impactful without directly doing damage?

[Adran]

I have played no games with or against Wizz-bang, so this will be exactly the correct answer to solve all my problems. 

Solution A

1- Pigapult - Add a stat 4 toss action to the card. 

2 Lightening bugs. Change Healing energies to "magical growth - rg 8" stat 6, Tn 12. Target suffers 1 damage and then heals 1/3/4". Replace Extra sparkly with Onslaught. Add  Timey Wimey - rg 6" stat 4 TN 12. Remove Fast from the target. Target model takes an action controlled by its controller. 

3 Burt  - Add "No pain no gain - When this model would gain fast it may instead gain Focused +1"

4Wong - Add  "Swift action trigger to Fzzap"

5 Olivia - Add "Magical Mayhem - When a model targets a friendly Wizz-bang model within 6" with an attack, this model may remove a glowy token from the attacking model to change the target to another friendly Wizz-bang model within 6" . 

 

 

Or  - Option B  - Add Wizz-bang keyword to Phionia, Serena and Fuhatsu. 

[MrPieChee]

Make healing energies stat 4 on bokor, and stat 5 on lightning bug...

I've also not played with wizz-bang, but I'm sure most of the previous discussions have centered around glowy tokens not being quite right - only Wong can put them on the opponent's models, and hard knock life in a squishy crew is painful.

Making lightning bugs better at healing would probably help - they are cheaper than bokors.

I would say, either most models need to be able to add and use glowy on the opposing crew, or Wong needs to not add it, reworking his abilities. (Glowy could be added to Wong himself or nearby wizz-bang models)

 

[touchdown]

I also have zero experience with Wizz-Bang, but what's a forum for if not baseless opinions.

Change Hard Knock Life to "would suffer damage" and give any models struggling arcane shield +1. My understanding is that when Wizz-Bang can do things, they're pretty good at it, but they die too easily.

[Morgan Vening]

Something I've thought about, after hearing some complaints, was giving Wong a leader ability.

InsertWittyName: If this model is the Crew's Leader, friendly models may choose to fail simple duels from Shockwaves.

Not needing to waste low cards when you need to get some Glowy?

[Thatguy]

8 hours ago, GrumpyGrandpa said:

Wong feels like he suffers horribly when he gets engaged (Don't we all, boys? 😁 ... My bad). Havin' to land a Stat 5  with a Tome or Disengage feels horrible. We considered making Fzzzzap (Did I miss a Z?) castable while engaged. This would allow him to continue enabling his crew, while being engaged with the enemy.

Or perhaps remove enemy only from Quick Getaway. He'd then be able to slip away from the enemy, but at the cost of friendly fire (and potentially a card).

Yeah he seems to want to be pretty close to the action for The Glow, but doesn't have much in the way of survivability or ways to disengage. Squeel is always thematic.

I think it would be cool to give him Gunslinger. Then he could Fzzzzap in melee but only be dropping the maker really close. 

I think I'd also like to see him get something like Protected, but with him doing a wound instead of discarding to synergize with Hard Knock Life. Like:

Ten Demon Bag: When this model is the target of an attack action, it may have a friendly model who could be a legal target of the action within 3" suffer a wound to become the new target of the attack. 

Or maybe something like Brewmaster's Closing Time, with enemy models with Glowy tokens taking a penalty to duel totals.

[grundil]

My little point of view on Wong :

I like to play Wong but first problem for me : when wong is suppose to be good ?

His crew is really bad for mobility and prefer to play grouped. Wong is the best to put marker on board (launch into space), but he needs Los so need to find a good place to place these marker but want to be close to melee aswell. It's pretty hard to do both in the same time and wong don't like to walk. his crew is not bad at dealing damage with swine curse, taxidermist and stuffed pigglet. But actually, in recover evidence, their melee range is a big problem and in public ennemies, killers have to survive. I think it's the better strategy for wong cause we can be good at it (with gautraeux to heal and alphonse and swine curse to tank).

Corrupted leyine : every bayou crew can do this strategy thanks to the emissary but wong don't really have good tools to counter so many other master are better.

