by Isaac-Arnold Berkovits
From the time the Disney Plus set was spoiled, I started making teams with Sakaarian Iron Man and Scarlet Witch chases. They do so much for their points! We usually refer to them as Sarky and Switch, so I’ll keep that in my writeup. I playtested at our house as usual with my dad, and we were able to get some playing in with our high-level skilled play group from Highlander Games here in New Jersey.
Originally I wasn’t going to go to Gencon and play in Nationals, as I was at a coding camp. But when the format was announced that I could qualify and play through on Saturday, we got our flights and tickets quickly! We avoided another big hiccup when our Friday night flight was canceled and we had to go standby on the *only* other flight to get us there Friday night, unfortunately 10th/11th on the list. We almost didn’t make it, but I’ve never seen a gate agent type so much or so fast and we got on as the last passengers.
My team:
50 Sakaarian Iron Man
75 Scarlet Witch (chase)
30 Molecule Man
25 The Commissioner
30 The Flash (always on Charge)
35 Ch’p
15 Mary Jane
30 Felix Faust
10 Emotional Modifier
= 300
Maps: Negative Zone, Krakoa, Otherworld Castle
Sideline: Marvella, She-Venom, Iron Man (all 3 for Mary Jane), 4 Skrull Spy, 1 Sentinel, Destroyer Prime
4 Rounds of Saturday morning Qualifier. This won’t be a short write-up. I’m going to tell you just about everything I remember!
Round 1: Mike Hollaway playing Thanos/Star Sapphire/Doom Anni/Collector/Latveria map bonus. No equipments.
I played Mike at Heroclix for Huntington’s too, and he played a similar team there.
He wins map, goes to Latveria. He grabs my Emo with a Peasant.
Blocks some Lines of Fire with other Peasants.
I had a standard opening to equip and move up a few squares in order to be able to reach the back of the board. Also get the Catcher’s Mitt next to a lot of my team and put as many as possible into Smoke Cloud.
I did a Running Shot to take out the Emo-carrying Peasant and then grab and equip it.
He Time Platforms my Modifier, TK’s up Thanos, Mind Control’’s Sarky and Rookie (had 20/21 defenses!). Rookie crit missed on Faust and got KO’ed. Sarky took out Faust.
The Latveria map with all its Blocking doesn’t give a lot of space for movement and TK lines, so on my turn, I couldn’t get all my figs into the positions I wanted. I tk’ed Sarky, Flash Charged to take out Sapphire, carrying Commissioner. He OW’s Doom’s defense and Sarky HSS over to do 4 on Doom (with Commissioner’s PD to help with the hit).
Thanos chooses Space & Mind, then Mind Control’s Sarky and Flash. Flash misses Switch but Sarky takes out Flash. Thanos shot at Switch and missed.
Doom Phases 9 away, carrying Thanos with him. Thanos Phases 6 more carrying Doom to get far away from my team.
But I still had a way to HSS Doom & took him out, needing a 7. Doom drops the Emo, so Catcher’s Mitt brings the Emo to Ch’p, who chooses Battle Fury.
So I was up by 20 pts. Thanos has 1 token. My Switch RS on Collector but misses.
On his turn, he rolls for Gems but was trying to figure out which to choose when time was called.
2nd Round: 2nd place King of New Orleans tourney guy. Agatha/Doom Anni/Bishop/MM/double Flash. He switches into DOOM (I only get 3 costed actions)
He takes me to “Downtown”, a 6-panel map. I took the open side that has better TK lines. His first turn he equips and moves behind the walls on his side.
I do my normal equip and move-up but don’t generate a Rookie since I don’t have the actions.
My team is clumped up, so he TK’s up Agatha and pops out her Rune Marker to affect my whole team. He double-tokens his team to move them up close to me. On my turn Ch’p moves most of my team out of the Rune marker (I think I left Commissioner behind). My figures Outwitted a lot on Agatha but did no attacks.
Then he takes out Flash with Agatha (double-tokening her), but cleared otherwise.
I knew DOOM was my primary target so in order to get my actions back, I made Rookie and PenBlasted him, then Outwitted DOOM’s defense and Sarky took DOOM out. I OW’ed his Flash’s Senses and my 4th action was Switch taking out his Charge Flash.
