Pancakes!

This report started much like everyday… I woke up next to my two polyamorous life mates – Jessica Alba and Eva Longoria. After tossing aside the large blankets covering our naked bodies, I snapped my fingers and had my panda bear butler bring me a meal of phoenix egg and dinosaur steak. I’m getting a bit bored of Dinosaur stake nowadays, but I don’t really want to go back to Dodo breast or platypus.

Or it starts something like that.

To be honest, there really isn’t a lot to write about the warm-up to this bevent.

Having missed all the other City Championships in the region, and being part of the staff involved in the last City Championships, this City Champs was my only chance to really do anything.

The thing is, unlike most people, I wasn’t interested in the mat… or the EAs.

Honestly, I really wanted to be on a card.

Conceited, you say?

Narcissistic? That’s a Greek word by the way.

Damn straight.

As many of you know, I have been on a crusade to get Major Ursa printed. There really isn’t a reason why… other then the fact that what could be MORE AWESOME! then a Major Ursa, Deranged Bear?

I’ll tell you what:

TWO Major Ursa, Deranged Bears… making out.

(awkward)

As such I wanted to win with something that would – hopefully catch – the eyes of R and D. My rationale being that since TBZ’s got my back like Knightmare Scenario, there was a good chance Major Ursa just might make it.

Beyond that… I’m a really big fan Hellboy. I never read the comics, but when I watched the movie… there was just something that appealed to me about this big, strong, socially awkward guy that eats a lot. I loved that one scene where he’s trying to get love advice from the five year old kid.

So it’s a bit cheesy but oh well.

Deck Stuff

So I set off with the goal of Hellboy/x. With Hellboy you want to – ideally – have your best fives, sixes, and sevens be concealed to maximize his ability. With the help of DocX’s search engine – the single greatest innovation in our game – I was off to the drawing boards:

With that said, here was my first deck.

This deck was pretty cool. I liked Breaking the Horns and swinging up and down with Hellboy. Cards like It’s Slobbering Time and Royal Guard prevent Hellboy from getting stunned etc etc.

The best part is using Attilan to stockpile Break the Horns or Pancakes.

The thing about this deck – unfortunately – is that it’s just a curve deck. It doesn’t have an engine or any type of cohesive skeleton. It lacks the consistency that the Checkmate skeleton can offer a deck. You can fairly consistently hit your drops still, but you lack the whole awesomeness of the Checkmate package.

Maybe this type combination will be viable for Indy?

The next deck I ended up toying with was a Chess deck with Hellboy. I’m pretty sure I ended up building this deck wrong, as I had a huge amount of trouble fitting in the Hellboy set and the various combat dominating twists that the combination has along with various utility locations. I mean, consider:

At this point, you don’t really have very many spaces to play with. You can probably take away the Break the Horns and Pancakes – which are really narrow – and just play traditional Chess with just Hellboy as a four.

That felt like too much of a cop-out.

Still, having double Rook Control in play and cycling between Hellboy, Shinobi Shaw, and Donald Pierce is pretty awesome.

The next build I tried was an equipment heavy build. This one was focused on using the Weapons Lab to put stuff like Fate Gear and Knight Armor/Nth Metal on Hellboy. Ahmed is an incredible backbone here letting you search out both the Weaponry and Fate’s Tower. I considered trying to fit Infinity Gauntlet in here after Jason Hager won his local CC won, but I’m not that smart and I couldn't find a good way to do it.

So ultimately what I played was:

Card Choices:

Maximus the Mad, Mental Manipulator: This is a probably the biggest odd-ball choice in my deck. Given that you are rowing all locations, it is not very hard to fulfill Maximus’ trigger condition.

Maximus is a just a very good finisher. Against Checkmate decks, he prevents them from making me think too much off their Checkmate Safe House. Against other decks, he just makes reinforcement impossible.

Director Bones: Director Boner beats out Sarge Steel for the simple fact that he’s concealed.

Mr. Mxyptzlk: I liked being able to assure myself a constant source of power-up once I had Abe in play. Mxyptzlk and Slaughter guarantees me this once a turn. He naturally has synergy off Brother I Satellite, Enemy, Pancakes etc.

Kate Corrigan: Insurance for Ahmed.

Johann: This guy is playable for the simple fact that he is a concealed search-able six. I’m certain his ability might be relevant sometimes – Hellboy protecting Johann against a deck with no flight – but he’s not in here because of it.

Hellboy, the Right Hand of Doom: This guy is very meeh. He’s really in here because I wanted to have another power-up and the little Hellboy didn’t excited me. Again, I’m certain his ability will be relevant sometimes.

