Elite Series Tournament Report
I drove 70 miles on Saturday to play in the “elite series” tournament in Towson, MD. Almost all interstate miles, so it took just over an hour for the journey. I had never been at this particular store, the first thing I notice… there is no parking. I almost made the mistake of going to parking garage that had public parking mon-fri, but some creative driving allowed me to avoid the $95 fee had I parked there. I finally found some room on the street a short distance from the shop.
The show itself was pretty nice - fairly large play area, awesome little indie/punk/hardcore record store in their back storeroom, very friendly staff, and several restaurants and a trader joe’s within walking distance. 26 people showed up, more than I expected. I heard they only had 5 people for their City Champs.
I get my packs, and immediately notice 4 copies of Spiderman - 2 Spider Hulks, 1 Sensational, and 1 with a bag over his head. I felt good about that. I noticed Moon Knight at 5, and 2 copies of Hellcat at 3, so I went with spiderfriends/defenders. I had 3 or 4 attack pumps, 2 team-ups, and a Ring of Fire that immediately went in. After some debate, What are Friends For? made the cut. I debated the last few cards for a while, but 1 card I thew in at the last minute was Damocles Base. I figured with 4 copies of spider-man, 2 Hellcats, and 2 John Walkers, I could hit every now and then. That was an understatement, it ended up being my MVP card. I hit cards all day with it. Once I had seen 3 copies of spiderman, I started naming other cards, so it allowed me hit the 6 or 7 I actually wanted to play.
game 1 - nothing special. I use attack pumps to attack up the curve on turn 5, establish board advantage, and win on 7.
game 2 - pretty much a repeat of game 1
game 3 - My opponent has Samantha Parrington on turn 4, and plans to clear my entire board. He attacks and says and says “just as long as you don’t play…” I flip over What are Friends For…”Noooooo!” I win again.
game 4 - I am slightly behind on this game the whole way. Turn 6 he has Madalyne Pryor, he plans on wiping out everyone. I have What Are Friends For? so I can at least keep my 6 drop. Going into turn 7, I have my 6, he has a 6, 7, 5 and 2 I believe. I try to get him to make a mistake in reinforcing, but he doesn’t fall for it, so I lose.
game 5,6,7 - Nothing special. Moon Knight + Hellcat destroy everything. I win 2 more and lose 1, ending up 5-2. Enough for top 8 draft + EA Enemy of my Enemy. Awesome.
During the draft, nothing really stand out in my opening pack, so I take Hulk 5, a very respectable 5 drop. Next pack has 3 or 4 bombs, it is very had for me to decide. I end up taking One Man Rampage, which I thought would go well with Hulk. Ends up being a bad choice, even though I drew it in almost every game, I never played it. My 3rd pick is Beast 2 drop, then the Defenders seem to dry up. The 3rd pack has a Spider-Signal, so I take that and start drafting Spider-friends. On the 11th pick, I notice a Dweller-in-Darkness still in the pack. wtf? This guy is an awesome 6 drop. I consider switching over to underworld, but for some reason I thought I hadn’t seen enough other support UW cards going around, so I think better of the idea. Either someone is this draft is really smart or a complete idiot. There are also LOTS of syndicate cards going around, but I think they are the worst team. I splash them when I need to, but I am not going to make them one of my main teams.
The 2nd pack solidifies my spider-friends, as well as fills in a few defenders. Damocles Base is in one of the packs, I count it out and it’s going to come back around to me on the 11th pick. Everyone else seems oblivious to its power, though I was bragging about how good it was to Stephen just before the draft. As luck would have it, the pack comes around without the Base. I shoot Stephen a look of disgust. He hate-drafted it and didn’t even play it! Going into the 3rd pack, my only 6 drop is Super-Skrull. Yuck. Luckily I pick up a Wendell Vaughn and a late Sub-Mariner.
Match 1 - I play Tommy, who has an interesting Syndicate/Underworld deck. He wants to keep a lot of guys stunned on the board, gain life with In Limbo, and have a huge Sub-Mariner on turn 6. Not sure why that Sub-Mariner came back around to me, guess he was missing drops, too. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I won 2 games
Match 2 - Syndicate and random other teams. The games are pretty even, I think the self-burning the syndicate is known for pushed me over the edge.
Match 3 - I play Stephen King for the playmat, the glory, and the money. Oh wait, they took the money away. Guess it’s just for the playmat and the glory. 2x Spider Signal and 1x Ring of Fire is nice, but not as nice as his 2x Morbius. Plus he seemed to hit those huge spider friends 1 & 2 drops every game. Game 1 I even bricked one of his attacks on turn 7, then he smashed me with the rest of his dudes and I lost. I pulled a win on game 2 thanks to a timely spider-signal, but game 3 wasn’t even close.
So I come away with a few x-men packs (apparently the store is overstocked), a wolverine t-shirt won in a door prize, and of course the EA. I’m happy with that.