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
Continue reading...
Showing posts with label Tournament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tournament. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Hobby League: Random Punks - Or Paul Sung Let Me Play
First things first. Thank you, Daddy Bear! Dude, you're the man. Guy doesn't even play in the tournament, but shows up to lend me some cards so I and a new player I'm trying to get into the game can play. Though he did forget a few. Still, I'd rather play something suboptimal than not play at all.
Click below to see how I did.
What I Played:
4x Superman/Batman Robot
1x Harvey Bullock, Gotham Central
3x Jaime Reyes ♦ Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4x Maggie Sawyer, Gotham Central
4x White Lotus, Supermen of America
4x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante
2x Krypto, Guard Dog of El
4x Tania Belinskya ♦ Red Guardian, Cold Warrior
4x Barbara Gordon ♦ Oracle, Hacker Elite
1x Amulet of Nabu - Fate Artifact
1x Cloak of Nabu - Fate Artifact
1x Ego Gem - Unique ♦ Infinity Gem
4x Helm of Nabu - Fate Artifact
4x Dr. Fate's Tower
4x Bat-Signal
4x Combat Reflexes
4x Flying Kick
4x Teen Supremes
4x The Hook-Up: Team-Up
This should look familiar to you. Because you should be listening to A Proud Zinco Podcast over at VS Realms. Or reading Bearsday over at Miguel Rodrigquez's VS-Blog. Well, Paul hit me up with the idea a few weeks ago. I suggested Krypto, so I feel like I contributed at least a little bit to the deck. So all you netdeckers out there can thank me after you're down kissing Paul's ass! Ha ha ha. But seriously, if you like the deck Paul and Ludin Romero, Paul's co-hostm both shared versions with the online community that I think are strong.
I think a hybrid is stronger. What I really wanted to play looked like this...
4x Superman/Batman Robot
3x Jaime Reyes ♦ Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4x Maggie Sawyer, Gotham Central
2x White Lotus, Supermen of America
2x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante
4x Krypto, Guard Dog of El
2x Tania Belinskya ♦ Red Guardian, Cold Warrior
4x Barbara Gordon ♦ Oracle, Hacker Elite
1x Batman, Twilight Vigilante
2x Superman, Man of Tomorrow
1x Dinah Laurel Lance ♦ Black Canary, Cry In The Dark
1x Amulet of Nabu, Fate Artifact
1x Cloak of Nabu, Fate Artifact
1x Ego Gem, Unique ♦ Infinity Gem
4x Helm of Nabu, Fate Artifact
4x Dr. Fate's Tower
4x Bat-Signal
4x Combat Reflexes
4x Flying Kick
4x Teen Supremes
4x The Hook-Up: Team-Up
And if I was perfectly honest with you I'd cut 1x Dr. Fate's Tower and 2x Helm of Nabu for 3x Clash of Worlds. But I thought it would be tacky to borrow a card, if Paul even had it, that was the prize for the tournament. Especially since I had assumed he would play.
Anyway, I headed for BART with a friend at about 4:30 and go to Berkeley just after 6, hurried over to Games of Berkeley and went to the back to sign up. After doing so I headed to the front to snag a few packs of Universe since everybody was opening boxes and I had a little bit of money. Pulled a James Barnes ♦ Winter Soldier, Communist Puppet - Raid and License To Kill. Not bad. Not Hulk Smash! but I like both.
First round I was paired up with everybody's favorite 27 character sealed deck playin' Wakandan King Curtis "T'Challa" Brown. As I sat down I had this sudden flash of like... ESP. Gotham Knights! And turn two he plays Tim Drake: Titan In Command then Barbara Gordon <> Oracle: Elite Hacker. How'd I know? Hehe.
Turn 1 I was in with Maggie Sawyer after mulliganning a hand I wish I had kept when I drew Maggie. But oh well. Turn turn I had Huntress in the concealed. She traded with Tim and I poked with Maggie again. Turn three he plays Card Draw Barbie, Aerie One and draws a card. I Bat-Signal with Maggie for Barbie myself. The Hook-Up teams Superman/GK and I discard to draw. Tim smacks around the cop. Huntress smacks around Tim. My Barbie to the face. He death traps Huntress with his Aeried Oracle.
