I’m sitting here in front of my PC, bashing the keys and hoping that something resembling a coherent sentence will form on the screen in front of me. I am finding it a little difficult this week because I’m currently suffering from a pretty serious back problem. I’ve been for some traction treatment this morning, and now I’m back in front of my work PC and the muscles are starting to seize up. I keep looking at the clock, trying to work out when I can take my next dose of pain medication. Time is evil; when you’re waiting for something that you really want, it slows down in a Matrix-esque fashion. Each tick of the second hand is like a thunderous explosion that reverberates much longer than its allotted duration. I can take my next tablet in one hour, but the way time is moving, it feels like I could finish this article, print it, fly over to the U.S., and personally hand it in at Metagame Towers before I get to take that medicine.

Correspondingly, the old adage that “time flies when you’re having fun” is also completely true. Friday evening when I got home from work, I sat and planned out my weekend’s exploits. My wife was due to work, so it would just be my two daughters and me for the whole weekend. I had all sorts of fun things planned, but before I cold say “quality time,” it was Sunday evening and I was getting ready for another depressing week at work.

You would think that would be enough, wouldn’t you? Well, apparently, time doesn’t agree with you. Not content with running either too quickly or too slowly, time has now conspired to annoy me thoroughly simply by not existing in sufficient quantities. The World of Warcraft TCG has been smoldering in the background for a little while now, but with the recent launch of websites like www.wowrealms.com and the superb official site, www.ude.com/wow, the fires of anticipation are raging. I am now struggling to find enough time in the day to cope with this gaming overload. While I’ve never played the online game before, it looks like the sort of thing that will get me hooked with little effort. Curse you, Upper Deck! Curse your eyes!

In Vs. System, time is an extremely valuable commodity. As a predominantly casual player, I’ve never really been worried by time limits. Well, until recently, that is. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the changing European Organized Play structure and the effect that it could have on the casual gamer. Well, from a purely personal perspective, it has really livened up my game. The increased frequency of tournaments has meant that I have the time to play, and I entered two events in the past couple weeks. In both, time became a very real issue for me.

The first event I attended was a Silver Age Trial of the Finest (our PCQ equivalent). This was the first tournament I’d been able to attend in a few months, so I was raring to go. In the buildup to the event, I’d been trying to decide which deck to play. I had it narrowed down to two choices that had apparently been passed over by most people: it would be either the Justice League Task Force / The Wrecking Crew deck, or the Villains United / X-Statix deck. I always like to play something other that the current deck of the moment, so I had decided against anything that had made the recent Pro Circuit San Francisco Top 8. Although I really like playing Good Guys and have done so since the Justice League of America set was released, it became so popular that I felt uncomfortable playing the deck.

My reasons for playing rogue decks have changed over the last year. Before, I would play a deck simply because I did not want to conform. While that still holds some truth, my main reason for going rogue is now more about the matchups. A deck is far more fun to play if your opponent doesn’t know your every move before you’ve made it and doesn’t have a slew of tech cards lying in wait.

In the end, I opted for the Villains United / X-Statix deck. I hadn’t done an awful lot of testing with it, but I was confident that my knowledge of the X-Statix side of the equation would be enough to see me through. I think I mentioned in last week’s article that I was particularly fond of Kim Caton’s version of the deck, so after a couple of minor modifications, I set off for the tournament with this rattling around inside a deck box:

Characters

4 The Calculator, Noah Kuttler
4 Dr. Polaris, Force of Nature
3 Orphan, Guy Smith
4 Fatality, Flawless Victory
1 U-Go-Girl, Tragic Teleporter
1 Battering Ram
2 Mr. Freeze, Brutal Blizzard
1 Vivisector, Lunatic Lycanthrope
3 Zeitgeist
1 Eradicator, Dr. David Connor
1 Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man
1 Terrax
1 Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch
 
Plot Twists
4 Dead Weight
4 Spin Doctoring
4 Enemy of My Enemy
3 Coercion
3 Mutant of the Year
3 Star of the Show
3 Meltdown

Locations
3 X-Statix Cafe
4 The Science Spire
1 X Statix HQ
1 The Hill

I took out Imperiex in favor of Eradicator. The Games Club was the venue for the tournament and is a haunt of Metagame’s Tom Reeve and PC: San Francisco winner Ian Vincent. With that in mind, I expected an abundance of Deep Green and thought that the Revenge Squad character might prove to be a more useful addition.

