I Miss Slaughter Swamp

So Paul "TheDerangedBear" Sung replies to my first blog post telling me I need to get to tournaments and do tournie reports. I told him, it's not for lack of trying, but I ain't got cards for Silver Age for the most part. He tells me if I want to play City Champs I just need to get get him a decklist and onto Bart. So I see if I can get 20 bucks, I can. I send him a deck list and on Friday night it's all 100% confirmed.

(I'd like to pause for a second here and give a huge thanks to Paul and Jason "Doesn't Post On Realms" To, who got the cards I needed for me and put them in sleeves and everything. THANK YOU!)

Picking a deck was pretty easy for me. I wanted to play a card I've been waiting to play since I stopped. The last VS purchase I made was 4x Deadshot, Floyd Lawton. Mr. Lawton, if I do say so myself, is a bad ass 3-drop killah. Cold blooded.

Ahmed Samsarra... He's a 3-drop. That's a game winner. So, what's the best Deadshot deck? I don't know, but I liked this list.

Care of Tim Rivera - Mega Weekend SoCal Top 8

(You can read his very well written report right here!)

Characters
4 Jaime Reyes ◊ Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4 Lockjaw, Inhuman's Best Friend
4 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
1 San, The Alienated One
1 Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
1 Samantha Parrington
1 Punisher, Guns Blazing
1 Talia, Daughter of Madness
1 Annihilation Protocol
1 Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth
1 Terrax, Harbinger of Ruin
1 Basil Karlo ◊ Ultimate Clayface

Plot Twists
4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 Straight to the Grave
4 Cannibal Tech
4 A Proud Zinco Product

Locations
4 Dr. Fate’s Tower
1 Rann
4 Soul World
2 The Great Refuge

I coulda tweaked it or something, but fact is that I haven't played in so long I have no idea what would be smart changes and what would be me newbing it up. I had to play 3x Level 12 Intelligence instead of all Zinco's and 1x The Phantom Stranger instead of the fourth Mxy. Not by design. Well, the TPS because removing a bunch of Mxy's would suck. I never saw TPS anyway so it never mattered. Besides I had no idea what to expect except that Ahmed would most certainly, definitely, for sure, 100% be there...

...Yeah, about that...

Among the 12 players, there wasn't a single Ahmed on site. Not that I saw or heard anyway. I think I would have heard about it too. Oh well, killing 3's and 4's should be enough to win most games anyway. Let's get down the nitty gritty of it.

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Game 1 - Glen - Poison Ivy/Riddler/Chemo Control

I love me some Poison Ivy in general, the new 3 drop is hella nice. Especially with Riddler and Chemo out there. I was doing pretty good early on, Deadshot was ready on 3, but he all ready had Ivy fated out. What really hurt me was on 4 we both had Fate Suits, his on Wondy Woman mine on big Pun, the murdering murder of all things smaller than him. So, with Wonder Woman out Ivy was still safe from Deadshot unless she stunned. Sadly that wasn't all there was to be said on that. I sent Punisher into Wonder Woman. He had the Level 12 and nuked my amulet mid attack. I shoulda traveled over the top and just killed Ivy with Punisher. But I got greedy, which is never the right play, and it probably sealed my deal.

On five I think I had Annihilation Protocal, but it didn't matter. Between Ivy and Wonder Woman I wasn't getting anything done. Black Manta just made it worse by recurring Level 12 so even though I had a new Amulet, he just sent it on a trip to the KO'd pile again.

Game 2 - Jason - Substibuse

I threw this one away. If I had like,... practiced or maybe even played the game in the last 5 months I probably woulda won this one.

I played out Mxy on turn one to some confusion, he swung, he stuck around a couple turns, then he went to do his thing in the KO'd pile. It was fun.

Basically the crux of the game was forgetting Ancient Throne was around as a I attacked Fated out Punisher into Darkseid 4 I played A Proud Zinco product on Darkseid's BRPD Cloak. He had the Lord of Apokolips face up. Which, while stupid enough to make me deserve to lose, was compounded by the fact that he top decked a second off the Hook-Up. He had Batman on 6, Cape and Cowl, and on 7 he had to play 5 drop Darkseid, 8th century. I had Basil Karlo who got smacked by the 5/4 drop Darkseids and Batman smacked around my still Fated out Punisher.

He did a good job of punishing my row through out the game, but that was never what really hurt me. In a couple cases he actually replaced something I didn't need with something nice. I think I could have moved the gear to Basil, but he just would have team attacked with Batman and Darkseid-4 into him instead of the double Darkseids. Either way it was enough to kill me when Punisher got taken down afterwards.

