Winning Ideas: Karkinos and the King of Camazotz [Maren]

This article is part of the Winning Ideas series. They are intended for more experienced players that may want some insight into the thought process behind tournament-winning MonPoc lists.

Hey! Been a bit. Long enough that we’re on a whole new site, SmashU! My first article here as a professor emeritus is about a list I’ve piloted to great success on a few occasions: first during a TableTop Simulator tournament in January of 2022, and again during the Kaiju Classic later that year. The pair is Karkinos and King of Camazotz (or just Kark and Cam cuz I am not typing those names out every time). Basically, I just want to talk about what the list’s strengths and weaknesses are, and why I had such a ball playing it.

The List

Monsters

Karkinos

King Of Camazotz

Buildings

3x Downtown Highrise

1x Imperial State Building

1x Industrial Complex

4x Media Company

1x Mount Terra

1x Reclamation Facility

1x UCI Industries

Units

2x Abrogator

2x Cliff Hopper

1x Crawler

1x Dervish

2x Destructomite

1x Explodohawk

1x Facilitator

1x Hellion

2x Juror

1x Mollock Berserker

1x Propo Walker

1x Scorcher

2x Squix

1x Task Master

1x Tuner

Strengths

It really boils down to two things: speed and toughness. Between Steamroller on Kark and Bloodsport/Sprint on Cam, the pair can get way further up the board than its seeming average SPD stats let on. This is particularly helpful considering neither monster has a Blast stat to speak of.

But honestly, the real meat of the pair is how hard it is to kill. No matter which monster your opponent takes on first, the other one is going to be a pain to finish off, since both excel at sustaining themselves through a late game 1v1. Kark does this by being a Fireproof monster with 10 base health, making her one of the hardest monsters in the game to kill outright. Cam accomplishes it with his Onslaught/Vampirism alpha Brawl, potentially allowing him to heal twice in a turn while damaging the enemy. Between Flight and Fireproof, you’re also likely taking far less incidental hazard damage than your opponent as well, allowing you to chip away at their health while staying in the green yourself.

I like to refer to this as sticking my opponent between a rock (lobster) and a hard place, since it means they need to make a choice between bad and worse, and they can’t be sure which is which.

The final nail this list drives home Kark’s Suplex rule, which can easily let you cheat in 1-2 bonus damage a turn, provided you’re not facing off against a Steady monster like Ares Mothership or Stomatavorus Rex.

Weaknesses

I already mentioned the lack of a Blast, which can be a pain in some scenarios. Beyond that, Fireproof monsters are vulnerable to strategies that cheat additional damage in, such as via Hazardous units or reliable access to Super Damage, as well as buildings like the Myriad Singularity and Tokyo Triumph that do additional collision damage. Karkinos is less vulnerable than other Fireproof monsters thanks to her health pool being on the low end of standard, but it’s still worth considering.

Cam’s main weakness is his lackluster Power stat, with only 3 boost dice available in alpha, and going up to a middling 4 in hyper. He also suffers into monsters with high base defense, since he relies on hitting multiple times, or models like Zor-Voltis or Stomatavorus Rex who punish you for attacking them multiple times.

The pair also lacks conventional screen-clearing tools, which can often mean you’re relegated to making a single power attack, or even not power attacking your opponent at all! A clever opponent can leverage this against you, so be sure to attack their units and power base as hard and as frequently as you can.

Most notably, however, the only rule these monsters have between them that generates power dice is Cam’s Siphon on Brawl in hyper, which is more of a consolation for punching three times than anything else. You’ll need to generate a lot of power, either with unit attacks or off of secures, to really make these monsters shine.

The Kobayashi Maru of MonPoc

The goal of this list is to put your opponent in an unwinnable situation. Either they attack Cam first and have to deal with Karkinos’s high health and easy access to bonus damage in the late game with limited damage options, or they attack Kark first and may very well find themselves unable to do more damage to Cam than he can heal from turn to turn, forced to watch as their health dwindles while his remains topped up. Or, y’know, concede. A lot of people concede at that point.

Picking first or second into the pair doesn’t matter much either, since either way it’s liable to get the first licks in. On many maps, I find Kark is able to get a cheeky turn-one ram power attack thanks to Steamroller, dealing unexpected early damage to the enemy. From second, it’s not uncommon to find a Suplex line to deal 5-6 damage on your first monster turn, depending mostly on whether you could ram the building with Cam or needed the extra accuracy of his Onslaught Brawl to bring the building screen down.

However, the list isn’t just about putting pressure on your opponent to play well. There are a ton of rules on these cards that I haven’t even mentioned, each of which can be critical to getting a win, or a trap you fall into. Rules like Battering Ram, Scent of Blood, Ravage, and Grappler are all excellent in their own right, but are a little bit more niche in use than the ones I’ve talked about already.

The last thing I will point out about the list is actually in the building loadout. You’ll notice that I brought 3 Downtown Highrises along. I brought them for the sole purpose of punching them with my monsters for the extra health off of High Occupancy. There’s very little more disheartening to an opponent than finally getting Cam into hyper only to watch him sprint away and punch down two highrises to get back into alpha.

Also, if you’re wondering why the list you’re seeing here doesn’t have any Skull Bats in it, that’s because only Cam had been spoiled by the time the TTS event went live. I highly recommend running 2 Skull Bats with Cam, since between their Abduct action and the Scout special rule granting bonus boost dice, they can really push it to the next level.

TL;DR

So there you have it, a list that specializes in getting into the thick of it quickly and staying there as long as it takes to win. If you like healing, outlasting your opponent, and zooming around the map, then these two might just be for you!

If you’re looking to beat them, target their power generation aggressively, prioritize taking down whichever monster your pair is more afraid of, and eliminate the Highrises with prejudice!