PCQ Tournament Report
by Paul Hagan

06.14.04  Hey all! I know I normally am doing a weekly installment of VS Deck Garage, but I thought that since I just knocked out my first PCQ earlier in the week, I would give y’all a tournament report to check out.

LOCATION: The Game Closet, Waco, Texas
JUDGES: Tay Howland and Damien Mayfield
TOURNAMENT ORGANIZER.: DeQuan Watson

The PCQ got kicked off at about 10:10AM or 10:15AM with only *ten people* in the limited portion of the event. Shame on everyone who didn’t attend; you should always support your local game store.

The packs I opened and registered were complete garbage, including a very low number of large characters, and even the characters that were big (5-drops or higher) were sub-par (such as Blastaar, King of Baluur). After some trouble with the ultra-small deck registration sheets and making sure that no one got five-rare or five-foil packs, everyone had their cards turned in and returned in fairly short order. This is the card pool that was returned to me:

CHARACTERS:
Ant-Man, Scott Lang
Bastion, Leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance
Bishop, Lucas Bishop
Blob, Fred Dukes
Colossus, Peter Rasputin
Cyclops, Scott Summers
Dazzler, Alison Blaire
Doom Guards, Army
Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
Forge, Cheyenne Mystic
Human Torch, Johnny Storm
Juggernaut, Cain Marko
Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr
Mastermind, Jason Wyngarde
Phantazia, Eileen Harsaw (x2)
Psylocke, Betsy Braddock
Puppet Master, Philip Masters
Pyro, St. John Allerdyce
Random Punks, Army
Robot Enforcer, Army
Robot Seeker, Army
Robot Sentry, Army
Rogue, Anna Raven
Sauron, Dr. Karl Lycos (x2)
Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff
Sentinel Mark I, Army
Sentinel Mark II, Army
Spiral, Ricochet Rita
Thing, Ben Grimm
Victor Von Doom II, Son of Doom
Volcana, Marsha Rosenberg

PLOT TWISTS:
Bitter Rivals
Charge!
Cover Fire
Entangle
Finishing Move
Friendly Fire
Mutant Nation
Mystical Paralysis
Nasty Surprise (x2)
Overload
Reconstruction Program
Surprise Attack (x2)
Tech Upgrade

LOCATIONS:
Antarctic Research Base
Asteroid M
Base of Operations
Danger Room
Orbital Sentinel Base

EQUIPMENT:
Dual Sidarms (x2)
Unstable Molecules

It might have taken me a grand total of seven minutes to construct my deck on the “Play-Good-Cards, Not-Bad-Cards” principle. I couldn’t have been happier with my sealed packs, and I wound up running this:

Ant-Man, Scott Lang
Bastion, Leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance
Bishop, Lucas Bishop
Blob, Fred Dukes
Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
Human Torch, Johnny Storm
Juggernaut, Cain Marko
Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr
Psylocke, Betsy Braddock
Puppet Master, Philip Masters
Pyro, St. John Allerdyce
Robot Seeker, Army
Rogue, Anna Raven
Sauron, Dr. Karl Lycos (x2)
Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff
Spiral, Ricochet Rita
Thing, Ben Grimm
Victor Von Doom II, Son of Doom

Charge!
Cover Fire
Finishing Move
Nasty Surprise (x2)
Reconstruction Program
Tech Upgrade

Base of Operations

Dual Sidearms (x2)
Unstable Molecules

ROUND ONE [LIMITED] – James Gush

The first game was all me. My notes show me playing, in order by turn: Ant-Man, Bishop, Thing, Sauron, Blob, and Doom. Meanwhile, James wasn’t able to drop anything on Turn 3 or 4, so there was little defense.

Second game took us over thirty minutes, and I think I made a small error at some point by not using Tech Upgrade at the right time to get Dual Sidearms. This resulted in me placing James at 1 Endurance at the end of Turn 7, and the next turn he had initiative with a very large and angry Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing.

Unfortunately, due to me thinking too long on several occasions, we went to time. Also unfortunately, James had a Darkoth, Major Desmund Pitt and a Sauron, Dr. Karl Lycos on the table, as compared to my Psylocke, Betsy Braddock and Ant-Man, Scott Lang. For those who don’t know, if you hit time in a PCQ, then it is decided on life total at the end of the turn. By sacrificing a resource, I wound up the turn with 29 Endurance to my opponent’s 39.

