Hi! I’m Runaway (or “Josh” to those of you who leave your computers.) I have been playing VS. for over two and a half years, but just attended my first ‘competitive’ event at this year’s Mega Weekend LA. In the past my friends and I have taken part in Release Celebrations, but were always turned off by the attitudes of others players we met there. Still, with UDE releasing fewer VS. expansions each year we felt it was important to support our game as much as possible.

Due to work and real life we knew that attending Saturday would be impossible, so nearly a month in advance we set our sights on Sunday and the Bring Your Own Set Tournament. Of all formats, BYOS excited me the most because it seemed like it would have a lot of diversity. Also, no one in my group has copies of Mobilize or Enemy, so we felt like we wouldn’t be able to compete with the consistency of most other decks in Silver/Modern formats.

Originally I had planned to run a Shadowpact deck, but I was afraid that Crisis would see a lot of play and wanted to stand out in the crowd. After seriously considering everything from Curve JSA to New Gods I ultimately settled on an Avengers Reservist build. I felt like they had enough straightforward power and board control to combat more aggressive decks. Plus, The Avengers are awesome. My friend Omar threw together a Darkseid Substibuse deck, and hoped to abuse Unravel Reality. We practiced online and discussed strategy constantly, cautiously optimistic about our chances.

My deck:

Yes, An Avengers Deck

4x Rick Jones, A Hero’s Best Friend
4x Beast, Furry Blue Scientist
4x Dane Whitman <> Black Knight
4x Natasha Romanav <> Black Widow, Super Spy
4x Black Panther, T’challa
4x Hawkeye, Clint Barton
4x Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger
4x Carol Danvers <> Warbird, Galactic Adventurer
4x Wonder Man, Simon Williams
4x Hercule, Son of Zeus
4x She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell
1x Hawkeye, Leader by Example

4x Heroes in Reserve
4x Call Down the Lightning
3x Null-Time Zone
2x Repulsor Ray
2x Avengers Mansion

The plan here is simple enough: Hit your drops and hit stuff hard. Ironically my kitchen table decks feature a lot of combos/controls, so it was nice to let my hair down and play something so simple. Natasha and Dane Whitman are the preferred 2 and 3 drops, since boosting Dane with a resource point allows me to cycle through another card in my deck. Since my deck had no tutors, that ability was key to maintaining consistency. Fortunately Black Panther is an amazing card, and even on matches where I had to underdrop I never felt I was at a huge disadvantage.

The biggest weakness of the deck was a lack of concealed tech. If I were to rebuild it I probably would have substituted my Repulsor Rays for Insect Swarms.

Round One: Family of Four

My first match was against a MVL Family of Four deck. My player was from Spokane, Washington had come down specifically for the Mega Weekend with his friends. I had the odd initiative, I think, and both of us was hitting the other pretty hard until turn five when he gained the edge. I had Carol Danvers team attack with Black Panther into his five drop Thing, and soon found myself on the receiving end of a Force-Field Projection via 3-drop Invisible Woman. With two of my major characters exhausted, I sent She-Hulk into Thing to trade stuns and passed. The next turn I missed my 6 drop, and took another massive beating. On turn 7 she threw out the Legendary Invisible Woman, and I replied with Hercules. After going into my lower drops she used Invisible Woman’s ability, giving every character -3 ATK for the turn, and then followed it up with an Only Human on Hercules. This prevented him from re-readying on the attack, severely limiting the damage I could cause. I lost by over 20 points. Boo.

Before I knew it the match was over.

Since my deck is so simple to play all of my matches finished really quickly. This gave me a lot of time to get to know my opponents, talk VS. and do some much-needed trading.

Round Two: Heralds/Inhumans 0-1

One of my best friends plays a very abusive Heralds deck, so I wasn’t surprised to see a similar one across the table from me at Mega Weekend. I knew that I would have to hit hard and hit fast, but my consistency started to affect me once again. I ended up with Hawkeye on-initiative turn four rather than Carol Danvers, hurting me significantly. This allowed the game to stall out into later rounds, and after turn 6 I knew I was finished. I vomited out at many drops as I could on turn 8, but a clever use of Red Shift and Black Bolt cleared out my entire board save for Natasha.

It was at the beginning of Round Three that they gave away the door prizes for Bring Your Own Set. There were two uncut foil sheets from MVL (Rares and Uncommon/Commons) and a complete non-foil set of MVL. I was shocked to hear my name called first, and I picked the uncut rare sheet. Kick ###.

