Green Lantern Sneak Preview

Sunday was the day of the VS TCG Green Lantern Sneak Preview. I was rather excited by it since this was actually the first time that Upperdeck was organizing a pre-release event in Singapore.

I was planning to reach there at around 10 am to join at least two flights to get goodies, but I only slept at 8 am at day, woke up at 10 am, then reached Suntec City at 11 am. Orchi, JokerZ, Himura and the CCK bunch were all already in Flight number 3. I decided to walk around and clarify with the staff what the event was all about. It turned out that the boss from Settlers Cafe, Colin, was manning the table. He explained to me that each Flight consists of 16 participants playing a 4-round Swiss. Each participant would receive a Guy Gardner EA and 2 packs, but if they had 3 or 4 wins at the end of the Flight, they would get 2 and 4 more boosters respectively plus a Hal Jordan EA. In addition, participants may trade half of their booster prizes for either a GL Playmant, deck case or a shirt.

I ended up signing up for Flight 4 which begins at 12:30 pm. In the meantime, I walked around and scouted the scene. I saw that Orchi's deck had 2 Oa locations in it; so lucky. Aaron was playing against a little kid who didn't know the rules and kept peeking at his next draw. I felt like calling the Judge to award the kid an immediate game loss, but Aaron just carried on. Reno was at his table, shouting excitedly that "Hal Jordan is waiting for me!" since he already had 2 wins and needed just 1 more to get the EA. (Note: Incidentally, he lost and didn't get Hal.)

I also saw a VS player from AMK but I didn't know his name. I asked him why didn't he join and he said he paid for his little brother to join so that he could receive the "Under 16 Mystery Prize" which turned out to be 2 Marvel Knight and 2 Man of Steel boosters in addition to the 2 Green Lantern you get from participating. In fact, I saw a lot of kids from CCK joining to get the Mystery Prize. I also saw a 'botak' kid. He seemed to know me and it took me for a while to figure out who he is. I guess he was "Kira" from my forum. I guess he was there to learn the game.

When it was 12:30 pm, my Flight started. I cracked open my 5 packs and didn't get anything interesting. I passed them away and in return, I didn't get any interesting rares again. I formed my deck which contained Green Lantern, Anti-Matter, and Manhunter characters. I also didn't feel like thinking and loaded it with plenty of offensive pumps (didn't realize they had so many ways to give +2 ATK in this expansion).

Then the matches began. I managed to win my first match. On my 2nd match, I was too lazy to calculate the damage on my opponent's life and neglected to use all my offensive pumps to end the game, giving him an additional turn to kill me. On my 3rd match, I mis-read one of my opponent's Ongoing Plot Twist, thinking that it worked on his 'attackers' only. I attacked him and he activated it on his defender, saying, "That's gonna cost you." I told him that I mis-read the effect and he replied, "Nah, even if you didn't misread it, I would've blahblahblah, then I could blahblahblah and win." Gah, I didn't even listen to what he was saying. I just left the table, chose to drop out and collected my prizes. I traded my boosters for a Playmat and joined Flight number 6.

I had some extra time, so I walked around. I saw that there was long queue in front of a table with a guy and lady. They were buying crap rares at 50 cents to 1 dollar each. A lot of people were emptying out their collections, including Reno and his friends. I didn't have time to queue since I had a Flight coming up. My upcoming Flight was interesting as it included Jeffrey and several of the players from Midpoint Orchard. At around 3 pm, one of the judges said that he would be giving out a free GL booster to everyone who was wearing a VS shirt that day. Everyone rushed to get theirs. The judge also added, "Next time, wear your VS shirt to all VS events, including PCQs, PCs and so on. You might have a surprise." I wonder if he was hinting that he might pull off a similar thing at the May PCQ.

Eventually, my Flight began. I drafted an okay deck this time, again filling it with all sorts of pumps (I was too lazy to read anything long). My first match opponent complained that he would probably lose since he got very lousy cards. I managed to win with Sinestro's victory condition and walked around to have a look.

I realized that Amerell had also queued up to sell his crap rares to the aforementioned traders. I immediately passed him a stack of my crap rares, hoping that he could manage to sell them off and I'd be a very happy man.

Incidentally, I learnt that the money rare of the set might be "Breaking Ground", the new 'Have-A-Blast'.

They were also accepting registrations for the final Flight. I already have the Playmat and was going to get the Deck Case for my current Flight. Since I needed the shirt to complete my collection, I paid Orchi to join the last Flight for me.

My 2nd match began. It was En Lai from Midpoint. We both hit our curves, but I felt that I drew all my offensive pumps at the right time. By turn 7, I had 5 characters versus his 2 characters on the field. My Sinestro attacked his Two-Face, playing a Battle of Wills to avoid a stun-back. He was very surprised. At the end of the turn, Sinestro's victory condition kicked in again to help me win the game.

I was very excited when my 3rd match came. I only needed 1 more win to get Hal Jordan. I played a very close match with my opponent that lasted all the way to turn 9. He played a boosted Ch'pp, giving an insane defensive pump to his whole field. I couldn't attack his characters without team-attacking. The judges had to call for time and he won me by life gaining-effects. We both thanked each other for such a close and excited game.

My last match was against Jeffrey. I couldn't remember much except that we rushed each other with lots of pumps. By turn 7, we both had very low life, but it was my initiative, so I had the upper hand. I was very delighted that I had managed to win the Hal Jordan EA but also a little disappointed to realize that they ran out of deck cases. I settled for a Green Lantern shirt.

I proceeded to watch the last Flight at 5 pm since Orchi, Amerell, Reno and the others were in it. Reno managed to win his Hal Jordan at last. Orchi also managed to win the Hal Jordan, so I let him keep it since all I wanted were the boosters and the goodies. Even though they had no more deck cases, they allowed Orchi to trade the packs for a different shirt, so I got a replacement Superman shirt for the one that my maid threw away.

Amerell helped me to sell $75 worth of crap rares, so we all had dinner at Pastamania with Reno & friends. It was very late already after we were done so we all decided to go home. It was a very fun and worthwhile day.