Character Profile
- Best Attack: Raptor Bot
- Best Team Support: Stealth Bot
- Best Personal Support: Swift Bot
- Primary Damage Types: Melee, Lightning
- Secondary Damage Types: Energy, Projectile, Fire, Cold
- Worst Card: Scrap Metal
- Nemesis: Iron Legacy
Unity has a fan-favorite deck centered on producing adorable Mechanical Golems that wreak havoc with the enemy’s game. Her deck draws a lot of cards, and she provides some offbeat support for the rest of the party. If her bots go unhindered, she will easily bring the game to a decisive conclusion. In return for this power, she has a different weakness than most Sentinels – namely, mass damage.
GO BOTS GO!
Unity’s method of attack is, obviously, bot-based. Platform Bot is the basic unit here, dealing three damage every turn. Turret Bot is similar. He attacks at the beginning of the turn – a disadvantage, since he doesn’t attack the turn you play him. He has the most hit points though, making him a useful tank. These can be boosted by Champion Bot, whose usefulness increases with the number of attacking bots. Don’t forget it boosts Unity’s damage too.
Cryo Bot does global damage. If he gets a few boosts, his attacks are terrifying, but his damage is automatic, which could result in harming things you don’t want to kill. Since he has to be damaged first, it’s hard to rely on him. (Though I once saw him rip the Advanced Ennead apart almost singlehandedly. That game was great.)
The bulk of Unity’s damage comes from Raptor Bots, and these guys are crazy. Their limitation is in their low hit point total. The key to making these guys most effective is to not play them until you can be assured they will be at their best. Never play them on an empty board – you want, at minimum, two other bots. Bee Bots and Stealth Bot are key to protecting them.
She’s got some other damage, too. Brain Storm and Bee Bot are nice, but Powered Shock Wave is godly if you’ve accumulated even a handful of bots. Volatile Parts gives you a good source of damage if you can’t keep bots on the table. This damage goes for the lowest target, though. That’s not necessarily bad, but you do have to plan for it.
Utility and Defense
Bee Bot borders on crazy. Reactive, out-of-turn environment destruction is unique so far in this game. If an environment does damage to everything, let it hurt the villains, then Bee Bot, then destroy the offending environment. The rest of the heroes (and bots!) are safe. Unity gets some damage in the equation, and it kills ongoings too. Simply a great deal, and it offers a ton of flexibility.
Stealth Bot is next, offering around 6-10 hit points in defense of everybody on the team. Its innate redirection means that, among other things, all attacks of one damage against a hero should be redirected and ignored. Other than that, while it is nice that it can take hits for heroes, the best use of its health is to protect your Raptor Bots. What this mechanic has to do with Wraith is a mystery, but this is integral to keeping your bot army healthy.
Hasty Augmentation is an interesting utility one-shot. All heroes appreciate the use of an extra power. The extra damage can be a strong incentive for a number of heroes. The most difficult thing about Unity’s one-shots is reconciling them with her power phase. Using her powers to play bots often requires her to play equipment during her play phase. Her one-shots are great if you don’t have to worry about that – for instance, if you have Modular Workbench, or if another hero has a spare piece of equipment.
An oft-overlooked aspect of Unity’s presence is that the bots will often take on the role of hero target with the lowest hit points. While this is not necessarily good for Unity’s game, this is great for the heroes as a whole, essentially increasing hero durability. Don’t forget the tanking potential of bots when the game comes down to the wire. If the villain attacks the highest hero target, and that target is Turret Bot, that’s one hero he’s not attacking.
Card Draw
Unity rounds out her deck with quite a bit of card draw. I can’t say enough about Swift Bot. This enables Unity to get out of hand. It gives you all the cards you want, and a way to use them. A typical turn could feature Brainstorm to draw some more cards, play that Construction Pylon you picked up, and throw down two more bots, then draw two cards to try it again next turn. Swift Bot overwhelms Unity’s tempo issues and turns her into a juggernaut if it stays alive.
Supply Crate and Brainstorm are great purely for their card draw. Flash Forge is better. This card means you have no excuses for why you don’t have the right card. This card lets you plan a turn or two ahead, and line up your best bots. It gets equipment too, which means your favorite toy, Construction Pylon. A full 65% of your deck is accessible with this card. Since you can get multiple cards at a time, that’s some powerful deck searching.