ROUND TWO [LIMITED] – Brian Butler

The first game in this match was a knock-down, drag-out brawl. Both of us were hitting our best characters, and Brian seemed to have the advantage with Flying Kick (x2), Nasty Surprise, Backfire, Micro-Size, Acrobatic Dodge, and one other combat trick that kept my horde in line. However, on Turn 7, Juggernaut, Cain Marko landed and broke the fairly even life race to pull me a win.

Second game in this series featured me missing a third-turn drop, and on turn four I dropped Psylocke, Betsy Braddock. Meanwhile, my opponent had already dropped Dazzler, Alison Blaire; Cyclops, Slim; Wolverine, Logan; and Jean Grey, Marvel Girl.

To finish the match, Brian and I had a repeat of game 1: a lot of our best characters, a lot of his combat tricks, and finally, Juggernaut breaking the game open for me.

BETWEEN ROUNDS:

At this point, sign-ups started for the Constructed portion of the event, and due to the urging of a few friends, I dropped from Limited to take a stab at Constructed. Unfortunately, due to some delays, we wound up waiting for an hour and a half, meaning I missed out on one or two rounds more of limited. Oh well.

This is really where my tourney went south. Let me set up: the night before the tournament, I decided that X-Men/Fantastic Four was just not good enough to take the field. So after some research, I decided that Doom might be an appropriate choice. Checking out what was online, I went with a composite of all of the winning decks, and this is what it looked like:

CHARACTERS (31):

4 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
3 Kristoff Von Doom, the Boy Who Would Be Doom
4 Robot Sentry, Army
5 Doom-Bot, Army
4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
4 Robot Destroyer, Army
1 Dragon-Man, Experimental Monster
1 Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
3 Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom
1 Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria
1 Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur

PLOT TWISTS (24):

3 Acrobatic Dodge
2 Burn Rubber
4 Faces of Doom
1 Gamma Bomb
2 Finishing Move
1 Flame Trap
4 Mystical Paralysis
1 Overload
3 Reign of Terror
1 Relocation
1 Savage Beatdown
1 The Power Cosmic

LOCATIONS (6):
4 Doomstadt
2 Doom’s Throne Room

Now, let me go ahead and say that I have never played Doom before. At least not a good Doom deck. Let me also go ahead and say that Doom is probably the hardest deck in the metagame to play. Do you see where this is going? That’s right! The theme for today would be: Pilot Error.

As a side-note, we only wound up with *EIGHT PEOPLE* for the constructed portion of the PCQ, since a large number of the limited players decided to try to win the draft. With this in mind, the judges and T.O. decided to do five rounds of Swiss and then determine the winner based on best record. Everyone seemed to agree with this decision, so we were off and running around 1:30PM or 2:00PM.

ROUND ONE [CONSTRUCTED] – John Dunn (Sentinels)

John is one of the Game Closet’s regulars and has just picked up Marvel about two or three weeks ago. Game one consisted of me taking the beats early on from Wild Sentinels and the like, but once I landed Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius and Reign of Terror, I started to take control. The game ended with me dropping a Turn 7 Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom and then playing Power Cosmic to snag the initiative and the game.

Second game was much like the first, but I stalled a little in the middle and John was still around in Turn 8. However, this was the turn I dropped Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur to go with my Sub-Mariner and Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom. I won shortly after by targeting Wild Sentinels and working my way up.

ROUND TWO [CONSTRUCTED] – Casey Lowrey (Brotherhood)

Casey, also one of the Game Closet’s regulars, was piloting a basic Brotherhood deck that looked like the New Brotherhood for the first bit of the game and then turned into a Lost Brotherhood style deck towards the end. First game, my deck did exactly what it should have and thanks in part to dual Robot Sentries, I was able to control the game until the big characters arrived.

Second game, however, Casey came out of the flood gates with two New Brotherhoods, and a horde of 1- and 2-drops. Meanwhile, I managed to drop very few characters and when I did drop said characters, I misplayed them horribly (tapping the wrong guys, using Boris to get the wrong Plot Twist). I lost in short order.

