There was some controversy among the PCQ set when the cards from the Spider-Man Vs. Doc Ock starters became legal for Constructed tournament play on June 1, even though the starters were not available in all areas until sometime after the first of the month. This tournament was the first major event to include the cards, and the cards were available to everyone who needed them—if they were willing to buy enough starters.
There were a number of players with cards like Jet Pack and No Fear. Many Brotherhood decks chose to use the plot twist to augment their arsenal of aggressive cards. Joey Pruett was one such player, and he explained, “No Fear is essentially another Flying Kick for me that I can use each way. I am running four copies each of No Fear, Flying Kick, and Savage Beatdown.”
Others chose to use more than just a few random cards from the starter decks and opted to buy multiple decks so they could essentially play with four copies each of their favorite characters. Local player Christopher Beck chose to run a deck that featured four copies of Venom: Eddie Brock, a card he calls, “Just too good. It can go in any deck.”
Christopher’s deck is built around a discard strategy that includes Sadistic Choice, Doom Triumphant, and Black Cat: Felecia Hardy. “I try to disrupt them early and then use Press the Attack with either the 6-drop Doom, Venom, or Doctor Octopus.” There were also two players at his table sporting Spider-Friends decks but, alas, they did not face off this round.
Mike Turian was playing a Sentinel deck that included ESU Science Lab. Mike was scrambling around this morning trying to find copies of the location card. “I was testing this morning and I found it to be really good in the mirror match and against Brotherhood decks.”
The deck that seemed to have captured most of the attention was being played by Billy Zonos. Billy was playing a stall deck that revolved around Xavier’s Dream and recurring Jean Grey, Phoenix Force with Avalon Space Station. To help him get to that position, he was relying on life gain from Madame Web and the ability to exhaust characters with Puppet Master and Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man. (Marvel Team-ups bring it all together.)
Apparently the deck has great match-ups against Doom decks and some of the slower Brotherhood decks, but does not fare well against Sentinel decks and the little Brotherhood decks. That is not a good thing to be vulnerable against for this tournament, and Billy started off 0-2, running into time issues in the third game both times.
Xavier’s Dream Team(Up)
Billy Zonos
Vs. 10 K Tournament
4 Longshot
3 Nightcrawler, Kurt Wagner
4 Puppet Master
4 Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
4 Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man
4 Madame Web
4 Rogue: Power Absorption
4 Jean Grey, Marvel Girl
4 Jean Grey, Phoenix Force
4 Xavier's Dream
3 Fastball Special
4 Twist of Fate
3 Night Vision
4 Press the Attack
4 Marvel Team-Up
3 Avalon Space Station
Upper Deck Entertainment’s Matt Hyra—who would prefer the deck to be called Spidey’s Dream—thought the deck was interesting and capable of a better record than it had after two rounds. He also implied that the deck should be an archetype worth keeping an eye on as more sets of cards are released. “The deck can win. It just needs . . . well, I better not say what it needs at this point,” teased Hyra with a sly grin. The full Web of Spider-Man set will be released in September.