Mechanized Madness

By now you should all be familiar with the Inventor Extraordinaire, our majestic mechanical madwoman. Having built a reputation for ballistic boosting, and general lack of gun safety, Dash now sets her sights on the promising horizons of Bright Lights.

But there's more to this mech than meets the eye. We're taking our gadgets and gizmos down an entirely different direction to the mainstream, finding new and innovative ways to become more than human.

If you're a Dash main looking for something new and explosive to try out, or the Bright Lights reveal has piqued your curiosity but you're not the kind of person to just load your pistol and pew pew pew, then join me as we assemble the ultimate industrial nightmare to stomp the competition!

Nitro Mechanoid has a hefty construction requirement but works as an extremely powerful late game closer for an aggressive boost-centered strategy. The deck revolves around Hyper Driver, which supports both your low pitch curve and eventual game plan.

Use Dash's ability to start with your first Hyper Driver on board, with two more tucked away in the deck. Begin by pressuring your opponent with wide turns, building up to a huge finish before you run out of gas.

Nitro Mechanoid has an insane amount of aggressive and defensive value, soaking up tonnes of damage so you can keep throwing your whole hand at the opponent every turn, forcing through chunks of damage from its overpower function.

Of course there are some drawbacks to focusing on building this thing, such as the looming threat of fatigue, or the chance that we boost several copies of key components within the first couple of turns. But if you play your cards right you'll find it's actually incredibly easy to assemble the Nitro Mechanoid, and the payoff is excellent.

Need For Speed

First thing's first, step on the gas! Boosting to your heart's content is how you apply pressure each turn, and unlike an Induction Chamber build, you don't care if you hit any Hyper Drivers off the top (more on this later).

Focus on cheap attacks like Zero to Sixty, T-Bone, and Zipper Hit. Cut anything that costs 2 or more, except for Jump Start, which acts functionally like a second Zipper Hit. You want to be able to boost three times each turn, or block as much as possible and arsenal. Other cards to support our boost chains include Pulsewave Harpoon, which can be crucial to messing with the opponent's gameplan to keep them on the backfoot while you get our ducks in a row.

You may have noticed that Nitro Mechanoid consumes our weapon, so a Pistol is unlikely to get any late game value. For this reason we've raided the Emperor's throne room, touting the antique Hanabi Blaster. Any turn you're attacking, you want to be placing a counter on this thing to get as much free damage out of it as possible before it's replaced by an even better weapon - the Nitro Mechanoid.

Cutting Edge Tech

Aside from the Hyper Drivers, we're not really playing many other items. With the Constructs and few other non-boost cards we want to avoid the chance of having off turns where nothing gels together. Optekal Monocle is the only other item you'll likely be playing in the deck, as it's extremely easy to play out, and lets us dig deeper for our combo pieces while ensuring we can boost our weaker cards like smaller attacks and keep good stuff in the deck.

Teklo Core is another possible option, but unlike other builds you'll only want to consider one copy, to occasionally fetch when it's needed in specific circumstances. We have such a low cost deck, supported by Hyper Driver and Teklo Foundry Heart, that extra resources aren't something we typically need, but are nice to have in the workshop if need be. Alongside Optekal Monocle, you can also always play this out at the end of your turn if Hanabi Blaster isn't fully loaded.

Bios Update takes our boost turns to another level! Always try to line this up with a triple boost chain even if it means putting it in arsenal for another turn. Remember, if we're attacking, we want to do it thrice, not only twice or less. Bios Update offers incredible value when it hits one of our items off the top, and we need all the extra help we can get.

Gotta Go Fast

Our early game is all well and good, but we still have to actually get to the Hyper Drivers. One thing I've learned from my many years playing Flesh and Blood is that drawing extra cards typically tends to be pretty alright. Spark of Genius is absolutely key, as we can pay the cost to search for a Hyper Driver without even needing to pitch (ye olde Hyper Driver and Teklo Foundry Heart combo back at it again). On top of that it replaces itself which helps keep momentum on the triple boost train.

High Octane is the heart and soul of this deck. Not only does it draw cards and play a key role in our late game finisher, but it also has a few other sneaky abilities, such as letting you use spare action points to play boost cards without needing to banish cards from deck (go read Hanabi Blaster again, it only requires you to play three cards with boost, not actually boost them). This helps us maintain more deck capacity for the endgame. You'll want to get one of these into arsenal as soon as you can once you're ready to assemble the Nitro Mechanoid.

Tome of Fyendal pairs with High Octane to deliver bombshell turns while keeping us happy and healthy. It does add a risk factor to our boost consistency, and arsenal space can be tight when you have several other components to worry about, but a single copy is often all you need.

Read the Instruction Manual

Status Report: You've got all three Hyper Drivers on field, in the graveyard, or in your banished zone. You know where your next Construct and High Octane are. You've (hopefully) depleted a sizeable chunk of your opponent's life and equipment.

Take break, breathe in deeply. It's time to focus. A single copy of Blessing of Ingenuity (but I'd recommend playing three in the deck) is all it takes to pop those Hyper Drivers into the arena. You have two more turns to get any last-minute value out of your items and equipment. Then, it's finally time...

When Nitro Mechanoid hits the field, your opponent's eyes bug out of their head. Is this really happening? What was previously a trash heap of expended equipment, items, and an exhausted weapon is now a mechanized suit fit for any interplanetary scientist to take into battle against an alien queen.

While Nitro Mechanoid is powerful in its own right simply by offering a huge defensive shield alongside a strict upgrade to Hanabi Blaster, this is not the reason we created it. We didn't slave away at our workbench just to end in a slight upgrade.

This is where High Octane comes into play. Once you have it in arsenal, simply pitch a blue to play it out, draw a card, and boost four times with your remaining cards (you should be able to afford this from your low cost attacks and floating resources, but if not, three times is also fine).

With four spare action points banked from High Octane, it's time to begin stomping! That's right, Nitro Mechanoid is not once per turn! Four attacks for 6 with overpower off the back of a quad boost should be more than enough to blow your enemies to smithereens.

Of course, Nitro Mechanoid's power is finite, as is your deck, but it's highly unlikely you'll run out of cards before either player's life total does. Be prepared for the occasional system failure as well, as some boosts that go awry can result in some critical combo pieces being banished. If this occurs, keep calm and carry on. An aggressive boost plan is still a powerful approach by itself.

While not everyone will want to break the mold during a National Championship, keep in mind there are several side events where this bucket of bolts will slot in perfectly. Bright Lights is bringing us the future of Mechanologist, but there's no reason we can't keep innovating now. Dream, discover, delight, and find what puts the rocket in your sprocket!