Reader Sean "Keebler" Powell volunteered to discuss his organized play experiences with us after a marathon three-events-in-two-days run. Those of you who haven't experienced organized play yet - live vicariously through him! If you have, let us know how these experiences compare to your own. We're willing to do a few of these. Guest posts are welcomed, though we make no guarantees that yours will be featured - it depends on several factors, and if we don't use you, we still think that you're great!

This is part one of a two-part feature.  

By Sean "Keebler" Powell

This tournament report is going to focus on my findings in a two day - 3 tournament stint from last weekend throughout Ohio!

Getting Ready

In preparation for this weekend of dice rolling I play tested for hours. In fact, I play tested for days at a time with a friend (Chris Ward). We were currently both waiting for our new jobs to start so had some time.

Right away Chris was sold on the Gobby Burn deck as being the deck to beat. I didn’t think this was the case as I had never really played against anyone who really knew how to pilot the team with a real grasp of its lethality. I was wrong.

Through testing it became clear that Gobby-Storm was without a doubt the best deck in the meta. I was
able to find a few ways to trip the team up; but that’s all I was really able to do. If they were able to get the decent rolls (not even the perfect rolls) then I would just lose.

There were probably 3 days of testing where I looked at Chris and said, “I really hate to say it but I really want that Thor card so that means that I am gonna have to play this Gobby junk.” You will come to find that I really don’t like playing what everyone else says is good, I like to play what I like to play.
So there were a couple of days where I already had my team together and there was a Gobby and a Johnny Storm in that team and a very big hole in my heart.

Then it happened. I found a card that made me say, “Hey this should be able to hold Gobby back enough for me to win at least 50% of the time”. That was good enough for me at this point. That card was Storm - Goddess of the Plains (I will call her GoP from here on out).

I called Chris and we tested with this card and I was happy with it. If Gobby missed just one of his first 6 rolls then I would be able to take this game 90% of the time - with the help of the rest of the team of course. I am just about to get to that.

I had all of the control that I needed; the only thing that was missing was the kill condition. This came as kind of an accident. I tried to see if I could get Tsarina out as an opening to go along with the GoP in order to just pin the game down while trying to mitigate the Gobby Storm.

This didn’t work at all. What did work was using her late game with the rest of the control in the deck to win by attrition.

The Team

So here is the rest of the list and a little about why I picked each card.

Tier 2 (Widow Control)

• Beast Genetic Expert (x3)
• Black Widow Tsarina (x4)
• Mr Fantastic Brilliant Scientist (x1)
• Punisher McRook (x3)
• Storm Goddess of the Plains (x4)
• Deadpool Chiyonosake (x2)
• Professor X Powerful Telepath (x2)
• Silver Surfer Sky Rider (x1)
• Actions: Invulnerability and Distraction

So here are some explanations:

Beast Genetic Expert: At this point I am going to assume that everyone knows that all the Beasts are beasts. I chose this beast over the 666 version because this version does what I need it to do. It keeps me alive. Life gain serves me better against Gobby than another die in my prep. So this made the cut.

Black Widow Tsarina: Tsarina has long been known to smash faces during the early game. But I have not really seen this as her true potential role in building this list. In the late game, when you really need to spend some energy to recruit characters and pay for globals to save your fat, you don’t have a lot of extra energy to buy dice. The good thing here is that you can buy her for 2 energy and she can finish your opponent off as long as you can control their field enough.

Mr. Fantastic Brilliant Scientist:  I never want to have to recruit this guy, if I do that means that something has gone wrong. He is here just for his global. That’s all.

Punisher McRook:  This dude make the cut against the “other teams.” Any team other than Gobby fears this guy. He is gonna kill stuff or your opponent is just gonna take some damage. It’s tough to see how good this guy is on paper. But he is good. I promise. Try him out.

Storm Goddess of the Plains:  We talked about this gal earlier. She is here to beat Gobby; most of the time she does just that. It’s a good thing.

Deadpool Chiyonosake:  Be ready to see this guy everywhere. If you have Mr. Fantastic, he's perfect. They force you to attack and you just attack and pick a blocker and kill a bunch of sidekicks or whatever else they have on the board. Deadpool will either get KO’d and put into the pile (which is ok because you can get him back) or he doesn’t die and you get to keep him.

Professor X Powerful Telepath: Prof does two things for me here. I am running a large number of globals. I want to punish my opponents for using them. He also has a large blocking butt.  I had some long conversations with Chris on this one. I decided on this Prof because he is the only version that gives your opponent the opportunity to pay life on your turn and on their turn. That seems good.

Silver Surfer Sky Rider: This guy needs no intro. Most folks like the tempo this guy provides, plus if you need a big attacker you can’t go wrong here.

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Next time, we'll look at the events that he played and how he fared! Stay with us.