Honestly though, I’m looking to put the game behind on six.

Cards that I considered:

Nyssa Raatko, Daughter of the Demon’s Head: Using her to recover a visible Hellboy is pretty awesome. You can only search her off Enemy – and then you need a team-up - and given how much you need to save your Enemies for Maximus, I ditched her.

Honestly, this deck isn’t very impressive or clever or anything. It’s just a simple Checkmate/B.P.R.D crossover.

The biggest thing here is probably a lack of a way to save your King. To be honest, most of my deck-building considerations were made with regard to the Bay Area metagame.

More specifically:

No Quickfate: Quickfate is pretty much the antithesis of the general deck-building mentality within the Bay Area. To be specific; the deck is not interactive and in the current format the deck is synonymous with net-deck.

Beyond all that though, it’s a tier one deck, and those never seem to catch up on here.

No King-Kill: One of the nice things about running a tournament is that you get a very nice view of your overall local metagame.

In the past two-three Silver Age tournaments that Collector’s Corner has run I’ve seen a grand total of two different people play Blackheart, Black King – Miguel “CarlostheDwarf” Rodriguez and Pete “Neovid”… something.

(Technically Pete doesn’t even count because he was playing a proxy.)

Beyond that… I’ve seen a grand total of one Deadshot ever played.

If Miguel were there, I likely would have played more king protection as from his blog and just in general he seemed to be very interested in making his Underworld/x deck work.

Once I learned that the SJ crew was going to go to Hayward instead though, it seemed to make a lot loss sense to play king kill. Still, Hellboy by himself is very decent at protecting your king.

In retrospect, I would have cut Christopher Smith. His addition was because I didn't see I already had an auxillary three.

Customizations

If you fear King Kill:

Or…

Pretty simple.

If you fear Kree/Villains:

I stole this idea for taekmkm. It’s a pretty good configuration. With Hellboy being exceptionally large, you have the freedom to under-drop in the later turns. Honestly though, Kree is a decent match-up. The one Kree card you need to worry about is High Society. Stuff like press-Chess is okay because they have to keep going through Hellboy.

Pre-Tournament

So I leave for Eudemonia at 11ish. It was raining and it was just a very comfortable drive.

I got to Eudemonia around 11:20. As I only had the Hellboy half of my deck, I needed to do some trading. I had sent a PM to Kevin "kamikazi" Huynh last night for the cards I needed, but he hadn't shown up yet. I managed to play a pick-up game with Michael "dizzbuster_7" Gilmore. I managed to barely squeak out a win against his Deadpool deck.

So finally Kevin came, but he was short a few cards - namely a pair of Enemies. Kevin had most of the Checkmate commons and uncommons I needed, but I was still short cards like Enemy of my Enemy, and perhaps even more importantly Maximus. Luckily, Mike was able to step in and lend me a pair of Enemies.

Even more extraordinarily, Mike had a copy of Maximus. I guess that's why they call him the jank master... : P

Ultimately, I was able to buy off a few key singles from the store and I had my deck made!

So it’s 17 people cut to a top four. The TO, Kenyaette Davis isn't sure whether or not it's going to be four or five rounds.

The Games

(I didn’t take notes , so my recollection may be off and you may be seeing a lot of pronouns as opposed to proper ones)

Round One – Senior Alapaai(?)

Senior Alappai is a very quiet individual who used to roll with Chris Fletcher.

I ask him what initiative he wants and he says odds. I say evens, so we end up avoiding the formality of rolling a dice.

Homeboy leads off with a first Pyro, Freedom Force, and adds a Barnacle, Acolyte to his board following. I match him with the first play of my turn being Director Bones, DEO.

On turn three, he has a Mamomax while I have Ahmed. I take a faceful and row out a Checkmate Safe House.

On turn four I play out Hellboy, Aung un Rama while he has Julia Carpenter, Freedom Force. I shrink Julia – I have a power-up in hand – and he forms like this:

Pyro < - > Barnacle
Mam < - > Julia Carpenter

In retrospect I probably should have shrunk Mammomax instead. If he didn’t form up Barnacle behind Julia it would have been a bit awkward.

As it was, I swung into Julia, he evaded, and Hellboy took down Barnacle.

On turn five, on turn five he has Stonewall, Freedom Force, while I match him with Abe Sapien. He sends in Pyro with a flurry of pumps which I successfully brickwall. I don’t have Pancakes though and I take a face full of damage.