His Bishop moves up and Agatha clears. I Outwit Agatha’s defense, Sarky hits and time is called mid-roll. I think the final score was 135-30.
3rd Round: He had just beaten Tylor Spees in a mirror matchup with them both playing Miles Miles/Sarky/Switch/Flash x 2/Dimensional Watch/Mary Jane
This was a close game. I rolled very badly this game – 3 crit misses (although only 1 stuck)!
He wins map, takes us to Krakoa, TK’s up MJ, generates Paparazzi to pickup and toss my Emotional Modifier into nothing to destroy it.
I decided to gang up on his MJ since she was so far out there.
My Flash Charges up carrying Ch’p, MJ, Molecule Man.
Faust poofs onto the elevated and OW’s his Mary Jane’s Shape Change and my Rookie Running Shots to turn her into She-Venom. Commissioner OW’s her SC but she hits Senses. So I’m in my usual Krakoa setup but She-Venom is still there. However my Barrier kept her away.
He really wanted to use the Dimensional Watch in order to hit and bring over Switch and Chaos Marker me. He Perplexed up his Flash’s move to get behind my Barrier. Misses first attack, 2nd one takes out my Flash. But since he already placed his Flash with TK, he couldn’t use the Watch ability. Also I got out my Destroyer from his equipped Flash attack. His Sarky HSS’es close to my team to shoot at my Ch’p but missed.
My turn I had his Sarky and Flash close enough to get off 4 attacks on them. Rookie takes out Flash, double-Perplexed down his Sarky’s defense and I need a 5. Switch first crit miss, PC to a 3, PC to a hit. I have 2 more Probs left. My Sarky Charges on his Sarky. Crit miss PC’ed to a 3, PC’ed to a hit. I’m all out of Probs, but his Sarky used both objects and is on click 3. My Destroyer is right next to his Sarky, has a 12-Attack, 5-Damage vs his 15 defense! And…..crit miss! Destroyer goes away. Oh my god what the heck?!
Score is 40-35, he’s up.
His Sarky runs away and grabs another object on the way and repositions next to Miles for the Shape Change.
My team rushes up, put everything into attacking his Sarky with mine and Rookie (who hits, but he just takes a ping from using his object) but Sarky does takes him out. My Switch KO’s his Rookie. I’m up 80-40 with his Iron Man, Rookie, and Flash out.
I think I was putting up Smoke Cloud when time was called. It was only my 3rd turn. I don’t feel like we were playing slow, just that we each have so many figures doing so many things each turn (autonomous, Sidesteps). If he had a next turn he could have gotten up on points, but then if I had more time I could have.
So I’m 3-0 but I don’t have a lot of points. Losing vs the last round’s Thanos team could have taken me out of qualifying.
4th and Last qualifier Game vs Adam Friedman (Thanos/20 pt Franklin/Molecule Man/Doom the Annihilating Conquerer – switches into Time Platform Doom vs Emotional Modifier teams).
I won map vs his theme and chose Krakoa. I move up, equip and position. He goes into the corner with his 4 figures.
I set up badly and couldn’t get lines/actions to work, so he let me develop it on the fly without committing to specific actions until I could work backwards from the attack setup result I wanted. That showed a lot of sportsmanship and I wanted to applaud Adam for it.
The end result was that I TK’ed up Flash then moved MJ up carrying my team. My Molecule Man took down his Molecule Man’s Barrier. Sarky HSS to take out Franklin, Flash takes out Molecule Man. I left my Commissioner in my starting area, so my Rookie lost his Prob. Which ended up being a positive later when Thanos MC’ed him, he didn’t get to prob the miss.
He’s got Thanos & Doom. Thanos just punches Flash and takes him out. Doom takes my Modifier with Time Platform and Thanos Mind Control’s Rookie & Sarky, but misses Sarky. His Rookie range attacks Faust but he Sensed out of it.
Back to my turn, my team takes out his Doom. I think Rookie and Switch got the hits.
His turn, Thanos misses Willpower, but only has 1 token. Rolls a 1 on gems, chooses Space & phases away and went to my side of the board for Commissioner. Thanos teams are all about getting over 125 points and surviving until the end of the game. I re-picked up Emo, shot Thanos twice w/ Switch, Rookie and Sarky so he’s on click 8.
