City Champs Mini Report

It's not really worth it to do a full write up on our Champs tournament, as we had such poor attendance. I'm still going to post my deck and throw in a report on the final round, which I was a part of. So here's the deck.

Characters (29):
4x Catwoman, Cat O' Nine Tails
3x The Penguin, Gentleman of Crime
4x Johnny Quick, Earth 3
3x Superwoman, Earth 3
3x Black Manta, Deepwater Denizen
3x Owlman, Earth 3
3x Jemm, Son of Saturn
1x Ultraman, Earth 3
3x White Martian, Earth 3
2x Prometheus, New Year's Evil
Plot Twists (29):
4x Secret Files
3x Mobilize
4x Flying Kick
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Path of Destruction
3x Blinding Rage
3x The Uni-Power
2x Big Leagues
2x Crime Syndicate of Amerika
Locations (3):
2x Hunte Castle
1x The Hellfire Club

And now, the finals. Both myself and my opponent were 2-1 (Yep, three rounds...) going into the final. My loss was to World's Finest, Josh's loss was to me. This was a matchup of concealed beats vs. concealed beats, as he was running what was basically a standard Skrulls deck (though he was running Titannus). The first time we played earlier in the day, I burned him out with direct attacks on turn four. This time he took evens and tried to stem the endurance loss by keeping some characters visible. An Uni-Power allowed me to take Cap's cosmic counter on turn 3, and Ethan Edwards lost his counter on the defense turn four. Paibok lost his counter on five, but he wouldn't have a problem regenerating it. So let's set the stage for turn six. Going in, he had Captain America behind Frankin Richards in the hidden area, with Paibok in the visible area. Paibok was joined by a Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth, who took up shop protecting him. I had Black Manta, White Martian and Jemm in the hidden area, and instead of search out Prometheus, I decided to under drop. The three hidden beatsticks were joined in the shadows by Owlman, Earth 3, Superwoman, Earth 3 and Catwoman, Cat O' Nine Tails. Hunte Caste was face up in my row.

Josh had the first attack, and no hidden hate to take advantage of Paibok's counter. He also couldn't flip up his entire row to take advantage of Quicksilver. His only choice was to attack direct with his entire board, dealing a hefty 29 damage and putting me at -20 endurance. He passed the attack to me. I first declared Superwoman to fly over Quicksilver into Paibok. The combination of her effect and the bonuses from White Martian, Owlman and Hunte Castle put her at 9 ATK without pumps, and Paibok went down, taking Superwoman with him, and putting me to -22. Next, Jemm decided to rough up Quicksilver, attacking as a 13/9 into the speedy guy. We both stunned, and I found myself at -26 endurance. At this point, I team attacked direct with a 12 ATK White Martian, 12 ATK Black Manta, 8 ATK Owlman, 6 ATK Catwoman and a Path of Destruction for an additional +4. I gained the two endurance and Josh scooped. We never finished calculating his final endurance total, but I ended up dealing out 54 endurance loss that turn, which would have put him well into the -40's.

It's a shame that I won my first City Champs when so few people showed up. Sure, I have no control over such things, as we tried to get as many people there as possible, but I believe that a lot of people might have thought it was next week. Everyone knows that VS Players thrive on competition, and I am no different. Even still, you take the hand you are dealt, and that makes me the Great Traditions City Champion of DC Legends.

