by Emilio Gutierrez
What’s up team? Back again with my second article, this time a tournament report on my experience at Crazy Fred’s comic Game and Lounge for the San Diego stop in the Majestix ROC Age Open Series!
I’ll go over my team, the matches and anything else that comes to mind about the event.
My Crew:
(Freedom Force Themed Team)
60 Mystique
60 Mystique
60 Mystique
60 Mystique
5 Gamma Bomb
3 Omega Drive
2 Pym Particles
30 Power Plant (full)
20 ID Cards:
-Wolverine
-Hulk
-Harley Quinn
-Iceman
Sideline: TMT FF Hulk 50, XXS chase Iceman 60, XXS053 Wolverine 50, Title Harley Quinn 60
Maps: Staten Island, Zipline Park, The Blue Line
I like to call this team the Mystique Boutique because…well they’re Mystiques and like a jewelry boutique, we got a lot of bling-bling, specifically the Ten Blings Rings of the Mandarin. I came up with this team last February and refined it to the pretty tight build that it is today. The strategy of this team is a patient, opportunistic build that is designed to put small early pressure, manipulate the map and take points when you can.
Mystiques UXM 047
The crux of this whole team revolves around this figure and her Shapeshifter trait. This ability prevents her from being targeted by (almost) anything until she attacks [its similar to the Subterfuge Lex Luthor that made an appearance a few years back]. This basically means that the Mystiques can be patient or aggressive and if your positioning is fine, they don’t have to get wary about taking damage at all barring effects that don’t target [such as poison or shredder elite damage] or a pulse wave [which would shut off Shapeshifter]. The trait also gives them Improved Movement: Ignores Characters, which makes them extremely hard to tie down as a team without the aforementioned shredders or pulse wave really has only one way to attack them: begin the turn adjacent to them. And between ignoring characters, Vortex Beam Ring [TK/Flight] from the power plant, and carrying around from pym particles, getting that positioning is extremely difficult to do for a vast majority of teams.
The second most important part of Mystique is the Freedom Force trait. This trait allows Mystique to use Force Blast at no cost after being given a MOVE action, which, in a way gives Mystique free damage without attacking. It’s only gotten better with the 2017 rules since fliers now take knockback damage. That said, there’s a few common ways to prevent this: Reducers, Charge and Combat Reflexes. Since the former will usually reduce the knock back damage to nothing while charge and reflexes prevent knockback from happening entirely. This makes several pieces hard to damage without dropping Shapeshifter, greatly limiting Mysique’s ability to damage the opposing team on her own.
Playing four of them allows the team to form together in a tight knit square which allows for their four Leaderships to take tokens off semi-reliably as well as Sidestep allowing for very high mobility as a group. Sometimes the situation will arise when separating them is necessary, but for the most part they benefit from staying together.
The Power Plant:
What a lot of people don’t know about me and this team is that originally the resource I designed it with was the around Avengers RoundTable/Justice League Teleporter. The purpose of the resource on this team was determined by a need: I need to Outwit Charge/Combat Reflexes/Reducers AND I need to attack with characters that aren’t Mystique [else I lose Shapeshifter]. The teleporter/roundtable let me do that to an extent by loading up with call-ins that have outwit and decent attacking stats. However, that version left a lot to be desired as the call-ins weren’t reliable enough to do damage and the inspirations were pretty much a waste of points. So while it did its job, I couldn’t help but feel like there’s gotta be a better way…
Lo and Behold: The Power Plant.
Sometimes when I reflect back on this resource, it almost feels ‘too’ perfect for the Mystique Boutique. It gives me up to 10 uses of Outwit, leaves room for call-ins to get +1 to all stats and provides a LOT of options for Mystiques that help out immensely. First of which, the Impact Beam which gives Force Blast, increases knockback damage by 1 and get this: Knockback Damage is penetrating. #Blessed. This solved one of the biggest problems with Mystique’s damage issue and was reliable enough to have for several turns. All but three of the rings have some incredible use for the Mystiques, Vortex Beam giving TK and Flight helps move the other Mystiques around, Matter Rearrangers creates permanent blocking to block off whatever we need [Or create a wall to knock an opposing character back into]. And the Black Light, with a lot of practice/finesse can really limit opposing Pulse Wave options by planting it under the Pulse Wave character’s square [Or in the case of call-ins, their anticipated square] and reducing their speed and range by -2, turns a 9-Running Shot 7-Rng Pulse wave from 5-Square swing and 4-Rng to a 3-square swing and 2-Rng pulse wave which is a LOT less threatening.
