March Madness: Round Three Results

Egads, what a mess last round was! Who would have thought the Teen Titans would have fallen to Secret Six via beatdown?? Not to mention Anti-matter whiffing their way out the door, Emerald Enemies trouncing the Avengers, and even the Crime Lords getting bipped out of the race! Oh the humanity!

Enough melodrama, on to round three!!

Pablo and Spud took the helm on a number of the games this round while I played host to Carrie and Emma, so beg pardon if the game summary doesn’t have the usual voice.

Checkmate win over Kang
Pablo sez: Three kings. Ahmed, into Alan, into Maxwell:  a strong curve coming in for beats into Kang 2 drop (the others were concealed).  It was just too strong.  Of note was that Checkmate did not have a face-up location in play the entire game.  Ahmed never activated, he just hit hard.  It’s not a conventional strategy, but it worked.  Spud flirted with the idea of going for the King Kill with the Finishing Move on 3, but he chickened out.  The truth was I had the Kyln face down (the only location I saw) and Huntress in hand, but you never know.  Instead, he tried the Move on 5, but I had rowed Threat Neutralized by then.

Big Brotherhood win over Hellfire
Bigger is better, and the Brotherhood surely proved it. Despite not getting a Lost City and Avalon online until turn five (seriously, I topdecked into both of them), there were just enough pumps in hand to hold off Hellfire’s brutal assault until the engine could properly come online. By that stage it the numbers started telling. Shinobi Shaw? Tough, yes… but 7-Magneto put him in his place. “I don’t care how many bloody counters you’ve got, you’re not recovering!” 

The New Brotherhood win over Shadowpact
Pablo sez: Dare I relive the pain?  I know you lost Crime Lords and Spud lost the X-Statix, but the Pact had made it to the Sweet Sixteen!  Spud and I have this ongoing joke that no matter what deck he’s running, his first play is going to be recruit Duela Dent and flip Beside Myself.  So I jokingly chose to shuffle his deck “to make sure the three TNBs end up at the bottom”.  After his mulligan, Spud showed me two TNBs in hand, and he drew his third on turn two.  Ouch!  Yes, Blackbriar showed up too late, but I still managed to Fate-up Nightmaster on two, transferring to Zatanna on three, Witchfire on 4 and Dr. Occult on 5 (who ended up being 16/16), but it was to no avail.  Sadly, the Pact is now gone.  And I weep.

JLA win over Secret Six
Surprisingly enough, the Secret Six *almost* had this one. Secret Six Victorious was in the row on turn five, House Of Secrets had been doing its thing since turn one, but Elongated Man had plans for both of the Secret Six’s critical cards. Missing Cheshire tolled the death-knell, and the little team that could became the little team that got rolled over by a bunch of Ally effects. JLA moves on. 
Pablo sez: Those hawks can be pretty impressive, eh?  Oddly enough, after realizing I had rowed Ralph Dibny, my only way to get rid of House of Secrets and SSVictorious, turn five proved to be the significant turn, as I managed to draw into another Ralph and Shayera.  The Satellite HQ to get into the Hidden Zone was pretty sweet too.  But, of course, the highlight of the game was getting you down into the negatives with your board fully stunned, going into recovery expecting to win the game and watching you flip “It’s Not Over Yet” to gain enough endurance to send us into turn 6.  In the end, the Hawks prevailed, but that play was priceless.

Kree win over Horsemen
Past games have shown that the Horsemen are a much scarier prospect than we’d otherwise like to admit to ourselves. Those counters add up faster than you think… but the Kree swarm meant there was always a handy reinforcer about, and team attacks accounted for the counters… Improper Burial did the rest. Missing 5-Apocalypse meant the Horsemen had no answer to the Pressing matters at hand. 
Pablo sez: Sugar Man on 3, Dark Beast on 4, no Apocalypse on 5.  Kree pressed characters right, left and center (not a figure of speech, in this case), and pounded the horsemen to the ground.  Color me shocked (although, truth be told, they had made it this far).

Thunderbolts win over Doom Patrol
Pablo sez: The TBolts deck has been dishing out massive Team Tactics hurting in the tournament, so I knew Doom Patrol would have to make its mark early.  After a mulligan, the freaks recruits were as follows: Turn 1 miss, Turn 2 The Chief with Force Field Belt, Turn 3 miss, Turn 4 miss, Turn 5 Robotman, Turn 6 Beast Boy and death after a 128 swing by Melissa.  The TBolts should have had the match anyway, but somebody please explain to me how, going through more than 50% of the deck, one can fail to see a 1 drop, 3 drop and 4 drop, but manage to draw all three copies of The Chief.  And not from lack of trying. On turn 3, The Chief spent two points on the Belt to get counters, spend one and (hopefully) draw ElastiGirl or Mento (for next turn). Miss. On 4, he only spent one point so that 3 would be left over for Mento (or even ElastiGirl). Miss. Sorry, but the Patrol’s Cinderella run ended with a whimper.  The highlight was laughing at Spud’s attempt to declare another attack after he had lowered my endurance to -80 with Melissa.  Silly potato!

Team Superman win over Emerald Enemies
Pablo sez: Regardless of the outcome of this game, I hope we end up with Enemies vs Corps or Superman vs Revenge Squad next round. Both teams hit their curves pretty well, but Team Supes was looking scary with their larger characters. On turn 4, Emerald Enemies started blowing up resources (Femme Fatale to KO Power Girl and another one to a Myrwhydden offensive boost), but turn five looked scary: Superman Man of Tomorrow hit the board thanks to Supes Red, and Mongul showed up for the down-to-three-resources Enemies. EE was still holding strong, and after bringing Obsidian on 6, managed to stun Brahma, hit Lois Lane and stun Superman Red. An Emerald Twilight on Red made Carrie very unhappy, as it meant she would not be able to recruit the Deterrent Force on 7 without losing Man of Tomorrow. On 7, Carrie smartly underdropped Kara and Krypto, so her board presence took away reinforcement options from the Enemies, who lost -9 to 7 to Spud’s delight.

Green Lantern Corp win over Revenge Squad
A complete row of face up ongoings (alright, one location – but it refers to ongoing plot twists!) just don’t amount to a hill of beans when you miss a bunch of your drops. The Revenge Squad ran afoul of the GLC swarm, Willpower pumping the lowbies further than Superman’s regular nemeses could catch. I’d like to say it was an epic battle, but it was just a trouncing.

And on to round four! You have two days to get your picks in at VSRealms people, get to it!!!!!