Now, I draw into a Robot and the Helm of Nabu, exhaust Barbara for Jaime Reyes and flip Fate's Tower to complete the suit. He plays the Huntress 4 drop, Harsh Mistress. She's a sweetie. I attack Tim and he moves her for free to reinforce and I don't dare Teen Supreme even though I pumped. I was hoping to bait him into negating a Kick, but he's a sneaky Panther.
On turn five he had Cassandra Cain: Death's Daughter. I played Tania Belinskya, used her backup on herself and formed with Maggie adjacent to both. He declared a team attack into the Batman/Superman Robots with Cassie and Huntress. I have nothing so I take 0 and he takes 5. Hey. I like that trade! Tim hit the cop lady again and he passed. I passed and he went ahead and exhausted Barbara to Finishing Move the Robot. Le Sigh. Good-bye Fate Suit! Luckily I drew Robots next turn and played them for a full 6 points, backup with Tania on Robots and form the same way as last turn.
He under drops with Commissioner Gordon: Gotham Central and Batman: Twilight Vigilante. Tim and Huntress still the only visible characters. I declare Robot into Huntress and he reinforces, then discards a copy of herself to Gordon for plus four and used Break You for +6, just in case. Making her 17 attack and stuns back even if I'm still on the Dr. Fate curve! Daaamn. Well, I didn't have any other attacks to make so he sent Batman into Maggie, I took 7 with the double stun damage. Then 8 with Cassie into Tania. Barbara Gordon exhausts to Death Trap the Robot... Okay. :D I assume he was playing around a potential Clash of Worlds.
Next turn would be the last with him playing the Jade Canary, Lady Shiva and me boosting a Superman/Batman Robot for 7 plus replaying Fate's Tower to search for a Helm so I could at least stun back. He made good swings and I stunned by Shiva and that was game.
Round 2 I faced the new player I brought with me, Matt. Sadly we both knew how this was going to go and with a little grumbling we shuffled up and played it out. I hit my curve, what little I had, I had Teen Supremes on 4, but not very much pump so I finished it with a triple swing on turn 6. Basically took the time to tutor him a little more on smart attacks and reminds him not to accidentally shuffle his mulligan into the deck against anyone but me! Hehe.
Round 3 I played a player I haven't met before, named John. As I sat down he said he thought we were playing the same deck and we might have been playing something similar, but not quite the same. He opened with no drop. I missed as well and as we drew he commented, "Want to go back to last turn? I pulled my one." I replied, "I got a one drop, but not one I wanna play." He asked if it was Maggie Sawyer and I said I'd love to play her on turn one. lol I laid down my resource and recruited Krypto. He had Kelex: Caretaker of the Fortress. I couldn't attack and he didn't dare. So I exhausted the super-dog to remove Jaime from the game and get an Amulet. Turn three he recruited Barbara: Elite Hacker, played The Hook-Up and drew. I drew Barbara Gordon and a Fate's Tower. We both free draw off Barbara and then I flip The Hook-Up and draw a Helm. Sweeeet. So I flip the Tower, grab a cloak and let Batgirl fly again.
He didn't have any attacks and so I hit Kelex with Oracle and went to the next turn. Superman/Batman Robot came out, took the mantle of Dr. Fate and I subbed Barbara out for Barbara to draw a card. Replayed Helm a couple times and did some math in my head discarding Flying Kick, White Lotus and Jaime. Subbed in Tania Belinskya and used her backup on the Robot. He had Batman: Twilight Vigilante and passed. Krypto attacks Kelex, Robot goes into Batman with some pumps. We take a minute trying to figure out the math. Robot is 25 and Batman is 7 defense and... We both just kinda go slack faced. lol "Uhhhh." He says, "Do you have Teen Supremes so we don't have to figure this out?" I show two and it's scoops.
