by Ed-Arnold Berkovits
4 Points Gaming
Team members: Scott Cramton, Isaac Arnold-Berkovits, Ed Arnold-Berkovits
Saturday morning and we were ripping open 6 Heroclix boosters to make 3 teams of 300 points each – a good day no matter what happened during the tournament! We had talked in the weeks before the tournament how doing well in the team event was our top priority. So we studied up on the Thor dials and we were ready to open up average boosters. Well, we were surprised when they contained excellent figures! Our teams ended up being this:
Ed played:
100 Hulk
125 Thena
55 Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man
If I got map choice, I chose the new ROC map “Underground”, to set up Hulk’s busting-through-walls Charge, with Thena’s perplex to increase his attack or possibly speed to surprise opponents. Otherwise I’d try to snipe at a distance (sometimes making my range 9 to ping a click or 2 and have my opponent be too far away to retaliate. Zarrko’s PC was excellent, with almost every opponent having multiple Asgardians, as well as his ability to heal up to full from his last click if you spend the first few turns making markers. I defeated a Thor Odinson/100 pt #17 Thor/Eric Masterson team on the ROC Remote Outpost map.
Scott played (Asgardian theme +5):
175 Thor Odinson
25 Rock Troll
25 Rock Troll
45 Sif
30 Jane Foster
= 300
Scott picked the Blue Line map every game, to help build up Thor’s Plot Points to 8 and he was able to use Thor’s ability every game:
God Of Thunder (-8): For the rest of the game as long as Thor Odinson is on the map, when an opposing character would get an action token, it gets two action tokens instead. Scott went 4-0 in the 4 Swiss rounds. One game highlight was playing Easton Brock and Easton had insane pog generation with Valkyrie and Hela. It ended with Thor and Hela just punching each other.
Isaac played (Asgardian theme +3):
230 Odin the Destroyer
45 Lorelei
25 Warrior Soul
= 300
In his 4 games, Isaac tended to play vs the strongest opposing teams – 2 Uniminds, a double-Thena/Red Leader team, and a Thena and friends team. He defeated the Thena teams and lost to the Uniminds, although one of those games he almost pulled off. A game highlight was against the double-Thena where he had Odin engage one Thena while his Warrior Soul tied up the other one so Odin could take care of one of them before defeating the other one.
I believe we went 3-0 in our first match, but 2-1 in each of the next 3 rounds. The results were that we went 4-0 in Swiss, so we took the break while ROC Semis were being played to playtest for the individual event but still setting aside time to review Thor dials and strategies.
All the Top 8 teams won a brick (8 boosters plus a colossal which ended up being Magog). So the tournament decided that from that brick each team would chose 6 boosters (blindly) to make 3 new teams for the elimination rounds. We got lucky again with our pulls (afterwards, the 2 boosters we didn’t pick had the least-competitive figures in the set!). I don’t believe anyone pulled Uni-Minds in the Top 8.
Ed’s team:
145 Hulk
125 Thena
15pt Eric Masterson (Perplex w/ a power action)
I defeated Scourge Prime/Iron Rocket Man/20pts Stone Man/50pt Thor by taking out Thor at range. He dropped the Last Laugh marker and I just backed away out of Scourge’s range. So I forced the weakened opponent to approach without Scourge’s marker protecting him. I defeated a Wrecker/Lorelei/Valkyrie/Fandral team on the Underground map by just blowing open a path and damaging them at range as they approached so the team was heavily weakened even before they were close enough for Hulk to charge them. I remember losing my final match and rooting heavily for my teammates.
Isaac played:
175 Maestro
95 Captain Marvel (HSS hit-and-run)
20 Stone Men of Saturn
10 Bloodaxe
= 300
Again, Isaac seemed to battle the strongest teams. Maestro picked up the Bloodaxe every game which was extremely necessary for Maestro surviving and doing maximum damage. Isaac’s Top 8 first round was vs a Destroyer/Red Leader who hit Maestro first and got him off of charge, which ended up being a loss. In the semis he lost to a strong build – Makkar and Ikaris. However, the Final game was versus Wrecker (+Enchanted Crowbar), Thunderball (+Enchanted Ball and Chain), Piledriver which he had Captain Marvel ping the opposing figures a bit before his opponent could get his team up to engage Maestro. Crucially, Isaac pulled out the essential WIN!
Cram played (Asgardian +6):
60 Fandral (charge/flurry, equipped with Dueling Sword)
55 Captain America (charge/blades/flurry)
80 Balder (charge, invul, equipped with Frey)
45 Valkyrie
35 Valkyrie
25 Rock Troll
= 300
Possibly the swarmiest-swarm team possible in TMT Sealed. He picked Morlock Tunnels every round to hide and then run at opponents as they approached. Fandral’s token-removing power certainly helped, and Frey on Balder to give him blades got in a few high-damage attacks. A game highlight was the final match vs a full-up Zeus. Hitting 5 out of 6 Shape Change rolls to start the match didn’t bode well, and while at one point Zeus may have been able to retreat and play out the clock, Zeus stayed to fight it out. Zeus missed one big attack, which helped a lot and the swarm just attacked as much as it could.
So the Finals were over and our Four Point Gaming Club ended up the top team! Finally, for our tastiest team tradition, we went out for celebratory Cold Stone Creamery milkshakes!