Old Deck: Jean Grey Legend

Considering that our Champs is coming up this weekend, I thought I'd take a step back and give a tournament report of my previous City Champs experience. When my local store was gearing up for our Marvel Legends City Championships, I had to choose between three decks. The first, a Marvel Knights/Fantastic Four equipment deck that spotlighted a Fated up Punisher, was a very good deck and quite consistent, but I couldn't go in that direction due to my lack of a full playset of Enemy of My Enemy. The second deck was a Jean Grey Legend deck that I had been tooling around with pretty much since Marvel Legends was released. It was a fun deck and I liked playing it, but I always thought something was lacking. The addition of a couple cards I had ordered online helped things, but I was still reticent. My favorite deck at the time, and the one I was positive I was going to run, was a solo Inhumans stall deck that was designed to basically stop my opponent from ever readying characters thanks to cards like Jolen, The Treacherous One, Nahrees, The Negative One, Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans, Gorgon, Thundering Hooves and Waking the Ancestors. Plus, the addition of Attilan allowed me the opportunity to throw in tech cards like Pathetic Attempt, This Bores Me and Mr. Sinister, Visionary Geneticist. I liked the deck and still do. The Inhumans are some of my favorite comic characters, and thus one of my favorite teams in VS. I often find myself thinking about new sets and new teams in VS in relation to how they could potentially team up with the Inhumans. I had my deck finalized and was ready to go.

However, and you can probably tell this was coming given the title of this article, I had a change of heart the morning of the tournament. Maybe it was the way the Inhumans betrayed me in my last City Champs, I don't know, but I wanted to play something fun. The Inhumans deck is a different kind of fun than Jean. Jean is much less susceptible to play mistakes. Plus, I just like playing combat builds. So I made the switch and decided to run Jean. It was an extremely good choice, as the meta would have absolutely wrecked a concealed stall deck that day. So here's what I ran.

Characters (29):
4x Jean Grey, Teen Telepath
3x Jean Grey, Telekinetic Fighter
4x Wolverine, Logan
1x Jean Grey, Age of Apocalypse
3x Emma Frost, Ice Queen
1x Nightcrawler, Hit Factory
4x Jean Grey, Phoenix Rising
2x Colossus, Organic Steel
1x Mimic, Exile
1x Jean Grey, Red
2x Juggernaut, The Unstoppable
1x Professor X, World's Most Powerful Telepath
2x Jean Grey, Phoenix Force
Locations (3):
3x Cerebro
Equipment (2):
2x B.P.R.D. Signal Device
Plot Twists (27):
4x Mobilize
4x Splintering Consciousness
4x Flying Kick
4x Turnabout
3x Savage Beatdown
3x Telepathic Suppression
3x New and Improved
2x Sneak Attack

And here's what went down

Round 1: JSA/Marvel Defenders
I was going against a relatively new player who was borrowing a new from his friend, so I decided to take it easy on him and slow play on a lot of my abilities. No Flying Kicks to the back row, no Telepathic Suppressions to take away reinforcement, nothing like that. I could have finished him on five, but we ended up going to turn seven, where Juggernaut did some serious damage to end the game.
1-0

Round 2: Jean Grey Legend
This wasn't exactly a mirror match, as Tom's deck was based around getting Jean as large as possible over and over, while mine was more focused on a strong curve in addition to the giant turn 5 Jean. With two big characters and lots of reinforcement, we went into turn 8 with my endurance in the high 20's and Tom at 10. The Jean Grey, Phoenix Force duel had begun. My mind was working overdrive here, as I had no recursion and only one 8 drop Jean at my disposal, while Tom has a Slaughter Swamp in his row. I knew this had to end before turn 13, but I didn't know how that would happen. I lucked out. On turn 10 Tom's initiative, he decided to play a Jean Grey, Teen Telepath so he could KO her to New and Improved and bring out a ludicrously large Jean Grey, Phoenix Rising with 22 +1/+1 counters on her. I laid my resource, played Jean Grey, Telekinetic Fighter and dropped Professor X, World's Most Powerful Telepath into play. The bald wonder proceeded to activate, targeting Jean, which would have burned Tom into the negatives by a pretty large margin. So Tom responded by KOing his Jean to New and Improved. With the board empty, my Telekinetic Fighter swung direct. With three power-ups and a Flying Kick, I was still one point of ATK short. I had a Mobilize in my row, so the game was already won, but I decided to be a little dramatic and flipped Cerebro, pulling a Jean Grey, Phoenix Rising off the top of my deck to end the game in my favor. It should be noted that this was my single favorite game of VS I've ever played. Excitement, drama, and victory all rolled into one.
2-0