Don't you hate those moments when you can't remember shit like, "Batman's defense is 7, 7 minus his cost is 3. 25 - 3 = 22 endurance loss?"
Final round I'm playing Michael Gilmore who's been around and we've played multiple times. We think the last time was at the last PCQ in the area. Could be. I'm not sure though. In anycase we play and I mulligan into an awesome draw. Seemingly. He plays Rem Ram and grabs Harry Delgado. I drop Maggie Sawyer and he passes attack. I attack.
"Uhhhh." Oh yeah. They're both 1/2's. Next turn I play Huntress: Vicious Vigilante to his Chrome. Huntress and Chrome trade, I attack Maggie into Rem Ram again, but I have the power up! Sadly he decides to play Lying In Wait and that's the story of this match. I lose Huntress, naturally and we move on to three. Barbara comes out for me with Amulet and Cloak, I don't play the Helm because I'm low on hand size and don't wanna have to discard any pumps or Supremes, Senyaka for him. He hit Maggie and I think she Bat-Signaled. Oracle hit Senyaka and he had Lying In Wait again. I played The Hook-Up to team up and recovered Barbara. Turn 4 I had the Supa-Mecha-Bat and switched the suit over, Helmed out. He had Anne Marie Cortez and I had a feeling that if I played my Combat Reflexes and Flying Kick then he'd just reveal a two cost, so after asking him to hold on before the Combat phase I decided to pass. When he didn't reveal a two anyway, I kinda had a feeling he wasn't familiar with Teen Supremes, so I swung and saved my Flying Kick for a kill turn.
Cortez went down with reinforcement or something... I'm kinda hazy on the middle here. Turn 5 wasn't too eventful except I expected to replay the Robot so I sent the Fate Set to Barbara and let him stun my 8/8 robot with Polaris for 1. With Huntress and Harvey Bullock in the hidden area I didn't have much to attack back with so I tried to Hook-Up with a power-up, since I had a Bat-Signal in hand, but no luck. I looked at the Acolyte Body Armor in his hand.
So, next turn I exhausted the old Superman/Batman to look for a new one. Boosted, moved the Fate Suit over and re-buyed the Helm a couple times. I had like... 15 cards left in my deck at this point with 4 full Helm draws, Barbara'd out and 2 face up Hook-Ups. I subbed Tania in for Huntress. He had Harry Delgado. He used Harry's effect on Tania. He didn't reveal for Anne Marie. Then in combat he replaced for Polaris. This plus a third Lying In Wait won him the game. I attacked Anne Marie first and she got reinforced. I played Teen Supremes and he seemed not surprised so I assume he just didn't have a two drop. :( I had one more Supremes, but...
I thought about it and at 3 endurance, I had to hit Harry Delgado to win. So I hit him. And he had that third Lying in Wait to end it. He was able to attack back and that's all he needed. So I offered him the shake and I finished 9th of... 17 I think.
Matt had fun. He wasn't in last, went 2-2 with a bye. I think I might be able to convince him to buy some old boxes considering how cheap they are. He was very impressed with the idea of 20 bucks getting more than a box with some sets. Especially since he couldn't afford the Magic Pre-Con he wanted and still pay for BART home. See? Pre-cons don't work!
One final thanks to Paul Sung for the deck idea and the cards and big "Fuck, I coulda won if I'd just had a Black Canary to Bat-Signal for on turn 6 and that Harvey Bullock had been a Superman: Man Of Tomorrow like I planned to replace him with!" ;)
Anyway, it's always fun to get out and play. Can't wait for next time. Hopefully Saturday for the Release Celebration. Oh...
Pokemon Milkshake. Blame Curtis.
-Mike Continue reading...
Click below to see how I did.