My Emo was on Battle Fury. He rolls a 6 on Gems and chooses Space, Mind and free regen & heals 2 (click 5). Takes out Commish, goes to click 4.
I was setting up my next turn when time was called and I had a 125-55 win. I think I could have taken out Thanos next round if the dice co-operated.
With a 3-1 record, made the Top Cut! It starts with 2 Swiss rounds to get to a Top 8.
1st Swiss round: vs Antonio Clark’s 300pt Uni-Mind.
Quick game – I win map and choose Krakoa. I position up a few squares and behind a Barrier. He moves up to get into position. I attack him a lot and get him to last click.
He didn’t get any rollouts since I hit him past Invincible, then Penetrating to skip Uni’s Senses clicks, then blasted him past his other Senses.
He broke with HSS and takes out Molecule Man, then I just Pulse Waved with Sarky to take him out.
2nd Swiss round: Josafa – unthemed good pieces. Venom Magneto, 2 Maggots, Spider-Hamurai, Marvella, Commissioner. He doesn’t have a Green Lantern.
He wins map, equips Sarky w/ Cloak and TK’s his Rookie to blow up my Emo.
My turn, I Outwit Rookie’s Stealth w/ Switch and take his Rookie out with mine. I separated my team to avoid lots of Poisons and Hamurai’s Quake.
His 2nd turn he got his big strike on me, but left Molecule Man & Commish in his Starting Area.
His alpha got Maggot into my main group & Poisoned some folks and KO’d Ch’p (with Marvella’s Empower), then his Flash took out my Flash. Also got Commissioner so 85 pts total.
My turn, I chose HSS with Sarky, and since my Rookie survived I did RS with him and Switch. Took out Hamurai & Flash.
I rolled Paparazzi and Incapped his Iron Man (so 2 tokens) then my Sarky OW’ed his WP. So his Sarky had to sit for a turn.
He brought up his guys and took out Rookie I think? Or someone else.
I was mostly double tokened, so I cleared.
His Iron Man last action took out my Faust. I missed Senses so he won by I think 15 pts. I think if we kept playing I had the advantage, but time always wins!
Top 8: Played vs Alex Cooze playing an exact Fantastic Four team that I had played in a Bradcast Tourney. So I knew how it worked and how to approach it. Valeria/Lockjaw (equipped with Emo to get Destroyer rolls)/Franklin Richards/Scarlet Witch/Saakarian Iron Man
I chose Krakoa with my winning map roll (I won map vs 3 or 4 theme teams – definitely more than I should have!)
My first turn I equip and position. He equips. My 2nd turn I put everything into his Sarky as he cannot Mastermind to the super pup. I took him out with all my attacks and so I had a big advantage. He may have forgotten to roll for Destroyer here? I think he missed at least 1 Destroyer roll. His whole team was within my Faust range which helps negate Franklin’s support powers throughout the course of a game. He takes out my Flash & Commissioner and chooses Invincible with Franklin.
I TK’ed Switch with Ch’p, put down the Chaos Marker, Charge/Flurry on his Switch (on click 2 because of an earlier Faust roll), 2nd attack took out Marvella. I Incapped Franklin with a Razzi.
He got Franklin’s WP roll then poisoned Catcher’s Mitt and the Razzi and could have taken out Faust but he didn’t want to double-token.
My Sarky Flurried on Lockjaw and then Switch took out Lockjaw. I KO’d his last-click Human Torch with a thrown object from the Catcher’s Mitt. I needed an 8 but it worked! He’s left with Valeria and Franklin and a big hill to climb, but time was called. I win something like 200-55
Top Four
Here in the Top 4, I was paired against Lucas Van Holland. He was playing X-Men theme with swap outs. He won map took me to Otherworld Castle. You can also read his writeup for how the game generally went.
After swap outs, the team that he had out there was Venom Magneto, 2 Maggots, Jubilee, Multiple Man, Cypher and Venom Wolverine. Cypher may be seen as filler for 35 pts, but he’s got Perplex, TK AND Barrier. So, good stuff! The figures he started with (Venom Wolverine, 1 Maggott), get Deadpool tokens, which are great! Also has a Lockheed token, which I forgot about until he blasted my whole team with it later in the game!
