I'll break this down into 4 sections: The Wombo Combo deck breakdown, the drive down, the overnight bash / BitA prep and then the actual games report for MA and SA.
So, what is a Wombo Combo?
And what does that have to do with VS?
.... yeah. You see it now, right? Imagine this sexiness: Two of these Nightcrawlers and two sneak attacks. Let's throw them into the hidden area so you can do it on initiative and off. Ridiculous? Well, that's when you know you have something worth looking into, that's for sure.
Here's the list:
4x Moonstar, Danielle Moonstar
4x Caliban, Pestilence
3x Beast, Wild and Woolly
3x Cyclops, Mutant Hunter
3x Nightcrawler, Man of the Cloth
1x Nightcrawler, Hit Factory
1x Black Manta, Underwater Marauder
1x Cable, Temporal Traveler
1x Gambit, Traitor
1x Havok, Proud Son
1x The Beyonder, Inhuman
4x Messiah Complex
4x Mobilize
4x Pathetic Attempt
4x Sneak Attack
4x Straight to the Grave
4x Underground Movement
3x Carrying the Torch
3x Concussive Force
3x For Great Justice!
2x Call in a Favor
2x Savage Beatdown
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Just a few interactions:
Cyclops functions as a 1-attack-long sneak attack
Cable 6/Black Manta + anything = can use a plot twist 2-4 times [if you've drawn a 2nd copy]
Nightcrawler + Nightcrawler + Sneak Attack + either SA/Black Manta/Cable: Main combo
SttG + Carrying the Torch = insta name-grabbing
I'll leave it at that for now, there'll be more about how the deck works in game reviews later on.
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The Drive Down
So, I leave Concord NH to go up to Jetpack in Rochester to pick up Jeremy [Sheye]. Spent some time at Jetpack while waiting; picked up and read Dark Avengers #1, talked with the guy holding down the shop and one of their regulars about Watchmen, Wanted and just superhero movies in general. Nothing too exciting. Picked up 3 boxes of MEV and Sheye showed up.
We first stopped off at shamilton777's place, where I was greeted by his wife; Scott Hamilton let me use 3 mobilizes for the Battle in the Apple and he gave me some common/uncommons for my Alex.dec and it's a shame he couldn't go. Please praise the dude; he rocks.
The road was pretty smooth, no real traffic. Only blip was heading south on 495 en route to Lowel, MA. ... Except trying to find gas. Seriously, at 8-9pm at night you should be able to find a damn gas station in Rhode Island on 95 south, and heaven forbit that I want a self serve one!
So we finally get to NYC. I loop around Broadway st twice while looking for the McDonalds where Ralph [blues686], [thevisionary] and crew are playing. I buy some food to feel justified in using their space for playing VS; they didn't really mind. We played for 9 hours. lol.
Most of that time was spent playing a Rochester Draft; basically, if you haven't read the thread over at the realms yet you open 3 packs for each player, shuffle all the cards together into one communal deck. flip over two cards for every player; if there's 4 players, flip over 8 cards. Find a way to designate someone as picking first. They take a card, then the 2nd player, then the 3rd etc until you get to the last player. The last player takes two cards. Then the 2nd-to-last player takes their 2nd card. etc. etc. until the person who took the first card is left with the last card. Then the person who picked 2nd gets to pick first in the next round.
When we weren't drafting, we were playing modern and silver. I whiped out the nightcrawler deck and did poorly; the deck takes a couple games to get used to, like pretty much all decks. Getting used to wanting to play moonstar multiple times was a little hard. I'm glad I did this though because it clearly paid-off for the main event [is this talking about what is to come thing killing ya yet? lol] And I also got the only win I'd get all weekend with SF/Illuminati; it was against a meat market deck, and go figure I lose to hgrablewski's variant in the actual silver event.
So then there were three of us left as Ralph and everyone else left to get some sleep: Me, Jeremy and [uuhhh .... the Juggernaught from my videos? Sorry dude your name totally escapes me right now. I'm at a meineke car fixing place and my mind is adrift so comment and I'll fix this.]
We left McDonalds, drove two streets closer to the event, parked. I ask a trash man if it's ok to park where I was [because the NYC signs are kinda hard to decipher to me as a foreigner and because I've already had a run-in with the NYC police while trying to park at McDonalds].
So we walk to where the event is supposed to go down; there's a door on the street that leads to 6 residential apartments in between two businesses. Within Moments, Chance shows up with his gf and bud. after a quick introduction, we help them set up in the 5th residence area where there's a studio loft [and I take the first video].
... then we wait. I call Cliff, turns out he went a little past where we were. I direct him to us. I stand outside again. I call him while he's outside, I see his arm in the distance put the phone to his head and I knew he was here. He asked if I was in blue and I asked if he was in a grey sweatshirt and I jumped up and said YES!!
It was like a family reunion of vs players.
So we go back up, I take video 2, and we hear about the train thing. super-fun ....
I pay chance and turn in my decklist and we start as soon as blues and Mike [filth] show up.
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Round 1: OSM vs ishmael [X-Force/Weapon X]
I got all of my combo pieces except for carrying the torch. Oh how I wished I could get a torch ...
I draw ~8 cards with Moonstar by playing her 3 times [turns 1,2, and 4]. Turn 3 I recruit nightcrawler and on 4 I recruit a cyclops. He kills cyke while my Nightcrawler looks away in pain while in the hidden area. Turn 5 I recruit Black Manta, but with no real way to stop the onslaught I SttG for the Beyonder, Messiah complex with boost to gain 10 and pass to him. He attacks manta, I stun. I use beyonder to wall and I survive to the next turn. Turn 6, looking down a Huge board I still haven't gotten a carrying the torch. I remember wishing moonstar could work in the build phase so I could dig for one, but that wouldn't work anyways because I'd have passed my set resource step to recruit moonstar. So instead I recruit cyke, concussive force, mobilize for another cyke [my 3rd copy, 1 in yard], KO the cyke in play to recruit another cyke and I use manta to get another concussive force to do it again. He manages to pump out and kill me that turn anyways.