Round 3: The Next Brotherhood
I made a huge play mistake in this game. I had a Mobilize in my row turn four that would have allowed me to search for my one off Nightcrawler, Hit Factory, who was put in the deck for the specific instance of being able to severely deplete the board advantage Kellen was slowly building. He would have been huge. But since I already had an Emma Frost, Ice Queen in hand and no guarantee that I would draw into a Jean Grey, Phoenix Force the next turn, I decided to go with Emma. With Nightcrawler, I would have been able to suppress his board, and he wouldn't have been able to barely eek out a victory on his initiative turn six. If we went to seven, Juggernaut would have caved in his skull, but sadly that was not to be.
2-1

Round 4: The Next Brotherhood
This was a different version of the deck than my last opponent, but it was hard to tell. Both of our decks weren't being cooperative this game. I missed on two, which is a cardinal sin with my deck, and ended up without a 4 drop on turn 4. I ended up having to play a Jean Grey, Teen Telepath, KO her to New and Improved and play another Jean Grey, Teen Telepath, who ended up one-waying my opponent's four drop thanks to a Turnabout. I was able to take control from there, as my less than inspiring four counter Jean was too much for my opponent to handle, and he scooped on five.
3-1

Finals: The Next Brotherhood
So it came down to another match against Kellen, wherein I happened to make THE EXACT SAME MISTAKE I MADE THE FIRST GAME. I had initiative on four. I had a Mobilize that could search out either Nightcrawler, Hit Factory or Emma Frost, Ice Queen. Hell, I even had a Sneak Attack in hand, which would have led to much board smashing. But I assumed that Kellen would stay on curve until turn 5, like he did in our first game against each other. But no. He underdropped into a 3 and a 1, and with Nightcrawler on the field, I would have one-wayed his entire board and shut down his game. But no. I went with Emma. And lost. I gave up during turn five, knowing I had messed up my chances at coming back.

So I finished in second place. It was an extremely fun tournament, and one I'll always remember.

Old Deck: Random Heralds

When I picked up VS System as my main card game, I was, to say the least, a bit late to the party. Marvel Team Up had just recently come out, and right as I started buying cards (as I mentioned, I decided to start with the Heralds of Galactus set), the first City Champs happened. I didn’t have the cards or the experience, so I decided not to participate. The next major tournament at our local place was the inaugural Random Punks tournament. It seemed like a very good way to get started, considering I had very few rares, so I started to put together a deck with my buddy Brian. Since I was mostly working off the Heralds set, my choice for a deck seemed pretty simple. The Heralds of Galactus had a non rare search (and a very good one) in Kindred Spirits, and at the time had the only non rare 8 drop in Tyrant. I also wanted to splash in some Inhumans, mainly because every major character in the deck was cosmic, and no one loves cosmic counters more than Franklin Richards. The general idea was to create a mostly stall deck based on moving characters hidden, cosmic effects, card draw and endurance gain. It’s pretty straightforward.

Characters (30):

4x Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend

4x Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter Earth

4x Frankie Raye <> Nova, Soul Searcher

3x Human Torch, The Invisible Man

2x Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem

3x Air-Walker, Harbinger of Despair

1x Alaris, The Outgoing One

3x Destroyer, Harbinger of Devastation

1x The Fallen One, The Forgotten

3x Galactus, the Maker

2x Tyrant, The Original Herald

Locations (7):

3x Elemental Converters

2x Worldeater Apparatus

2x Soul World

Plot Twists (23):