The match up :

-fast/mobile crew : shockwave are bad against, if they are melee crew they engage wong and his friends and half the gremlins become useless (bokor/pigapult/lightning bug with no melee range)

-bubble (not sure the english name) : seems the best to face

-gunline : the worst to face i think

Models :

- gautrauex : just change op trigger to draw, good model even without it.

-swine curse : good profil, never disapointed me

-taxidermist : good damage but weak so here we find the problem i mention before, when should i bring him. The summon range is really short, hard to use in the melee imo.

-stuffed piglet : really good, can be hired if you don't bring taxidermist.

-flying piglet : i still have to try to put explosiv with spark on them and then bury and let my opponent decide where they unbury. Only problem : they are significant so hired on strategy without kill, where wong isn't the best.

- pigapult : i'm not good with it, a real threat but opponent "just" have to engage it to nerf it a lot.

-alphonse and sammy : good henchmen.

-olivia : 4SS totem, i always have something to do with her so ok for me.

-burt : i like him cause i like bonus shockwave and agile but taxidermist seems better for this crew.

-lightning bug : like the crew, their function is pretty fuzzy for me ; cheap multifonction minion often are bad model, better have specialised profil for this cost.

I asked myself about playing wong with only versatile and ook models : wong do scheme with launch into space and draw cars with the glow. Use shockwave to attack opponents hands and then the crew play his gameplay without needing wong support. Don't know if it could works

My two cents 🙂

[ShinChan]

4 hours ago, Morgan Vening said:

Something I've thought about, after hearing some complaints, was giving Wong a leader ability.

InsertWittyName: If this model is the Crew's Leader, friendly models may choose to fail simple duels from Shockwaves.

Not needing to waste low cards when you need to get some Glowy?

They already can choose to fail.
 

 

14 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

You get a call in the middle of the night. It's Mr. Wyrd! He has an urgent mission for you! You need to make Wizz-Bang tier 1! Not quite Nexus or Dreamer level but more like Kirai or something. What's your plan?

There were some ideas in the errata thread but they weren't aiming to tier 1. Getting there would need quite a few tweaks or something major across the board (Hard Knock Life gives Fast, two Glowy Tokens, and Shielded +1 ).

• Wong - needs quite a bit of boosting
• Olivia - depends on how you go about fixing Wong
• Alphonse - pretty fine in general
• Sammy - probably more of a tone down rather than up.
• Burt Jebsen - definitely needs quite a bit of boosting
• Pigapult - mostly fine, I guess. Kinda weird and sorta dangerous from a balance perspective.
• Swine-cursed - pretty fine in general but maybe not quite tier 1 material. Nothing major needed.
• Taxidermist - could use a bit of a boost or a lower price.
• Stuffed Piglet - probably fine.
• Flying Piglet - pretty fine in general.
• Lightning Bug - definitely needs quite a bit of boosting
• Gautraeux Bokor - probably more of a tone down rather than up.

Which ones would you tackle? You could consider both, a realistic errata scenario or a complete overhaul of almost all profiles. Bonus points if it makes the models sing in Wizz-Bang but not autotakes into all Bayou crews.

I agree with you on everything. I'll honestly will leave Sammy and Alphonse the same. After more games with Wizz-Bang I don't think they're better that other beaters.

 

10 hours ago, Adran said:

I have played no games with or against Wizz-bang, so this will be exactly the correct answer to solve all my problems. 

Solution A

1- Pigapult - Add a stat 4 toss action to the card. 

2 Lightening bugs. Change Healing energies to "magical growth - rg 8" stat 6, Tn 12. Target suffers 1 damage and then heals 1/3/4". Replace Extra sparkly with Onslaught. Add  Timey Wimey - rg 6" stat 4 TN 12. Remove Fast from the target. Target model takes an action controlled by its controller. 

3 Burt  - Add "No pain no gain - When this model would gain fast it may instead gain Focused +1"

4Wong - Add  "Swift action trigger to Fzzap"

5 Olivia - Add "Magical Mayhem - When a model targets a friendly Wizz-bang model within 6" with an attack, this model may remove a glowy token from the attacking model to change the target to another friendly Wizz-bang model within 6" . 

 

 

Or  - Option B  - Add Wizz-bang keyword to Phionia, Serena and Fuhatsu. 

