This was my first PCQ and the pretty much the only playing that I have been doing, besides some apprentice games with Dr. Doom, and a few other. My play testing consisted mainly of me playing against myself using apprentice.

I played FF Beatdown (A modified Baker Bumper Car Deck)

4 She-Thing
4 Luke-Cage
4 She-Hulk (3 drop)
4 Thing (3)
4 Invisible Woman (4)
1 Wolverine (4)
4 Mr. Fantastic (Stretch)
1 Ghost Rider
4 Hulk
2 Thing
1 Invisible Woman (8)
4 Fantastic
1 Personal Forcefield
4 Signal Flare
4 It's Clobberin Time
4 Savage Beatdown
4 Tech Upgrade
4 Acrobatic Dodge
2 Entangle


I felt that Pasttimes was a great place for the pcq, lots of room, tables and well air-conditioned. Ok that aside let get to onto the meat. I met alot of great people, got my hands on my 4th Savage Beatdown, and was able to actually play with real people.

First round, I am horrible with names played against Freedom's Four combo lockdown. Basically the FF deck that did well in Phily. He was a pro magic player and took me down hard game one. He was quick with his plays and watching like a hawk trying to catch me making a mistake. It was a little nerve racking. I respect his seriousness though, and it pushed me into my serious mode, I was a little pissed and just wanted to beat him badly after this. Well to make a long story short, I got god hands and rolled him the next 2 games (Game 2 I hit all my drops, played 2 fantasticars with Stretch turn 5 and must have hit him with 3 Savage Beatdown, and 3 It's Clobberin Times, it was brutal) Game 3 was very similar, just not as brutal. This player would go on to make 3rd place in the tourney.

1-0

Round 2

Thoughly rolled by the TNB, I tested against this deck heavily and am well aware that their god hand trumps mine. Game one he pulled out of a situation that I probably should have won if I had played better, but maybe not. And Game 2 he just rolled me. Both matches he had Lost City, Avalon Space Station, and plenty of power-ups. In my testing I found that his deck only does that about half the time. But he got em and I lost.

1-1

Round 3

Played against a player relatively new to the game, he was using Doom, which is a very good matchup for me. I had one of the worst draws of the evening. I decided to concede the game, seeing he had alot of weenies and I had just a couple big guys and he would probably win in like 20 more minutes of play. I rolled him game 2 and in game 3 he played a 2 drop before playing resource #2, this was the second time that he made this mistake, I let the first one slide (and I mentioned it too him so that he wouldn't do it again. I kinda felt bad but we decided that he wouldn't be able to play his second resource (as it was recruitment phase since he had tried to recruit already). This pretty much sealed the game.

2-1

Round 4

This game was against chewy (user name from this site). I had met and traded with before the tourney, real nice guy. He rolled me game won (I am starting to see a pattern of game 1 loses) Game 2 I took control and won. Game 3 was a pretty close one, I had a good hand and looked to win, but I made a crucial mistake turn 7, I had no plot twist in hand and was planing my move, I must have got distracted or something, because when I went to play Thing (ELBET) my opponent pointed out that I had not layed a resource. I was forced to signal flare for a Ghost Rider instead and that made the game much closer. On the final turn, he had (I think) 4 characters to my 6 I think. I had both Sue Storm and a personal forcefield with Stretch in play. He had been saving some serious pumps and 8 drop doom Submariner, and Heavy Hitter and someone else. I attacked the smallest ones, first and left Submariner and Doom alone bringing him to -1 endurance, while I had 19. Submariner went for Sue Storm taking her out. Then he declared Doom on Ghostrider. I switched the personal forcefield to him while my opponent proceeded to flip over flying kicks, Savage Beatdowns (I think) and go the kill. At this point I pointed out to him that Personal forcefield reinforced, and his face just dropped. He was good player and had beaten me in practice. It was sad to see him drop out. That match lasted the time and I had 30 seconds to prepare for my next match.

3-1

Round 5

I played against a younger kid who was using TNB. Game one he had his god hand. 2 TNB (on turn 2). At least 2 Surprise attacks and lots of drops. I recall missing my drops as well. he wins easily. Game 2 he is getting a decent hand as is making his drops, but I am making my drops as well. Turn 5 I drop Mr. Fantastic and 3 Fantasticars. Turn 6 Hulk and swing at Destiny who is hiding unsupported 2 Savage Beatdowns later we are headed for game 3. In this game he misses many drops and I miss some but not as many, so I win.

4-1

Standings are up and I am #2. Win or lose I would probably make the top 8, my only loss was to a 5-0 player (the eventual winner of the pcq.

