Much Late Tournamnet Report and Modern Age Musings

Pre-Face: I've been working on this since Friday now and I just can't remember the details of the matches well enough to match them up with the endurance totals. So, I'd just like to say upfront I switch from detailed report to kinda fuzzy recollections half way through.

Okay, so better late than never! I apologize for the delay, stuff came up. But last Monday I went to a tournament in Hayward, for the Marvel Release Celebration run by Curtis "T'Challa" Brown who most of you probably know on Realms. Playing Superman/Batman Robot in Modern required me to borrow some cards, but luckily Curtis is very cool and all was well. Even though he didn't have exactly what I wanted he had stuff and I was happy just to play.

The switch from Sealed to Modern was originally due to product lacking, but as of the day of the tournament there WAS enough MUN to do sealed but, rightfully, Curtis said unless everybody wanted to do Sealed we'd stick with Modern cause the price difference was 25 vs. 10. I was kinda looking forward to sealed, but we didn't get a totally unanimous vote so Modern prep for World's it was.

With me was my friend Muffin who's learning the game and literally decided to play a deck built from 3 packs of DC Legends, 3 packs of Marvel Legends and whatever reprints he had from older packs. That's a trooper folks! Well, in my line of thinking anyway. He just "likes" playing his own cards and he just likes playing period. I never was really certain about the idea of archtypical players, but I think he fits. I don't know which one, but who cares as long as we enjoy ourselves.

Here's the list I played.

4x Superman/Batman Robot
4x Maggie Sawyer
4x White Lotus
2x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante
2x Krypto
4x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Elite Hacker
1x Batman, Twilight Vigilante
4x Superman, Man of Tomorrow
2x Dinah Laurel Lance <> Black Canary, Cry In The Dark

27 Characters

2x Coast City

4x Bat-Signal
3x Blinding Rage
4x Combat Reflexes
4x Crackshot
3x Heroic Effort
4x Home Surgery
1x Mental Blast
4x Teen Supreme
4x The Hook-Up

34 Others

Ideally I would have played 3x Metropolis Marvel instead of Man of Tomorrow, though he's very nice with Coast City, which I had never thought about until I was looking through Curtis' cards for some filler. I think in Modern Coast City will definitely stick around and maybe even in Silver if there's room. Blinding Rage/Mental Blast woulda been Soaring To New Heights, but I really think Blinding Rage works well. Especially if you have 4 Krypto's like you mean too. Also Heroic Effort should be Clash of Worlds.

I think I'll write a bit more about a fixed deck list below, at the event I wasn't exactly stressing. I just wanted to play. I went a long time without getting many games in and as I said when starting this blog, I really missed it because I love VS. I'll play this game long after it's gone, which hopefully won't be anytime soon.

(Pre-order, pre-order, pre-order...)

Game one I was paired with Chris and we sat down and shuffled up. I mulliganed a hand with The Hook-Up two Teen Supremes and a Home Surgery. I wish I had kept cause the first card off the top was Maggie and I drew into a Robot on Turn 1.

In anycase I had evens and so he played Mastermind Excello first, discarding a Hulk to draw two. I laid down Maggie Sawyer and swung for one. Turn two I had Huntress concealed and passed. He must have missed based on the endurance totals, but I originally was thinking he had played Rick Jones. I'm sure he dug for cards though. I swung direct for 5 and passed. Next turn he had Hiroim and I played Barbie. He swung on Maggie, I took 4 and Bat-Signaled for Twilight Vigilante. I think I had Hook-Up and started the usual big card draw here.

And, I just can't make sense of the game from the life totals from here. He hit Korg, he hit Green King. I know I had a huge hand full of pump and just needed the Teen Supremes a couple turns to win, but never drew any after the mulligan. He went from 44 to 39 to 28 to 24 to 19 to 15 to 9 to 3 to -3, but I was at -9 by that time. He hit me for 23 with Green King and then 6 more. I also taught him that Righteous Anger is a once per turn kinda thing. Hehe. I remember we made it turn 8, but my Black Canary didn't do much against the 17/17 King.

Next round I was inevitably paired against the new player I brought with me. lol Seems to be the way tournaments work out for me. There was only 8 of us anyway. Probably a good chance we'd have faced off anyway.

I'm pretty sure I had Maggie Sawyer to start and then Huntress, Vicious Vigilante. His first play was Bart Allen <> Kid Flash, Heir to the Mantle. He followed with Firehawk, Flaming Justice and I played Barbara and used The Hook-Up a couple times.

On turn four I had Batman and he played Rose Wilson <> The Ravager, Redemption Earned who for some reason I didn't think was on the Titans later and would cost me the game. Batman and a pump hit Ravager for 10 and did 10.Gotta love that double stun endurance loss. On turn five I got stupid and greedy. He played Freddy Freeman <> Captain Marvel Jr., Third in Line and I thought, "Oh man, I need to be able to stun back at least one of his guys... I better play my Robot here."