The Cameo Appearances:
The build has room for four ID cards, which at the day of the tournament, I was still undecided on. I ended up using Wolverine, Iceman, Harley Quinn, and Hulk. The point behind the ID cards was that they each serve a specific role on the team [Sometimes two].
Hulk’s role was the [obviously] single big heavy hit. After a call-in, he can burn a ring, get plus 1 stats, and Leap-Climb->Quake with a 13-ATK and 5-DMG. Hulk is the main damage dealer of the team able to deal up to 5 consistently and 7 with good positioning. The usual play is to call Hulk, burn 1 Ring for the +1 Stats, then burn however many you need to kill their defensive powers, and go for the swing. On average, a hulk call-in has typically scored me at least 20 points to offset the ~11pt investment, but sometimes as high as 100.
Iceman actually has two roles as both the Pulse Wave call-in, and the Dual-Target call-in. With a ring burned, he’s a 12-ATK / 4-DMG Pulse Wave or simply 8-RNG, 12-ATK, 4-DMG double-targetting call-in. Another advantage to Iceman is the fact that the student ID means this attack only costs 5pts to do.
Wolverine’s role is the Charge-Flurry-Blades call-in. Burning a ring on him gets up 12-ATK, 4-DMG Flurry. This is the last ID card I decided on right before the tournament. I was deciding between him and AVAS Triathlon who has the essentially the same starting stats and powers as Wolverine. I eventually decided on Wolverine because the Improved Movement for Hindering made him more mobile, but in hindsight, there wasn’t any match where I called him in simply because I wasn’t on their side of the map. If I were to ever run this team again [which is unlikely] I would definitely switch him out for Triathlon.
Lastly, I opted for the Harley Quinn ID. Harley’s one of the best call-ins at 60points mostly because she can serve two roles here. First off, she serves as a quick 13-ATK/4-DMG range attacker if you choose to use the +1 Title Ability on the call-in and burn a ring. Secondly, she can do a 13-ATK Energy Explosion without having to burn a ring. The versatility is really what makes this call-in shine.
The Knick-knacks:
This build plays three special items that have very specific roles to play. Like I said, this team is a very tight build with a lot of moving parts. Each of these items helps somewhat in some matches and can help sway an uphill match-up in others.
The Omega Drive. I firmly believe that this is one of the top 3 special objects in clix. Being the only game element to make it onto all the ROC Age teams I’ve played, its effectiveness greatly exceeds its 3pt cost. For those unfamiliar, when the character it’s assigned to uses Outwit, it may do so regardless of line of fire and can bypass Protected: Outwit. This relic was originally included to deal with the Mistress Death match-up to help Outwit her top-dial shape change, or late-dial Toughness but it has proven to be useful in all match-ups, removing the line of sight requirement whenever the Mystique its assigned to burns a ring to outwit can make positioning challenges a LOT easier when lining up for that call-in.
I feel like when Pym Particles came out, people only used it for Tiny to allow the equipped character to always get carried around. This build plays the Pym Particles at Giant to firstly, allow a Mystique to push Giant-sized X-Men characters [important to note that it does not allow her to push colossal-size] and more importantly, to give her improved movement and kind-of line-of-fire break. The improved movement to carry a Mystique and ignore elevations on movement has proven to be invaluable in getting out of a 5-square call-in range, staying mobile without gaining tokens, and getting an easier line of fire for Outwit or theme Probs.
Lastly, but most importantly is the Gamma Bomb. When I was scrolling through HC Realms to fill out the final five points of my team (since the original build was 295 at this point), I came across this beauty and bought one immediately. Only a FIVE POINT investment to put immediate pressure on your opponent to move forward is incredible. This basically forces your opponent to be aggressive and all but guarantees points unless they deal with it immediately [The key placement is H/I-9 or H/I-16]. If they don’t deal with it, AND get out of its range, then they move towards the Mystiques who by that point should have the appropriate rings equipped and thus fully prepared for whatever damage they’ll choose to do on their terms. And if they DO disarm it? No harm, no foul, it stays on the board un-scored and won’t count against the Mystiques in point count.
Speaking of things that don’t count against point count…
The Stages:
Picking maps for this team came down to worrying about three things:
1: What’s the plan against Pulse Wave?
2: What’s the plan against Shredders?
3: What map does the team thrive on?