0-1
Round 2: OSM vs Joe from Edgeworld [running Endgame.dec aka bring out 8-drops on 5]
Turn 1 I recruit moonstar to his riddler. I nab 3 plot twists on the bounce. Turn 2, he recruits bullseye to my beast. Turn 3, I recruit nightcrawler to his poison ivy. he SttGs for a 2nd riddler, and brings it into play via ivy. he flips thunderbolt mountain and gets a 4th resource and stuns beast via bullseye. He flips up birthing chamber. He sends ivy into nightcrawler. I respond by flipping up Underground Movement, Nightcrawler goes hidden and hits the dirt. I lose beast in the recovery. Turn 4, I shift out caliban to try to tie up some of his draw [because he's got an insane amount of it]. I also bring out moonstar again, and a resource point goes to waste. he brings out blizzard and I can't remember who else so it must not have mattered or he didn't bring anyone else in. Nightcrawler doesn't do much, and I get 2 more plot twists with moonstar. She is soo good =0
Turn 5 he brings in thanos and mimic 2-drop, copying thanos. It might've been turn 6 he did this, or maybe he also played mimic on 6 too. Point is his board doesn't change too much. ... until the combat phase on 6 and time was called on 5. I recruit a cable 6-drop, I have evens. He uses thunderbolts mountain 3 times via the location, thanos and blink. those 3 resources plus the 6 already in play, he easilly uses back from the dead on 8-drops. he flipped government sanctioned [I forget the X-factor guy he had in play .... beast maybe?] and used First class on 8-drop Ghost Rider. I send Cable into Ghost Rider with a sneak attack and a savage beatdown. he activates ghost rider to KO my black manta and nightcrawler but I use Pathetic Attempt to stop it. he stuns and cable doesn't. I flipped down For Great Justice with Cable, which I had used to gain 14 endurance twice. I also used black manta and nightcrawler with SttG and a messiah complex to gain 10 for beyonder. I'm in the high 60s to his mid 30s. He brings out darkseid via back from the dead, but leaves him stunned. I have beyonder in my hand so he can't win with Darkseid's effect. He attacks me for a bajillion, and I beat him by 7 endurance. Chance recorded my initiative on 6 for coverage pt 3. He put the match in as Joe's win, and it took a minute to fix but it's all good. Shock and awe I guess. Major props to the EW guys for making that deck ... it's nuts. That said, in a field where people are packing for great justice for the exiles matchup anyways .... I'd blame exiles for the loss if I were you guys. They're super-lame.
1-1
Round 3: OSM vs TOGIT store owner [Radman.Ironman.dec]
not too much to say about this one. he has recovery effects; what good is my team attack combo? I get locked out on 5.
1-2
Round 4: OSM vs Jean Grey Legend [I believe]
it might be that my memory is poisoned by talking to Jeremy and another Summers player about the deck, but I want to say I played against it and they missed pretty badly. My deck was firing on all engines.
2-2
Round 5: OSM vs hgrablewski [Cold Soldier.illuminati.dec]
He Electra Situationed my Moonstar!!!! well, I did draw 9 cards with her ...
This was the only game I recruited Gambit, which saw play on turn 8. He goes the illuminati curve until 4 which is when he played James Barnes Winter Soldier and snipes my 3-drop. From then on I got the picture and played around the nazi bastard and I sacrifice the Calibans I'd have shifted to stay on-curve. I don't even bother trying to get the nightcrawler combo to go off because of the hidden board and I have no way to hit hidden [who plays hidden when Exiles is in the meta?? Caliban saw shifted play on 2 and 4; on 4 I recruited moonstar and he electra'd moonstar so I moved her hidden and kept her around as a messiah body. then it was manta/cable/havok/gambit. He goes Winter Soldier/ironman/Dr. Strange/blackbolt/wiffs. I almost wanted to go to turn 10 and bring out the Beyonder.I kept 2 3-cost plot twists in my hand for gambit on 8, stunned sub mariner and cable/suprise attack/savage takes down the 7-drop turning down savage and havok [who was also electra'd] takes down dr. strange with that savage.
3-2
Round 6: OSM vs JLA Flash Legend
Dude you got the bad beats. Not only did I get the nuts on you, but you missed your primary 3 and 4. Me locking you out of attacks on your init with a Carrying the Torch'd nightcrawler and a cyclops with concussive forces didn't help things too much either.
4-2
I Top-8.
I drop.
... WHAT???
of course. I already have a wii; why do I want another? Let me get a couple of things straight: I play this game out of pure love. ... plus I had already pre-paid for the silver age event. And I wanted to play SF/Illuminati, which I thought was gonna run rampant in the event like it did at Gencon Indy. Well, Karma is a B****, and I lost every game.
vs Cuba's AF/GK:
skree? totally lame. scoop-SCOOP!
vs MKKO:
What is it with playing against hidden hate? LAAAMMMMMEEEEE!!!!!
VS hgrablewski's UW:
crap draw. I deserved it though, what with the Wombo Combo deck drawing very well for me during the Modern anyways. I just didn't have enough exhaust tricks.
So, that's pretty much it. I recorded some of the Finals, got someone else to record the rest, did a little trading and a glorious trip it was.
'till next time gang,
- Alex "OSM" Lloyd
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