Driving home late last night, hopped up on Red Bull, I had thought I would make some kind of funny post about how I'm the President and only member of Team Scrub, and make some sort of "Team Scrub PRESENTS: PCQ REPORT!" post.

Instead, I'm just gonna lay it down.

The previous night, I had gotten to bed at 2AM, sick with a cold. I thought, "Man, there's no way I'm going to that PCQ tomorrow. Lame." Well, 9:30 AM rolls around, and I'm staring at my cat, who just jumped up on my head and woke me up.

"I can do it," I said.

So I jumped out of bed, slammed some DayQuil, took a shower, and hit the road. Mind, I live in Boston, and while I make the trip to visit my folks in Long Island often enough, I wasn't a miracle worker. I had about 4 hours to get to NY, get parked, registered, and playing.

Well, I got to NY with plenty of time, but the Hudson was all backed up with rubbernecking delays. *shakes fist* I made it just in time to register and get ready to have my ass served up on a silver platter.

The entire ride down I was trying to think about which of my two tournament-worth decks I'd play. The first option was Superman. After playing ReconComics online a bit, I've come to understand that I don't know Superman as well as I thought I did.

I was also considering that since this is my first PCQ (first VS tournament ever, really) I should play something that's fun and not worry about trying to place. That said, I decided to give my Fantastic Four / New Gods deck a try.

The deck:

FANTASTIC GODS, or, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles"

4x Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards (2)
2x Vykin, Forever People (2)
4x Big Bear, Forever People (3)
2x She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters (3)
1x Invisible Woman, Sue Storm (4)
4x Izaya <> Highfather, The Inheritor (4)
4x Mr. Fantastic, Stretch (5)
1x Big Barda, Barda Free (6)
1x Hulk, New Fantastic Four (6)
1x Thing, The Ever Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing (7)
1x Orion, Dog of War (8)

4x Acrobatic Dodge
4x It's Clobberin' Time!
1x Marvel Team-Up
4x Royal Decree
2x Salvage
4x Signal Flare
4x The Exchange

4x Fantasticar
4x Supercycle
1x The Pogo Plane

4x Antarctic Research Base

ROUND 1: Dario, from New York
DECK: Teen Titans with Barbara Gordon splash

Sitting across from Dario and just chatting with him made me feel somewhat more relaxed. He was very polite and very nice, and seemed to be interested in my newbieness to Vs and the tournament scene.

I was a little put off by his superior attitude once we got to playing. He said something along the lines of, "I will be very impressed if you beat this deck." Now, I'm guessing he meant well and was just trying to encourage a new player, but it kinda came across wrong. Dario, if you're out there, please correct me! :)

Dario hitting a perfect curve and my deck absolutely missing my curve made an easy meal for Dario. Turn 4 involved a Ka-Boom! which screwed up my curve even further. It really wasn't much of a contest. 0-1

ROUND 2: Angelo, from New Jersey
DECK: Fantastic Four Beats

Angelo missed his early curve, not seeing anything resembling She-Thing or She-Hulk. My deck curved out pretty well, and ultimately I won. IIRC, he played 7-drop Magneto which got eaten by TELBET, as he forgot that my men were flying around the room in bathtubs and fat motorcycles. It was definitely a welcome change of pace from the previous ass-beating I took from Dario. 1-1

ROUND 3: Francisco, from New Jersey
DECK: League of Assassins Beats

His entire deck was shiny. SHINY! He had a perfect curve, getting Demon's Head and Mountain Stronghold practically every turn for turns 2-5. I had no way to reliably take down his 4-drop R'as al Ghul so that I could get the Stretch/ARB combo going, and eventually he just wore me down. I think he only had 10 plot twists in the deck total: Beatdowns, Demon's Head, and Tower of Babel. Must've been like 12+ locations to make Hassim go. 1-2

ROUND 4: Destri, from the Bronx
DECK: Brave and the Bold

I hate it when my opponent's deck just doesn't curve out. It's not a fun game. Destri put up a valiant fight, but in the end, it really wasn't a match. 2-2

ROUND 5: Bruno, from New Jersey
DECK: Wild Vomit

He didn't see Longshot until turn 5, I think. Still, he managed to get an impressive amount of Sentinels on the field. This was a much closer game than my previous ones. This was the first game that I used Big Barda's payment ability, and I realized how unbelievely under-rated this card is. I was able to swing momentum in my favor enough to win. 3-2

ROUND 6: Jason, from New Jersey
DECK: Curve Sentinels

I was dreading this matchup, but Jason's easy-going demeanor made it easier. He is a member of Team Stupid, and we joked around a lot during the game. Towards the end I had to apologize because I didn't know if I was distracting him from the game, but he said he wasn't. "The game is about fun," he told me.