Honestly, if there’s a map that fulfills all three of these, then that would be the one to go to, however, I have yet to find one that can accomplish that. Thankfully, we’re allowed to bring three maps, and these are the ones I decided on:
Firstly, the plan against Pulse Wave. I decided on the ROC Blue Line map to answer this problem because with all the walls and starting area elevated, the map made it difficult to get a clear Pulse-wave shot off, especially on turn 3 when the Mystiques should be able to get in the back two squares of the elevated and matter-rearrange the elevated terrain to make the Pulse excessively difficult. Notice I don’t say Impossible because well…they can always find a way to get it off, the best that Mystiques can do just make it very difficult. The Blue Line also makes it inconvenient to get to the middle of the map where the gamma bomb should be. This kind of positioning also discourages your opponent from attempting to disarm it, making it more costly for them and easier for you to get it to detonate during the game. Lastly this map has enough elevated and walls to make sure that Mystique has somewhere to Force Blast opponents into.
The second issue our maps needed to address was the Shredder problem. Shredder elite damage doesn’t give a crap about Shapeshifter and with Charge/Combat Reflexes on Mini and the fact that they don’t die basically means that this is one of the most uphill match-ups that you’re likely to see. The counter to this is the only legal ROC Age map with single squares of elevated: Zip Line Park. Maybe there’s a better answer since the two times I’ve played against Shredder-centric teams with Mystiques, one I lost Map roll so it didn’t even matter, and the second time I got up on the zip-lines, waited out the Gamma Bomb to soften up Peace Machine, so I could KO it, then just kind of passed and tried to Matter Rearrange a Shredder into a box. This is the only map in the arsenal that really doesn’t give Mystique any easy damage options and thus can be very difficult to score points on but also (at the time of writing) it’s the only map that can even begin to address the shredder problem (especially in Majestix ROC Age where they usually have a resource to give them some kind of flying or Phasing).
The last question I needed answered by my map selection was: “If they didn’t bring much Pulse Wave or Shredders, what map can really capitalize on Mystiques strengths?” I never found a clear confident answer for this one, but eventually settled on the ROC Staten Island Ferry. The several levels of elevation give Mystiques plenty of opportunity to Force Blast opposing characters off different elevations and the corners on the “Ideal Gamma Bomb” squares made it harder for opponents to disarm it.
So that’s the build. It’s tight, it’s cheap [barring call-ins, but honestly you can substitute the higher priced ones for equally effective cheaper options], and now I can finally say it’s tournament winning. Which tournament you might ask? This one:
The San Diego Stop in the Majestix Open series!
A week before the tournament, I noticed a lot of the buzz around my previous Mystique build was dying out, which meant one thing: it’s the ideal time to bring it back. Well that and…seeing as the other stops are much farther to get to, this would be my last event in the circuit (unless I won), so I had to play my best team, right?
16 People showed up, so we had four rounds and a cut to Top 4. Kind of put a lot of pressure and made each round that much more “heavier.” But ain’t nothing to a boss right? Anyway, we got settled in, had a few last minute panic attacks with missing cards and finally…pairings were up.
Round 1 VS. Alonzo Gutierrez (Gobling King, Lila Cheney, Infinity Gauntlet, KC Batman, Cosmic Treadmill, Omega Drive)
Lol…we saw the pairing and were like…well crap. For those that don’t know, the last name matching isn’t a coincidence, we’re brothers and knew each other’s teams inside and out. We both knew that even though he could pick Pulse Wave, I had a huge advantage which skewed even more if I won map…which I did (ROC Blue Line). The early game consisted of me picking up the Omega Drive turn one, and him moving up with Lila and GK to try and disarm the bomb. He tries with Lila and fails, picks up the Mirror with GK and passes. I equip the Pym Particles and start to Matter Rearrange my side of the map to prevent him from coming up. Next turn he picks Sidestep with GK, gets on the Gamma Bomb and…fails to disarm again. We both know that in three rounds, KC Batman is dead and I’ll be up points. Next turn I finish Matter Rearranging the hallway and he clears his figures. My turn, start Matter Rearranging the stairways to blocking and backing up into my starting area. On his move he makes his first misplay and moves Lila up to the corner near my side to preemptively get her out of the Gamma Bomb range and moves GK up inside the train area. On my turn I capitalize on this, assign the impact beam, move three Mystiques and Force Blast Lila to death into the wall. 25-0. A few turns later the Gamma Bomb explodes, killing KC Batman, and he makes the second misplay: he picks Sidestep and Reflexes with GK to get into a better position to Pulse Wave me on his next turns. Big mistake. My turn, Omega Drive Mystique Outwits Combat Reflexes, Impact Beam pushes him off elevated for three penetrating through the Imperv, then another Mystique calls in Iceman, who burns a ring and single-target Pulse Waves for four damage through to KO GK.
