Just 4 players turned up for the casual Little Cup variant at one of my FLGS’ tonight. Low numbers, but it meant everyone got to play everyone and there was lots of fun banter & good spirits.
All sets were allowed and teams were to be constructed with Starter, Common & Uncommon cards.
Here is my walk-through of my team build and here is a post with some brief details of some last minute changes.
This was the team I played with:
Round One
My first match up was against a build centred around low cost Avenger affiliation characters from the Age of Ultron set.
Almost immediately I regretted taking ‘Captain America – Man Out of Time’ out of my build (one of the #bants points was my self-admonishment for this move. Apparently I mentioned it. A lot.) After I took the first game of the round with my burn strategy my opponent was quick to take my Global gift and, in the absence of the Captain as a disincentive, I was defeated by my own ‘Red Dragon’/’Human Torch’ combo and an unblock-able Black Widow swarm to finish me off (‘Natasha’, if memory serves).
At the end of 2 games we were at time and shook hands on a tie.
Round Two
The core of my opponent’s team in this round was a classic “Flying Sidekick” set up with a handful of pressure cards to bring some flavour.
While I lost 2 games in this round I was pleased with the team’s performance and enjoyed the games immensely. we were both down to low life totals nearing the conclusion. That was until I made some critical mistakes and my opponent could finish me off. I was mostly let down by my piloting skills with this one.
I was interested to find that ‘Millennium Puzzle’ was definitely my MVP in this round and I was glad to have swapped out ‘Hulk’ for it. The ‘Puzzle’ kept ‘Falcon’ and one of his flavour cards; ‘Punisher – McRook’, at bay. Sending them to Used is a potent bit of removal indeed.
‘Elf Wizard’ saw a small amount of play in the games of this round and she really helped get my ‘Millennium Puzzle’ prepped up ASAP for the next nasty sidekick enhancer getting fielded or the despicable ‘McRook’.
At the end of the round I was defeated but had a thoroughly good time.
Round Three
This round was a Marvel Villains team.
I only saw a ‘Mystique’ and a ‘Magneto’ in all three rounds we played – this guy had been having a tough time all night because his team was too expensive and he wasn’t ramping enough – so right out the gate he played me at my own game and started buying up ‘Magic Missiles’ with my ‘Red Dragon’ Global (did I mention – I wish I’d kept ‘Captain America’ on the team?) effectively abandoning his strategy and pilfering mine. Fair play to the guy for clocking it. (It was annoying though) this was going to be quite the challenge to my pilot skills…
I had prepared for such an eventuality with the ‘Wonder Girl’/’Magnetic Ring’ combo (use my own BACs against me will you? I don’t think so pal!) but I was slow to buy up the necessary dice and managed my bag really badly. I found myself chasing the dice for a couple of rounds and failed to field them in time before my own ‘Magic Missiles’ were rolled by my opponent to finish me off. My piloting did not meet the grade this time.
Onto the second game and I was much quicker on the uptake – and got my defensive combo up & running sooner. I was burning swiftly with less fear of it coming back at me and I took the second game. I may be slow on the uptake, but I get there eventually! It was one game a piece.
We were moving fast, and had plenty of time to rattle off a decider. I stayed the course and played my strategy as planned. We were both racing for the Burn BACs and I was rushing to get my defensive combo out. It was close – he had more of my BACs going around than I did and burn was hurting – so a few turns in I changed direction and, for the first time in 7 games, actually purchased a ‘Batman’. My opponent had got so wrapped up in pilfering my burn BACs he had left his field wide open and I was able to walk ‘Wonder Girl’ and ‘Batman’ (ironically not needing to use his unblock-able game text) for the killer blow. Good thing – another turn or two of the burn and I was done for. (I was at, I think, 6 or so life total at the point I won the game) I’d taken best of three and got a win on the board for the night.
An interesting point of note in this third was that I only won the coin toss in one of the three games. The curious upshot of this meant that, of the three BACs on ‘Magic Missile’, my opponent had exhausted the BAC in their second turn. By turn four they had bought up 2 each of my burn BACs to my 1 each. It didn’t guarantee a win (I took the third game despite losing the coin toss) but it certainly helped his interference strategy.
Summary
So, by the end of the night I’d had 7 games over three rounds and played each other player at the event, which I’d say was a good session for a few hours on a Tuesday night.
My overall standing in the rounds was 1 win, 1 loss, and 1 tie over the three rounds. This gave me a joint second place so there was a little bit of swag too.
The guys also gave me the Fellowship Award because, an one opponent put it; “he brought so much stuff everyone else could use!”
To top the night off – one of the Fellowship boosters I won had a Super Rare ‘Catwoman’ in it! Bonus!
Did I Learn Anything?
Yes – I most certainly did!
1. Team efficiency. The ‘Wonder Girl’/’Magnetic Ring’ combo is unquestionably a powerful one, but it was 2 card slots on the team, required the fielding of two dice together, and actually only answered one of my two problems. (Stopped the burn BACs but the cheeky pinging from ‘Red Dragon’ global.) ‘Captain America – Man Out of Time’ would have contributed as a disincentive against both problems. I need to make the team more efficient;
2. Ramp is needed, no matter how cheap the purchase costs. For start – I need to pay more attention to fielding costs. I thought I had a nice cheap team but then realised I couldn’t afford to field anyone (‘Batman’ lvl 3 fields for 3!) and was left with the choice between dice purchase & fielding a couple of times. Further to that though – I definitely needed to be buying 2 dice a turn in some turns and just couldn’t afford it. It also made my ‘Red Dragon’ useless besides his Global, and that breath weapon would have been pretty handy when I faced the sidekick build. More ramp;
3. ‘Millennium Puzzle’ is an awesome card. I’d never used it before and I clearly have been overlooking it for far too long. I will most definitely be playing with it some more in some other builds.
The BACs burn will be back soon after a bit of tinkering – in the meantime the next 2 events in the diary are a casual constructed get together and a Rainbow Draft. Keep an eye out for walk-throughs of my prep and re-caps of the events themselves.
Thoughts, comments, questions, concerns? Put them in the comments below…
