Welcome back to Theoretically Speaking! It’s been almost a month since our last installment, thanks to Pro Circuit Los Angeles and the Legion of Super Heroes previews that have been rolling through Metagame.com. But fear not, faithful readers! I have used this time to collect a plethora of valuable information (and several amusing stories) with which to regale you. So sit back, relax, and get ready to take a ride to the theoretical side!
Predictions . . . More Like Corrections . . .
Next to Christmas, my favorite time of the year is the Pro Circuit. It is always a good time, regardless of how you finish in the event. Being able to see players you normally don’t get to see and converse with friendly rivals is a great experience.
With that being said, I owe a group of individuals an apology. Specifically, those individuals are The Donkey Club, affectionately referred to as TDC. In Ben Kalman’s Pro Circuit Primer, I predicted that only half of TDC would make Day 2 of the Pro Circuit. In actuality, TDC defied all odds and placed all but one of their competitors into the second day and four members in Day 3! So this is me saying congratulations to TDC on further cementing your status as the premier professional team in this wonderful game and eating my own words. Never again will I underestimate you so badly!
Golden Age is Back, Baby!
I have to admit this Pro Circuit is probably the most unique one that I have ever been to. Not since Pro Circuit New York was speculation so high about how the metagame would pan out. Given the predicted metagame, my team and I set out to develop the ultimate deck with which to prove our worth as one of the elite professional teams in Vs. System. And this brings us to why you are reading this article. What follows is a brief description of our deck preparation for this PC, which will hopefully help you learn from our strengths and weaknesses.
Initial Impressions
After Pro Circuit Indianapolis, testing was put on hold for the most part. As many of you know, I got married and took a good deal of time away from my teammates to celebrate. By the time we got back in full swing, it was the beginning of September and Tim and I met for a brainstorming session.
First and foremost, we had to determine what we expected to see at the Pro Circuit. I wrote several articles about what the predicted metagame for PC: LA was, so I won’t spend time on that here. Suffice to say, High Voltage and Teen Titans seemed to be the flavor of choice going into a new Golden Age.
Our normal protocol for preparing for a different format is to revisit decks that have had success in the past and determine if they are still viable. We brainstormed for a while about New School–type decks (decks abusing Wild Ride and Midnight Sons to get around loyalty and search problems) but decided that the endurance loss that Wild Ride created would be too difficult to use effectively when a predicted metagame suggested many potential turn 4 victories.
We next moved on to Rigged Elections. This deck has long been a favorite of Tim Batow’s, since he took it to a Top 8 finish at $10K Chicago 2005. Immediately, we found that the deck was unbelievably powerful but suffered when decks were packing specific hate cards. We feared many such cards would be present in the PC metagame, such as Mikado and Mosha, Betrayal, and any of the multitude of off-initiative tricks that Teen Titans could provide. Still, we kept this deck open as a possibility because it was almost like playing solitaire and required a specific amount of hate to be shut down.
The very next day, we came across Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage. We actually had mentioned him—as well as Speed Demon, James Sanders—the day before as a possible inclusion in the Rigged deck because they could both get you an extra counter with their abilities. It was at this point that we noticed Quicksilver’s very specific card text. There was no provision that you could not cause breakthrough on your second attack! Immediately, sirens went off in our minds that it would be theoretically possible to win on turn 2 given the perfect draw. So we went to work.
The next couple of weeks whizzed by while we essentially put together the list that we would take to the PC. Below is a copy of the list that we played:
Characters
1 Mikado and Mosha, Angels of Destruction
4 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4 Ted Kord ◊ Blue Beetle, Heir of the Scarab
4 Ape X, Xina
1 Micro-Chip, Linus Lieberman
1 Luna Maximoff, Only Human
4 Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
1 Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend
1 Human Torch, Sparky
1 Black Panther, King of Wakanda
1 Dewoz, Dark Reflection
Plot Twists
4 Flying Kick
4 Mega-Blast
3 Wild Ride
4 The Royal Guard
Locations
4 Dr. Fate’s Tower
4 Soul World
4 The Great Refuge
Equipment
4 Helm of Nabu, Fate Artifact
2 Cloak of Nabu, Fate Artifact
2 Amulet of Nabu, Fate Artifact
1 Advanced Hardware
1 Flamethrower
The deck really didn’t change much after we came up with a preliminary build. For a while, we lost the Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Tricksters for Rallying Cry, but we eventually decided to change back in favor of hand advantage over raw power. Likewise, we actually considered Mark Moonrider in the build to give the deck a third option for burning out opponents. He was ultimately cut to make room for Luna Maximoff, since he really didn’t provide much more than 5 endurance burn for 3 resource points.
Below are three cards that were on the bubble the week of the Pro Circuit that actually made our final decklist.
- Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend: In our testing, we found that if we made our Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage our mulligan condition, then we would almost always hit him by turn 3. But we wanted a little extra comfort for those times when you draw a The Great Refuge but can’t get both resources face up on turn 2. Adding in Lockjaw seemed an obvious choice because he could fetch Quicky, Luna Maximoff, or Human Torch, Sparky. In retrospect, we should have played more of him; all my teammates suffered from missing Quicksilver all day long.