Anyway, his first turn, he equips Venom Wolverine with the Cloak, and Jubilee Running Shots, blows up my Modifier, I do my normal move up where I just moved up about 4 squares into a defensive configuration with the Catcher’s Mitt protecting most. I was like, come at me! I do my Stealth thing against Jubilee where Jubilee is too far away to take away my terrain without Running Shot first. And if she’s Running Shots first, she doesn’t see through Stealth or anything.
For Jubilee’s attack, she can’t target figures in Stealth, which protects Rookie, Commissioner, Faust and Flash (wildcarding Batman TA).
Sarky is exposed, but he has an 18 with ESD and he’s in Smoke Cloud and I Perplexed up his defense just in case.
In both my Top Four and Finals game, I forgot to put Ch’p in hindering, even though he’s the most appealing target by far, because he’s the only figure you can take out with Jubilee. It’s like, “why wouldn’t I put him in hindering?”. I don’t know.
Luckily Jubilee missed Ch’p in both games. So, Jubilee missed Ch’p and brings down the Smoke Cloud. He free TKs up Venom Wolverine and perplexed up Wolverine’s move.
She could Charge in Giant Reach 2 and just hit Faust (who was in front). But I Sensed out of the attack, great! She has Underworld from Multiple Man, so she was carrying both Maggots, which I’m like, ooooooh, “that’s why Wolverine is good!”.
The Maggots bring out some pogs for Poisoning (takes out Flash) and attack (take out Faust). Venom Wolverine does her free attack because when she has two tokens, she can free attack. So she hits Sarky for 5 (+1 damage from the Deadpool cake token). I took the damage because I only had 1 object on Sarky and he *needs* to counter-attack next turn (his damage goes up to 3). I forgot to roll for Destroyer here. Every other game, I remembered.
He didn’t have the Outwit for Rookie’s defense, so pogs took out Flash and damaged Commissioner or maybe he hit Ch’p for two or something with the poisons.
My turn, I call Poison with Sarky, poisoned his Venom Wolverine and a Maggot, then outwitted Maggot’s Senses. Double perplexed that Maggot’s defense down. Iron Man punched it. He’s a nine because he has Modifier modifying me to be minus one attack. So I’m a 9 for four damage and the KO.
So I need a six. I have one PC, and he has one PC with a theme. I hit, he chose to theme. He probs. I hit again. That was my biggest attack in the game. If I missed that, it all goes down.
That’s a big pivot, because I one shot a single Maggot there. So at least three major attackers left.
Scarlet Witch shoots the other Maggot, and then Rookie finishes off the Maggot. And then I’m like, I’m going to base his Venom Wolverine, and I’m going to make it so I block her line of fire so that she can’t see anyone. Then that was the end of my turn.
And he’s like, “all right, Sidestep breakaway. I have Plasticity and Flight”. I think I Outwitted his Blades but should have Outwitted Sidestep since I also had an extra Outwit to use. But no….I went with Blades, that’s the play there…..<sarcasm>.
Then he came over with his Venom Mags, carrying the other guys, and he had Jubilee shoot at Sarky, but she missed thanks to the Catcher’s Mitt!
And then I proceeded to make a dumb mistake, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. So during my turn, I just ganged up on Venom Wolverine and took her out. Clustered my whole team together.
So I took out his Venom Wolverine and his Jubilee was double token’d.
To take out Venom Wolverine wasn’t easy – I Outwit Senses, one Paparazzi hit for one (with a light object), Mitt hits for two (with a light object), Iron Man hit for three, and Switch hits for three. I believe the Pogswarm is very strong, very strong. But I’m clustering my whole team together on the Mitt, and I’m like, this is brilliant right here.
So he Running Shots Magneto and takes out my Mitt. Then free TK’s Lockheed who then Running Shots and Energy Explodes my whole team.
Wow! Took out my Sarky. He rolled at ten twice, I believe, but didn’t even need high numbers, so not like, oh, my God, such lucky rolls, right? But he hit it twice.
That hits a bunch of other guys for two, like Scarlet Witch (and Lockheed gets KO’d from the Mystics), then he cleared his Jubilee. My turn I take out his Venom Magneto, his pog, and hit Jubilee for one with my Scarlet Witch. At this point I just have Scarlet Witch, Molecule Man left and a Mary Jane who’s wildcarding Green Lantern against his Cypher and Jubilee.