Tactics
First, some general Unity rules. I find all of Unity’s equipment appropriate for use with Bot-Hack except Construction Pylon. Modular Workbench is excellent while it lasts, but keep in mind that it can be broken down for parts as well, if you’re out of spare cards, or if you think the enemy might destroy it. Be on the lookout for equipment that your allies don’t need anymore. You can destroy them for a great tempo advantage, but destroying them against their will is counterproductive.
In a perfect world (sometimes easily achieved through copious card-draw and Flash Forge), my first bots are Swift Bot and Stealth Bot. What happens next depends on the villain and environment. If you are against ongoing or environment-based mass damage, then Bee Bot will be crucial to protecting the rest of your bots. If not, Raptor Bots and Platform Bots can start the damage train, with the other bots helping out as needed.
Bot Health
Inspired Repair is great for the bot-fixing function, but can also just be cycled if you need another card now. Robot Reclamation is a way to get your bots back, especially if your board was wiped and you need to rebuild from scratch. Make sure you have a way to play the bots you get back – you don’t want to be stuck drawing cards you can’t play for several turns.
Finally, Scrap Metal is Unity’s most baffling card. Return a bot to your hand to play one for free next turn. Upgrading your bots is interesting, but not usually worth the time delay, especially since you can just play the new bot by destroying Scrap Metal. Healing a bot to full is useful with Turret Bot, Champion Bot, or Swift Bot, whose functions are unimpaired by leaving the board for a round, or Cryo Bot or Stealth Bot, who both rely on being damaged to function. This can also be used to help one (1) bot dodge a mass attack, if you know one is coming. Generally, though, I just use this to make a bot with Bot-Hack.
Golem Unity trades a (lot of) hit point(s) for Golem-Spawn. This eliminates Unity’s tempo issue, and allows her to enjoy more of her equipment, but can be very dangerous. Four hit points per bot is a hefty price, and this girl doesn’t have much in the way of defenses.
The good news is that your increased tempo is more likely to get you cards quickly, which in turn provide you with your Modular Workbench and Construction Pylons. Golem Unity is capable of a much faster deployment than standard Unity. Recall the lessons learned from heroes like Nightmist and Absolute Zero. While Unity has no inherent methods to regain life, using your hit points as a resource can be very effective.
Try this combo: redirect the damage Golem-Spawn deals to Unity to Stealth Bot. Stealth Bot only takes 3. Next turn, you can fix Stealth Bot up with Inspired Repair and continue with your turn!
Weaknesses
Unity does not rely on ongoing and equipment cards, making her setup very resilient to traditional hero-spiting cards like Devastating Aurora. In return, damage that affects all hero targets presents a considerable difficulty for her. If Bee Bot or Stealth Bot are not capable of minimizing the damage, a bad draw could have Unity rebuilding her board from nothing. Know the environment and villain, and try to keep some bots handy in case the worst happens. Irreducible damage is a big threat. If you just can’t keep bots on the table, switch to a plan of attack based on Volatile Parts.
Unity is a little fragile. Her only direct defense comes in the form of Stealth Bot. Fortunately, her bots make heros somewhat less of a target, and so help maintain hero hit points.
Unity has one more strange drawback. Most of her bot damage is mandatory. This doesn’t pose a problem in most fights, but with some of the Shattered Timelines villains specifically, there may be some times where your Raptor Bots will have no choice but to attack a hero target. You may not have a target against Miss Information, or they may not wish to attack the Dreamer. There’s no remedy for this, other than be careful about what you play.
Teamups
Unity is strong on her own, but if she finds help from other heroes, she becomes a real terror. First, extra cards get her the combinations of equipment and bots necessary to get rolling. Global damage boosts, like the ones provided by Legacy and Ra, affect all of her bots, which is great. Having heroes who can heal her bots is also helpful.
Granting her extra plays allows her to play bots right away, skipping the onerous equipment-destruction process. Argent Adept and Omnitron-X are fantastic partners for her for this reason. Unity also appreciates heroes who might have extra equipment lying around – Mr. Fixer, Bunker, Expatriette, and Wraith are good for this. Ra has only one piece of equipment, but he might like you to get rid of it for him so he can play another and gain some more life.
Aside from the hit point benefits provided to heroes through Stealth Bot and the very existence of bots, Unity can give a timely boost to all sorts of damage with Hasty Augmentation. Try using this to break through damage reduction with Mr. Fixer’s Riveting Crane or Alternating Tiger Claw Styles.
There is one more awesome combo. Bee Bot with Fanatic’s End of Days will result in destroying every villain and environment card you want to kill, then letting Bee Bot kill End of Days while hero cards remain untouched. Quite potent.
