Family Feud: College Rules

Time for another round of the Family Feud. This time, college pals Reed Richards and Ben Grimm go at it – the nerd vs the jock, a battle for the ages. Bill Gates has been telling us for years that the nerds win, and for many it’s been the only comfort in between bouts of atomic wedgies and swirlies. But is he right???

The Uatu-vision’s on the fritz this time, so we can’t see the players hands, but the plays are all out in the open and such.

Ben wins the toss, and takes odds.

Turn One:

Keeping his opening hand, Ben recruits Ant Man: Scott Lang. Reed follows suit, and recruits H.E.R.B.I.E.: Robot Nanny

Deciding to get an early start on the Endurance differential, Ben puts Ant Man through H.E.R.B.I.E., taking the dual stun but getting a point of break out of the bargain.

Both Ant Man and H.E.R.B.I.E. recover.

Reed: 48; Ben: 49

Turn Two:

Reed flips an Antarctic Research Base. Exhausting H.E.R.B.I.E., a free Framistat slides into play and Reed draws a card. Flipping New Baxter Building, Reed exhausts it for a second extra card, but doesn’t get his 2-drop.

Ben also misses his 2-drop, but H.E.R.B.I.E.’s exhausted so no threat. Herbie’s now a 5/2 with reinforcement on the defence, but Ant Man goes for the dual stun anyway.

Reed 47; Ben 48

Turn Three:

Ben recruits Thing: Idol o’ Millions (IoM).
Reed recruits Mr Fantastic: Reed Richards (RR); exhausting H.E.R.B.I.E., Reed moves the Framistat onto his 2-drop and hides the robotic nanny behind him.

Ben sends the 6/5 IoM into  the 5/4 RR. In respose, Reed activates RR to go digging for equipment, coming up with a Pogo Plane. Ben activates Ant Man, stripping RR’s reinforcement to allow a couple of points of breakthrough. For the stunback Ben flips Yancy Street, searching out a Thing: The Ever Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing (TELBET).

Not wanting to lose H.E.R.B.I.E. in a stunback to Ant Man, Reed passes combat and moves on to Recovery. Both Reed and Ben recover their namesakes.

R: 43; B: 45

Turn Four:

Reed recruits Franklin Richards: Trapped In Time, activates H.E.R.B.I.E. to move the Framistat to Franklin, and then removes H.E.R.B.I.E. from the game to give RR a free Personal Force Field. With the equipment recruited, Reed draws for ARB and NBB, and then activates RR to dig out a Future Technology.
With a much less active build phase, Ben recruits Crystal: Inhuman

At 12/9, Franklin ploughs into Crystal. Crystal forces Reed to move RR out from behind Franklin, then reinforces with Ant Man. Ben takes 4, dropping him to 41 Endurance. RR had activated to find the Future Tech, so combat passes to Ben.

Ben sends his 6/5 IoM into the now 2/6 RR. No effects, so RR stuns and Reed takes 2, also dropping to 41.

Reed: 41; Ben: 41

Turn Five:

Ben upgrades his IoM to the beefier Thing: Heavy Hitter (HH).

Once again showing an active recruit step, Reed upgrades to Mr Fantastic: Stretch after activating RR and finding another Framistat. With Stretch on the board, Reed flips Pier 4; recruiting a Pogo plane he draws for ARB and NBB, using the plane to dig out a spare location (and reduce the chance of drawing into it later). Recruiting a Framistat onto Stretch, Reed draws for ARB. He gives Franklin a Future Technology, drawing again. Another Pogo Plane, another draw. Franklin is now 15/9 (15/10 on defense), while Stretch is a nice even 10/10 (11 on defense) with flight. Both characters have inherent reinforcement to boot.

Barrelling into the combat phase, Ben sends HH into Franklin – 11/11 on 15/9. Flipping a Torch & Thing, HH suddenly becomes unstunnable; Franklin activates for 3 pts of burn thanks to Future Tech, and then goes down under a flurry of rocky fists and loses his cosmic counter.

Ben follows up by sending Crystal into Stretch with a pair of Clobbering Times to get to 13/12 on Stretch’s 10/11. Stretch activates to ready NBB, draws, goes down with Ant Man stripping his reinforcement.

With no-one left to respond with, the turn moves to Recovery and Reed opts to keep Stretch.

Reed: 30; Ben: 38

Turn Six:

Reed recruits Dr Strange, and gives him the Eye of Agamotto, drawing for ARB and NBB. Stretch uses his pogo plane to filter more locations out of the draw, recruits a fresh plane, activates to ready NBB, draws for ARB and NBB, uses the new Pogo Plane to filter out another location, gives Strange Future Tech and activates to burn for 3, drawing once more for ARB.

Ben calmly sends up a Signal Flare for Hulk: New Fantastic Four. R30 T35

Reed readies his board thanks to to Strange. sends Strange at 15/13 into Crystal in the back row. Ben responds with a Clobbering Pine to redirect into Heay Hitter, powers up twice for the stunback and reinforces with Ant Man before getting a future powerup with Yancy St.

Reed sends a 10/10 Stretch into Hulk, pumping twice for the stun. Without a pump to respond with, it’s a dual stun.

Finally, Ben sends Crystal into Reeds face for a right slapping.

Reed recovers Stretch, reliant on his free equipment text, while Ben recovers Hulk, since he already has TELBET in hand.

Reed: 12; Ben: 24

Turn Seven:

Ben recruits TELBET, respendent in his 16/16 beefiness. It’s a solid board, with Hulk, Crystal and Ant Man still hanging around.

Reed isn’t daunted by TELBET’s size, and recruits Hulk: The Fantastic Hulk, discarding no less than 8 character cards for +1/+1 tokens, followed by a Personal Force Field for Hulk and look, a Pogo Plane… drawing three extra cards thanks to ARB and NBB.

After much thought, Ben comes to terms with not having enough to get over a 24/26 Hulk without using both big guys (Ant Man’s in the back row). Thing and Hulk:NFF into Hulk:TFH, TELBET takes the stunback. Not having enough to get through Reed, Crystal passes.

Reed swings over into Crystal, Ant Man provides a handy reinforcement.

Ben recovers TELBET, finally losing Crystal.

Reed: 5; Ben: 13

Turn Eight:

Reed recruits a new Franklin, but has no equipment to add to him.

Ben responds with a Luke Cage: Paid In Full as a potential reinforcer

Reed opens the hostilities by sending Stretch flying over into Luke 13/10 on 8/8. Ben responds with a timely Clobbering Pines, pulling Stretch it into TELBET, stunning the brainiac…

With no good attacks with Franklin, Reed sends hulk into Hulk. Ben reinforces with Ant Man.

Reed: 0; Ben: 7 and Game.

Thus, in the end, a timely Clobbering Pine spelled the difference between victory and defeat, and in the end the Ever Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Idol o’ Millions walks away with a win.