Luckily though, I am able to use Brother Eye and my concealed guys to make a decent amount of safe attacks to whittle his board.

On turn six, I play Enemy of my Enemy from my resource row to get Maximus and I take the win.

1-0

So it’s nice to win my first game. In between rounds I go kick it with the Games of Berkeley crew. I finished relatively early so I got to look around at the various games. I don’t think any archetype was represented twice and I think only one person played QuickFate.

Pairings go up.

“@#$%@!!!!!!”

Jason To – Checkmate/Villains United

If there was one person I didn’t want to play its Jason To. Beyond the fact that Jason is just cool, he is a very good player, and his deck has the Fatality/Satellite HQ/Ahmed combo.

Still, I wasn’t about to take nothing from no pubescent.

Jason hits the curve from the first turn with Connie Webb and Sarge Steel. I have Director Bones and again, we have opposing Ahmeds on three. He gets to swing with his white king though, while I am forced to fix my row.

“Lucky you.” Jason jokes softly, as he recruits Elimination Procotol <> OMAC Robot. He Ahmed out a Cloak of Nabu, and plays it along with a Helm on it.

I have Hellboy, who gets pummeled by the robot and a Brother Eye’d Sarge Steel.

I play Abe and he matches me with a Mr. Freeze, Brutal Blizzard, moves the gear on to him, and flips a Checkmate Safe House.

I can slowly feel the game slipping away, so I go tank for awhile. I have a Break the Horns so it feels like there’s some solution.

Ahmed (concealed) Sarge < - > Mr. Freeze (two fate gear)
I
Elimination Protocol


I flip up a Satellite HQ and swing Hellboy into his Ahmed. Ready him, then swing him into the Elimination Protocol. After that, I send Abe into Sarge.

Jason swings Mr. Freeze into my Hellboy, and the life totals have me at low 20s to his high thirties.

On turn six he recruits Huntress and fates her up. I have Johann. Hellboy gets squashed and I lose.

1-1

I need to win out.

Michael Nathe – Skrulls

I win the roll and take evens.

Mike leads off with a turn one Ahura. On turn two I have Director Bones again, but Mike deliberates for a bit musing to himself on whether or not he should gamble. Ultimately he decides not to, and Director Bones takes him.

I ask him whether or not he is having Great Refuge issues, but he replies in the negative.

(It turned out he had only a two drop in his hand after his mulligan and was debating whether to Enemy off it or recruit it.)

On turn three he plays Enemy of my Enemy for a Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth. I have Ahmed and do some row cleaning. Mike swings in for 3.

On turn four, I play Hellboy, Aung un Rama with a Knight Armor. Mike Enemies out a copy of Captain America, Skrull Imposter. I Ahmed out a Satellite HQ, and smash Hellboy into Franklin. Mike flips up an Extended family and teams-up Inhumans/Skrulls and teams Ahura and Captain America into Hellboy with a pump. He doesn’t realize that I can stun Ahura, so I manage to grow Hellboy twice.

On turn five, Mike Enemies out another Paibok, and flips an Act of Defiance teaming up Skrulls and Checkmate. Meanwhile, I have Abe. Paibok runs into Hellboy, and he plays No Man Escapes the Man Hunter on my Ahmed.

Yeah, I just about #### in my pants when he did that.

I think about it, and flip Pancakes in response to the No Man. Fear of losing Abe, I pass on my attacks.

On turn six I have Johann Kraus. I activate Ahmed, bounce him, clear his field with a Break the Horns and safe attacks.

2-1

At this point, I talk to Kenyatte Davis about how many rounds we have and he replies five.

Maybe I live the dream?

Brian Gerbi – Wild Pack/Avengers Team Attack

I had scouted around earlier and I really did not want to play Brian. Not only is Brian a friend but he is playing bounce. Cards like Silver Sable and Carol Danvers which can bounce Hellboy are very annoying.

The game starts on turn two where I have Director Bones and Brian has Natasha Romanoff.

We trade stuns.

On turn three, I have Ahmed, while Brian has a Man-Eater with a Capture Net. Brian thinks a bit, then flips two copies of Two Worlds – chaining the second to the first’s trigger. Brian plays Man-Eater’s ability on Director Boner and teams into him and stuns him along with Ahmed.

On turn four, I recruit Hellboy, Aung un Rama, while Brian has Silver Sable.

: (

Brian recruits another Capture Net on Natasha, and forms up in a L formation with Man-Eater protecting Natasha and Silver Sable in the support row.

Luckily for me, I’m a sack and have a pair of Break the Horns in my hand. Hellboy clears the board and jumps to a six drop in the same turn.