- Luna Maximoff: She was a very late addition. And when I mean late, I mean like two days before we went to Los Angeles. She was tested for a long while but never blew us away. As we approached the PC, though, we became more and more frightened of the mirror and other decks that could potentially cause stunbacks on our initiative. By playing Luna, we made sure we’d get full use out of all of our ATK pumps by getting to swing twice, regardless of stunning on the first attack. Granted, I only played six matches all day long, but Luna did very little to help me. I found myself wishing that she was another copy of Lockjaw, as I missed Quicksilver more than any of my teammates did.
- Dewoz: He was another late addition because we were continually swapping back and forth between him and Luke Cage, Street Enforcer. Luke was getting support for his ability to swing into the hidden area, but after the bans came down we were less afraid of hidden characters and moved toward Dewoz instead. I really like Dewoz and think that he was a great call, especially going into an unknown environment. Unless your opponents are specifically playing cards that allow them to get into the hidden area, you will have an attacker who can swing back and also protect, and who can give another character the same ability.
As we approached the PC, our confidence was not as high as it had been earlier in testing. Still, we all felt that we had a solid chance at making Day 2 a money finish.
So What Happened?
Well, to put it bluntly, we missed the metagame. I had been a little hesitant about our deck as we approached the Pro Circuit, especially when I played a game against a local player who was playing a curve Heralds deck. He utterly destroyed the deck I just laid out for you. Actually, it was just Human Torch, Invisible Man who killed me. I was unable to swing for the kill because he would gain just enough to make it to the next turn, until he hit Galactus, The Maker and I was completely dominated. I was concerned about that, but at that point one of our potential back-ups, Rigged Elections, had been seriously hampered by the bans. Also, Tim and I decided that most individuals would not be playing Heralds. We stuck to our guns and said that High Voltage would be the deck of the hour. As the PC neared, I became less and less confident in that assessment, but it was time to win or go down with the ship.
The best way to sum up what happened is this: the metagame was so teched against High Voltage and Titans that the metagame in fact became the tech. We were all floored when we saw the plethora of decks being played (especially the appearance of Human Torch, Invisible Man teched in most decks). I managed a paltry 1-5, drop, while the rest of my teammates had more success. We ended up placing two players into Day 2 with 6-4 records, and my other two teammates barely missed out with 5-5 records.
After-thoughts?
Obviously, we made a mistake. We didn’t give the community at large enough credit to build a deck that could contend with High Voltage and Teen Titans. But, just like they say, through pain will come pleasure. As disappointed as I was (and trust me, if you saw me at the event, you knew I was dying inside), after I had a chance to digest everything I saw I was very pleased with this Pro Circuit. This was the Pro Circuit that was supposed to herald the end of the Golden Age Pro Circuit; instead, this Pro Circuit was the most wide-open metagame ever, proving that the game can adjust to itself.
Many individuals—including myself for a time—predicted that the metagame was out of control and that the only answer was to ban more cards or completely abandon Golden Age as a Pro Circuit format. Even when the bannings did come down, many people felt that the problem cards were not addressed, such as The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero and Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth. Yet the metagame turned out to be proof that the broken cards were taken care of. While the Stranger and Frankie showed up in many decks, they were not unstoppable and still provided the game with enough flavor and creativity to produce some truly unique creations.
What Would I Change?
Well, obviously the deck that I chose was a bad metagame call. I was very impressed with those individuals who decided to take the Arkham / Brotherhood Lost City deck. I watched my teammate Michael Barnes play against it in the seventh round when both players only had one loss. Mike ended up taking the match, but only narrowly; I honestly believed that the ability to pump out of most attacks was completely missed in the metagame. Tim Batow had said to me several times during testing that a Lost City variant would be very strong, but we never pursued the angle. It was somewhat satisfying that even with our losses some of our ideas proved to be a strong choice in the open environment.
What Have We Learned?
Well, to be honest, the lesson here is one of experience. I often refer to various metagames in an attempt to discern patterns and to help build skills for predicting the upcoming fields at future events. This is an example of how far off you can get if you keep your viewpoint very static. If we had been more flexible and given more individuals credit for creativity, we may have been able to move past the generally accepted thought that everyone would default to High Voltage. I urge you, as I will urge my team, to look outside the box in the future. I don’t know if this Pro Circuit was an anomaly where the metagame swung in a completely different direction than expected in response to one deck. What I do know is that we should strive to create a deck that can never be surprised when something we hadn’t considered pops up across the table.
In the End
I hope you enjoyed this brief look at the Pro Circuit Los Angeles metagame and my team’s choice for the event. I honestly believe that if we continue to view these little setbacks as learning tools, we can all become better players together. Hopefully, by showcasing some mistakes I made, I have spared you the pains of having to make them yourself. Only time will tell if the metagame can ever truly be predicted efficiently, but until then, we can keep trying to build the best deck possible given the information we have at hand. Take care and keep working!
Shane Wiggans, one of the nicest guys with a tattoo sleeve, is also a member of Team Alternate Win Condition and would like to congratulate fellow Metagame.com contributor Adam Prosak on his Pro Circuit Championship. If you have any questions or comments for him, feel free to say hey at any event or email him at piercedlawyer@yahoo.com.