Round Three: Darkseid 0-2

As soon as my opponent saw that I was playing reservists he knew he was in trouble. I hit my early curve without any trouble, but he failed to put out anything until turn 4 when he played Stompa. It was my initiative, and a Carol Danvers team attack quickly sent Stompa packing. After that my board was overwhelming, and there was nothing he could do. After another team attack with Carol on 5 I swung into an empty board for a bajillion damage, and another bajillion damage on six.

Round Four: Family of Four - The Sequel 1-2

This was the second Washington player I went up against, and like his friend he was a very friendly guy. Also like his friend he was running the Family of Four deck that had devastated me in the first round. I knew that I would have to have my wits about me, but for whatever reason his deck lacked the consistency of the other one. He missed several key drops in the early rounds, allowing me to keep my board advantage until the deciding turn off-initiative on 6. He misplayed by sending his 6 drop Human Torch into Dane Whitman, not realizing that I had a concealed Rick Jones waiting. I reinforced Dane, and then sent the rest of my board flying into him.

Round Five: Teen Titans Origins 2-2

This was piloted by another one of the Washington players, and just a round earlier he had eaten my friend’ Substibuse deck alive with Roy Harper abuse. Fortunately I knew my deck had the tools to combat Titans, if I only hit my drops. Ironically it was the Titans that was having issues with their consistency. For much of the game I swung into an empty board, save for Tim Drake and Terra (who got bounced.) On turn 6 he attempted to set up his board for Roy Harper abuse, but since I had the off-initiative I was able to play Wonder Man at the last moment to stun out Roy before combat started. At that point the game was over.

Round Six: Checkmate? Dr. Fate? Huh? 3-2

I waited patiently but my opponent never showed up. Later I found out it was VSRealms’ own TheDerangedBear, so I won by default. Although I appreciated the cheap victory, I was looking forward to playing against one of the Checkmate decks that ultimately prompted my decision to play Avengers in the first place. Thankfully the decks featured at BYOS were incredibly diverse, and nearly every set got some love in one form or another. One guy was even playing a curve JLA deck from DJL at the event! Even though my friend and I had anticipated a lot of DC at the event, in reality most people ended up choosing more straightforward Marvel decks.

Final Record: 4-2

My victories in the last rounds had secured me a place in the Top 8! However since I was the lowest ranked Marvel deck of five in the Top 8, I was pulled out and a lower scoring DC deck was put in my place. Oddly enough it was the Checkmate deck that no-showed in my last round, and after verifying the decklist it was DQ’d for having too many copies of Threat Neutralized or something. Sad.

The cool part was that my friend took his place, and soon he found himself going up against Daisuke Hanaoka’s killer World’s Finest deck. Although my friend lost he was thrilled to have placed in the Top 8, and to receive the BYOS Mega Weekend Playmat. The tournament organizers gave me a Marvel Origins box as a consolation prize for kicking me out of the Top 8, which was very cool of them. Despite the drama surrounding the other tournaments, BYOS had a fun, friendly atmosphere and I met a lot of great players. I only wish I could have been there for Saturday as well, but I guess there’s always next time.

I am very much looking forward to taking part in more organized VS. events in the future, and perhaps finally getting a Hobby League set up in my area. The prizes were great, and even if I didn’t walk away with so much loot I would have had an awesome time.

I definitely encourage any casual players who might feel intimidated by ‘competitive’ events to give the Mega Weekends a shot.

Thanks to everyone who made Mega Weekend LA a reality. Long live VS!

-Run

Hey Josh... thanks for taking the "Substitute" with class. I know it's tough because someone was going to end up in the Top 8 but not able to play and you were really great about it.

And at least we got your friend Omar in.

Good job and next time maybe you can make it both days.

P.S. I'm a big Avengers Reservist fan too... nice deck choice.

P.S.S. You got an uncut sheet as a door prize too right? Lucky.

I didn't mind not making Top 8, although it would have been amusing for me to see Avengers make it that far. My friend Omar and I had brainstormed a lot on his Darkseid deck, so even though we were disappointed with its' showing we were both thrilled to see it squeeze its' way into the finals.

And yes, I did get the uncut sheet. You guys spoiled me rotten. I'll post pictures as soon as I get it framed.

-Run

I've still not seen any updates after the top 8.

I'm probably not looking in the right places, but I figure here is as good a place to ask:

Who won, Marvel or DC?

Edit: Never mind, found it like 5 minutes later.