Round 6

I am playing against a brotherhood deck that goes up to 6 drop Sabertooth and Mystique. He is using lost city, avalon spacestation, Genosha, Blindsided, and even a few finishing move. A very strong deck. Round one I get a decent hand, but he gets a better won and wins. In hindsight I did not play that well in the this tourney and he might have just outplayed me. Game 2 was a joke, I had the worst possible hand, and actually had a good time as he pummeled me to oblivion.

Top 8 I make it as #6

There is a problem when the judges do deck checks. I had mistakenly written 2 Thing (Heavy Hitter) instead of 2 Thing (ELBET). The judges confer for quite some time and decide that I need to replace my ELBET's with Heavy Hitters and that I will take a game loss in the first round of the Quarter Finals, nothing much I can do except accept it. I had lost every game one so far anyways.

Quarter Finals

My opponent is playing TNB, lost city, avalon space station version. I know we won't run into time delays only playing at most 2 games so I take my time. I am slightly pissed at myself for the mistake and probably play some of my best Vs of the night. I win the first one it was sorta close but he didn't have enough pumps. Final Game is really close, I take forever on my turns, and he gets a little upset reminding me that it is my turn. He has both quicksilver and Mystic (6 drop in play) I have a Sue Storm and Hulk, Thing (stupid HH on 7 drop) and fantastic. He as enough pumps (with space station to pump one of the up. I swing at quicksilver and he does not pump, he is now at -6. I am at about 5. I hold, knowing that mystic can't do any breakthru damage and I win. I might have been a bit off on life totals, I think the game ended with me up -6 to -1. My opponent was probably very annoyed with the amount of time it took me to make my attack, or something, because he did not shake my hand at the end of the match, he was the only player that did not to do so.

Semi-finals

against yodawgyo (TNB Gabe Version, as far as I could tell), I found him to be a very good player and a very friendly guy. I was hoping to get some revenge for my round 2 loss. He wins game one (yes I lost every game 1 in all of my 8 games, either I am very clutch or just a sloppy round 1 player, probably a bit of both). Game 2 I take control and win. Game 3, he gets a great hand (probably plays it very well also. I make some bad plays (meaning play my hand out early, he answers at every turn and still beats me in the same turn that I played out my hand, lots of clobberin times and savage beatdown. So my playing myself out early seemed not to be the reason for my lose because he beat me on the same turns not later. Great Deck, Great Player.

Finals

In the finals yodawgyo had a really really close game with a deck similar to big brother, my 6th round oppoent. In game three, yodawgyo top decked a Lost City to replace a location that avalanche had destroyed. Apparently the game would have gone the other way otherwise. But good players get themselves in positions where they can take advantage of luck and win.

Final thoughts

In hindsight I played pretty poorly, especially on game 1's and games where I was losing. I don't recall ever once setting up in a defense situation on non initiative turns, (I figured that my guys are bigger and only fantastic has range, so every turn is a beatdown turn.) Also I made a few changes to the deck right before the tourney that may have hurt me as well. I had 4 Entangles originally, but switched to 2, adding a Wolverine (NFF) and a Ghostrider, the Wolverine only saw action in a one game (a losing one), and the ghost rider only saw action in a game where I forgot to drop my 7 resource before playing Thing. I feel the deck is much more consistent than most decks, but loses to a Lost City, Avalon Spacestation hands with lots of pumps, which actually happens less than you would think. I plan to attend more pcq's and hopefully take a #1 spot. I learned alot, met some great people, and had a great time.

i am kinda split between playing entangle or not.. looking back on the games did it really come in handy? i've dropped mine.. and i'm only playing 2 savage beatdowns currently.. oh also why play 4 hulks and no heavy hitters? with signal flare just having 1 heavy hitter might be useful right? i've been playtesting this deck (along with a million other decks i have no focus really) let me know what you would change with hindsight working for ya

This is more of a copy of the orlando deck. I go for entangle because it can save a character, and I found in my games against the lost city brotherhood if you can exhaust a character that hos pumps, and attack the ones without, you can win some games. Entangle probably won me a game in the top eight. Quarterfinals against TNB. Whenever I used it I was happy. I would agree that one thing HH would be good. That is the one isure I am a little up in the air about. I can't really see anytime that I would rather have a HH over Stretch though in this deck.

Hulk x4 is simply because this is what the deck does have fantasticars out and drop a turn 6 hulk. 3 might be fine, but it is one of the most important cards to play. Also you can't really afford to signal flare for it, because you might be only playing with 4 Invisible Woman (4 drop), and 4 Mr Fantastic (5 drop). You basically need to play Invisible woman turn 4, Stretch turn 5, and hulk turn 6.

Personally I think a game loss is a bit too severe and I would have given a warning. The section concerning this is currently under review so there is not an official response as to what the penelty should be.

