Bad Company (Marine)

Bad Company (Marine) is a Common Stand-type Unit Card included in the starter deck with 3 attack and 1 health. It has a mana cost of 2 and the modifier Swarm.

Strategy
A staple of the eponymous "Swarm" or "Rush" decks, Bad Company Marines have an extremely high attack for their low cost of only 2 mana, the same as most Champion abilities. If your opponent gets a bad hand, you can easily win games just with the amount of damage these can deal off of turn 2 or 3. To explain, Swarm is an ability that doubles the card upon drawing it, so you can get up to 4 Marines in your hand just on the first turn. (Note: Swarm will always make 1 copy, no more, no less, it's just that you can have up to 2 of any card in your deck, so you could get 4 on turn 1.) With their cheap cost and high attack, they can decimate most early turn setups. However, Bad Company Marines are so good that they helped forge the Emerald Splash/Hero's Sacrifice meta. Emerald Splash deals 1 damage to all units on the board, and while that doesn't seem like much, Bad Company Marines only have that 1 health. Bad Company Marines, along with Harvest (Collector Mode), Baron Zeppeli, and Zombie Knight all have 1 health, and helped push Emerald Splash into the spotlight as one of the most vital Effect cards.

Synergies

 * Keicho Nijimura/Hol Horse/J.P. Polraneff
 * Keicho is an obvious synergy, as he boosts all Bad Company unit's stats, but Hol Horse can also help protect against Emerald Splashes in the late game, but due to his cost, it's only useful if you draw him later, as it wouldn't be worth holding onto Marines until turn 5 when he could actually be played. The same applies for Polraneff, but even more so considering he doesn't even buff health. Honestly, Marines do well enough on their own.
 * Vanguard Cards
 * Just as protection against cards like Bug Eaten and Vampire Horses that someone might use to try and knock off the Marines for cheap. This way you can just keep slamming them into higher cost units or even the opposing Champion if your opponent doesn't have any Vanguard cards in play.