So I boost the Robot for five and pass to him. He team attacks with Rose and Freddy and I plotz. I've got 2 Home Surgery that will do nothing and a hand full of Crackshot and Combat Reflexes just waiing for a juicy Teen Supreme. So yeah, I trade 5 for none, but lose my Robot. Next turn I have like Krypto and a Teen Supreme. Barbie and Hook-Up into another. And he under drops a big board of characters who aren't teamed up! I could about cry. I've never seen a prettier opening just waiting for smashies.

Le sigh.

Long story, short, too late... I lose on 8 and made a mistake in my attacks, where I coulda gotten it to him -14 while I was at -15, but the actual end was -15 to -7 or something. I played Canary concealed to guarantee swing backs, but I'm pretty sure he team attacked my visible character so... Maybe I could have won. I don't know. I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I got very tilted by the Robot mis-recruit on 5. I was out of the game there. Either way it was a fun, tense match up for me.

In the final round I played Kevin and had evens. I played out Maggie and he responded with the same play, commenting, "Uh oh, you're playing the same thing!" and I replied, "Maybe, I guess we'll see."

Well, I had Barbara on three and flipped the Hook-Up named GK/Team Superman. He played Batman, Problem Solver also using The Hook-Up. On turn 4 I played Batman, Twilight Vigilante in the visible area and he dropped Superman: (EDIT) Last Son of Krypton and No Stun Endurance Loss even when you double it. We attacked around and I lost Maggie. Next turn was Superman for both of us. I had Superman: Man of Tomorrow in front of Batman and he played Superman, Metropolis Marvel after At Their Finest and searching him out. I flipped Coast City and activated on Man of Tomorrow, se he went at him with Marvel and I reinforced. I love taking 0.

On six I played Superman/Batman Robot and he dropped... I forget but he missed Batman and I know that was his main plan cause it was much lamented. It probably wouldn't have made a ton of difference, but then again Coast City was pretty useful more than once. Oh! Two Face. Who tapped down my Superman/Batman Robot. I had one Teen Supreme but the pumps in hand were probably better used waiting I thought. I mean, both Two-Face and Superman: Metropolis Marvel were 12/12 to my 12/12 so it didn't gain me board advantage and if I drew a Home Surgery, Babs could recover the Robots for Teen Supremes to go off.

On seven I played Canary and he replaced Superman with the 7 drop who's just a real dick. Deterrent Force, that is. He activated on Canary and Two Face exhaust Superman/Batman Robot I believe. No, he attacked, that's right. He hit Batman and I swung back with the Robot to trade. Superman after a Blinding Rage. On 8 I had... Krypto I believe. He played 8-drop Kara Zor-El. Who is just awesome, by the way.

Robot/Krypto team attack Superman and I took 2. Black Canary swung into Kara and I played a Crackshot. I played a Combat Reflexes and Batman negated it. Blinding Rage for the sealed deal and the final totals are -1 to 1. I'm the negative one.

So close. One pump. At some point he negated my Teen Supremes too, I'm sure.

So, what would I play in Modern for the Robots after this experience, ideally?

4x Superman/Batman Robot
4x Maggie Sawyer
2x White Lotus
3x Alfred Pennyworth
4x Krypto
4x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Elite Hacker
1x Batman, Twilight Vigilante
3x Superman, Metropolis Marvel
2x Dinah Laurel Lance <> Black Canary, Cry In The Dark
1x Lady Shiva, Jade Canary

27 Characters

3x Coast City

4x Bat-Signal
3x Blinding Rage
3x Clash of Worlds
4x Combat Reflexes
2x Omnipotence
4x Home Surgery
3x Soaring To New Heights
4x Teen Supreme
4x The Hook-Up

34 Others

The draw power is fantastic. The ability to just drop pump after pump after pump is incredible. Even better is that with Clash of Worlds you can play a HUGE four drop and a HUGE five drop that take no stun endurance loss and with Coast City and Home Surgery you can often force very bad attacks. Without the digging power of Helm of Nabu, I think you need a longer curve, but can still go off on 4 or 5 and just win outright at least once every few games.

I would probably even play this at World's just because it'd be fun. Not the best choice, but I expect a lot of Marvel Knights and while a deck like MKKO seems like a really bad match, I think you smash them. Just don't recruit the Robot without an active Omni on Black Widow. Blade might hurt a bit, but I think you can recover from losing Barbara and stabilize.

Against Hulk Omnipotence has got it's obvious uses. One of which is NOT stopping Green Scar, but if they can't play Righteous Anger things are pretty good for you. Bat Got Your Tongue is a nice target against JLA/World's Finest builds. Illuminati is chock full of targets to Omnipotence and is probably the one match up you need to take odds on, in case they're going to Glove you.

I don't know what all else is out there, but I'm sure Reservists will see play. Crime Lords have to have some kind of juicy build. Quicksilver/Clash/Teen Supremes seems a pretty likely combo deck waiting to happen. S.H.I.E.L.D. potentially has a couple builds that could make it. And I'll say it here, I bet The Captain is in the Top 8 either Day 1 or Day 3.

-Mike