Character Profile
Best Attack: Savage Mana
Best Team Support: Ground Pound
Best Personal Support: Dominion
Primary Damage: Melee
Secondary Damage: Toxic
Worst Card: Enduring Intercession
Nemesis: Ambuscade
You ever wanted to just hit something? Haka is your man. Haka is the melee bruiser for the Sentinels of the Multiverse. He can absorb an insane amount of damage, and he even has control options available to him. This fun guy has a fun deck that can fly through the cards and really bring the hurt to the villain and his minions.
Attack
Haka takes great pleasure at getting into the fray. Most of his cards are dedicated to dealing nice chunks of damage, up close and personal. Some of them excel at dealing damage to many targets, which makes Haka very good at dealing with foes with a lot of targets in their deck.
While he’s just fine Crushing, let’s talk weapons. Haka has two standard weapon options, Mere and Taiaha. Taiaha is a strong double attack, while Mere gets you a card. If Haka is under no particular pressure to deal damage, I will take the card every time. More cards mean more options, and Haka can use his cards in all sorts of creative ways. It must be noted, though, that your slacker allies will usually expect Haka to deal damage. Taiaha also works very well with Savage Mana to start charging up for the finale.
Haka has Elbow Smash and Rampage, two cards that help with that damage-dealing expectation. Punish the Weak, Haka’s only ongoing damage boost, is no good if you want to attack the big bad past his minions or inconvenient environment targets. However, this is a card that gets better with teamwork. Your allies can help point Haka towards the right target by killing or weakening things until the right target is the lowest. Rampage, in the right situation, can also maximize Punish the Weak - just choose targets in order from weakest to strongest, and depending on the hit points of the things involved, you could get 6 damage to everybody, but only one damage to your allies.
Finish him!
Haka is blessed with not one, but TWO charge-up finishing moves. First up, Savage Mana. The more targets you consume, the more damage you deal when you cash it in. Not only can you overwhelm the villain once you’ve gotten rid of all of his minions, this provides you with an excellent measure of control over enemy minions. You’d much rather have Voss’s minions under Savage Mana than in his trash when Forced Deployment comes calling. Same goes for Citizen Dawn or the Chairman. It is sadly vulnerable to ongoing destruction, which can be a big problem against Citizen Dawn.
The other finishing move is Haka of Battle. I’ve had plenty of games end with a 20-point Crush from Haka - more games have ended this way than with Savage Mana. This is why I recommend drawing as many cards as possible with Haka. Play Mere and Dominion as soon as possible, and play the card-drawing one-shots as often as you can. When the villain leaves himself open, coming down on him for all of the cards in your hand will usually be enough to finish the job. Haka has three of them, and plenty of card drawing, so don’t be afraid to use it on any target that needs to die.
Perhaps most amusing is that Haka of Battle boosts your damage - it isn’t a separate attack. This means you can play both of your finishing moves in one attack, for a cool 30+ damage.
Defense
Haka starts with the most hit point of all the heroes, so he is usually a target right away. He gets plenty of cards to negate all that damage, though. Ta Moko is his armor, and it will never go out of style.
Vitality Surge, Haka of Shielding, and Haka of Restoration round out the rest of his defensive suite. Note that, if you only plan to discard one card, Haka of Shielding is just better than both Vitality Surge and Haka of Restoration. With Haka of Shielding, if you draw two cards and discard one, you prevent two of the next damage coming your way. Since damage is usually dealt in increments of two or more, you typically get the same net effect on your life as Vitality Surge, and double that of Haka of Restoration, while getting better card selection.
The life-gaining cards are still nice, though, especially when you’re managing targets - who is highest, who is lowest, who is second-highest, that sort of thing. I heard one story of somebody using Haka of Restoration to gain 13 life to make Haka, the only surviving hero, get himself out of the trap of being the lowest HP target. This allowed the villain and environment cards to whale on each other, while Haka went on to win.
Utility
Haka has the earth-shattering Ground Pound, which protects the heroes from villain and environment damage at the cost of two cards. Haka typically draws enough cards to make this loss inconsequential, and this is an excellent guard against the big villain turns.
Dominion is an excellent buff for Haka, granting him more or less an extra card every round. Unlike Mere, this is not limited in use. Some environments are more favorable to this card than others - Wagner Mars Base will play and destroy a lot of environment cards. Dominion has great synergy with Savage Mana, because the environment cards are destroyed both when he puts them under Savage Mana, and then again when he releases it.
The only other card not yet mentioned in Haka’s deck is Enduring Intercession. While it is interesting, this card is potentially too painful for Haka. He can minimize or recover the damage with Ta Moko and Co., but when an environment card causes each hero to take 3 or 4 damage, Haka can still go down quickly. Outside of a desperate sacrifice play, I don’t see too much use for this. It may be possible for Haka to dedicate his game to holding off environment damage from the rest of the heroes, but that just doesn’t seem like it would be necessary.
The Eternal Haka trades one hit point and Crush for Haka of Knowledge. In the right circumstances, that power effectively reads “Draw three, discard one.” This is some phenomenal card drawing. He trades his damaging base power for it, however, which can be a liability. He is less capable of consistent damage, but he is more able to accumulate cards to power his abilities or diversify his options. If consistent damage is what you seek, however, with a power like this, Taiaha and Mere cannot be too far away. Eternal Haka, like other card-drawing promo heroes, is better for villains where you have time to prepare.
An important thing to note: it has been clarified that the printed Eternal Haka is not required to discard a Haka card if he only has one and would prefer to keep it. (Text has been changed to “May discard,” according to the proof sheets.) I would be willing to discard Haka of Shielding or Haka of Restoration for this power, but I hold my Hakas of Battle like a miser.
Weaknesses
Haka is incapable of destroying ongoing and environment cards. That’s one of the most useful effects you can find in a hero’s arsenal. That said, ongoing destruction isn’t needed in every game, and nothing stops him from beating several of the nasty environment cards to death. He might even welcome the chance, if he’s charging up Savage Mana.
Another issue in Haka’s build is that he pretty much only does melee damage. Savage Mana is the only attack he has that deals a different damage type, and it requires preparation, so Haka will have a difficult time with anything sporting melee immunity.
Both of these weaknesses are countered by team selection. As long as somebody has the ongoing or environment destruction when needed, and as long as somebody can deal a significant amount of non-melee damage if needed, Haka helps round out a team very well, and is very self-sufficient.
Teamups
As just mentioned, Haka is self-sufficient. Though he appreciates any assistance that the team can offer, especially extra cards or bonuses to damage, he doesn’t need the help to bring the pain. One of the best things the team can do for him is to weaken or eliminate targets for the benefit of Punish the Weak or Savage Mana. Haka simply doesn’t have very many combo interactions with the other Sentinels.
I have seen one impressive interaction, and that’s with Bunker and his Ammo Drop. Whenever Haka kills a target and adds it to Savage Mana, Bunker gets a card. Then, when Haka releases the Savage Mana, Bunker gets an exciting card windfall.
