The End of Wolverine Month! 6-26-05

Let me start by saying, I'm not a big fan of Wolverine. I was back in 6th & 7th grade, when I first discovered comics, but since then he's become the most played-out, least interesting character in the entire realm of comics...so, I'm glad to see the end of Wolverine month at Little Shop.

Yesterday's tournament was a sealed deck, but youhad to bring a Wolverine to put on your team. The boosters we were using were (wait for it...) Hypertime! They gave us 3 HT boosters for $10, which wasn't a bad deal, and each player had to build a 300 point team & include a Wolverine figure...

So my team became:
V Brainiac 13
R Batman
E Riddler
Universe Starter Wolverine

I have to admit, I wasn't feeling too good about it. Only Batman's TA was at all useful, & only Brainiac had decent range or damage...at least I had Perplex.

There were 5 of us to show up:
Brenden & Liad, the brothers
Mike
Ethan
& myself.

I played Mike first, & Ethan played Brendedn, with Liad getting the bye.

Mike's team was about as impressive as my own, but he was using a Vet Patch, Vet Solomon Grundy, R Hawk, R Gorilla Grodd & V Man-Bat.Mike made an early tactical error, & setup just 1 square outside Brainiac's range...but I had 1 Perplex on my team which I used to great advantage. We had a lot of back & forth. I lost Riddler eventually & Mike nearly took out Brainiac, but I pulled it out losing very little. On the other table, Ethan had beaten Brenden pretty severely, but Mike got the bye 2nd round.

Round 2 was me vs. Ethan.I still had never beaten Ethan, & it didn't look like it was going to be my day...in addition to being a VERY good player, Ethan had the very best pull of us all: a U Flash, along with a R Plastic Man for Perplex. He chose a V Logan for his Wolvie & rounded out the team with a V Dove & R Aquaman just because he needed to be able to cause mroe damage. To make things worse, he had the lower build total, so I really had to come to him, which was a death sentence. So, I didn't do it, & we stared at each other accross the board for the entire game. He wouldn't come out of his turtle & I was NOT simply going to throw my pieces away in a stupid attempt to break the shell with pieces that were simply not up to the task. If I had had had ONE piece with a move & attack power, I'd've ried it, but as it was, any piece that moved against him was doomed. So, I lost, but I salvaged my points. I HATE games like this. Ethan's a great player, but this is the only side of him I don't like. Brenden had beaten his brother, so he got to play Ethan next round.

I played Liad. Up until now, I had had a problem with the older brother & then resolved it, but I hadn't really had much interaction with the little brother. Well, it turns out that the litle brother cheats. It's really just that simple, sadly. I actually caught him at it, but he played it off as a "mistake", so I let it go this once. I talked to the judge about it afterwards, & the next time it happens, little brother & I are both going to the hospital...but I'll just be there to get my shoe back.

Anyway, I handed the kid his head & made it into the finals against...can you guess? Ethan. *sigh*

Despite how annoying the turtle game was, I still like Ethan & was looking forward to trying my luck again. Heck, it HAD to be better than playing against a known cheater. We chatted about it while we played (Ethan & I) & it turns out that he had caught the kid cheating, too. I'm going to have to count every click that kid takes from now on. *sigh*

So, I spread out a bunch to make Flash have to run as much as possible, but the end of the game really was a foregone conclusion. At the end, with only Wolverine & Brainiac left, I tried a desperation move: I dropped them into the middle of Etha's formation, relying on my Impervious rolls to save me & let me take all of his guys out. I actually made the first 2 Impervious rolls...just enough to get my hopes up so they could be dashed.

Ethan had both prizes already, so he actually let me choose which one I wanted: I took Lois Lane & he took Connor Kent.

So, some days it doesn't pay to play boldly, but usually it does. It's a game of heroes, but watch out for cheaters.