Random Punks: A Tourney report!

We had a local random punks event this past weekend. It was nice being able to bust out the older cards. And in a meta rife with some killer weenie builds i was pretty happy trying something a little more off the beaten path.

I brought heralds/checkmate.

yep.
worldeater was surprisingly helpful in stretching out the early rat's laugh burn. and a timely stamford incident on 4 chained to the recruit of mind gem. pretty much buried their ability to fish deep into the deck for the burninator cards. after that, human torch for the epic lifegain pretty much sealed it. So yeah when a deck... hell ANY deck can test with a positive winning record against rat's laugh i have to say I feel pretty confident.

Except no-one played rat's laugh.

ok... at least i have a good matchup against...wait what?

No-one played quicksyn or quickfate either.

well then. this might be interesting

our event consisted of:

2x Shield burn
1x IG hidden
1x IG army rush
1x GCPD officer KO swarm (no really. it was awesome!)
1x BPRD/Fan4 Fartifact abuse
1x BPRD/marvel knights punisher abuse
1x Anti-Green-Lantern rush
1x Checkmate/Heralds (me!)
1x Darkseid's elite resource control
1x Morlocks last stand
1x Underworld Morlun lifegain

A unique meta with almost 50% of the playfield being varying 1 drop army swarm-tactics.
Good thing Silver Surfer can grab those Stamford Incidents! All i really had to do was survive until four against them.

My biggest weakness was utterly forgetting to replace a worldship for a sattelite HQ. I didn't even realize i didnt have it in the build until i went to search for it against a hidden batman 5 (during my match against GCPD) and had to get brother eye instead.

so this is my ideal list, as it SHOULD have been.


Galactus loves milkshakes, Random punks edition.


Characters (26)
4x Connie webb

4x Silver Surver

3x Ahmed
1x Frankie Raye

2x The Captain
4x Silver Surver

1x Roy harper
1x Silver Surfer
1x Mr. Sinister

1x The Fallen One
1x Dr. Light

1x Sasha Bordeaux
1x Morg

1x Tyrant

Plot Twists (15)
2x The Stamford Incident
1x You Dare?
2x Kindred Spirits
3x Cover Fire
2x Press the Attack
2x Death of the Dream
1x Pacification
2x Pathetic Attempt

Locations (18)
4x Checkmate Safehouse
3x Worldship
1x Satellite HQ
1x Worldeater
1x Elemental Converters
1x Alias Investigations
1x Brother Eye
4x Brother Eye Satellite
1x Dr. Fate's Tower
1x Soul World

Equipment (1)
1x Cloak of nabu

a good friend of mine asked me,
"What on earth is that supposed to do?"

"Everything."

The only card i couldn't manage to fit no matter how i tried, was hawkeye's bow. i wanted to be able to snipe a quicksilver on turn 2 in response to an artifact equip. In the end it's just as well since quicksilver never showed.

As for what the deck does?
It answers.

got a rush?
Stamford incident
Unstunnable, untargetable attacker?
You Dare?
problematic 3 or less character?
Worldship + Satellite HQ
heavy burn?
Worldeater
Heavy effect issues?
Mr. Sinister

Subsidizing the general stall/lifegain was some fun interactions i snuck in as well. Morg + pacification and a brother eye helped deal with any early fated fours. Silver Surfer on 5 kept the theme going, followed by the Fallen One and Morg7 for a potential empty board going into 8.
Of course for out of combat tricks i tossed in a Dr. Light, arthur light, for both a turn 6 stunner OR a win condition on 9. While he came in handy against problematic hidden threes off init, i never actually got to turn 9 in the tourney.

So how did it do?
well with 12 players that put us at a 4 round tournament, followed by a top 4 break.

Game 1
Darkseids Elite resource control.

The army one drops don't do much against face up Locations. after missing his 4 and his 5, a multi swinging 6 (thank you press!) ended it. Bad luck for him.

1-0

Game 2
Morlocks

I was a bit nervous about this one. Since Worldship only returns lowbies to the owners hand during the combat phase. On turn 3 i Death of the Dreamed his 5 into the row replacing the alley. he laughed and flipped a second alley only then realizing it didn't stop the worldship i had flipped. Oh four storm came to the party, and i threw down Human Torch. At the start of combat i dropped a Stamford Incident forcing his swarm back to his hand. (yay element of surprise!) leaving him unable to do any shrapnel blast/last stand shenanigans. After missing his 5, i cleared up his underdropped board, and he scooped when he missed his 6.

2-0

Game 3
GCPD ko

i LOVE this deck. Seriously. Those gcpd's get big. by turn 5 he had batman powering up his attackers, had the tim drake to team-up with teen titans, had a face up GCPD headquarters for the 3 or more ko shenanigans, multiple teen titans go!, a face up Gotham Central for +1 to all support row G-knights AND commissioner gordon for a +1+1 global army pump.
That's a 4/3 attacking 1 drop. three of em is 12 atk and a ko. He had easily, 5 inplay. What might have been a horrible blowout was saved entirely by Stamford Incident. Going into 6 i revealed the second stamford, compliments of silver surver and it was over. I never enjoyed losing my hand so much.

3-0

Game 4
BPRD/fan 4

Hellboy with fartifacts. easy enough in premise. I underdropped on 5 looking for a cover fire brickfest since i had 2 in hand, but on 7 i got SERVED by an overstatted hellboy and a fully fated thing spinning my board down to 2. A bad time to be off init. I didn't see Thing coming until it was far too late. His win. And man playing that 6 drop Mr. Fantastic to DRAW FIVE CARDS wasn't too fail either.

3-1

After 4 rounds due to a come from behind win against to top ranked seed, we had no player undefeated. the group was having some fun so we unanimously decided to play 1 more round before cutting to the top 4. taking me to:

Game 5
IG army Rush

Officially making Stamford Incident my personal MVP of this tourney, there wasn't much he could do. I dropped a mr. sinister on 5 for overkill and pressed into the win on 6. Playing a stamford on turns 5 and 6 stunning 13 characters in total! definately a personal best for one card's kill count. (surfer + alias + elemental converters was amazing after perpetually losing your hand twice in a row)

4-1

Semifinals:
BPRD/fan 4

my semifinal match was against my only loss. knowing what was coming however, i opted for my "plan B" curve, hitting silver Surfer on 5, fallen one on 6 and Morg on 7, he seldom had more than 1 character left in play. On turn 8 i actually recruited Tyrant, used his effect to remove the hidden character, and sent my 7 into his 7 with a brother eye, revealing my alt 7 for the spin. faceshots later it was my win. Revenge is sweet.

5-1

Finals
Morlocks

By this point it had been a fun LONG day, and my opponent graciously conceded the match, not wanting to deal with worldeater i suppose. (the alley doesn't save it, neither does yancy street) So while "officially" i got the top finish. (i'm sure he could have put a hurt on me, though.)
Anyways, prizes are awarded, everyone lands a PILE of alt arts, stackers and promos, whilst i get to claim not one, but TWO EA total anarchies! with a decent pile of shwag to boot.

Afterwards super galactus (2 coming of galactuses combined into 1 for playsets) had his way with us and some casual gaming was had before our ritualistic raiding of the local diner before we parted ways.

It'll be september before the next local tourney i can attend, And it'll be our local scenes first take on the Block Format that has been taking the online play at vssystem.org by storm.

I can't wait to see how that goes!