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The Sentry™
Card# MTU-017
While his stats aren’t much bigger than those of the average 7-drop, Sentry’s “Pay ATK” power can drastically hinder an opponent’s attacking options in the late game.
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I’ll be switching gears from Sealed Pack play to Booster Draft for my next few articles. The overall feel of drafting has changed some between Marvel Origins and DC Origins (for some perspective, check this out). You want to place a high priority on taking cards for your resource row when drafting DC. You probably want to start off by drafting generic plot twists and locations first, and then move on to grabbing any exciting team-specific cards that would suggest that players feeding you packs aren’t interested in that team. After that, you have to ask yourself which characters are the best to fill out your deck. The more focused you can stay within one team, the better. Once you have commited to two teams, though, there are reasons to fill out both teams—you want to have enough characters in each team to discard to pay effects or just to be targeted by team-specific effects. Rather than taking high-costed characters first (as was often the case in Marvel drafts), in DC, a rough pick order can be determined for a team based on how many characters you want at a given cost point and what your alternatives are at that cost point. Having discussed loyalty recently and having done some Teen Titans previews, I haven’t said too much about the Arkham Inmates yet. So today I’ll give a rough guide for the order to draft their common characters, beginning with their best options.
 1. Charaxes
Given that you want as many as five 3-cost characters in your deck, Charaxes is your man. Your common alternative, The Penguin, is no gem in draft, where you can’t fill out you deck with as many locations as you’d like, and you aren’t going to find many brawlers at this cost at any rarity in Arkham. You hear a lot of people around here complaining after lost games that they didn’t draw their Charaxes. He's popular enough that he's even starting to earn various moth-related nicknames. I’ve been virtually locked out of a number of games by Charaxes. Once he takes down your opponent’s first guy in combination with a Fear and Confusion, or especially with No Man’s Land, it can be hard to find a way out from underneath the assault. One or two turns later, he may come in again as part of a team attack, and because he causes no breakthrough anyway, he makes for a great team attacker. If he does so with another exhaustion effect, you can kiss another favorite of yours goodbye. He may not cause endurance loss to your opponent (other than by stunning characters), but his flight, stats, and power turn many unsuspecting foes into food.
2. Killer Croc
There isn’t too much that's subtle about the Croc. In DC Origins, there aren’t any 5-cost characters with a natural ATK value of 9. This means that the Croc and his 10 DEF will often force a team attack or other trick from your opponent. Sadly, his 7 ATK on defense usually won’t be able to take down an opposing 5-drop, in turn, but forcing your opponent to blow a plot twist or make a team attack when he or she would rather not is a worthwhile bonus. All that said, you really aren’t taking the Croc for defense. You're taking him because he can take down just about anything that gets in his way when he is attacking. Unless your opponent’s 5-drop is Lady Shiva, Sandra Woosan, he should also cause a few points of breakthrough as well. Barring additional opposition, the Croc can also take down every 6-costed character and almost every 7-costed character in DC Origins (including characters that boost to 7).
 3. Mr. Freeze
Much like Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze has that extra point of DEF over most of his 6-costed peers. Azrael is the only 6-drop with a base ATK that can take him down. Now your opponent really wants to have a trick in his or her resource row or hand, since team attacking Mr. Freeze means each character coming in will be out of commission through the next turn. When you are on offense, one good trick or team attack means that almost any character of your choice won’t be attacking you on the next turn.
4. Bane, The Man Who Broke The Bat
Bane close in power level to Mr. Freeze. Rather than argue too much about which is better, let’s just say that you are going to want both to fill out your deck. Bane has the added versatility of being a good play on turn 6 or turn 7. As a 6-drop, I prefer Mr. Freeze because both characters are powerful on offense, but Mr. Freeze is a much bigger nuisance on defense. Bane’s power is more exciting on offense, though, I’ll admit. If you can stun a high cost character before he attacks, the game should swing heavily in your favor on any subsequent turns.
5. Man-Bat
Man-Bat outshines The Joker, Laughing Lunatic, in most decks thanks to his flight and his sporadically increasing ATK. He is a versatile attacker who can swing first to take out possible reinforcers, or swing in last with maximum ATK.
6. Harley Quinn
If you get her into play on the first couple of turns, you won’t regret it. Her ability to reinforce any Arkham defender is quite useful, and she can hopefully fuel any cards like Kidnapping you were fortunate enough to draft. If you don’t draw or play her early, her ability to be discarded from hand as a power-up is sure to mess up your opponent’s plans at some point in the game.
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