Let's take a step back from all the DC and Yu-Gi-Oh news for a moment. Last week you read about how I ran my very first event. It was an Uncanny X-Men rainbow draft, handing out the AvX Month 1 prize pack. You can find all the details of how running it went right here. Dave attended the event. You can read his account here, or just watch his vlog for that day here. For those of you that want to get in to the Xs and Os of my draft strategy and gameplay, you’ve come to the right place. Read on.
I don’t remember what order I drafted cards in. (Maybe I should do that next time. Is that something anyone would be interested in?) I do remember that I did not pull a single rare or super rare in the 12 packs I opened myself. So my first pick was going to be a common or uncommon. I went with Mister Sinister, Nasty Boy. So, I knew exactly what I was going for from here on out: Pyro and Iron Man. I ended up getting them both, and even had 3 dice for Pyro. I grabbed a common Ant-Man for a cheap 2-cost, and selected the rare Storm, Lady Liberator with the common Cerebro, Cybernetic Intelligence for some X-Men knockout fun. I needed to fill some spaces, so Sentinel and Juggernaut found their way to my team. I drafted Juggs purely based on the elusiveness of his die. I chose Reckless Melee and Posession as my basic actions.
I over thought myself. I had a GREAT drafted team, and I over thought myself into finishing 1-2 on the day. Let’s start out with what I should have done.
I should have bought my Pyros as fast as possible until all 3 were gone as long as I had 4 energy. The second I had 5 energy, I should have bought Mr. Sinister. After that, Reckless Melee would be a nice action to knock out some characters that I turn to Villains with Iron Man’s global. Once I had Reckless Melee, then Storm would be useful to redirect some of that damage back to my opponent. After I bought my two Storms, if the game still wasn’t over, then buy Cerebro to start knocking off whatever stood between me and victory. I had the formula right there. It was such a well drafted team…
But, no. I wanted to get my Storms and Reckless Melee out first with Cerebro to control the board a little, then buy my Pyros, then buy Sinister. I won my first game easily with this strategy. I believe the turn I won the game on I already had Storm in the field and rolled 6 dice: 2 Sidekicks, 1 Storm, 1 Pyro, and 2 Reckless Melees. Both Sidekicks came up energy, Storm and Pyro both came up on their level 3 side, and both Reckless Melees came up on their double burst sides. I fielded my Storm, giving me 2 Storms in the field. Played Reckless Melee, damaging me and my opponent and each character for 1 damage. This knocked out my opponent’s only potential blockers and the damage was redirected from each Storm back to my opponent. I then played my other Reckless Melee to the same effect. My opponent had already lost 6 life this turn up to this point. I then fielded my Pyro, and attacked with him and my 2 Storms. Pyro at 5A and the Storms each had 2A. That’s 9 more damage, on top of the 6 they had before my attack step. 15 damage. My opponent had somewhere around 12 or 13 life at the start of that turn. My strategy worked really well.
My second game (against Dave’s wife Lauren) did not go as well. I got my Storms, Cerebro, Reckless Melee, and a Pyro or two, but just couldn’t pull it all together. I was never able to purchase Sinister. I only had 5 energy once the entire game, and that was to buy Cerebro on my fourth turn or something. Lauren was using the uncommon Pyro with other bolt characters, and kept damaging me by paying bolt energy every time she attacked with them. The worst was when she attacked with 2 Pyros and paid 4 bolt energy to deal 4 damage to me. I knocked out a bunch of her characters with my fielding of Storms (with my Cerebro die on her card) and using Reckless Melee, and could have attacked with everyone to take her down to 2 life, but I was at 4 life. She already had 5 dice in her prep area, plus another 4 she would draw, I knew my only hope was to sit on some blockers and hope that she didn’t field more characters than I could block. That wasn’t the case. She fielded more characters than I could block. Game.
My third round game was going back and forth, until my opponent’s turn, and he was able to field both a Black Panther and X-23. I had one blocker, and if he attacked with everything I would be down to 2 life… but he was sitting on 2 bolts for the global ability on Enrage. He attacked, I blocked, he used globals. I lost. It was over so fast.
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