Post Round 1-0, 298pts
Round 2 VS. Anthony (Starfox, Spider-Carnage, Groot, Green Power Battery, Giant Girl)
Anthony if you’re reading this, I am so sorry I forgot your last name. I took a seat at the table, shook his hand, looked at his cards, including call-ins and noticed one big thing: No Pulse Wave. As soon as I noticed this, I knew it was going to be a major uphill battle for him. Especially since there was also no Shredder. I win map roll and put us on the Ferry. So the early game goes as anticipated, I equip both items and…he disarms the Gamma Bomb. Which I was counting on to score me some easy points with the colossals. But then at the same time, he misplays HARD by basing a Mystique on my side’s elevation 5. On my turn, I capitalize hard by calling in Hulk and burning four rings to Outwit Shape Change, Combat Reflexes, Charge and give Hulk +1 Stats. Basically if my 13 on his 17 missed, I would have wasted 13pts. Hulk attacks, rolls that sweet 7 for five damage and knocks him off the elevated for another 2, KO’ing Spider Carnage. From there on out, between using Iceman’s double target KO-ing colossals and basic Impact Beam Forceblast, I was able to KO Starfox, Mudman and everything else on the board for a clean 300 victory.
Post Round 2: 2-0; 598pts
Round 3 VS. Michael Contrestano (Phoenix Force, double Quicksilver, Moira, Lila, Hellion, Treadmill)
This is a match that Michael was really REALLY worried about, but I think it was in his favor more than he thought. I got very lucky with a key dice roll here that I’ll get to, but first of all, he had a +5 Map bonus and I had a +4…and I still got lucky and won Map putting us on the Blue Line. The match begins and I equip my normal items, getting that Omega Drive first try! (66% of the time, it works EVERY time) and start to prepare as I fully expected his first few turns to go towards disarming the Gamma Bomb and…he moves all the way up with Lila. I start to slightly panic because now in a matter of turns…the Gamma Bomb will blow and I’m down 5pts. Which is exactly what happens. I played the next few turn hoping he’d move in somehow and leave an opening to push a Quicksilver or just…SOMETHING to plan for. But he doesn’t. On his turn he reaches for Lila to re-position inside the railway and goes over several combinations and ideas before settling in what I thought was the perfect one for him. See, my plan while he was moving things around was to try to Force Blast push a Quicksilver out of the way and isolate/go after him…but there was no way around it. It’s a tight map and Michael was able to position perfectly to minimize my options and maximize his. I knew I had I make something happen on my turn and thought about all my call-ins. Wolverine wouldn’t work cause I was on my side, my Mystiques were too far back for Iceman to Sidestep up and get a shot due to blocking, Hulk would only be able to Leap/Climb-Quake to two Quicksilvers with Invuln (Thanks Phoenix Force) for nothing and I had the same problem with Harley, who would at least be able to get an attack on everyone with the -2 Plot Point Energy Explosion (which would really only hit Lila and Moira since the others had Invuln). I spend a minute or two going over all my options (since they’re pretty much all less than ideal) and finally decide on using my one Omega Drive Outwit to kill Invuln on Hellion and going for the Energy Explosion with Harley, hoping to put 2 damage on all the support pieces to set them up for a hopeful KO later in the game. Harley boosts her ATK by +3, goes for the roll and…2-2. Total 17 -Attack total, missing Hellion by 1, Lila by 2 and only hitting Moira. See, I originally saw this and panicked because this did not go as planned. I asked if he wanted to use one of his Theme Probs on it, he declines and then…I realize I hit knockback. This was the lucky roll I was talking about ‘cause it totally ended up being better than what I planned for. I keep the roll choosing not to spend one of my theme Probs myself, and do the damage + the knockback, KOing Moira Mactaggert and putting me up at 25-12. From here on out, he tries to bring it back, but is unable to get any decent shots with his Nova call-In, and I’m able to take out a Quicksilver with two ring-burn Outwits plus a Ring-powered Hulk call-in for 5. The match ends rather decisively after that with the final score being 100 to 23. [Or something to that effect, to be honest, I don’t remember the exact score].
Post Round 3: 3-0, 698pts.