I caught the train to London and wandered around in the sweltering city heat until I eventually found the location. The Games Club is a popular venue in England’s capital city and I arrived expecting to have a lot of fun.

My first match was the first time I had ever encountered a time management issue. My opponent was playing a Hellfire Club / Checkmate deck that included the full complement of Fate Artifacts. The first game went quite appallingly, as I missed drops all over the place and never really got out of the blocks. It did go on quite long, though, as Zeitgeist managed to slow down my opponent and postpone the inevitable loss for a couple of turns. Game 2 was a different matter. I took the even initiatives and managed to get everything running quite smoothly. I had taken evens for one reason—Eradicator. On turn 6, I was expecting a huge Donald Pierce from my opponent, so I used Coercion to team-up and then played Eradicator with a team attack in mind. The successful attack saw my opponent replace his entire resource row, and a couple of turns later, the game was mine. As we were picking up our cards, the judge called time! Neither of us had any idea we had been playing so long. At one game apiece with time called and game 3 not even begun, we asked the judge how things would play out. He informed us that the first change of endurance in game 3 would signify the end of the match. My deck carried only four characters between drops 1 and 2, whereas my opponent had at least eight cards in those slots and the choice of initiative. He chose odds and we both drew our four. I had not recruited The Calculator in our two previous games, so I expected to be marking up a loss. As it turns out, fate smiled on me, and my 1-drop was in my opening four. I declared that I would keep, while my opponent mulliganed. He missed his characters and I won the match.

Later in the day, I faced something I was totally unprepared for: the mirror match. I really hadn’t expected to face another deck like mine, and neither had my opponent, Robbie. Robbie’s version was true to Kim Caton’s build. Both of us played a cagey game and spent a lot of time thinking through our plays. Game 1 went to Robbie when he recruited Imperiex on turn 9. Game 2 was a mammoth thirteen-turn event, and at the end, I was left ruing the decision to remove Imperiex as the man sitting opposite me recruited the big guy. It was my only match loss of the day, but it was the most fun I’d had in a long time. I was happy with third place considering it was my first Constructed event since March, and I had another tournament to look forward to three days later.

The Tuesday after my Trial of the Finest exploits, I had another Silver Age tournament in the new OP format Day of the Hero. This was an evening tournament being held at my local store. It was great fun as well, and it started in similar fashion as I faced Hellfire Club. The matches went well, with only one blip as I faced a Morlock evasion deck. My deck just imploded and refused to yield any characters on the first game. Game 2 was a lot easier because Fatality put off any ideas of evasion. The third game was tighter because my opponent seemed to draw into infinite copies of his ATK pumps. In the end, my beloved X-Statix held on for the win. As I prepared for the final, we realized that it was past 11:00 PM and I was ready for my PJs. Having to get up at 5:30 AM for work really stinks. I was facing Little D (a regular in our store that refuses to reveal his real name, although reliable sources suggest that it is the very camp “Stephan”) and we were both very tired. In the end, we came up with a solution. Speedster Vs. was born that night.

We both agreed to play the game at a fast pace, restricting ourselves to just two minutes per person per turn. Jason, the storeowner and judge, kept score and shuffled our decks when they required it, while Carla, Jason’s (much) better half and co-owner, kept time. Little D was playing an aggressive Masters of Evil deck, while I was playing what is in essence a stall deck. In the end, we finished the match in about fifteen minutes, and I think I made only two time-forced errors the whole time.

The match was great fun, and if you’re looking for something a little different, try playing a few games like that. You definitely need a third person to shuffle your decks and keep score, as both practices take valuable seconds out of your allotted time. Speedster Vs. does require both players to enter into the spirit of it—in other words, not taking too long over your turn. Go ahead, give it a try.

Deckbuilder Challenge Cup #5 – “Batman’s Pants”

With Pro Circuit Indy just over (well, as I write this, it’s five days away . . . See? There’s Time messing with me again!), it seems fitting that we look at DC Modern Age. This challenge is entitled Batman’s Pants because it’s going to be very tight and restricting.

The rules of Batman’s Pants:

·         DC Modern Age

·         Thirty card minimum, forty card maximum

·         Current ban list applies

·         No more than one copy of any given card

·         You must give your deck a name

·         You must include at least one paragraph of description with your deck

Batman’s pants are indeed tight, but they are effective. Can you make a deck that consistently performs as well as Bruce’s underwear?

You can submit your decks to me via email (kamiza989@gmail.com) or by posting them on my website (www.the-kamiza.com).

Anyway, time for me to go.

Steve