Monday, June 2, 2008

Wizard World Philly Wrap Up

Wizard World Philly came and went this past weekend. Let’s talk about it. So I didn’t go to the show on Friday due to not wanting to miss a day of work, and once I got out of work, I took the regional rail down to Market East station, met up with my friend from High School and went back to his apartment for the night. We played some Rock Band, hung out, watched some television, what have you. But that’s not really pertinent information, so let’s move on to the first day of the show.

Saturday:

One of my little foibles is my extreme desire to get to places early. This has always been the case. Thus, I took the walk down from my friend’s apartment about six to eight blocks away from the Convention Center with my bag full of various stuff, and was registered and in my place in line at about 8:30 for the 10 AM opening. I waited around and talked to a guy next to me in line wearing a Green Lantern VS shirt who didn’t play the game anymore. We talked HeroClix for a bit and so on. The doors eventually opened and I made my way to the hall. Pretty overwhelming for someone that’s never been to a big time con before. I walked the floor, checked out the retailers, thumbed through some cheap bins and walked the artist alley circuit. I bumped into Bryan and Pants from Comic Geek Speak next to the vacant table where Katie Cook was supposed to be (shame, I wanted to thank her in person for doing a Lockjaw sketch for me that I’ll be picking up in September), talked to them for a bit and grabbed my CGS convention shirt. I also made my way over to Stuart Sayger’s table and talked to him for quite a while. He’s probably the one artist I really picked up on through VS cards. I only had one of my rare binders with me as far as cards are concerned, so I didn’t have my World’s Finest cards on me, but I still got him to sign a Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster and Judgment Day. He told me a cool story about how he finished off the Judgment Day art. We had a good time chatting and I picked up the three issues of Shiver in the Dark, as well as two prints (one of the art from Certifiable, and the second of a wicked looking Dr. Doom). I should talk to artists more often. Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. It was around this time that I randomly bumped into Los as he was coming into the hall. We ended up traveling the retailers as he frantically looked for a copy of Ultimate Spider-Man #3 he had seen the day before. During these trips, I picked up a couple of back issues of Starlin’s Captain Marvel and also found the Absolute sized JLA/Avengers slip case hardcover super crazy edition for a very respectable $30. We made our way over to the gaming area and found a nice spot. Los clued me in on a vendor that was facing the gaming area who had boxes of VS for very good prices. I grabbed a box of Legion for $25, cracked it open and pulled a Mobilize, as well as some other goodies (Need for Speed, foil No Match for Darkseid, and so on). Shortly after this, I got a call from Cliff and he made his way over to our neck of the woods. Bryan came by a bit after that, and we got down to business.

I had brought four decks with me that day. My own version of Money.dec that isn’t fully complete (I’d say there are about eight or so proxies of cards like Superman 5, Hal Jordan 3, Mightiest Heroes, Indestructible, etc.) was the only deck I brought with me that had been built and unchanged for a while. The other three decks were either new or tweaked heavily from earlier designs. The first deck I played against Cliff was a Heralds deck that utilized Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways, Silver Surfer’s Board and Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem to draw a ton of cards. The card draw combined with my deck stacking capabilities, Terrax, Harbinger of Ruin Shape Change, Omnipotence and Negative Zone, Shadow Dimension (It should be noted that Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Hacker Elite HATES that card) causes a lot of problems and allows for a pretty effective stall against a curve deck. It was a fun game with some pretty glaring errors (Cliff had two Daredevils in play for two turns before either of us noticed), but it was a good time nonetheless. I ended up winning thanks to a big swing on seven with Silver Surfer, Last Zenn-Lavian and Terrax, which was enough to put him below zero.

The second game I played against Cliff used my brand new Gotham Knights/Marvel Knights team up that generally focuses on using Barbara Gordon and The Hook Up to improve my hand while running a mostly hidden attack deck with Punisher, Guns Blazing as my only visible character. Cliff ended up beating me with his Random Punks Birds of Prey by one endurance as we were both in the negatives, and the use of three Tied Downs from the row to stop my Punisher from stunning back and KO’ing his Vixen on four. It’s an interesting way to play the deck, and pretty darned powerful.

