I played Common Enemy as usual but with new cards added from MXM (EoME and Kristoff). I have have not touched my CE deck for a long time so I just put the deck together without testing. Since it was the last Golden Age for this quarter, I thought I'd give it a shot.
17 players joined the Constructed. It was 6-round Swiss. Here is the metagame breakdown:
- 4 Reservists (either Avengers or Brotherhood or with splash)
- 3 GLock
- 2 Common Enemy
- 1 Doom Society
- 1 Doom Injustice Gnag
- 1 TNB Blitz
- 1 Teen Titans
- 1 Squadron Supreme
- 1 Kang's Dream
- 1 New School
- 1 Weirdo using the X-Men Starter (...)
Round 1: Bye
I got a bye. This was the first time I've got a bye. I guess that's a good thing.
Score: 1-0
Round 2: Vs. Avengers/Brotherhood Reservist (Jimmy)
His deck played Brotherhood characters on turns 1-5 followed by Wonder Man and Hercules. He won the die roll and took evens (phew, I don't have to face Hercules' wrath). I tried my best to clear his board by wasting my pumps early. When we got to turn 7, he only had 6 life against my 20+. I had Diabolic Genius and Hulk and was quite sad that I could only recruit a Purple Man (!!!). He recruited a Hercules next to Wonder Man.
I was pretty much screwed cos' I was not teamed up and had no more pumps. My Hulk had 15 ATK and could not touch Hercules and my Dr. Doom + Purple Man's 11 ATK total could not touch Wonder Man either. I was about to just concede then I thought I'd use Purple Man's effect for fun. I KO'ed one of my face-up resources to take one of his, but to my dismay, but was just a reservist character. I just laughed and was going to prepare to scoop but something caught my eye; my Hulk was now at 16 ATK! I then made Hulk attack Hercules; we both passed and he was left with -1. I followed up by tapping down Wonder Man with a Paralysis and won the game. It was very 'tyco' indeed.
Score: 2-0
Round 3: Vs. Avengers Reservist (Kiat)
Eeek, another reservist deck. This was the guy who works at the Raffles ComicsMart. He won the die roll and took evens (I was quite relieved again).
Basically, everthing went on for normal and I managed to win on turn 6 thanks to some Mystical Paralysis and Human Torch breaking my opponent's reinforcement formations.
Score: 3-0
Round 4: Vs. Doom Society (Yap JY)
I remembered this deck from Hobby League. I hate stall decks; I felt that I was going to lose. Basically, we both played very slowly. My Kristoff Von Doom came in handy as it denied his usage of Mystical Paralysis and Beatdown.
On turn 7, he had Dr. Doom, Kristoff and Gorilla Grodd and Aqua Man. I had Dr. Doom, Hulk and Thing: ELBET. I used Dr. Doom to tap down Aquaman so that Grodd could not KO him to do evil things. I also played Betrayal twice to make him stun Doom and Kristoff.
We got to turn 8. This was the time I wished I had Dr. Doom: LoL in my deck since re-using Betrayal was crucial in this match. I settled with Silver Surfer. He recruited Apocalypse and bombed the two face-up Mystical Paralysis in my resource row and his own one. I was quite surprised he would bomb his own but now it meant he was free of Kristoff's ability. He then used Gorilla Grodd's ability to trade his Aqua Man for my Dr. Doom, then tapped down my Surfer with Mystical Paralysis. I could not do anything and Apocalypse bullied my Kristoff to win.
Score: 3-1
Round 5: Vs. Brotherhood Reservist (Jerry)
He won the die roll and took evens. I was quite worried about his Harry Delgado on turn 6.
On turn 3, he Mutant-Massacred my She-Hulk so Dr. Doom arrived alone on turn 4. Fortunately, I was able to double-Reign to equalize our board. I recruited the Human Torch on turn 5 but he was also Massacred after trading stuns with Sabretooth. My board was getting more pathethic. To make things worst, I missed my turns 6/7 play because I tossed away my Hulk for Flame Trap to stop Amelia's triple-pump attack. I looked sadly at the 2 Signal Flares in my resource row and the 2 Enemy of my Enemy that I have just drawn but not a single character to pitch.
By some miracle, we got to turn 8. I managed to finally draw a character which I used to find the Silver Surfer but sadly, I had no other characters to discard to steal the initiative (once again, I wished I had Doom: LoL so I could at least re-use a Paralysis). I lost to his over-sized Colossus.
Score: 3-2
Round 6: Vs. GLock (Danny)
Good grief, it's GLock. I knew I was dead even before it started. He hit G'Nort, Kyle Rayner and proceeded use Chopping Block to kill my 3rd, 4th and 5th drop. I made a play error by Reigning away Dr. Light on turn 4 instead of the more dangerous G'Nort + Chopping Block. The madness stopped on turn 6 when I under-dropped to use Boris to fetch Flame Trap. I also managed to use Betrayal once before he teamed up. But still, it was too late and he got the unholy trinity of Sinestro/Guy Gardner/Mogo. I am sure anyone would concede if they saw that.
Final Result: 3-3
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I thought I was done for and was preparing to go home but I looked at the final standings and realized I was at 6th place (the top 8 player scores were 5-5-5-4-4-3-3-3). Lucky me. CKTeacher got in, too.
The top 8 consisted of:
- 3 Reservists (Kiat, Jerry and one guy; oh dear, so many)
- 2 Common Enemy (Me and the other regular CE player)
- 1 GLock (CKTeacher)
- 1 Doom Society (Yap JY)
- 1 Doom Injustice Gang (Oreo)
What happened to Kang's Dream? Poor Wai Leong lost his first 3 games and dropped cos' his opponents put 2 Have A Blasts in their decks. Looks like people are now teching against him (and other decks). hehe.
Quarter Finals: Vs. Brotherhood Reservist (Jerry)
I got a chance to look at his decklist before the game began. His Brotherhood Reservist build was similar to what I had wanted to try out, except that he played no locations at all and maxed out on Mutant Massacres and Insignificant Threat. I told myself to be careful as I play with him again in this rematch.
I totally got thrashed in the match. I always thought that Brotherhood Reservist was an inferior version of Avengers Reservist but the guy's deck seems to have a good matchup against my deck.
Round 1: He Mutant-Massacred my 4th and 5th drop, leaving me with a lonely She-Thing going to turn 6 against his 2-4-5 drops. I got the Hulk out on 6 and then Thing: ELBET on 7 but I ate Insignificant Threat (Hulk 15 ATK to Fabian Cortez) and died. (Lose)
Round 2: I tried to play more carefully this time. I tried to attack safely, like having 5-drop Kristoff attack his 2-drop Amelia Voght but a double-Boot and The Acolytes ensured a stun-back followed by *ta-da* Mutant Massacre again. I had to under-drop lategame to get out Boris but again, I ate Insignificant Threat and died because Massacre ensures my drops are always smaller than him. (Lose)
All in all, I have lost with no regrets. I think maybe it was due to my own fault that I look down on Brotherhood Reservist. The fact that this guy went 5-1 with Brotherhood Reservist in Swiss probably shows that the deck is not bad after all. After being enlighthened like that, I am now inspired to tune my Brotherhood Reservist again. I wish to spread the Mutant Massacre love.
Anyway, I can't really say I am truly pleased with my performance. I might have top-8'ed but I felt it was all due to luck since my deck was untested and pretty iffy.
That is all. I'll be back next month playing in Marvel Modern Age. wee.
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