What I Played:
4x Superman/Batman Robot
1x Harvey Bullock, Gotham Central
3x Jaime Reyes ♦ Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4x Maggie Sawyer, Gotham Central
4x White Lotus, Supermen of America
4x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante
2x Krypto, Guard Dog of El
4x Tania Belinskya ♦ Red Guardian, Cold Warrior
4x Barbara Gordon ♦ Oracle, Hacker Elite
1x Amulet of Nabu - Fate Artifact
1x Cloak of Nabu - Fate Artifact
1x Ego Gem - Unique ♦ Infinity Gem
4x Helm of Nabu - Fate Artifact
4x Dr. Fate's Tower
4x Bat-Signal
4x Combat Reflexes
4x Flying Kick
4x Teen Supremes
4x The Hook-Up: Team-Up
This should look familiar to you. Because you should be listening to A Proud Zinco Podcast over at VS Realms. Or reading Bearsday over at Miguel Rodrigquez's VS-Blog. Well, Paul hit me up with the idea a few weeks ago. I suggested Krypto, so I feel like I contributed at least a little bit to the deck. So all you netdeckers out there can thank me after you're down kissing Paul's ass! Ha ha ha. But seriously, if you like the deck Paul and Ludin Romero, Paul's co-hostm both shared versions with the online community that I think are strong.
I think a hybrid is stronger. What I really wanted to play looked like this...
4x Superman/Batman Robot
3x Jaime Reyes ♦ Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4x Maggie Sawyer, Gotham Central
2x White Lotus, Supermen of America
2x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante
4x Krypto, Guard Dog of El
2x Tania Belinskya ♦ Red Guardian, Cold Warrior
4x Barbara Gordon ♦ Oracle, Hacker Elite
1x Batman, Twilight Vigilante
2x Superman, Man of Tomorrow
1x Dinah Laurel Lance ♦ Black Canary, Cry In The Dark
1x Amulet of Nabu, Fate Artifact
1x Cloak of Nabu, Fate Artifact
1x Ego Gem, Unique ♦ Infinity Gem
4x Helm of Nabu, Fate Artifact
4x Dr. Fate's Tower
4x Bat-Signal
4x Combat Reflexes
4x Flying Kick
4x Teen Supremes
4x The Hook-Up: Team-Up
And if I was perfectly honest with you I'd cut 1x Dr. Fate's Tower and 2x Helm of Nabu for 3x Clash of Worlds. But I thought it would be tacky to borrow a card, if Paul even had it, that was the prize for the tournament. Especially since I had assumed he would play.
Anyway, I headed for BART with a friend at about 4:30 and go to Berkeley just after 6, hurried over to Games of Berkeley and went to the back to sign up. After doing so I headed to the front to snag a few packs of Universe since everybody was opening boxes and I had a little bit of money. Pulled a James Barnes ♦ Winter Soldier, Communist Puppet - Raid and License To Kill. Not bad. Not Hulk Smash! but I like both.
First round I was paired up with everybody's favorite 27 character sealed deck playin' Wakandan King Curtis "T'Challa" Brown. As I sat down I had this sudden flash of like... ESP. Gotham Knights! And turn two he plays Tim Drake: Titan In Command then Barbara Gordon <> Oracle: Elite Hacker. How'd I know? Hehe.
Turn 1 I was in with Maggie Sawyer after mulliganning a hand I wish I had kept when I drew Maggie. But oh well. Turn turn I had Huntress in the concealed. She traded with Tim and I poked with Maggie again. Turn three he plays Card Draw Barbie, Aerie One and draws a card. I Bat-Signal with Maggie for Barbie myself. The Hook-Up teams Superman/GK and I discard to draw. Tim smacks around the cop. Huntress smacks around Tim. My Barbie to the face. He death traps Huntress with his Aeried Oracle.
Now, I draw into a Robot and the Helm of Nabu, exhaust Barbara for Jaime Reyes and flip Fate's Tower to complete the suit. He plays the Huntress 4 drop, Harsh Mistress. She's a sweetie. I attack Tim and he moves her for free to reinforce and I don't dare Teen Supreme even though I pumped. I was hoping to bait him into negating a Kick, but he's a sneaky Panther.
