by Paris Gordon
Hey guys, I recently got back from Origins 2016 (a little late, went on vacation right after) and wanted to talk about how I did, what I played, and my overall experience. I was there Wednesday-Friday and played in Worlds, Team Worlds, and several Battle Royales. While it was a lot of fun and I’ll definitely be back next year, there were a few things I hope they change for next year, which I’ll discuss in this article. Let’s run through the days and address things as they come up.
DAY 1 (Wednesday): Wednesday there wasn’t much going on. Played a couple Battle Royales which were fun and well-ran and picked up some LE’s/ID Cards. A lot of other people got there Wednesday and it was cool seeing everyone again.
DAY 2 (Thursday): The first qualifying day of Worlds/Team Worlds and also US Nationals. I wasn’t qualified for Nationals, and I was already qualified for Worlds, so I wasn’t playing until the 4:00pm Teams Qualifiers. The Worlds Qualifiers were sealed for the first time in a while, so I was happy to be able to skip them as I dislike sealed for a competitive format. It was also 3 rounds, meaning only undefeateds qualified. Personally I’m not a fan of this, as normally one loss doesn’t disqualify you from the cut. I know they were pressed on time, but hopefully this can be changed next year. At the same time, US Nationals was going on. I watched a lot of these games and there were some cool teams and great players. When they got to a Top 4, they paused to finish tomorrow, as otherwise the top 4 players couldn’t play in Team Worlds which was starting. Some teams were still affected by this because they thought their teammate wasn’t going to be able to play and had already picked up another teammate. Hopefully the schedule can be made clear before hand in the future. Anyway, my teammates Ronnie and Elliott and I played in Teams, but didn’t make it. We had average pulls and played some players and lost our first 2 rounds, leaving us out of contention. And that was it for Day 2!
DAY 3 (Friday): This time Teams were first, followed by the rest of Nationals and the second singles Worlds qualifier. We entered Teams again, and got some better pulls this time, but ultimately were unable to qualify again. First round I lost to Nate Warren, an exceptionally good player and great guy (who ended up winning Fellowship). We lost both rounds 1-2 in some close games. After this I watched Top 4 at Nationals, which was one of the most stacked Top 4’s I’ve ever seen. The finals ended up being Quinjet (Patrick Yapjoco) vs Zombie Base (Scott Cramton) which I thought was fitting since those were the two biggest threats going into the weekend. Scott pulled it out in an exciting game (congratulations to him!).
DAY 4 (Saturday): The big day. I didn’t play in or watch any of Team Worlds as I wasn’t qualified and I wanted to practice my singles team with the free time I had (Teams were first). There were 73 people qualified to play in the Worlds finals, I believe 50 were there. First let me give a brief description of my team.
The Team
Nick Fury 120
-Brainiac 25
Jean Grey 50
Magneto 50
Ultron-18.2 (Drone) 30
H.E.N.R.Y. 15
S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 7 ID Card 5
Hawkeye ID Card 5
300
Not going to go too in depth here, but basically the strategy is to free TK the Drone with Jean, call in an ID (not counting towards your action total thanks to the Drone trait), power action TK Nick, move Magneto bringing H.E.N.R.Y. (also not counting thanks to Brotherhood), and swing with Nick, the ID character, and Magneto’s free Running Shot. Magneto also provides a TK so that if you want to play more defensively he can TK someone back instead of Jean doing it, leaving her free to still free TK next turn. He can also blow out walls for Nick. Overall I was happy with the team, although I was worried about Quinjets.
First round I played against a Juston/Krang team. I lost map, he moved up a couple squares. I TK’d out the Drone, called in Nick, TK’d the main Nick and hit with both on Krang, killing him. The next two turns were just finishing off the support; I won scoring 300 points. Cool guy, fun albeit quick game, and a good way to start the tournament. Round 2 I played against Zombies. I lost map which, while certainly expected with +0 vs +3, is unfortunate because if I win map I can one shot the base with my team fairly easily. However he won map and I left the Drone unprotected which was a mistake I should have left him behind Nick who was in Stealth. Due to this error, he came up and killed the Drone and hit Jean for a couple. From here I lacked the number of attacks/firepower necessary to kill the solo adventures AND the base. I managed to kill Super Skrull and my own zombified Jean, scoring 220, but lost. Round 3 I played against a creative team using the super rare Beast from UXM, Nighthawk, Harley Quinn, and the same Jean I had. I went up and killed Nighthawk with 2 Nick attacks, and had Magneto and Nick kill Beast the next turn. It did end up being a close game, as Harley was able to Poison after being free TK’d by Jean, and got a kill on drone and a near-kill on Nick with the help of +1’s from Beast dying. I won, scoring 300 points.
And that was it. I went 2-1 scoring every possible point in my wins, and 220 in my loss. I ended up 12th, leaving me outside of the Top 8 cut. There were two 2-1s that made it in and I believe both had over 1000 points, or close to it. Again, I don’t like this as one loss shouldn’t disqualify you from the cut, and making it in with one loss relies solely on who you played against. I played against two teams with no more than 300 possible points to score from, while a lot of people were playing Zombies, Drones (coming back to life with Ultron-1), and of course lots of ID cards. Of course it’s still my fault I didn’t beat the Zombie base to qualify, but overall I feel either another round or a cut to 16 would have given a lot of players who deserved it a chance in single elimination.
Either way, the cut was made, and throughout some close and grueling matches Patrick Yapjoco came out on top (again). It was a well played tournament by him and he earned it becoming the second 2-time World Champion. Hopefully we’re alternating ;).
Despite a few issues I had with the organization of things, I enjoyed it a lot and can’t wait to compete again next year! See you next time guys!