So then “the chase” commences. He’s shooting at my Scarlet Witch. Missed every time. He never hit my Scarlet Witch. She does have Shape Change and Super Senses. He had to take out my Scarlet Witch to win.
Jubilee was on click 2, and my Scarlet Witch was one click away from STOP. So I’m like, all right, Scarlet Witch can’t attack Jubilee anymore because otherwise I take a Mystics and then Switch can be taken out. My plan was once Jubilee hits Switch to last click, then I’ll attack. Because then I can avoid the damage because she’ll have Invincible.
For all you’re listening at home, Switch couldn’t heal from doing Knockback, since she can’t Knockback bigger figures and Jubilee was a Giant. But eventually, Jubilee got double token’d and I was like, Mary Jane will just move carrying Scarlet Witch and just base her. Jubilee missed the Willpower roll – super big! And I had a Paparazzi there.
Jubilee cleared, Mary Jane Sidestepped and picked up a light object that a Paparazzi brought for her. Switch popped the Chaos Marker out and Mary Jane attacked Jubilee with the light object. And….Crit Hit! And since she has three clicks left, object one and crit hit was what took her out. Lucas just threw up his hands. He’s like, well, that’s the way it’s going to be. I think even without that, I keep the lead though.
Final Game:
Mystical Loki Assault! He wins map, goes to Otherworld Castle. First turn, he does the same thing as Lucas – blows up my Modifier with Jubilee. He equips his Modifier to Blackheart, which I don’t think ever came up, except that it gave me a Destroyer roll one time. I don’t think either of us remembered what his Modifier was on.
He moves up a bunch of Lokis to have them positioned for the future.
I did my normal setup, up a few squares, clustered around Catcher’s Mitt and 6 figures in Smoke Cloud.
And then once again I forget to put Ch’p and hindering because I’m a super genius. It was all part of my plan to bait him over what he was going to do anyway, but whatever, his Jubilee shoots Ch’p and misses, and I’m like, *whew*. He had like, seven probs, two are within Faust’s range. He needs a 9 (11 vs 20). I have one Prob on it – my Rookie. He hit once, which I rerolled. I’m not sure how statistically weird that is, but it sure was a big deal at the time.
Then he TK’s up Blackheart, Running Shot/Energy Explosion, Blackheart on Rookie, hit a whole bunch of guys. Faust hits Senses. Then he Running Shots a second time. Power action, Energy Explosion again, which I didn’t realize at the time he couldn’t do because you can’t take the same FREE action, He could have done a straight up attack on somebody. He probably would have targeted Flash. Anyway, Flash missed Senses the second time. So Flash is KO’d, Commissioner is KO’d, Rookie is KO’d, Sarky took two, Scarlet Witch took two.
I don’t have Leadership anymore, so my actions are Sidestep Ch’p onto elevated, TK Scarlet Witch, pop up the Chaos Marker on Blackheart, 1 Loki, and Jubilee. Jubilee has two tokens at this point. Very important! She missed Willpower the previous turn. I took out Blackheart in 1 shot with Sarky. I had Destroyer, by the way, he was in my Starting Area, but I didn’t have the action to shoot with him to take out Jubilee.
His turn, his Destroyer shot my Mary Jane and turned her into Iron Man. I made it so that he could never get a shot off on anyone with any Loki. Because Loki’s move up, but then I Sidestepped to move out of the way or put up blocking with Molecule Man. He had brought in Deadpool when I took out Blackheart, too. So he just moved Deadpool out of the Chaos Marker, towards his Starting Area.
My turn (3 actions) 1) My Destroyer takes out his Jubilee and Mystics gets him off the map. 2) I removed his Destroyer with, I believe, Faust. Then my Scarlet Witch Running Shots out of the Chaos marker with Faust and targeted his Deadpool. Which wasn’t an easy attack. I think I needed a seven. And I had two Probs on it. He had two Probs on it. We each had Faust on all those Probs. But Switch did the 4 clicks to KO Deadpool.
He is left with Faust, Enchantress and a Loki swarm. He started moving a Loki and I think time is called and I got the win!
It was a well-run tournament that moved quickly. Which makes sense with the smaller number of players. It was a lot of intense games in a short period of time and I’m glad Wizkids was able to run it during Gencon. Now onto Worlds in Graceland!
