Going into the draft, I was under the impression that a lot of the top players underestimated the X-Men in general and X-Treme Maneuver in particular. I was looking to draft them again. But plans and drafts aren’t always the best of friends.

I opened my first pack, checked for Blackbird Blue, and calmly drafted it. If I’d been capable of emotion at this point, I’d probably have gotten a warning for celebrating (which would be an illegal signal), but the combination of jetlag and a very intense and long day were more than enough to keep me quiet. By the end of the pack, I had six characters and seven good tricks but some worrying holes in my curve.

In the second pack, I opened Enemy of My Enemy and a few other good support cards. I’m not a big fan of character searchers with a threshold of 3 in 30-card decks, but my teammates had universally agreed that it was a first pick and were fed up with me borrowing them, so I put it in my pile. Having taken some risks with the first pack, it was time to consolidate, so I took several characters that I would rather not play but with which I could fill holes in my curve.

This allowed me to draft good X-Men cards aggressively in the final pack rather than having to concentrate on filling gaps in my curve. The payoff came with a Callisto mid-pack; she’d be an MVP in game 2 and would be a big improvement over Piper.

Kim Caton sat on my left, and anyone who read her tournament report knows that she was getting mixed signals about Hellfire. Here is the deck that I played; the number before each card indicates which pack it came out of. Hopefully, this will help to explain why Kim got such mixed signals (sorry, Kim).

Characters

1 Hellfire Club Initiate, Army (13th pick)

2 Hellfire Club Initiate, Army

3 Shadowcat, Katya

1 Longshot, Hero of Mojoworld

3 Cannonball, Blast Field

1 Viper, White Warrior Princess

1 Nightcrawler, Swashbuckler

2 Nightcrawler, Swashbuckler

3 Black Panther, King of Wakanda

2 Madelyne Pryor, Black Rook

1 Roberto Da Costa, Heir to the Throne

1 Havok, Critical Mass

3 Sunder, Callisto’s Enforcer

2 Cyclops, Blue Leader

2 Colossus, Organic Steel

3 Callisto, Morlock Queen

3 Juggernaut, The Unstoppable

Plot Twists

2 Enemy of My Enemy (1st pick)

3 Immovable

1 Special Delivery

1 Rebirth

3 Rebirth

2 X-Treme Maneuver

2 X-Treme Maneuver

1 X-Men United

Locations

3 X-Corp: Paris

1 X-Corp: Hong Kong

1 X-Corp: Amsterdam

Equipment

1 Blackbird Blue (1st pick)

1 Acolyte Body Armor

Here are my unused cards. Again, the number before each card indicates the pack I drafted it from. The % sign indicates cards that I was half expecting to play when I drafted them.

1 Kill the Flatscans (14th pick)

2 The Hellfire Club

2 Phase Shift

2% Mind Control

2% Piper, Rat Charmer

2% Exodus, Acolyte

2% Emma Frost, White Queen

3 Hemingway, Gene Nation

3 Blow Hard, Windbag

3 Empath, Hellion

3% Empath, Hellion

3% Teamwork

When I registered my deck, I called a judge for the first and last time of the tournament. My Madelyne Pryor, Black Rook was one of two unstamped cards on the table (the other wasn’t going to be played) and there were some rather tense moments as the judges checked the cards from everyone else and deliberated over whether or not I would be allowed to use it.

In my favor was a reputation for clean play (I didn’t get a warning all weekend) and the complete implausibility that I’d choose this card to sneak into the draft. She was only made viable by having two Hellfire 1-drops to KO, and it’s possible that I would have been better off with Empath (to turn X-Treme Maneuver face down).

The judges eventually ruled in my favor, but fate decided that Madelyne wouldn’t hit the table all day, thus removing any question of me benefiting from a ruling that could easily have gone either way.

I was confident about going 2-1 with the deck until I got paired against Doug Tice in the first round. He was the only member of the Donkey Club who’d overcome their British curse, and he’d done it in style; this was going to be a tough one.

On turn 1, I made a Hellfire Club Initiate and attacked for 1. By turn 7, that same Initiate had exhausted to both copies of X-Treme Maneuver. With only the Initiate left to attack, Doug was down to 1 endurance, one card in hand, and a concealed Shadowcat. He knew the top two cards of his deck (because of Scanner) and opted to keep his 8-cost Magneto in hand rather than go into a turn 8 that he couldn’t win. The Hellfire Club Initiate won the closest game of Vs. I have ever played.

At 13-4, I got paired with (then) current Pro Circuit Champion (and hard lock for Top 8) Vidianto Wijaya. He gave my tiebreakers a welcome boost while demonstrating why he was in the #1 spot.

Going into the final game, I was quietly confident. There was a good chance of winning with this deck and a good chance of making it as the top 13-6 if I lost. My opponent, Eric Hunter, could still make it as the second 13-6 but would be unable to match my first tiebreaker even if he beat me. That wasn’t going to stop Eric from giving it his best shot; he wanted revenge for the eighth round defeat on Day 1.

For the second time in nine rounds, my resource row began with an X-Corp: Paris followed promptly by X-Corp: Hong Kong and X-Corp: Amsterdam. That kind of deck manipulation made Sage, Tessa look tame, and some good plays from Eric were not enough to stop me from progressing to 14-5.

I’d overestimated how many of the 12-6s would be playing each other, and the tournament ended with nine players on 14-5. That would be a beating for whoever missed out on Top 8, but a good start to Day 1 and strong performances from almost all of my opponents (thanks) were enough to ensure that it wasn’t me.

Join me next time for Day 3.

Ian “#83 Wide Receiver” Vincent