Bursting Onto the Scene: Tachyon

If Legacy is “Captain America” + “Superman” then Tachyon is this game’s version of “The Flash.” The strategy behind Tachyon’s deck revolves around two things:

1) Discard Bursts: A lot of cards in Tachyon’s deck have a keyword called “burst” like this card, for example:

When these “bursts” are in the trash they are used as a means to increase the damage of a card called “Lightspeed Barrage:”

“Lightspeed Barrage” is the most powerful card in Tachyon’s deck. When there are a lot of bursts in the trash, this card will deal A LOT of damage. In that sense, it’s like Goku’s Spirit Bomb: It generally requires a period of time to charge up, but once that’s happened it’ll finish off any villain unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.
2) Play as many cards as you possibly can: This is pretty self-explanatory, but Tachyon’s cards are designed to be played en masse.

Before we talk about her individual cards let’s first look at her base power.

Base Power: Rapid Recon: “Reveal and replace the top card of your hero deck. You may discard the top card of your deck.”

Rating:  1.5 / 5 - Rapid Recon is helpful for getting rid of cards you don’t need and putting bursts in the trash. It’s not the most effective way of doing it and it even tends to get outclassed by another card in her deck called “Research Grant”, which lets her draw two cards and discard one. In comparison to her variants, Standard Tachyon is worst Tachyon.

Card Guide: For the remainder of this post I will be evaluating each and every card in Tachyon’s deck and will then rate each card on a scale from 1 - 5. Here’s the rating scale and what it means:

- 5 / 5: A must-use card. Cards with a 5 / 5 rating are the best cards in the hero's deck. If you're playing as this hero, it would be foolish not to use these.

- 4 or 4.5 / 5: These are cards you're most likely going to use a lot. They have a few more drawbacks than a 5 / 5 card, but they’re still pretty good overall.

- 3 or 3.5 / 5: This means one of two things:

Moderately Useful: The card is decent, but not super good. It’s nice to have but you can go an entire game without using it and you won’t be missing much.

(2) Mixed Bag: The card’s pros and cons are roughly equal. Usage of these cards needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis and considered carefully.

- 2.5 / 5 or below = These cards are not very good. They have major drawbacks and their usefulness is limited at best.

Tachyon’s Best Cards

These cards are all rated 5 / 5.

• Lightspeed Barrage: Since I’ve already bought this card up and explained what it does, I might as well start here. Lightspeed Barrage is the card that Tachyon’s deck revolves around. This card is the pay-off to putting so many bursts in her trash. If “Sentinels of the Multiverse” was a Mortal Kombat installment this card would be written with a giant “FINISH HIM” sign because that’s essentially what it does. When played properly, this card will defeat any villain you play against. Here are some examples of the type of damage that you can deal with this card:

In terms of sheer damage output this card is easily the most powerful card in Tachyon’s deck.

• HUD Goggles: This card is the gift that keeps on giving. When played, it gives Tachyon the ability to play an extra card. The “extra play” even applies during the turn Tachyon plays this card, so there’s no reason not to use this card.

• Pushing the Limits: Like “HUD Goggles,” this card lets you play an extra card. If “Pushing the Limits” and “HUD Goggles” are both out, then Tachyon can play three cards in one round. That’s pretty incredible! Not only does “Pushing the Limits” let you play an extra card, it also lets you draw an extra card at the end of your turn. This helps Tachyon go through her deck faster and lets her draw what she needs.

This card does come with a catch, though: It requires her to deal herself damage in order to remain in play for more than one turn. If you’re playing with Legacy, then that self-inflicted 2 damage can become 3 or 4. It’s always questionable how long you should keep this card in play, but even if you only keep it out for one turn it’s still worth it since the extra card that you play and draw are totally worth it. And like “HUD Goggles,” this card lets you play an extra card even after you immediately play it.

• Fleet of Foot: Remember Legacy’s “Bolster Allies” card? You know, the card that lets every hero on your team draw a free card? Well “Fleet of Foot” is “Bolster Allies” except that it also lets you play an extra card immediately after playing it. There are 3 “Fleet of Foot” cards in Tachyon’s deck and, yes, you can play all three of them back-to-back. That’s 3 free cards for your team plus an extra play. Oh, and it’s a burst so once it goes in the trash it charges up “Lightspeed Barrage.” This is another card that gets filed under the category of “There’s no good reason NOT to use this card.”

• Hypersonic Assault: This is arguably my favorite card in Tachyon’s deck. It prevents villains and environment cards from dealing damage. The ability to stop damage is amazing in this game. Preventing damage can be the difference between victory and defeat, allowing you to stall for time and get around villains with “counterattack” damage like Chairman / Operative, Citizen Dawn, and Chokepoint on Ultimate Mode.

         There are a few drawbacks to this card, though. “Hypersonic Assault” doesn’t work against villains with damage reduction effects, it doesn’t protect you from any damage-dealing target that comes into play after it’s been used. Fortunately, these problems have easy solutions. Damage buffs help “Hypersonic Assault” deal with damage reduction effects. Damage buffs like, say,...Legacy. Heroes like Parse can also make Tachyon’s damage irreducible with cards like “Reveal the Flaws,” which is another method of getting over damage-reduction effects.

• Blinding Speed:Hey look, a card that can destroy an ongoing or an environment card. And it’s a “burst,” too, so it will benefit Tachyon even when it goes in the trash. Villain ongoing and environment cards can range from annoying to outright dangerous. Being able to get rid of these threats is important if you want to achieve victory.

