All Hail the Legion!

Last Friday we played another Golden Age open tournament in our VS System Hobby League. It was great to see some old favorites hit the tables again. In my first round I faced off against Jordan with my long-suffering, never-victorious Legionnaires deck. We were tightly matched up until the 7th turn, where I was able to fend off just enough damage to make it a 3 / -2 endurance game in my favor. Through creative Cosmic counter manipulation I was able to maintain three characters with them and pull off Terror Incognita, causing Jordan to lose an additional 5 endurance, just to cement the victory.

My second round game was up against William. Initially I thought he was playing his ever-so-nasty Kang deck, as he runs the 1-cost MEV Mystique in that as well. It turned out to be an Underworld deck that makes use of her to boost up Meatmarket and Satana on turns 4 and 5 to kick my butt. With some copies of Armies of Quard to move his characters visible and give them spiffy attack bonuses he looked ready to trounce me. I was able to maintain a solid formation and utilize XS to reinforce twice and save myself huge breakthrough on turn five. With some readying effects like Need For Speed and Superboy allowing Cosmic Boy muliple attacks on turn six, the Legionnaires put the deadies back in the ground where they belong!

Round three put me up against Scott, piloting a Marvel Defenders Hulk deck. I had seen this deck before and knew what to expect, which definitely worked in my favor. On turn four (I chose even initiative each game) I was able to team attack his Sub-Mariner and remove him from the game with a copy of Forged in Crisis. Being his only character with flight after that, I was able to use the same re-readying tricks with XS as in the previous game. The Hulk was big and scary, but not doing too much damage. Turn six saw Hulk team attacked and removed from the game, greatly hampering Scott's chances at victory. We did play out until turn 8, but with Mon-El hitting the table and giving all my character 5/5 for the turn it was my game.

I was actually a little surprised to come in first, with Scott placing second and Jordan a solid third. William, Harry, Vern and Roy all came out to join us and we had a good evening of cardboard superheroing. I've never had such good luck with my Legionnaires deck and often found it to be lacking. I think a lot of it was simply getting a feel for what it does well and compensating for its weak points, like any other deck. I do plan to streamline it now that I have a preferred character curve identified.

Ok, so for the next two events I'll be away. Roy has graciously agreed to run things in my absence. Have fun and keep in mind...Marvel Legends draft to follow my return at the end of October!

Haskatonic Kicks er...Wha?

So our Call of Cthulhu LCG league has been running for a few weeks now and seems to be fun for the players, but our numbers are a little light. So far we're averaging 3 or 4 players per event, and I'd like that to grow. So if you've picked up your starter set and are wondering what the do with it, the answer is...whatever you want!Most of the teams can work with any other, the key is finding some synergy or common thread that you can make use of to give them an advantage over your opponent. It seems a general consensus of the players so far that the Hastur cards from the starter aren't well suited to being your primary faction. However, they seem to go well with almost any other faction! They're like the vodka of CoC...mix it with something else and you'll probably be able to get something tasty out of it.

One of the more original pairings I've seen so far utilizing the Hastur faction cards was a team-up with Mistaktonic U, put together by Jason. He even gave it the cute little nickname Haskatonic (well as cute as demons and scholars driving you insane can be).

Think the Syndicate doesn't play nice with Cthulhu? Shub-Niggurath is too uptight to slum it with Shog-Sothoth? Or maybe those pesky folks at the Agency have turned to Hastur for the power to smite demons and evil-doers alike. Give something a try. You might be insanely surprised.

VS System Cubed

Well our last event was a really interesting. A big thanks to Roy for putting together a draft cube for us to play from. The players all had a really great time drafting from it and playing our games. We ended up using four "packs" to build our decks, which I actually found to be very difficult. There were just too many good cards to choose from and it was tough to eliminate enough of them to get my deck down to a playable size of 30 cards.

My first game was against Collin, who missed drops on turn two and five. I hit a perfect curve all the way up with my JLA / X-Force free team up. I also had Black Bolt on the table and was able to team him up every turn after the first one, making him a minimum 5/5. With a full board advantage against him Collin just couldn't manage a win. Sadly for me things went downhill quickly from there.

I lost my second game, which netted me a bye for round three. My final match put me up against Roy. My deck treated me much as Collin's had in our game...badly. I couldn't draw enough characters to hold of Roy's characters and had to accept defeat as gracefully as possible. It was a fun game though!

In the end Roy's hard work putting things together netted him our first t-shirt prize: a really spiffy Iron Man shirt! Congratulations, and thanks again.