Hobby League: Of City Champs and Madness

Twas brillig, and the slithey toves did gile and gimble in the wabe… All mimsy were the borogroves, and the mome raths outgrabe…

After wrestling with deck ideas over the last week, hampered by a good chunk of my collection being tied up in March Madness decks, I slapped together a Spider-Stall variant and sauntered off to Hobby League with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Little was I to know the forces that would be arrayed against me.

First round I was up against the Eponymous Pablo and his hidden Injustice Gang beats deck. I drew a grand total of one uni-power. One. Needless to say, despite kicking him resoundingly to the face several times, I wasn’t able to reduce his board presence significantly, and a rather hefty White Martian beating, packed with a Beatdown, a Mega-Blast and a couple of other handy toys, left me languishing in the low-END area. A valiant comeback led by the Human Torch on turn 6 brought the endurance totals close, both of us rolling into the negatives, but his pump-fu was stronger than my pump-fu. That said, I’m still loving Firewall with the MEX Human Torch… couple of those in hand and your turn 6 is just plain fun.

0-1 for moi.

Second round was Gamerette’s brand spankin’ new Underworld deck, and all was looking good - I was exhausting her board all over the place with stall elements (notably Sensational Spider-Man and Gift Wrapped), hitting my curve nicely… but turn six saw her stun my board and then Madelyne Pryor had her wicked way with me (ooh baby). Now, this wasn’t insurmountable, especially since I had my 7-drop in hand… but Spider-Man: Stark’s Protege has a special little word - Loyalty. With no other Spider-Friends in play… I had an Indebted available to me, but to get Aunt May to recruit her for free and thus still have the 7 resource points needed to get Spidey, I’d have to discard…. Spidey. Her KO-fu trumped my Stall-fu. 0-2

Third round brought the only other player with an 0-2 record, CaptainSpud and his Insanity build. Once again the stall was working fine, the curve was playing out well… but Beside Myself was also filling his hand, and Joker: Crazy For You was staring down my Human Torch with a wicked glint in his eye. 15 cards in hand meant that if I’d pulled a single Duty Calls I would have been able to reinforce and gone into turn 7 with Spud having no cards in hand… but alas, twas not to be. 0-3, and I go home with the wooden spoon.

… but before we skedaddled, we squeezed in a little Madness…

Doom Patrol vs Squadron Supreme (No Hand): With Baby Emma asleep in my arms (I do so love me my snuggles), Babymama Carrie (we gotta come up with a new name for her…) and I picked up two decks and got underway with the Squadron No-Hand build being piloted by Babymama Carrie, the Doom Patrol sitting unsteadily in front of me.

To her credit, Babymama Carrie played an almost textbook Squadron No-Hand game. Ditched cards at the right time, had Blue Eagle’s KO power operative, had Nuke huge, dragged out Skymax from the KO pile at the right time… but in the end the Doom Patrol were just too plain big. Heck, at one point Elasti-Girl was an 8/5 (thanks to the Mindtap Mechanism), and she was backed up by a Mento with four counters and an Atlantean Trident. They were joined shortly thereafter by a Robotman, who picked up yet another trident on turn 6.

In the end the damage taken before turn 5 put enough of a gap between the two endurance totals, and Heroic Efforts and Counterstrikes just made it worse. Doom Patrol ended in the 30’s, with Squadron at -2. Doom Patrol advances.

Game highlight: Carrie:”I play pancake potion to recover Nuke”

At the other end of the table, not hampered by a sleeping beauty, CaptainSpud and the Eponymous Pablo knocked over two more matches.

Sentinels vs Shadowpact: Before Stu goes ballistic, I’ll point out that the Sentinel build wasn’t Wild Vomit… Shadowpact, the only team in the game that can legitimately use the Fate Artifacts, was in fact using them, and thus didn’t take a single stun until turn 4. To say that it was a beating is to understate beatings. The Sentinels may as well have been eggs waiting to be served up for a breakfast buffet. Shadowpact advances.

Arkham vs Crisis: Some matches are foregone conclusions, I’m afraid. Every turn from 3 onwards saw Arkham clearing the Crisis board, hitting the lock with KGBeast and Charaxes. The game ended on turn 7 with Arkham having every drop from 2 through 7 on the board, and a 30 ATK team attack into Harbinger… who played Shape Change and flipped a Surprise Attack for +0 DEF… who then played another Shape Change for Obliterate, and +8 DEF… and a powerup… but in the end, just nowhere near enough. Arkham advances.

The updated March Madness bracket can be found here.