There are actually good ideas there  

My 2 cents, which I already wrote down like in 5 different posts in the forums (I have around 40 something games with Wong, 18 in GG1, where they're worse than in GG0):

• Wong:
  • Option A: If this model is the leader, friendly Wizz-Bang models with X amount of glowy heal Y at the start of their activation. Can follow a similar pattern to poison/burning.
  • Option B: If this model is the leader, friendly Wizz-Bang models without glowy, gain 1 glowy at the start of their activation.
  • This model ignores friendly Wizz-Bang models for determining LoS when using Uncontrollable Magic. This is extremely important, since Wong is Sz1, so the "shittiest" crate is going to prevent him from seeing friendly models and it's a pain to keep track of the LoS in general.
  • Enemy models increase the TN of their simple duels by 1 for each 3 glowy tokens they have (rounded down).
• Olivia:
  • Manipulative.
• Bokors:
  • Option A: Obey Stat 4.
  • Option B: Deja Vu becoming "Once per activation".
  • Blast Resistant +1
• Lightning Bug:
  • Elemental Bolt: This action ignores models with Glowy for the purposes of friendly fire.
  • I had another idea for Healing Energy, but actually I'm loving @Adran's suggestion for this tactical action, although I would keep extra sparkly instead of Onslaught (since the second one feel quite strong).
• Burt Jebsen:
  • HtK
  • Cataclysm and a printed Magical feedback triggers on the grenade. It will help him to be more playable with Zipp, since he can not get glowy with Zipp without being killed, since Zipp doesn't have reliable healing.
  • 1 new trigger in the gun: Stunning Strike (the worse version of Daze) or Stagger. Stagger synergizes better with both Wong and Zipp (not much with the last one, but at least can help Merris)
• Taxidermist:
  • Option A: Give them Cost 9 and improve their survivality significantly (I dislike this, since it's oriented to give them the upgrade Inferiority Complex)
  • Option B: Df6 or printed  in defense.

[Morgan Vening]

59 minutes ago, ShinChan said:

They already can choose to fail.

Hmm... I think I mixed up Wong and McMourning. That, or I'm just really stupid.

So... 50/50 as to which way there.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Could always just allow the 'launch into space' action to affect models.

That'd change his power level real quick 😜

[wizuriel]

Wong (goal is to have him enable his crew and himself better).

1) replace cracking energies with

It's magic, don't question it : If this model is this crew's leader at the start of this models activation all friendly models heal 1 for every 2 Glowy Tokens on that model

or

It's magic, don't question it : Models with Infused Body can reduce damage down to 0 

2) Remove Quick Getaway and give him Magical Influence

3) FZZZZAP! Remove the part on enemy models gaining glow tokens. 

Add  trigger: Stagger: models damaged by this action gain staggered 

add  I have The POWER! For every model damaged by this action a friendly model within 6" of this model may gain a glowy token (let you double dip hurting friendlies with this attack)

4) Add  Ten  Demon Bag trigger to Iron Fan of Tsu Li: Enemy Only attach a polymorph upgrade to target model

5) Remove the glow and add

Telepor-what dah? Target a friendly model within 6" and place it anywhere within 6" of this model. Then attach a polymorped upgrade to the model

Polymorphed: Rare 2

When this upgrade is attached summon a piglet into base contact with the model then bury the model. The piglet is friendly to whatever crew's model is buried by this upgrade. When the piglet is killed, before removing it remove this upgrade and unbury the model in base contact with the piglet.

Model gains the ability

Magic Trumps Rules: While this upgrade is attached the model cannot be unburied. 

 

Olivia: (try to make her useful and not just a 1 turn bomb)

Add Manipulative

Add I'm Helping: Friendly Models within 4 at the start of their activation may choose to suffer 1 damage caused by this model

Perfect Timing: Rg: 12". Change : That is Convenient: Before any enemy models are moved you can drop a scheme marker in base contact with target model 

remove Tossed Sparklers

Add Healing Energy: Stat 5. Target heals 1/2/3. Must declare a trigger

 Extra Sparkly: Target gains a glowy token

  I feel stronger: Target gains Focused +1

Is it supposed to do that?: Target gains Burning +1 

It tingles: Push this model up to 3" in any direction, then your opponent can discard a card to push this model an additional 3" in any direction

 

Bokors:

Deja Vu: Change to once per activation

 