On turn five, Brian recruits Natasha Romanoff, Rick Jones, and Chen, while I – again – have Abe.

Brian thinks for a bit, and team attacks Natasha and Silver Sable into Hellboy with a Legendary Battles – 12 ATK.

At this point my Hellboy, is an 11/10. I flip a Checkmate Safe House and play Enemy of my Enemy for a power-up – 13 DEF.

Brian plays Justice is Served – 14 ATK.

I play Enemy of my Enemy for another power-up – 15 DEF.

Brian plays another copy of Legendary Battles – 16 ATK.

I activate Ahmed searching a Slaughter Swamp to re-buy a power-up – 17 DEF.

Wow.

I get the brickwall.

“I should’ve team attacked with everyone!”

At this point both our hands are depleted but I have Ahmed. The next turn I am able to use Ahmed to search out Johann. Brian plays a Monica, but she isn’t a match for Hellboy and I take the win.

3-1

At this point, I’m excited at the prospects of making the top four! Could the mat be just within reach?

At this point Jason To is still in contention, as is my ninja Kevin Huynh. Hopefully all three of us can make top 8?

Pairings go up: Jason has to play against Spider-Friends stall, while Kevin has to play against Mike Nathe and Skrulls. As for me…

John Lewis – Brotherhood Reservist

John is the only undefeated player in the swiss going a whopping 4-0. I was incredibly surprised he was able to do this – especially with beating out Jason, but now that I’m going through the various VS System posts, I’m realizing that there’s a surprising number of people that have done well with Broservist.

In John’s case, he was playing a Brotherhood reservist deck with a bully theme using Hellhound and Contact and Polaris to maximize bullyage, and Delgado to finish it off.

I win the roll and take evens. John laughs because he wants evens too.

The game starts out like most. On turn two I flip a Brother I Satellite fetching Director Bones. John has Chrome and we trade stuns.

On turn three John has Joanna Cargill while I have Ahmed. I fix my row and take 9 to the face.

Sound familiar?

On turn four I have Hellboy, while he has Anne-Marie Cortez.

At the start of combat, he reveals Spoor.

I swing Hellboy into Joanna, but eat a Lying in Wait. I can’t attack, but I have Pancakes to prevent any more damage.

On turn five, John plays a Polaris, while I have Abe. I backup the DEO on Polaris.

John teams Polaris and Chrome into Hellboy. That’s 12 ATK into my 8 defense… but I have a Knightmare Scenario, a power-up, and a Safehouse activation to get the brickwall.

John is surprised and he smiles at me knowingly. He then swings Anne-Marie into my 9 defense Hellboy with… nothing?

Then he does the same thing with Joanna.

4-1

So I’m 4-1! Yes! We finish early so I have the time to look over at Jason and Kevin’s game. Jason is able to win the game because his opponent has a brain fart and puts all his chips in a king kill with Rose Wilson <> Ravager, Daughter of Deathstroke. Jason just activates Ahmed to fetch a Science Spire and that’s that.

As for Kevin vs Mike Nathe… I’m not sure what happened, but his combination of Silver Surfer six drop and Silver Sable was probably overwhelming.

Top four:

John Lewis – Brotherhood Reservist
Kevin Huynh – Checkmate/Wild Pack/Heralds
Jason To – Checkmate/Villains
TDB – Checkmate/B.P.R.D

That’s a lot of concealed guys in the top four.

John Lewis – Brotherhood Reservist – Part Two

I win the roll.

John Lewis starts this game off with a first turn Rem-Ram nabbing… Sabertooth.

Damn.

My first play is again Director Bones off of a Brother I Satellite. John has Chrome again, and we again trade stuns.

On turn three he has Joanna Cargill, while I have Ahmed fetching a Brother Eye.

On turn four I have Hellboy, and he has Spoor. I flip up Checkmate Safe House and Brother Eye. I then swing Hellboy into Joanna Cargill… without a stun back! I swing Ahmed into Spoor with a Brother Eye activation. Director Bones and Chrome then trade.

On turn five he recruits Sabertooth and I have Abe again. I form up my concealed area with Ahmed in the concealed area, Bones next to him, and Abe Sapien protecting him.

John pays four endurance to grant Sabertooth and Spoor the ability to attack the hidden area. Then, he plays Flying Kick on Spoor and swings into Director Bones.

I debate whether or not to reinforce with Ahmed, but I choose not to. This allows Sabertooth to swing into Hellboy without fear of a stunback.

