You say you rambled, but I honestly thought this was one of your best episodes ever. Honest and frank discussion about multiple perspectives of competitive vs casual

Thanks, that means a lot.

Agreed. I enjoyed all of the episode but I especially appreciated the frank discussion of the multiple perspectives of competitive and casual. I recognized a lot of myself in different parts there, lots of good food for thought on what I'm doing and what I want to do in the game.

This is easily one of the best episodes you guys have ever done. It's a discussion I have a lot with the header of my LCS since we have such a small following and all the players, save him and me, are all under or around a year of experience. I've been playing since the Avengers movie set and I got into the game, like many of us, because of wanting to play the characters and with my two favorite characters/villains being Shredder and Carnage. I'm ecstatic because this is the time to shine for both of those characters in this game but it makes it hard to want to play those characters and not feel like a jerk so restraint is needed on my end and it's been tough sometimes. You guys are awesome for talking about this and I hope there's more discussions like this in the future!

There's decent but not broken Shredders and Carnage figures that can be used...

And I've had the discussion with my players many times that the other option is to play the broken stuff but not being a jerk about it. (Not saying that you're being a jerk, btw)

Huzzah! You're back! I've had to rely on Dial H for so long, it's nice to hear your voices again. If you're struggling to find people to chat with, I can volunteer my time, but I imagine you can probably find much more experienced players. I'm sure I can be interesting, but I'm not a great player.
On your discussion, I'm going to defend the use of big figs, or "old reliable." I'm rather introverted, & my mental state can sometimes fluctuate. Sometimes, I end up a ball of nerves where I want to play, but I'm just not ready for complex thought that day. I always enjoy some Heroclix, but sometimes I just don't have it in me to deal with lots of subtle positioning. When I play fighter video games, I often play the big brutes (Hulk, Astaroth, Zangief, etc.) because they don't often need as much thought. I just crush through stuff. Now, they're still not brainless plays, and neither is a big Dormammu (also one of my favorite figures). If you're going to make one big gun, you've got to make each of your plays count that much more. It's just all focused on mainly one piece. I love playing OMAs for that reason, but ultimately if you do a OMA, you're going to go against another OMA at some point, and then you're just chucking dice. The real heart of this game is its positioning, as any good miniatures game should, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to be the big archenemy.
Now, it sounds like I'm an awful lot like Tony the way you describe him. I don't follow the comics, but I appreciate the characters. I'm not into the Avengers too much, but like I said, I love brutes enough that I'll find an excuse to bring a Hulk sometimes. Sometimes a piece will be a character I don't know well, but will be an entertaining enough gimmick I'll want to try it. I don't actually know the Rat King, certainly not the TMNT2 set version, and yet he just brings so much that I love into a beautiful package. I've never heard of Big Tony, but one day I'm going to field 20 of him (at the very least turn someone into a big glass cannon). I'll usually base my team around whatever that week's special conditions are, either fully embracing it (I need just 1 Past character, so I'll make a Past theme team) or corrupting it (I need 1 Past, I'll make it Renet Tilley and bring you a Future team). Plenty of times I'll find one or two characters I like and see who works best of them, within theme if I can help it. Rarely will I ever pick a "comic-accurate" team. One event we're having soon requires everyone to be from a video game, so I'll go full acceptance and make it all from the same game, but that's about as close as I'll get. It's just my style. I'm pretty much the mass market DC/Marvel targets: those who know like the characters more than the stories that feature them. Now yeah, you're absolutely right, one should know when the cheese stinks too hard and find a way to make a team interesting without that. I apparently am not good at that, and my list of self-bans is starting to grow a bit...
Agreed that this was a great episode. It's thought-provoking. I've kind of had an epitome lately that the best superhero movies are the ones that have you thinking philosophically. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is just a free sample of a psychiatry textbook with all the issues everyone has. Wonder Woman had you think about war & peace as concepts. Black Panther dealt with what it means to be an oppressed people, and which way you're going to react to it: isolationist, revolutionary, peacemaker, etc. This was a community episode that forced a lot of self-reflection. We don't get enough philosophical Heroclix talk IMO.

Wow. I'm really pleased with the reaction this episode is getting. So happy that you all enjoyed it so much. I should have the next episode up in a couple days. Hope you enjoy that one as much.

WHY are HeroClix?

I really enjoy playing pornstar Namor (Civil War) with "Giganto" and "Giganto & Namor"

In Casual it was strong, it was really fun, and the game never get one sided. Against the meta player in the casual, it was able to wipe out all of UniMinds support but just couldnt hang with the eternal. The free quake after movement in this set is amazing!

^ totally agree. i didn’t feel like it was rambling and the episode actually ended quicker than i than I was expecting (but then again maybe i was just that into the topic).

Having visited several different venues in my “clix career” I can say that playing to your audience is defeinitely the most slippery of slopes. First and foremost I’m a comics fan and a theme collector, but I do enjoy the competitive side of the game as well. For me that is one of the things that I appreciate the most with more obviously competitive events (such as wko’s, ROC’s, etc): I don’t ever have to be worried about being labeled “the guy that brought the cheese”. However on the other side of the coin, as fun as it is for me to journey to a new venue and meet new people who are into the same addictive game as I am it always brings a little bit of stress to my team-building. Do I play fun-theme? Do I play a well-thought-out team?

And playing at the home venue offers the same challenges, although I do find it easier than others. Some people just cannot wrap their head around not “aiming for the fences”. It was great to hear about how the Powells are mixing it up with your crew. I saw some of Daniel’s first builds when he started attending your venue’s events and I was like “jeeeeeez” *tugs shirt collar*. It’s like you said: a great player knows how to play to their crowd. The tough part can be addressing the player who cannot. You don’t want to hurt feelings and you don’t want to single anyone out or shame them, but at the same time not every venue is trying to foster the meta.

I guess to speak to both sides, it’s important to remember that people want to play what they like and everyone likes something different, be it brutally powerful pieces or teams that resemble their favorite characters. But the name of the game is “let’s all try to have a good time” and if that isn’t happening the majority of the time or attendance has noticeably dropped then players need to ask themselves why and, if they are the problem, what is it worth?

(sorry for a bit of my ramble but i just finished the episode after a long night of an odd work shift and wanted to throw my 2 cents in)

p.s. does Tony listen to the cast? sheerly curious

While you personally are more of the competitive type, you did pretty much nail it. It's rough trying to make it a fair, enjoyable game for everyone in attendance while also making it something that you find enjoyable. The bigger your crowd, the harder it is. Sometimes it can bring unexpected results, though. I inspired one of our players to purchase 3 Rat Kings because of how irritating it was for me to play it against him (which, honestly, would be a really scary team all things considered). I absolutely love the Phoenix, and love playing Phoenix Force. Whenever I do though, I feel really bad for, to paraphrase Jeremiah, winning without trying, because it's just too good for the average team.

Not regularly, no.