6:17 PM - What’s Your Flavor?
Who says you can’t have fun playing at a Pro Circuit? Both Tommy Ashton and Adam Prosak got into the spirit of the comics in their 9th round match. Adam was playing a curve Shadowpact deck against Tommy’s Villains / Checkmate Fate deck, but what was special about this match was the witty banter in which both players engaged.
Tommy: “You suck!” (after Adam plays a Detective Chimp, Shoeless Gumshoe)
Adam: “No, no . . . read the card, everyone sucks but me!”
Adam: “Say my name, Billy.” (after playing a Shazam)
Tommy: (whispers) “Billy.”
You can tell these guys love playing Vs. System. Adam recently created a casual format called Big Deck that he mentioned in his VsRealms article series. Basically, all you do is play a “Highlander” deck (a deck that may only have one copy of any one card), and you need to have at least ten characters represented from four different teams. Also, one other thing . . . Enemy of My Enemy is banned! Adam and Tommy played this format yesterday and had a blast. I think I’m going to go and make my own Big Deck deck and challenge Adam. I’ll try to get more coverage of the battle of Big Decks tomorrow.
4:05 PM - Top Table Metagame
The top tables are teeming with different decks—five different creations are populating the top ten matches!
Table 1 – Good Guys vs. Villains United / Checkmate
Table 2 – Secret Society (KO pile + Fate Artifacts) vs. Good Guys
Table 3 – Secret Society (KO pile + Fate Artifacts) vs. Villains United / Checkmate
Table 4 – Good Guys vs. Villains United (Chomin Burn)
Table 5 – Rock of Eternity vs. Good Guys with Fate
Table 6 – Villains United / Checkmate vs. Villains United / Checkmate
Table 7 - Villains United / Checkmate vs. Mono-Checkmate
Table 8 - Villains United / Checkmate vs. Good Guys
Table 9 - Villains United / Checkmate vs. Secret Society / Checkmate
Table 10 - Villains United / Checkmate vs. Villains United / Checkmate
Though Villains / Checkmate is dominating the top tables, it is important to note that most of those builds differ by more than twenty-five percent of the deck. There are a lot of ways to build that deck, though most center around using Ahmed Samsarra and Dr. Fate’s Tower to build the biggest character on the block. Good Guys is taking a relative beating, with a few less decks appearing at the top than percentages indicate should be there. Secret Society seems to be a strong contender, with Deadshot, Floyd Lawton and Straight to the Grave powering their way through a multitude of different decks.
The Shadowpact decks are hovering just below the surface, with Neil Reeves piloting the Donkey Club homebrew to a 5-1 record. Don’t be surprised if these decks make a late surge; with players this good and a deck that intricate, they get more powerful with each passing round.
2:48 PM - Going Down the Tubes
I’m sure that everyone has had had their bad beat stories, but Cedric Phillips and Ryan Lockhard just related losses to me that really have me feeling a little sorry for them. Both of their opponents beat them with Teleport Tube. “Teleport Tube?” I hear you ask. Yes, that misunderstood rare from Justice League of America has reared its ugly head in DC Modern Age in some of the Good Guys lists.
Cedric said that his opponent had four characters each with an Nth Metal on them, a Fire, and a John Henry Irons ◊ Steel. He then team attacked with all of them, played Teleport Tube after Fire had triggered, readied them all, used Kooey Kooey Kooey to fetch another Teleport Tube, did it again, and then attack with his characters for real, finally ending the barrage with four activations of John Henry’s power-up power.
With that much Fire going round, you’d better get out of the Kitchen!
1:32 PM - Flawless Victory
Tommy Ashton likes winning in style, and in the fifth round, he was playing $10K champion and all-around fun guy Josh Wiitanen. Tommy is playing a pretty standard Checkmate / Villains United deck, while Josh is playing a more interesting Checkmate / JSA / The Rock of Eternity concoction. Their match began pretty slowly, with a Connie Webb and an Atom Smasher giving no cause for attack. Josh played a Black Thorn on the second turn, and combined with Tommy’s Dr. Psycho, Mental Giant, attacking on turn 2 wasn’t profitable, either. Both players had Ahmed Samsarra on turn 3 for yet another unproductive turn endurance-wise; both players entered the fourth turn with 50 endurance.
Tommy had the initiative on turn 4 and recruited a Fatality, Flawless Victory. Josh recruited a Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero. Seeing an opening, Tommy used Ahmed to search for a Satellite HQ and activated it so Fatality could attack Josh’s Ahmed. Even though Josh tried to save him with a flurry of power-ups with Katar Hol backup, Tommy was able to use two Brother Eyes to force the stun and finish win on the first attack of the game.
“Finish him!” Indeed.
12:23 PM - Clone Wars
Neil Reeves is playing the Shadowpact Magic deck, and when I saw the beginning of his match, he was struggling after missing his 1- and 2-drops (it’s a low curve deck). At the end of the round, I came over again and saw a remarkable board of two (!) Manitou Dawn; two (!) Blackbriar Thorn; a Zatanna, Magical Manipulator; a Dr. Occult; and a Madame Xanadu. He was able to get all these characters into play with the help of the master cloner Lex Luthor ◊ Mockingbird and It’s Not Over Yet.
Not only that, one of Neil’s Blackbriar Thorns had seventeen +1 ATK / +1 DEF counters on him! Even though his opponent had a very good board of Ahmed Samsarra; Bizarro, ME AM BIZARRO #1; Elimination Protocol ◊ OMAC Robot; and the full Fate Artifact set, Neil was able to attack for lethal endurance loss. “It was the best possible hand I could draw,” he remarked, flashing me the two copies of Magical Lobotomy in his resource row.
11:05 AM - Magical Mystery Tour
Some of the members of the Donkey Club have brought an innovative Shadowpact deck to this Pro Circuit. It attempts to go off by getting a Zatanna, Magical Manipulator and a Blackbriar Thorn into play and playing as many Magic plot twists as possible. This isn’t that unusual a strategy, but they’ve decided to team-up with the Secret Six via Help Wanted in order to utilize Scandal, Savage Spawn and Lex Luthor ◊ Mockingbird to get out multiple Zatannas with which to draw even more cards. They have an unusually low character count in this deck to ensure long chains of magical spells.
Magical Lobotomy and Collecting Souls allow for a good matchup against Good Guys, and Transmutation holds the Checkmate and JSA Rock of Eternity decks to an honest standard. The deck is a wonder to behold when it is going off, and with players of their skill level, it’s certain that at least some of their number will have great records at the end of Day 1.
9:53 AM - Good Guys and Bad Guys
The DC Modern Age format was initially written off as one that would be dominated by the Fate Artifacts, and while they have been a powerful force, there are still plenty of ways for other decks to thrive. Every major team in Justice League of America and Infinite Crisis is represented in the field—and not just in a cursory way. I have seen everything from a Secret Society leader deck to a The Rock of Eternity–based JSA exhaustion deck.
But by far the most prevalent deck is Good Guys, which I’m sure nearly all of you are familiar with. The JLA / JLI team-up has been a powerhouse in every format; it even won the last Golden Age $10K! Many players have defaulted to this option, thinking that the combination of Fire and John Henry Irons ◊ Steel is too potent to forgo. But there is a significant portion of players who have decided that Ahmed Samsarra, White King deserves yet another title on the heels of Ian Vincent’s victory in San Francisco. Stay tuned for more in-depth metagame coverage . . . and to see if the Good Guys are up to the task!