The final game we played (to what I can remember at least, without taking any notes and writing this two days later) was my Inhumans aggro deck that utilizes Quicksilver, Inhuman By Marriage pretty much only to draw cards via Ego Gem, Infinity Gem. The extra card draw fuels the super beats that come from Tonaja, The Responsible One, Karnak, The Shatterer, and Maximus the Mad, Mental Manipulator with the ability to draw into my Royal Guards and Savage Beatdowns and Slobberin’ Times. This deck went up against the infamous Arkham Inmates/Injustice Gang team up. I was doing well throughout this game, drawing a ton of cards with Quicksilver and getting a lot of damage from Tonaja, Thing and Karnak due to bypassing their surge effects with Extended Family. We got to turn six, and I realized I was going to have a problem. I was playing against IG and had about 10 cards in hand. I did a lot of damage that turn, but Quicksilver was my only visible character, and he stunned while attacking Abra Kadabra, Magical Rogue thanks to Karnak’s effect. A couple All Too Easys, and he caught up and ONCE AGAIN BEAT ME BY ONE. Damn you, Cliff! I shake the fist! Either way, it was a ton of fun playing with Cliff and Bryan and Los, and a good way to spend a good five hours. I headed back to the apartment for the night, and watched the Red Wings beat the Penguins, which was good times.

Sunday:

I wasn’t planning to go to the con on Sunday. I was tired as all hell and sore from walking and such, so I was planning to relax. But when I woke up the next day, I was energized, and decided to head over anyway. But this time, I took a cab. When I paid my fare outside of the entrance to the con, I fumbled through my pocket for some change. In so doing, I managed to knock my cell phone out of my pocket without realizing it, and didn’t notice this until after he drove away. So I didn’t get the number of the cab or the company. Suddenly, I’m sitting here without a phone, which was a bit of an issue considering I had to call my dad to tell him when to pick me up at the train station, since I didn’t want to leave my car in the parking lot for three days. Thus, I ran around the con like a madman trying to find Los to borrow his cell to call my dad to let him know, and I ended up having to use a pay phone so I could call my dad and get his cell phone so I could call him again later. This definitely threw me out of sorts, but once that was all set up, I got to calm down a bit and attack the cheap bins in earnest. I walked away from a giant section of 50 cent bins with 38 issues of Peter David’s Captain Marvel series (I missed two issues without realizing it) as well as a random one off of She-Hulk and the first issue of Silent War (And we all know my love for the Inhumans). I also ran into CGS trivia geek extraordinaire and generally really cool guy Adam Murdough and talked to him for a bit. He was running through the quarter bins across from my bins. It’s funny, because once I found my haul and moved on, I kept dropping by and he was still there, practically in the same spot for hours. I got some other assorted cheap stuff, including a couple issues of Warlock and The Infinity Watch, Paul Jenkins’ Sidekick and a few other odds and ends. I ran into Pants and Shane (another CGS’er), and saw Jamie (yet another CGS guy) from afar, but didn’t get a chance to get over and talk to him. I also hung around with Los for a bit, but we got separated pretty quick, and since I didn’t have a cell phone, it was pretty hard to get back to meet up with him. I was tired as all hell and carrying around both a shoulder bag, a valise and a con bag, so I decided to cut out at around 2:30. I was back home by 4:35 (I just missed a train heading back home as I got to Market East station), and had time to relax.

So overall thoughts on my first official con: how the hell do these people so multiple cons? It’s completely exhausting, and I didn’t even get to do 30% of the stuff I wanted to. Didn’t get to talk to Maleev or Fred Van Lente or Brian Reed or any of the other creators, nor did I get the chance to talk to any of the CGS forum crew. But I still had a great time, had a blast playing Cliff and got a bunch of awesome stuff. All this makes me do is wait with baited breath for the CGS Super Show in September. Now I have to get ready for Random Punks this weekend.

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