On Sunday I headed up to Fanboy Three in Manchester City Centre to participate in a Civil War Rainbow Draft.
I love getting out & about whenever I can to play with more people and meet more of the faces from the community, and with Manchester more or less on the doorstep, as well as a ‘free pass’ to enjoy my hobby for Father’s Day, it was yet another chance to do just that.
We had just four players attend. We played 45 minute, single game rounds (Elimination!) and we ’round robin’ so everyone played each other once.
We followed the standard format for team drafting and all Basic Actions were allowed to be used in the team construction.
Here’s how it went…
The Draft
In my first batch of six I pulled ‘Baron Zemo – Evil Leadership’ and immediately snatched him up as a potential Win Con. I also could see a pair of ‘Rocket Raccoon’ dice in the rainbow so very quickly put a plan together – I was going to grab the ‘Baron Zemo’ and ‘Rocket Raccoon’ cards with the intention of fielding both and KO’ing my own ‘Rocket Raccoon’ (or a ‘sidekick’) to make ‘Baron Zemo’ unblockable as often as possible. I knew we could use any BAC; so my KO option was going to be ‘Magic Missile’ to deliver the killing blow to ‘Rocket’.
I liked the idea of unblock-able attackers so picked up ‘Nitro – Stamford Incident’ as another potential Win Condition for the team.
I picked up some ‘Justice – New Warrior’ cards to serve as a cheap die to be as low cost muscle or some ramp (I generally will look at cheaper characters in a draft as I’m not as keen on Basic Action ramp).
I chose ‘Moonstone – Ms. Marvel’ as a defensive card against “when fielded” or “when attacks” game-texts (of which I could remember the set game-texts well enough to know if I’d need it or not)
Next up; ‘Rescue – Stark’s Equal’. In the first instance; she was one of the other lower cost cards that came along and, honestly, I thought her game text was interesting to give a bit of a go.
I wanted some higher cost cards to fill out the team so I grabbed a few and chose ‘Venom – Symbiotic Organism’ and ‘Taskmaster – Photographic Reflexes’.
I figured ‘Venom’ to be a good shout because I intended to field Sidekicks myself as ‘Baron Zemo’ fodder and had the cheeky bit of burn as a bonus. ‘Taskmaster’ has a game-text that I just figured may well prove to be useful: my thinking being he could be a potential purchase if I see a dominant keyword ability from my opponent that is proving challenging to give them a taste of their own medicine.
With two potentially unblock-able Villains on the team I made my second Basic Action Card ‘Villainous Pact’ with the intention of using the Global to pump the attack of my Villains.
Here’s the team on the Dicemasterdb (click the pic for a link):
Round One – Loss
In this round I played Aris, who had the good fortune to pull a Super-Rare ‘Iron Man’ in his very first booster!
The key to Aris’ success was very simple – ‘Superhero Registration Act’. I had completely underestimated the speed of ramp from the Basic action dice and before I knew it i was facing down a wall of big characters like ‘Iron Man – Extremis’, ‘Captain Marvel – Captain Carol Danvers’, ‘Taskmaster – Monkey See’ and ‘Loki – Ice in his Veins.’
I managed to sneak some ‘Barn Zemo’ damage through early on, but as soon as ‘Captain Marvel’ hit the table he was the only dice I had at my disposal to block her and so needed him to hang back in my field ready to do just that in Aris’ turn.
I bought up some ‘Nitro’ die to get me a Bolt character to expand my blocking options and allow me to go back on the offensive but it was too late – Aris used a combination of his ‘Taskmaster – Monkey See’ die and my own ‘Magic Missile’ to empty up my field and walk through a lethal attack.
I had lost my first round.
Round Two – Win
In my second round I played Paul, the Dad half of an awesome Father & Son Dice Masters combo I met briefly at the UK Nationals.
My ‘Baron Zemo’ combo worked perfectly this round and by turn three I had set up a good groove with KO’ing Sidekicks to make him unblock-able and pumped him up with the ‘Villainous Pact’ Global.
I had to be quick too. Paul had bought up some ‘Cloudkill’ action die in reaction to my strategy to keep me low on Sidekick and ‘Rocket Raccoon’ die to use my ‘Magic Missile’ on and so I decided to rush my ‘Baron Zemo’ damage through as quickly as possible while I had some Sidekicks in the field as fodder to his ‘Resistance’ game-text.
Paul couldn’t catch a break – not only did his own characters and ‘Cloudkill’ rolls elude him, but I was rolling the most ideal rolls I’ve ever rolled in a game and always had an abundance of Bolt & Fist energy to keep my ‘Baron Zemo’ kill machine going.
Check out this re-roll as I lined up my combo:
Paul had also bought ‘Mary Jane – Watson Parker’, planning to slow down the KO’ing my own characters, only to realise that the game-text was only really any use in his own turn (we discussed it a bit – how often do opponent’s KO their own dice in your turn? Seems a bit useless to us…if anybody knows if there is a scenario she is useful then please let me know).
After a few more rounds of Zemo damage I was able to secure a win in my second round.
Round Three – Win
My final round was against Seth, the second half of the Father/Son Dic Masters powerhouse. My memory was a bit challenged writing up this recap because Seth and I squeezed in a non-tournament friendly game with the same teams before the day was done and I think I may be blurring the two games. Seth, if you’re reading this, give me a shout if I’ve muddled the games up!
The centre-peice of Seth’s team was ‘Pym Particles – Grow’ and Seth had filled up a chunk of his team with Fist energy characters such as ‘Ant-Man – Scott Lang’, ‘Punisher – Unlikely Ally’, and ‘She-Hulk – Ain’t Easy Being Green’ to use the action die’s game-text on.
There was also a Plan B in Seth’s team with ‘Speedball – Robbie Baldwin’, which, I’ll admit, had me nervous.
Early doors I clocked the ‘Superhero Registration Act’ and bought up one for myself (having learnt it’s effectiveness from my first Round with Arris). The attack numbers of Seth’s Fist force were also manageable enough that I could weather a few Overcrushing hits.
Not that it was easy, far from it. I may have been able to manage a little bit of Overcrush damage slipping through, but In one turn Seth’s Intimidating ‘Punisher’, in tandem with some strategic ‘Magic Missile’, cleared the large body of my blockers and I took a healthy thump. Thankfully it wasn’t a lethal blow.
Once again: ‘Baron Zemo’ was the MVP of the match. I got him bought up nice and quick and loaded up with Sidekicks ready to do some KO’ing for Zemo’s game-text. I was fortunate to roll my ‘Baron Zemo’ die on a high level, so a few choice hits over a couple of turns, pumped with ‘The Outsider’ Global, were enough to take the win.
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At the conclusion of the event both Arris & I were on a 2-1-0 record for the day and a face off for top spot was discussed. However, Arris was short on time (he had to get to the station to catch a train) so we did what any self-respecting gentlemen could do… we played a quick game of “Rock/Paper/Scissors” for the win, and I came out on top (Did you think for a minute we had arranged pistols at dawn?)
I’d thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon playing the Civil War draft. Attendance may have been low but it gave me a chance to really chat & get to know one another. At the end of the event we all traded numbers & social media info to stay in touch and to stay in loop on events.
And – I am most definitely going to get a ‘Baron Zemo’ constructed build experimented with – he was a joy to discover in this draft.