• Lightning Reflexes: Hey look! Two free plays. Yay! What’s extra neat about this card is that if you play this card outside of Tachyon’s turn then you get to play these extra two cards anyway. That’s something that even “HUD Goggles” and “Pushing the Limits” can’t do. There is a catch. When played during her turn “Lightning Reflexes” uses up a normal play. So during her turn this card is an essential + 1 play. When played outside of her turn this card becomes a + 2 play.

• Quick Insight:A burst that lets Tachyon go through her deck faster and put more bursts in the trash. Another example of a consistently useful card in Tachyon’s deck.

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The “Pretty Good” Cards

These cards are all rated 4 / 5.

• Sonic Vortex:This card provides an interesting contrast to “Lightspeed Barrage” in that it’s the number of targets that are reliant upon the number of bursts in the trash instead of the damage. Being able to deal 3 damage makes it better than any of her other damage dealing cards that aren’t “Lightspeed Barrage,” and this card has the added benefit of letting you pick and choose which targets you want to attack.

• Synaptic Interruption: Tachyon’s one and only defensive card. And it’s pretty useful. This will protect her from powerful hits, and its ability to hurt the villain or potentially defeat a villain target as a counterattack is a nice cherry on top. “Synaptic Interruption” also protects Tachyon against self inflicted damage, and it’s also a burst that will power up “Lightspeed Barrage.”

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“Mixed Bags” & Moderately Decent Cards

The “Mixed Bag” Cards

• These cards are rated 3 / 5.

• Supersonic Response: “Supersonic Response” is one of those cards that can be awesome in some situations while also non-existent in others. The key to it’s awesomeness depends on whether Tachyon was dealt damage or not during the previous villain turn. If yes, then she’s dealing a bare minimum of 4 damage. If Tachyon’s on the same team as Legacy, then this card can deal between 6 - 8 damage. Otherwise, she’s dealing a measly 2 damage and you probably have better options. There’s no way to guarantee that Tachyon will always be dealt damage while this card is in her hand. Plus, the better one gets at this game, the more ways they can find to avoid taking damage altogether. There are times when this card will just sit in my hand while Tachyon takes no damage. As a result, I find this card useful only some of the time.

• Accelerated Assault: On the one hand, dealing area-of-effect damage is generally a great thing to do. On the other hand, dealing one damage is not so great. The usefulness of this card is dependent on whether Tachyon gets damage buffs and if there are multiple enemies to hit. If yes, then this card can be very good. Otherwise, it’s not really all that special. At least it’s an extra burst in the trash.

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“Limited Usefulness”

Cards in this section are rated a 2.5 / 5 or worse. This means that at best they’re situationally useful, as opposed to consistently useful. All of the cards in this section have major drawbacks.

Nimble Strike

Rating: 2.5 / 5 -This card is the ultimate “I have nothing better to play in my hand” card. 1 damage to 1 target is lame. The only noteworthy things about this card is that it’s a burst and that you get to draw a card. At least you can use it to bait out the effect some villains have of reducing the first hit they receive in a turn, like Spite’s “PL602 Compound Omicron” card.

Sucker Punch

Rating: 0 / 5 -   This card will not see use 99.9% of the time. If a villain or environment target is that close to dying, then you could have just finished it off by dealing it damage. The good news is that it’s a burst so having it in the trash will result in charging up “Lightspeed Barrage.” Whenever this card is in your hand and you have a choice to discard a card, always choose this card first. In that sense, “Sucker Punch” reminds me of the Falcon Punch in Super Smash Bros: They’re both so heavily impractical that they may as well be memes.

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Asterisk Time

When going through Tachyon’s deck, I found one card’s usefulness dependent upon which version of Tachyon I would use, making it difficult to rate. As a result, “Research Grant” deserves its own section.

• Research Grant:So this card is kind of like “Quick Insight” in the sense that you get to draw cards and discard. But there’s a catch: It’s a card that can only be used during your Power Phase instead of Tachyon’s base power. Considering the fact that each of the Tachyon variants have base powers that are very different in terms of usefulness, this card’s worth is ultimately dependent on what you’re giving up instead.

Standard Tachyon

Rating: 5 / 5 - Standard Tachyon loves this card. “Research Grant” allows Tachyon to draw more cards and get bursts in her trash quicker than her base power ever would. “Research Grant” is basically a replacement for Standard Tachyon’s base power.

Supe r Scientific Tachyon

Rating: 2 / 5 - This one’s more tricky but in most circumstances Super Scientific Tachyon would rather use her base power. The potential to let someone on your team play two cards at once is better than drawing two and discarding one. It’s true that this power is not a safe bet, but there are team compositions and strategies to deal with that drawback. So overall, it’s usually better for Super Scientific Tachyon to use her own base power than to use “Research Grant.”

Freedom Five Tachyon

Rating: 4 / 5 - Freedom Five Tachyon’s base power is dependent on whether or not you have bursts in her trash and if you want to use her power. The trade-off between “Research Grant” and “Blitz” (the base power of this version of Tachyon as listed on the card) is arguably 50 / 50. Since you’re not always going to have bursts, or you want more bursts in the trash, “Research Grant” is going to get more mileage here.

Team Leader Tachyon

Rating: 0 / 5 - There’s pretty much never a situation where “Research Grant” will provide more benefit than Team Leader Tachyon’s base power. The ability to let your team draw a card for free every turn is a god-like power. Plus, Team Leader Tachyon can easily get more bursts in the trash by simply having more cards to play every turn on average. She’s also not the only one who benefits from her base power--every hero on the team benefits from having a free card. That alone trumps having an extra burst in the trash.