Well actually it probably helped me. I play better when the odds are against me, and when I am slightly mad. I know my opponent in the quarter finals was a great player with probably only one loss. I learned a valuable lesson of checking the accuracy of my deck list. But obviously it was just a stupid mistake, and I can see that the penalty was probably a bit severe, but at least now no one can say that I tried to cheat and got away with it (which was obviously not the case).

The reason the penalty is so severe is because as far as the judges can tell...your cheating. Now of course that's not what your doing, all you did was make a mistake on the list. However, to them it just looks like you swapped out cards and are playing with a different setup. That's why the penalty is what it is.

I had a great time hope to see everyone in Indy next week! I'll be judging so be on your best behavior

All penalities assume the infraction is unintenional. There is only one penelty for cheating, DQ w/o Prize. If they thought he was cheating, he should have been DQed.

Well since this circumstance isn't covered that wouldn't apply.

In the rules document it offers only two penalty qualifications for deck construction. There is illegal decklist/legal deck(warning) and illegal decklist/illegal deck(game loss).

Here we have a legal decklist/legal deck they just don't agree. This means there are two possiblities, either the error was made on the original deck list, or the player swapped the cards out. Obviously they gave you the benefit of the doubt since they didnt' disqualifty you, however, whenever the contents of the deck must be altered that's at least a game loss. That's really an assumption from the illegal decklist/illegal deck. I mean the player is playing with cards that he didn't report as having, but its a gray area and up to the head judge to decide.

Of course I may be biased against you Mr. 1897 since you "rolled" me round 3 :)

Hi there,

I was the Head Judge for both events. The reason I gave a game loss, was not because I thought he was cheating, but because only giving a warning for that infraction opens up the door for cheating. If players find out that its only a warning for putting different cards in their decks, tthat means tey have a "Get out of jail free" card every tournament to cheat and not get severly penalized.

I will agree that most of the time, its the players mamking simple mistakes or clerical errors that get the wrath of the penalty, but its to keep the unscrupulous players form taking advantage of it. That was the basis for my ruling. I agree it needs to be more clarified in the rules.

so just to sum up. I didn't say you thought he was cheating, I merely pointed out that there was the possibility that such an action had taken place, and since this scenario isn't even covered in the tournament penalty guidlines I feel that your ruling was the correct one based on the available information and current mandates from UDE.

Lets also talk about he magnitude of the infraction. In this case its somewhat small, however, what would be the difference between this level of infraction and someone who is playing with a deck that is completely different from their deck list yet the deck and list are still legal. Does that warrant a stricter penalty, probably, but still at the moment its all situational. I'm not really looking for discussion here but just throwing out these issues for UDE to consider as they revise this issue.

happily, though we are all agree here right? I was definitly rolled over in round 3. Though I have been playing since it came out, I haven't had a lot of opportunity for competitive play, and the deck I had was only play test like twice against TNB and Sentinels. That is no excuse for missing that resource drop. I'm stilling burning from that little snafoo!:noid:

You notice that the rules go from P-20 to P-22. P-21 used to adress that exact situation, but it is being revised. It used to say is there was a difference in the deck and the decklist, you change the decklist to match the deck and they get a warning.

If it is revised to what you say it is, then I will obviously rule within the guidelines. But in my opinion, that is a bad policy. Players can now adjust cards in their deck each round until they are caught, knowing that they are only getting a warning.

I feel this is an open invitation to cheating. There are players out there that will use every advantage handed over to them. Just my opinion from past judging experience.

Oh sorry, I was not clear, that is what it USED to say and it is being revised. I'm sure it will end up being closer to how you actually ruled in your event, which is better.

Wow alot of discussion about rules, I would ask that any more discussion over this ruling be done on a separate thread as it was only a minor part of my original thread. After hearing both sides of the argument, I agree the that the judges made the right call. I can assure all of you that I was not trying to cheat, why would I ever want 7 five drops. But, being slack on this rule, would lead to a situation a much worse situation of intentionally adding and leaving cards out.

Ok back on subject. Anyone have any more comments about the deck, tourney play, or just more info on their Chicago tourney experience.

I really enjoyed the tourney. I only played in the sealed, but I played 11 games total, and it was a great learning experience.

I also learned why your packs are so important in sealed. If you don't have a good number of 5+ drop characters, you will always end up losing. I pulled two of the same character (Colossus), and once the other player started dropping 7 and 8 drop characters (like Doom), it was over.

So, I'll probably still play sealed when I get the chance, but my focus from now on will be constructed.

I was really impressed with all the players. most were very friendly and talkative. Everyone was looking to trade or play, and although everyone was looking for the same cards (like Savage Beatdown), I had a great time.

I can't wait to get to the next tourney!

cfbrunner (Chad)