The third game was like the first in a way: Casey had big, cheap characters powered by Savage Land and Asteroid M, and I had a few sub-par guys and nothing to back them up with (like Kristoff Von Doom and Robot Sentry against Sabretooth, Feral Rage and Rogue, Anna Raven) alongside a few key mistakes.

ROUND THREE [CONSTRUCTED] – James Gush…again (Lost Brotherhood)

James was piloting a Brotherhood deck that utilized Lost City, Avalon Space Station, ESU Science Lab, and a *lot* of Magneto, Sabretooth, and Mystique. First game was another one of those matches where I messed up a few times along the way (not going to get Savage Beatdown, using Robot Destroyer instead of swinging, etc.) and was pretty much annihilated by a very large Magneto and a somewhat smaller Sabretooth.

Second game, I didn’t screw up and I got a decent draw that featured Turn 1 - Boris, Turn 2 - Robot Sentry, Turn 3 – Doom-Bot, Turn 4 – Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius, Turn 5 – Robot Destroyer, Turn 6 – Dr. Doom, Vincent Vom Doom, Turn 7 – Sub-Mariner. Meanwhile, James couldn’t pull up a Lost City to save his life, meaning his deck took a big nosedive.

The third and final game was an incredibly fun game, but it was highlighted by a horrific mistake on my part that cost me the game. My board looks like: Doom-Bot, Robot Destroyer, Kristoff Von Doom, Dr. Doom – Diabolic Genius, and Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom. James had Sabretooth, Victor Creed and Magneto, Master of Magnetism.

My train of thought was that if I swung on Sabretooth with Sub-Mariner, as long as he didn’t have Lost City and two Sabretooth in hand, I would stun him. This left the remainder of my team to take down Magneto (even if he had a Magneto in hand), which would have put James at low enough endurance that I could take him down the next turn.

However, what I didn’t think of was maybe I should just team up on Sabretooth just in case or to go after Magneto first, to make sure my characters got to recover in case of emergency. Sure enough, a Lost City got flipped up and he ditched two Sabretooth, meaning my Sub-Mariner took a nose-dive and Magneto finished me off. Shame on me.

ROUND FOUR [CONSTRUCTED] – John Dunn…again (Sentinels)

When I looked at pairings, I thought there was a mistake, until I was informed that two people had dropped from the constructed, meaning we had *SIX TOTAL PEOPLE*. I had already played three of them, and the other two were 2-1 or 3-0 and playing each other. This, in turn, leaves me with no option except play someone I had already played.

I really hate it when people do this during tournament reports, but there really isn’t any additional information here. I drew Sub-Mariner and The Power Cosmic both games (even without Boris), so once Turn 7 hit, it was just all over to the generally small Sentinels. I won, 2-0.

ROUND FIVE [CONSTRUCTED] – Neil Reeves (Doom)

It was about 6:00PM by the time this round rolled around, so I was worn out after eight hours of gaming. As Neil had already won four strait and had beaten the only 3-1 in the room, the invite, $250, and the packs already belonged to Neil. I asked if he wanted to concede to me, since I had no interest in doing a Doom vs. Doom match-up (for those of you who play Magic: The Gathering, think of it as watching Psychatog vs. Psychatog), and after convincing him with a judge present that he had already won, he agreed. Congrats to Neil for getting qualified!

So, in the end, I wound up with four packs which yielded some good cards (foil Cosmic Radiation and foil It’s Clobberin’ Time, at least) and a good day’s worth of gaming. I’m not happy with my performance, but that’s my own fault for not practicing with a very hard deck to pilot.

Since I always enjoy reading them on other people’s tourney reports –

PROPS:

* Damien, for loaning me about a quarter of my deck and being a good judge

* Tay, for being a good judge and not giving me a game loss for being loud, obnoxious, and rude, even if I am funny

* DeQuan, for doing a Top 8 draft, even when only 10 people signed up

* Neil Reeves, for actually planning on *going to Gen Con* if (or I guess when) he won

SLOPS:

* Anyone who is going to try and win it all and *not go to Gen Con* (without mentioning any names – you know who you are.)

* Any of the locals who didn’t show up. Shame on all of you.

WRAP-UP:

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the report, and I’d be happy to hear any comments / suggestions. See y’all in the VS Deck Garage.

-Paul Hagan

 

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