4x Cover Fire

4x Extended Family, Team-Up

4x Kindred Spirits

4x Cosmic Necessity

3x The Power Cosmic Unleashed

2x A Proud Zinco Product

2x The Herald Ordeal, Team-Up

The deck almost always wants even initiatives, due to the deck turning aggressive on turn six, with Destroyer making a big swing as a 15/15 thanks to a Power Cosmic Unleashed. Even though this might lead to Galactus losing his counter off my initiative, it usually works really well. Most opponents would not exactly expect Destroyer, especially with a counter put on him, so you can usually either one way across the curve or swing down for some healthy breakthrough. Cover Fire is absolutely insane in the deck. Since the deck isn’t really designed to attack, and Franklin should be pretty much hiding everyone on the board until turn five, Air-Walker should be the only visible character with the potential to pump his defense into the 15-17 range on turn 5. With Frankie and the Converters drawing you cards, and either Moondragon drawing you even more cards or Torch taking away breakthrough and gaining endurance, it shouldn’t be too hard to reach turn 8, at which point Tyrant steals Torch’s counter (provided he still has it), and you absolutely obliterate your opponent’s board on 8. What I really like most about the deck is that the Heralds strategy really isn’t nerfed too much by the loss of rares. Sure, Air-Walker 3 (whose version happens to be my Gamertag on Xbox Live. Yes, I’m a geek), Red Shift, Terrax and 9 drop Galactus are fantastic and important cards, but I really dig how the team plays in the Punks environment.

I didn’t write anything down during the tournament as it happened, mostly due to the fact that it was the first tournament I ever played in and was a bit nervous due to that fact. There were seven or eight people there. I’ll try and go on memory to give a little tournament report.

Round 1:

I went against a New Brotherhood reservist deck (which I guess is New New Brotherhood. I’m not really up on the older deck names). He was having a lot of trouble drawing into his TNB’s, and thus didn’t have enough raw attack to get over a Cover Fired Air-Walker, which let me stall out a couple turns and use Galactus and Destroyer to very great effect.

1-0

Round 2:

This was my buddy Los’ Kree/Darkseid build designed to completely lock down my row with a Fated Up Ronan. He ended up putting the Fate Gear on Commander Dylon-Cir on three. I blew up his cloak with a Proud Zinco Product from the row and when he attacked into my Frankie, I replaced the APZP into a second APZP (the only other one in my deck) and broke his Amulet, which pretty much completely shut him down. I was brickwalling left and right on his initiative, and ended up clearing his board on 8 and swinging direct to gain 25 or so endurance due to Torch’s effect, which put me around 70 endurance to his ten. He scooped shortly after that.

2-0

Round 3:

Brian’s pseudo High Voltage Squadron burn deck based mostly around Black Panther with an Advanced Hardware and Golden Archer. This game went back and forth like crazy, and I ended up eking out a victory with both of us in the negatives. This game was probably the best example of the importance of Cosmic Necessity and Worldeater Apparatus in the deck, as the endurance gain let me hold on enough to win.

3-0

Round 4:

Another TNB Reservist deck. This was the first time all day that I missed a drop, and the lack of Frankie Ray on 3 and Lockjaw on 1 seriously neutered my Cover Fires. I ended up scooping on five after Air-Walker got taken down.

3-1

I ended up splitting with Brian for the finals, as he agreed to give me the win if I agreed to trade one of the EA Mobilizes for a standard Mobilize. I felt pretty good walking out of my first ever VS tournament with two Mobilizes, a Howard the Duck playmate and a bunch of packs. Not bad for my first foray into VS. One thing I must say, and this could simply be due to the format, but Cosmic Necessity was an extremely important card in every one of my wins. It either allowed me to draw into action (either a power up or Cover Fire) or gain enough endurance to keep my stall active into the late turns when Tyrant took things over. I still believe it’s an underrated card. This tournament led to a nice little streak of victories over the next couple months, with my winning a Marvel Team-Up sealed event, the World’s Finest Release and the Alter Ego Marquee Event. Of course, I ended up burning out in the World’s Finest City Champs with my extremely consistent Inhumans deck (I couldn’t draw a Lockjaw or Great Refuge to save my life) missing drops right and left. I guess the karma realigned itself that day.