Burt:

Give him Hard to Kill

 

Taxidermist

DF: 6

 

Lightning Bug: (try to give them a niche and differentiate them from Bokors which do a better job healing and buffing the crew) 

Elemental Bolt: Target suffers 2/3/4 damage. Stat 5

 Kaboom: Drop a shockwave marker within 3" of target model. Shockwave 2 Mv: 13 Damage: 1

Remove Healing Energy

New tactical Action: And you get a buff: Remove X glowy Tokens on this model and redistribute them onto friendly models within 6". Every friendly model that gains a glowy token can be pushed up to 3"

 

 

[Thatguy]

4 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Could always just allow the 'launch into space' action to affect models.

That'd change his power level real quick 😜

Now we're cooking with gas.

I think a lot of the suggestions have been good. But too go to Tier 1 Wong really needs something like: 

Lucid Glowing: If Wong is the crew leader, when a model with a Glowy token activates reveal the top three cards of that model's deck. Choose one revealed non-Joker card and remove it from the game. 

Or 

 Deep Glow: If Wong is the crew leader, friendly models may cheat from the opponent's discard pile when preforming duels against models with Glowy tokens.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rathnard]

5 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Could always just allow the 'launch into space' action to affect models.

That'd change his power level real quick 😜

Ha! I actually really love this idea! Limit it to Friendly Sz 1 models and i think that'd actually be a really solid buff, without making it too overpowered. 

Anyway, I haven't played Wong in a good year or so, but I did play him pretty solidly for the year before that. And honestly, he's still my favorite Master. It's just that his complex mechanics require more brain-power to play than I'm willing to devote to your average game of Malifauix these days (hence why I've been playing the Viks alot more lately!). 

Back to the OP, I think the biggest factor holding Wong back is that it feels like you are always building his crew to make up for his weaknesses. So you take Gracie or Alphonse to push Wong out of melee, Guille Suit for the +1Sz to see over low walls and friendly models, and Bokor to heal the damage you'll inevitably inflict on your own crew. With all those pieces together, a Wizz-bang crew can actually be really good. But it takes alot to set up, and is at risk of falling apart if your opponent can disrupt your complex web of synergies. 

 

Basically then, if I wanted to boost Wong up to "Tier 1", I'd want to do it by addressing his main weaknesses - Sz 1, vulnerability in Melee and the reliance on healing. Also, I'd want to do it as simply as possible. So small changes for maximum effect. 

The first fix is an easy one - increase his Sz to 2. With just that, his Guille Suit is no longer mandatory (still good, but not an auto-take), saving the crew 2 SS. 

For the second fix, drop the projectile icon from his Fzzzap attack. Yeah, it might be a bit much, but it at least means he no longer feels like a wet blanket until you get him out of engagement.  You could also/instead mess with his Iron Fan, probably by changing the Reposition trigger to an "after resolving" push. Or go with @Thatguy's suggestion and give him Gunfighter. The only issue with that is his front of card is already pretty crowded. I'd be reluctant to add anything more if I could avoid it. 

Finally, there's his healing. I think the simplest way to fix this is to add a "Friendly models then Heal 1 (or 2?)" effect to The Glow. It's not huge, but it should help offset the damage he does to his crew and take a bit of pressure off the Bokor.

 

As for the rest of the crew, I think most of them don't really need changing, with a few exceptions though...

Olivia is perfectly fine with some good crew synergy, though there's room on her card to add some basic healing if necessary.

I also really like @Adran's suggestion for the Lightning Bugs. The damage-heal has some great synergy with Hard Knock Life, and having a way to remove Fast from friendly models feels really important for the dreaded Tara matchup. 

Bokor - yeah, that heal action is just way too good. At the very least I'd want to swap the Deja Vu trigger to Discard a card, Draw 1 card. That alone might be enough to bring them in line. 

Pigapult - maybe just drop Insignificant? Lets be honest - at 7SS it's slow and limited enough in its usefulness as is. Giving it a chance to drop the odd scheme marker doesn't feel like the worst thing in the world...

 

Actually one more thing - I'd love to see the Fast effect on "Hard Knock Life" become optional. This is purely because mass-Fast, while powerful, seems like a really bad thing to have vs Tara's Obliteration crew!