It's a cunning ploy.

Every other booster will be empty except for a fat Matter-Eater lad.

That isn't the whole story. As a spectator of the match, Rowesbud didn't get the winning kill until the match was under 10 minutes. I could understand if he KO'd Howard the Duck in the first 3 minutes. Spending the next 47 minutes running. It wasn't his intention of running the whole time.
I understand that many people don't like running out the clock. In the same situation, I think I would have kneeled the ball and went for the win even if I don't play like that.

Sadly, I wasn't able to attend due to both my friends backing out in the last minute. Needless to say, I was bummed (we will be at Gencon, though). Seems like it was a great tournament. Any word on the total number of unique players (or at least in the grinders)? I just wish there was another way to qualify than just Sealed. Seems rough, IMO. Congrats, rowesbud on your win!

For the record, I think Jarimy makes good points, and I agree with what he says:

1. To me, map choice is not as important, especially with the new map restrictions. Add to that the new theme team PCs, it really doesn't matter as much as you are losing maps AND theme team PCs.

2. I think that Metron is a much scarier figure to deal with than Nightcrawler. I think the fact that Metron is 195 points and Nightcrawler is only 86 points has something to do with the perception that Nightcrawler is scarier, but at our venue, Metron is much more feared, so I am not surprised that a Metron team won.

I am also quite surprised that Kid Zoom had as much impact as he did. I think there were quite a few people (including me) that was arguing with someone on another thread (Metagame thread, maybe) on how bad KZ was and he was the only one backing KZ. Well, we now have egg on our face, lol. Shows how much we know.

I would love to see a list of ALL the Top 16 team lists on one post (maybe even a bracket to see which ones won?) instead of having to search for them in 43 pages.

Weeks? Puh-lease...I'm going to make sure you remember that mistake every week from now until, well, until I forget to keep reminding you.

Rep for being the only person to say "yea I was wrong" and move along about it, rather then still trying to argue against unarguable facts.

I'm not sure all 16 teams have been posted, I think just top 8. Try somewhere around page 34 I think is where the talk started.

I'll own up to doubting Kid Zoom as well. Not sure if I ever said it, I may have and don't recall posting it, but I know I thought that any Kid Zoom team wouldn't have had a real shot. Hell, I'm pretty sure that I never even put him into my box of potential metagame figures. I am happy to be proven wrong though and a big congrats to Rowesbud on the win with Zoomtron.

And Norm probably hasn't seen this thread, but I'd imagine that he'll post the Top 16 teams at some point. He posted last year's Gencon Top 16 and the ones for Clixathon so I imagine he'll do the same for this.

For those of you there, what was the format for Top 16? Was it single elimination or something else?

I wanted to point this out as it's something I see a lot but have never really experienced. I've been to a lot of conventions and large tournaments for a lot of different games and I will say that I think I've ran into more people like this at the local level than I have at conventions/large tournaments. There's a perception that if someone goes to play at Nationals or Worlds or another large event that a bunch of Graysons are going to come out and it's going to be a horrible day. I can tell you that I've never ever had that experience. I can count on one hand the number of unpleasant guys that I've faced at large events, and when I compare it to the various local events I've played, the local number is a LOT larger. The current local group I play with is full of great guys, but having played Heroclix, D&D Minis, Star Wars Minis, WOW Minis, Mage Knight, and Mage Knight 2.0, I've run into my share of unpleasant gamers over the years.

Mike Houghton was saying something like after they got down to 4 they cut it there. Something like he had a chance top play in the final round and make it all the way to 4th, but wasn't given the chance because they went down to 4 and they played for the title/top 4.

Yep. Turtling is actually ok. It's setting up your position and not budging. I don't like it as a strategy as it usually requires your opponent to go into your trap, which will not work against a good player or anyone who can see it coming.

I ran into this playing one of my (less than mobile) Mindless Ones teams. I hid behind the power battery on the new Oa map and made my opponent's Tk-ing Running shot-having Lanterns team come to me. was it turtling? probably. what where my alternatives?

That's not really turtling. That's waiting for an opening. If you ran in that would have been foolish. If I fought that I wouldn't care. It is people that kill one guy then just hide that piss me off. Or use HSS to just ping a guy to death while they are ahead.

So someone should just HSS in and then stay next there in order to give their opponent a chance to hit their figure? Brilliant!

There's nothing wrong with it or with doing it, it requires your opponent to come to you and fight on your terms, which like I said, most good players likely won't do or will find a way to still engage but do so with little or no retaliation.

The first big event I went to was a Premiere event for Masterpiece Magneto back in 2004. In the Semi-Finals I faced a guy who had turtled in every one of his previous matches. It just so happened that I was able to get up to him and alpha strike him early on before he could set it up and he wasn't able to handle getting hit that hard that early. Had he gotten fully setup and not left me an opening, I'm not really sure I could have won that game.

I don't believe that strategies like SIF, where you KO 1 piece and sit there and barrier the rest of the game, is a strategy that should be in the game. But if you are ahead in points, and it logically makes sense to not sit there and allow your opponent to get attacks in on you, and the best way to do this is to reposition yourself to a better situation, it definitely is not "Not how the game should be played!" or "Superman wouldn't hide!"

People on message boards talk a lot about how they would charge in and basically hand their opponent a victory when in the championship game/round of a major event. I'd love to see it for one. And I also don't think it makes you more pure of a player, or staying true to the game, it just makes you I can't think of a word that's not insulting, I'm not trying to insult anyone, but almost stupid but not stupid really. I don't see how handing your opponent a win is playing the game right. The point of the game is to have fun, but at a major event it's also to win.

To thanosstar... Yeah. I did. He tagged my Nurse at about the halfway point and went for the evacuation. It took me until about the ten minute mark to finish off his Mask Killer. Then, staring down the barrel of a full health Gamora, a Mjolnir wielding Diana Prince, a tie-up Nightcrawler and 2 Perplexes, I ran. My Metron had an attack of 9, KZ was at 8. Engaging anywhere would have been foolhardy. Pick up game? Throw down like a clown Charlie Brown. Nationals? Duh, winning.

To tyro... yeah, the answer to the map debate, as always, is probably somewhere in the middle. I DO think that the current map restrictions at GenCon make me lead more toward Jarimy's opinion. With limited maps available, I think the biggest reason to build theme would be if your pieces required a particular map element to be as effective (Cap, Storm). Otherwise, Prison/Arkham/Crash Site/Oa? Seems like you could play most teams on any of those maps with proper planning. I'll agree with you that a few stand outs... Bridge/Crater/Lab that either directly enhance or inhibit long range/LoF do have an effect. Soooo... I'm a moderate.

To spawn10... you know, until I actually made the finals, I used to always wonder why people didn't just list the top 16. But man, having been there now, I was totally freaking out. I'll post the MOST I can remember below, without players, because that would be even harder. And people can add. Maybe we'll get the whole list.