On turn five he had Cassandra Cain: Death's Daughter. I played Tania Belinskya, used her backup on herself and formed with Maggie adjacent to both. He declared a team attack into the Batman/Superman Robots with Cassie and Huntress. I have nothing so I take 0 and he takes 5. Hey. I like that trade! Tim hit the cop lady again and he passed. I passed and he went ahead and exhausted Barbara to Finishing Move the Robot. Le Sigh. Good-bye Fate Suit! Luckily I drew Robots next turn and played them for a full 6 points, backup with Tania on Robots and form the same way as last turn.
He under drops with Commissioner Gordon: Gotham Central and Batman: Twilight Vigilante. Tim and Huntress still the only visible characters. I declare Robot into Huntress and he reinforces, then discards a copy of herself to Gordon for plus four and used Break You for +6, just in case. Making her 17 attack and stuns back even if I'm still on the Dr. Fate curve! Daaamn. Well, I didn't have any other attacks to make so he sent Batman into Maggie, I took 7 with the double stun damage. Then 8 with Cassie into Tania. Barbara Gordon exhausts to Death Trap the Robot... Okay. :D I assume he was playing around a potential Clash of Worlds.
Next turn would be the last with him playing the Jade Canary, Lady Shiva and me boosting a Superman/Batman Robot for 7 plus replaying Fate's Tower to search for a Helm so I could at least stun back. He made good swings and I stunned by Shiva and that was game.
Round 2 I faced the new player I brought with me, Matt. Sadly we both knew how this was going to go and with a little grumbling we shuffled up and played it out. I hit my curve, what little I had, I had Teen Supremes on 4, but not very much pump so I finished it with a triple swing on turn 6. Basically took the time to tutor him a little more on smart attacks and reminds him not to accidentally shuffle his mulligan into the deck against anyone but me! Hehe.
Round 3 I played a player I haven't met before, named John. As I sat down he said he thought we were playing the same deck and we might have been playing something similar, but not quite the same. He opened with no drop. I missed as well and as we drew he commented, "Want to go back to last turn? I pulled my one." I replied, "I got a one drop, but not one I wanna play." He asked if it was Maggie Sawyer and I said I'd love to play her on turn one. lol I laid down my resource and recruited Krypto. He had Kelex: Caretaker of the Fortress. I couldn't attack and he didn't dare. So I exhausted the super-dog to remove Jaime from the game and get an Amulet. Turn three he recruited Barbara: Elite Hacker, played The Hook-Up and drew. I drew Barbara Gordon and a Fate's Tower. We both free draw off Barbara and then I flip The Hook-Up and draw a Helm. Sweeeet. So I flip the Tower, grab a cloak and let Batgirl fly again.
He didn't have any attacks and so I hit Kelex with Oracle and went to the next turn. Superman/Batman Robot came out, took the mantle of Dr. Fate and I subbed Barbara out for Barbara to draw a card. Replayed Helm a couple times and did some math in my head discarding Flying Kick, White Lotus and Jaime. Subbed in Tania Belinskya and used her backup on the Robot. He had Batman: Twilight Vigilante and passed. Krypto attacks Kelex, Robot goes into Batman with some pumps. We take a minute trying to figure out the math. Robot is 25 and Batman is 7 defense and... We both just kinda go slack faced. lol "Uhhhh." He says, "Do you have Teen Supremes so we don't have to figure this out?" I show two and it's scoops.
Don't you hate those moments when you can't remember shit like, "Batman's defense is 7, 7 minus his cost is 3. 25 - 3 = 22 endurance loss?"
Final round I'm playing Michael Gilmore who's been around and we've played multiple times. We think the last time was at the last PCQ in the area. Could be. I'm not sure though. In anycase we play and I mulligan into an awesome draw. Seemingly. He plays Rem Ram and grabs Harry Delgado. I drop Maggie Sawyer and he passes attack. I attack.