On turn six, I hit my curve and a Knight Armor for Hellboy while John plays his Delgado. Johann attacks Delgado with an enhanced Knightmare Scenario. Hellboy swings into Spoor, then takes down Sabertooth off a Break the Horns.

5- 1

On to the finals!

So Jason To wins and is on to the finals. It’s kind of ironic since he won the last City Championship in Berkeley on Monday.

Jason To doesn’t want to play, nor do I. I personally think the odds are against me, but Curtis cheers me on and Jason says he isn’t too sure about his chances either. As it goes, I’m getting more amped about my chances to take Jason down.

Ultimately, Jason scoops to me because he really doesn’t want to play it out.

So I end the day with ten packs, a play mat, and a custom deckbox.

Not a bad pull at all.

I'll be the first to admit that I had a decent amount of luck in my day. Being able to brickwall that often... lady luck was certainly on my side. Nonetheless, the B.P.R.D are an incredibly fun deck to play, and I urge you all to try it out.

Does anyone know what happens with the whole list sending thing?

Good job dude, see good thing I didn't go or I would've wrenched up everything!

Now all you need to do is buy some cards for yourself! :p

P.S. I think playing Ahmed automatically disqualifies you from getting on the card!

Great report, congrats winning it. Looks like everyone had a good time at Eudemonia, too bad I couldnt go. We need more CC's in sac :).

Good hustle, mister... I've only read half... then I got bored and decided to wander off. I'll finish eventually, but nice to know such a thing exists... Yay, Stuff!

Great Report! Congrats on the win! Keep it coming!!

Dude! Good going!

-Mike

Start with this: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/v...ChampForm1.pdf

Then light some candles and whisper the name of your favorite develper three times. Do it alot.

So... a dwarf and a bear walk into an R&D tournament. That's gonna make a great joke someday.

This report is one of my favorite ever. You have found your voice, your writing has hit its stride, and you didn't take it too far. I am honestly impressed. Great work, mad props.

Good luck with the face thing, you earned it.

Good job Bear.

I watched Jason To's match against Kevin. It was not pretty. I told Kevin to shuffle Jason's deck before the game :)

Jason opening draw: his 1,2,3 and a power up for the 2. By turn 2, he had his 4. Turn 3, he was set with all of the search he'd need and Kevin opened to missing drops. The game went bad on turn 3 when kevin with a Peacemaker equipped with a Cloak went in to Dr. Pyscho, who powered up for the stun back.

Jason luck sacked, but they both missed a crucial play on 4. Peacemaker activated targeting Kevin's 4 drop. The 4 drop then attacked and stunned the defending character, and Kevin triggered PEacemaker. Kevin Chose Ahmed, who Jason then used science spire on, before the stun, saving himself 3 END loss. But, neither player noticed that Peacemaker doesn't target, so if the science spire was going to be used, without taking the 3 damage, Peacemaker could have selected another character to stun, which would have reduced Jason's field below overwhelming, by remoiving 2 characters instead of just one.

But, as an observer, I didn't want to interfere. :(

This led to Jason continuing his overwhelming sweep of the game.

some of a #####!!! everytime i play its a learning process, but that was one win from the mat, thats all i wanted. ahhh well paul sell me your mat

Congrats Paul! What an awesome day for us!! L.O.V.E. your deck build.

And, um, when are you going to invite me over for breakfast with the ladies?

Very enjoyable report, TDB.

Glad you did well. My brother seriously considered taking a very similar Checkmate/Hellboy deck, instead opting for Checkmate/JSA/Defenders. In retrospect, I should have steered him more toward the former.

All the CCs seem to be getting 15-25 people, which isn't particularly better than PCQs but not worse either. What this means for the game.....well I dunno.

Congrats!

In the spirit of competition, though, I still hope that if we both make it, my deck wins ;]

P.S. Match against Wild Pack Avengers - during the grandiose team attack on 5, you say he plays two copies of Legendary Battles but you stun Silver Sable when he's bricked; do you mean on the attack back?

Nice catch! I stunned Sable back on the attack but I can see how it was worded rather ambiguously. I usually don't do a lot of editing when I post these things cause it just feels a lot funner to re-read it when it's on realms.

Nice work, Bear. When we tried it out, your deck looked like it had potential. Since the deck I tried against you turned out to not work the way we played it, the outcomes of our games would probably have been very different.

One change I'd suggest to your deck is a Soul World instead of Slaughter Swamp. Then you can probably cut Mr. Mxytpzlk as well. If you cut Christopher like you wanted, then you have room for a Fate Tower and Cloak for Ahmed without losing a Knight Armor.