In any case, this matchup was worth the $25 admission fee. It was the hairiest game of VS I have ever played. We were basically punching each other in the face back and forth rather evenly, between his Mark V's giving him reinforcement and my Sue Storm giving me reinforcement, the fight was slow-going. He gained a lot of momentum turn 6 with Bastion, and was gaining on me turn 7 when he dropped Magneto and cracked open two Genoshas. I had to use Big Barda's ability and took a huge chunk out of my own ass to maintain some degree of momentum in my favor (I think I took a 15 or 16 endurance hit). I managed to stall him long enough so that he depleted his hand, and I got out Orion on turn 8, which stalled him a little more.

I was down to 3 and he was down to 17 on turn 9, my initiative. I have Orion, Big Barda, Sue Storm, Stretch and Vykin on the table, with a number of Fantasticars and Supercycles out. He Overloaded poor Vykin (twice! the poor guy couldn't catch a break. he just wanted to ride motorcycles like the cool kids). I come over swinging hard, but he's not done. Even though he's out of Reconstruction Programs and has no hand, he flips two Tag Teams to try and prevent one of my attacks from punishing him. Thankfully, Thing yelled from the corner, "It's Clobberin' Time!" and I crossed the hump. Big Barda came back and flattened Bastion something silly, knocking him down to a total of -8. He managed to swing back and get me down to -3, but that was that.

I had somehow beaten one of the toughest decks and best players of the day. I couldn't thank Jason enough for the game. 4-2

ROUND 7: Luis, from Huntington, Long Island
DECK: GCPD Big Bat Gone-But-Not-Forgotten MONSTROSITY

I have never seen a deck so silly as the deck Luis played. Basically, it was GCPD madness with Watchtower and Longshot and Xavier's Mansion and Burn Rubber for his non-GCPD little men, stalling until Big Bat / Apocalypse / Onslaught eats your head. Plus he Gamma Bombed on turn 9 gaining like 120 life. It was crazy. Needless to say, I dragged it out to turn 10 but Onslaught just ate my head. 4-3


I was glad to have pushed Luis into top-8. But, as it was getting towards 8PM and I promised my folks I'd visit them before I headed back to Boston, I took off... but not before verifying my place.

12th!

Some of you might not think that's a lot, but to me, it is. I have never played in a Vs tournament before, *and* I played a deck that wasn't in the popular metagame.

In any case, I was impressed with the demeanor of everyone I met. I was expecting tooth and nail hardcore butchery, but instead I found a lot of people who are really just having fun playing a fun game.

Hats off to all of you. See you at the March 5th PCQ in Boston.

its bruno from round 5...so u finished 12th...not bad, i dropped cause longshot decided to take a nap in at the bottom of my deck in the 2 games i played after u

i played in that PCQ, also my first. I didn't do so hot however, with everyone expecing titans it wasn't exactly brain surgery defending against me. i placed 22nd, not great considering the small turn out. glad you did so well.

That's too bad, man :( I think if you hit Longshot in the game against me you would've eaten my face off.

Hey it's Jason from Round 6. If there was one guy I wanted to take me out of Top 8 contention, it was you. Hats off to your deck and to you.

Like I said, this game is about fun.

And Luis' deck came from me and gottr. Me and gottr made that deck.

ya the guys on team stupid r mad cool

i think the march 5th pcq is in brooklyn at kings games

There's another one in Boston on the same day.

Hey, I play a deck very similar to that. It's really cool to get out several Fantasticars and Supercycles late in the game! :)

I don't play Big Bear though (because of the reveal requirment). I play Himon instead. Did you have any problems dropping Big Bear early?

I also need to get some exchanges... those would help out too. Cool report.

Nah, usually if I can't play the Bear I can Signal Flare for She-Hulk. The Bear is mighty. :D