Game 3 - Miguel "CarlosTheDwarf" - JSA Shenannigans

Deadshot kills a 3 drop on 3? Finally! Gees, the only time it happened too. I shoulda fishbowled a couple extra times in the car. Got those suck draws out of the way. I coulda gone 3-2 or something maybe. lol

He had Little Mr. Terrific turn one, I played Mxy on turn 1. lol Yeah. Mxy. Again. I gotta figure out a deck that WANTS Mxy on the field, cause it was great to watch people react to him coming out like that. So on 2 he played down Jack Knight <> Starman, who's really pretty cool. I had San and some fate stuffs. I made what I think was a good play, but it cost me in the end. Off the helm I drew Zinco, Helm and Soul World (I think) and I have Enemy and Level 12 in hand. I need to Deadshot next turn, and I know Mxy isn't gonna be around come my next build phase so I keep the Enemy and Helm. Mxy went away, San swungy swung, not a bad turn. But...

I draw enemy. He played Michael Holt the big Mr. Terrific and it was Terrific how I killed him. Hehe. It was no turn 3 Ahmed kill (God, is it mean of me to want to experience that or just kinda lame?), but I was happy to take what I could get. Punisher drops, Fate Gear moves on up and on his side Katar Hol <> Hawkman, Eternal Hero has Nth Metal. Uh oh. I really coulda used the equip hate here. Cause he pumps out of a Punisher kill.

He misses 5, instead playing Prince Khufu <> Hawkpeoples and Michael Holt. Jack Knight + T-Spheres stuns my 5 with no pumps by the way. Wonderful. If I coulda Talia'd in a Deadshot it woulda been nice, but I just couldn't make him my first discard of the turn. Anyway, the game ended next turn when Superman, Earth 2 smacked me about. If I had killed Hawkman on 4... Different game I think. Oh well. I'd rather lose for playing well. Hopefully I was. lol

It wasn't exactly helping to use Soul World 4 times. Man, that hurt.

Game 4 - I'm sorry, I forgot to write down your name and I suck at remembering names - Elektra, Straight Up

This was the best game of the day. I lost. But it was a blast, man. My opponent was a real laid back dude just having fun and that's always a nice enviroment to play in. Lockjaw on 1, Quicksilver semi-fated on two, but he ran into a masturbating Tania Belinskya and was stunned. You know, she got exhausted for herself?

Deadshot was there for turn three, but he didn't get to do his thing. Punisher was there on four and he killed Tania, since Elektra, Masterless Assassin is a hidey hole skank! Next turn, she smashed my face for 45. It was pretty cool actually.

I was gonna say Soul World really hurt this game too, but looking at the score sheet I only activated it once. Still, I coulda used it more if I hadn't had to burn myself for 4. For 4 sucks. I really do miss Slaughter Swamp.

Game 5 - Brandon - Brotherhood Reservist (Sorry for the mistake!)

This is the one match where everything came together and worked exactly right for me. Deadshot and Punisher both murdered stuff on 4, Talia came out and threatened to let me Deadshot again at any moment while Punisher added Scanner to the Casket Club. It was just insult to injury when Terrax took up the mantle of Fate and told Harry Delgado to bite it. But only after San stunned Kleinstock Brothers and Terrax replaced an extra Fate Tower to stun Amelia Voght. Punisher, Talia and Lockjaw all faced him for the scoop.

I honestly felt kinda bad about this match. When direct KO goes off, you really just smash cats left and right the second they're on the field. I'd really like to know more about the BHR deck, as it obviously wasn't running TNBs and it didn't get to do it's thing with all the capping of asses going on. I like BH and reservist is one of my favorite keywords.

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So, 1-4, my big "comeback" turns up snake eyes, but I had a great time. VS is so much fun. Everyone was real cool. I got handed a stack of EAs/Shinies, which I never argue with. (New Baxter Building, Bastion, Agility x2, Royal Flush Gang x2) Also bought my first Legends packs, 2 packs of DC Legends, only 3 bucks each. Which rocked. 3 reprints in each pack was kind of a disappointment as it was stuff I always had and I really wanted new cards. lol But, ah well, I knew there was reprints. I just didn't expect three in each pack. Is that, like, standard?

(I pulled Injustice For All and Doomsday-7, in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, the car ride back to Bart was pretty fun. Paul and Jason were entertaining. We talked a bit about VS. We got going the wrong way. Again. Hit Bart. Missed the bus. Got a ride. Ate. Sat in front of my computer doing nothing for a couple hours. Then started this. Still pretty exhausted.

When I got home I realized how drained I was and remembered how tough VS is mentally. It's like getting your brain punched all day. That's kind of what I like about it though. It's a serious challenge. You have to keep all these numbers and the math to go with them and the probable variables and proper sequences of events in your head the entire game.

I'm all about smashy-smashy decks, but even those aren't usually just turn guys sideways and auto-pilot. Do I use the pump here? Do I use the pump before formation? Do I row the pump or play it from hand? You're gonna lose a character this turn, but which attacks make it the most likely that you'll lose only one and it'll be the one you want to lose? Which one do you want to lose?

It's a tough game.

God damn it's good to be back.

-Mike