Round 4 vs. Shane Something [I know that’s totally not your last name, I just don’t remember how to spell it and I’m pretty sure your Facebook name isn’t your real last name] (Fast Forces Unplugged Ninja Turtles, Carnage, Atomica, Nighthawk Prime, Phoenix Force)
Shane knows my team (and more fortunately for me), knows his team. Which doesn’t have Pulse Wave. I win Map Roll and put us on the Blue Line, plant the Gamma Bomb in the middle and we start. We both know this game is going to be very difficult for him and he does the best he can. He’s able to fully disarm the Gamma Bomb after four attempts and moves up to try and overcrowd a mystique to hopefully get poison damage in on a following turn. I outmaneuver the turtles and see a shot on Nighthawk prime for a Hulk call-in. I call in Hulk, burn a ring for stats, but a ring on two elevated Mystiques to Outwit Shape Change and Invuln [****ing Phoenix Force] and go in for the hit, pretty confident that five damage kills it. I land the hit and…he’s got Toughness. Hulk’s attack only does four and Nighthawk survives. Having spent 11pts on the attack, the game immediately turns into whether or not he can keep Nighthawk alive or if I can kill it before time runs out. We chase around for a few turns, with me being hyper aggressive and eventually get a change to call-in Iceman and go for the hit after Omega Driving out Super Senses through a wall and get the kill. From there, I’m able to Freedom Force-Blast to KO Atomica and Shane concedes, knowing there’s nothing he can do against the team.
Post Round 4: 4-0 ~1038pts
Top 4
As the only 4-0, I made it to Top 4 cut as the #1 seed and paired against the #4 seed…Shane. As soon as we hear the match up, I give him that look, “I’m sorry man” and he concedes the Top 4 match to me. It always hurts to knock out a friend, but sometimes that’s just how the pairings go.
Finals
Brandon Cruz (Groot, Groot, Indigo Battery)
I LOVE Brandon’s team. This double groot tent-pole with all the walking woods and the Star Sapphire battery to give the Big Groot Shape Change and Mystics was super awesome to see do well throughout the tournament…however, he didn’t pack Pulse Wave. Which makes me super confident about the match. We set up (I win map and head to the ROC Ferry), Gamma Bomb ticks down and I realize that I’m one Gamma bomb away from 1st place. If it blows, the 20pt Groot dies and that’s all I need. However, unlike most teams, his walking woods gives his team several chances to disarm the bomb. My first turn consisted of assigning the Vortex Beam and equipping the Pym Particles so I could carry half the team and start moving towards the bomb to start matter rearranging it into a box. He manages to get a few attempts to disarm it but only manages to make it tick back once. With decent positioning and finding ways to matter rearrange his pathing away from the bomb, I was able to evacuate at the last possible turn and it detonates, killing the retaliation Groot. At this time we start crowding around my starting area and it’s starting to get a little claustrophobic. There’s starting to be less and less squares at which I can place my mystiques without ending next to a walking wood or big 250 Groot, so I call in Iceman, burn a ring and pulse all the walking woods, big Groot and one of my Mystiques. I hit a four [wow] and manage to miss Mystique and colossal Groot and now it’s one colossal without Pulse Wave vs. four Mystiques. I count out the number of clicks he has left [to the best of my recollection] and decide whether or not I can pull it off and go for the kill. I’ve already spent 11 points and decide that if I WERE to try and go for Colossal Groot, it would take everything I had and it just wouldn’t be worth it. So I start to spread out my team, Matter Rearrange blocking to prevent him from becoming adjacent and he’s unable to 
find a way to base me. After several SEVERAL turns of this back and forth kind of motion, even baiting me to attacking Groot by inflicting Colossal Stamina damage to himself, he concedes and…I win my first major ROC event.
It’s still pretty surreal for me to have secured a win with a team of my own design, [and I guess I’ll always be the Mystique guy and not the Power Plant guy]. Especially since my first ROC event was only this past March. Major thanks to Pat for starting a circuit with this format and Ban List [Though I expect Mystique will definitely be a topic of discussion to join that list] and another major thanks to Fred for running one of the most welcoming venues I’ve ever set foot in. Lastly but of course thanks to my fellow Majestix regulars, my brother, Michael C., Shane, Mr. Clixso [David], Eric Clixer, Kris, Jayson, Noel, Chase, Clay, Michael H. and really, anyone I’ve practiced with over the last few months ‘cause I wouldn’t be the same experienced player I am now without you guys. Hats off to the Clix community for being super awesome and I look forward to everyone packing three pulse wave call-ins in December for the Majestix Open Series Invitational!