"Uhhhh." Oh yeah. They're both 1/2's. Next turn I play Huntress: Vicious Vigilante to his Chrome. Huntress and Chrome trade, I attack Maggie into Rem Ram again, but I have the power up! Sadly he decides to play Lying In Wait and that's the story of this match. I lose Huntress, naturally and we move on to three. Barbara comes out for me with Amulet and Cloak, I don't play the Helm because I'm low on hand size and don't wanna have to discard any pumps or Supremes, Senyaka for him. He hit Maggie and I think she Bat-Signaled. Oracle hit Senyaka and he had Lying In Wait again. I played The Hook-Up to team up and recovered Barbara. Turn 4 I had the Supa-Mecha-Bat and switched the suit over, Helmed out. He had Anne Marie Cortez and I had a feeling that if I played my Combat Reflexes and Flying Kick then he'd just reveal a two cost, so after asking him to hold on before the Combat phase I decided to pass. When he didn't reveal a two anyway, I kinda had a feeling he wasn't familiar with Teen Supremes, so I swung and saved my Flying Kick for a kill turn.
Cortez went down with reinforcement or something... I'm kinda hazy on the middle here. Turn 5 wasn't too eventful except I expected to replay the Robot so I sent the Fate Set to Barbara and let him stun my 8/8 robot with Polaris for 1. With Huntress and Harvey Bullock in the hidden area I didn't have much to attack back with so I tried to Hook-Up with a power-up, since I had a Bat-Signal in hand, but no luck. I looked at the Acolyte Body Armor in his hand.
So, next turn I exhausted the old Superman/Batman to look for a new one. Boosted, moved the Fate Suit over and re-buyed the Helm a couple times. I had like... 15 cards left in my deck at this point with 4 full Helm draws, Barbara'd out and 2 face up Hook-Ups. I subbed Tania in for Huntress. He had Harry Delgado. He used Harry's effect on Tania. He didn't reveal for Anne Marie. Then in combat he replaced for Polaris. This plus a third Lying In Wait won him the game. I attacked Anne Marie first and she got reinforced. I played Teen Supremes and he seemed not surprised so I assume he just didn't have a two drop. :( I had one more Supremes, but...
I thought about it and at 3 endurance, I had to hit Harry Delgado to win. So I hit him. And he had that third Lying in Wait to end it. He was able to attack back and that's all he needed. So I offered him the shake and I finished 9th of... 17 I think.
Matt had fun. He wasn't in last, went 2-2 with a bye. I think I might be able to convince him to buy some old boxes considering how cheap they are. He was very impressed with the idea of 20 bucks getting more than a box with some sets. Especially since he couldn't afford the Magic Pre-Con he wanted and still pay for BART home. See? Pre-cons don't work!
One final thanks to Paul Sung for the deck idea and the cards and big "Fuck, I coulda won if I'd just had a Black Canary to Bat-Signal for on turn 6 and that Harvey Bullock had been a Superman: Man Of Tomorrow like I planned to replace him with!" ;)
Anyway, it's always fun to get out and play. Can't wait for next time. Hopefully Saturday for the Release Celebration. Oh...
Pokemon Milkshake. Blame Curtis.
-Mike Continue reading...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Who's Number One? It All Depends How You Define It!
So I just found out something hella awesome.
Go to Google. While you're there type "VS System Blog" into the search field and hit, "I'm Feeling Lucky." We'll wait here.
Okay... Did you do it? Muahaha, yeah, that's right! Takes you right back here where you started! We're number one! We're number one!
I have to say that's one hell of a nice surprise. A bad surprise though is that I can no longer make the Golden Age BYOS tournament at Grapevine Comics and Cards. Buses stop running from BART towards my house at 6:30 and no one will be home to pick me up from the station. And a 10 mile walk is one thing I _won't_ do for VS. To be fair, there's very little in this world I would walk 10 miles for. Like money or my life or something.
I was really looking forward to it. Was gonna play Common Enemy! COMMON ENEMY! C'mon, man! How often do you really get to bust out EA Reign of Terror?! I love that deck so much. One of the few decks that isn't "budget" that I was able to put together. Well, all most. I still only have 3x Signal Flare, 3x Boris: PSODD and, this is actually pretty funny, 3x Common Enemy. Also I lent my 1x Flame Trap to somebody and never got it back, but it was okay cause they did a lot for me. Anyway, here's what I woulda played.
OGMoney.dec
4x Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
3x Robot Sentry, Army
3x She-Thing, Sharon Ventura
4x Medusa, Inhuman
2x She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters
4x Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
1x Ghost Rider, New Fantastic Four
1x Robot Destroyer, Army
1x Thing, Heavy Hitter
1x Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
1x Hulk, New Fantastic Four
1x Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom
1x Thing, The Ever Lovin' Blue Eyed Thing
1x Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria
3x Doomstadt
4x Common Enemy
2x Faces of Doom
4x It's Clobberin' Time
4x Signal Flare
1x Flame Trap
4x Mystical Paralysis
1x Press The Attack
4x Reign of Terror
4x Savage Beatdown
I hadn't made a final decision on the 2-3 tech slots I had left but I was thinking maybe 1x Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur and 2x Political Pressure. Or 2x Press The Attack, since you have such big characters and Doom with Mystical. I'm really sad I won't get to play it, cause I have some great memories of this deck. I know JVirtue does too. ;) I nearly won the very first PCQ I ever went too with a very similar list. I had 1x Wolverine: NFF, Acrobatic Dodges instead of Beatdowns, an even count of Purple Man/She-Hulk and Silver Surfer: Norrin Radd. Oh well, sometimes things just don't go your way.
Maybe next time.
-Mike Continue reading...
Go to Google. While you're there type "VS System Blog" into the search field and hit, "I'm Feeling Lucky." We'll wait here.
Okay... Did you do it? Muahaha, yeah, that's right! Takes you right back here where you started! We're number one! We're number one!
I have to say that's one hell of a nice surprise. A bad surprise though is that I can no longer make the Golden Age BYOS tournament at Grapevine Comics and Cards. Buses stop running from BART towards my house at 6:30 and no one will be home to pick me up from the station. And a 10 mile walk is one thing I _won't_ do for VS. To be fair, there's very little in this world I would walk 10 miles for. Like money or my life or something.
I was really looking forward to it. Was gonna play Common Enemy! COMMON ENEMY! C'mon, man! How often do you really get to bust out EA Reign of Terror?! I love that deck so much. One of the few decks that isn't "budget" that I was able to put together. Well, all most. I still only have 3x Signal Flare, 3x Boris: PSODD and, this is actually pretty funny, 3x Common Enemy. Also I lent my 1x Flame Trap to somebody and never got it back, but it was okay cause they did a lot for me. Anyway, here's what I woulda played.
OGMoney.dec
4x Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
3x Robot Sentry, Army
3x She-Thing, Sharon Ventura
4x Medusa, Inhuman
2x She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters
4x Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
1x Ghost Rider, New Fantastic Four
1x Robot Destroyer, Army
1x Thing, Heavy Hitter
1x Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
1x Hulk, New Fantastic Four
1x Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom
1x Thing, The Ever Lovin' Blue Eyed Thing
1x Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria
3x Doomstadt
4x Common Enemy
2x Faces of Doom
4x It's Clobberin' Time
4x Signal Flare
1x Flame Trap
4x Mystical Paralysis
1x Press The Attack
4x Reign of Terror
4x Savage Beatdown
I hadn't made a final decision on the 2-3 tech slots I had left but I was thinking maybe 1x Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur and 2x Political Pressure. Or 2x Press The Attack, since you have such big characters and Doom with Mystical. I'm really sad I won't get to play it, cause I have some great memories of this deck. I know JVirtue does too. ;) I nearly won the very first PCQ I ever went too with a very similar list. I had 1x Wolverine: NFF, Acrobatic Dodges instead of Beatdowns, an even count of Purple Man/She-Hulk and Silver Surfer: Norrin Radd. Oh well, sometimes things just don't go your way.
Maybe next time.
-Mike Continue reading...
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