by Tyler Locke
300 Points X-Men Xaviers School 2 Booster Sealed; 19 Players participated in this event. This event went 3 Rounds and then we cut to top 16.
My Pulls:
006 X-Student (25/15)
007b Moira Mactaggert Prime (40)
011 Synch (45)
013 Hellion (40)
016 Mystique (60)
021 Cypher (70/35)
022 Karma (40)
025 Mercury (35)
037a Professor X (75/50)
039 Sprite (50)
XID019 Iceman ID Card
So off the bat, good ID pull but no Iceman in the packs eliminates the ID card as an option. First thing I notice is 7 of my 10 figures are X-men (in Bold), so I decided to build around that. All 7 of the X-Men figures on full starting line comes to a total 325. Either drop X-Student or play Professor X at 50 points, I opted to drop the Student. I double checked the other 3 figures to see if they offered my team anything worth sacrificing a theme team for and decided to roll with an X-Men theme team +6 to Map.
007b Moira Mactaggert Prime (40)
013 Hellion (40)
016 Mystique (60)
025 Mercury (35)
037a Professor X (75/50)
039 Sprite (50)
Pros:
Theme Team Probability Control
2 Perplex
2 Leadership
TK
Cons:
No Flyers
Close Combat Oriented
First round I play against Hobbit (Finished Top 4) My Arch Nemesis. He is a very skilled player and we have great games against each other, and we are pretty evenly matched. He was playing SR Cyclops (50) Uncommon Cyclops, Rare All New Wolverine, Oya, X-Trainee.
Surprise, Surprise I won Map and picked Wakanda, my first mistake of the match. Not realizing I am severely out-ranged, I picked a wide open map with nowhere for me to hide. By doing this, I gave him the upper hand out of the gate. My team is very close combat oriented and very reactive, not typically my play style. I am more of an Alpha Strike Player but I digress. Hobbit was able to creep forward and stay outside my range and take out my figures 1 at a time.
My second mistake came first turn when I used Hellion to TK Professor X, and then give him 1 unavoidable to TK another character. With the shrinking of the point costs for figures these days every click counts. I didn’t need to willing hurt my own figure to advance a figure 6 squares when she could have just moved herself and hoped for a good leadership roll from Charles.
My third mistake was trying to use Charles for Incapacitate and Outwit. I was already out in the open, out ranged, and my tempo was off. I was doing what I could to slow down my opponent, but just because a figure has specific powers, doesn’t necessarily equate to being the best use of that figure. Hobbit gave me my first and only loss of the day. It stung a little bit, but I had to shake it off cause there were plenty of more games to be played.
After playing that first match, I had a better understanding of my team, and decided to go with Muir island as my map choice. I kept Mystique, Mercury, and Sprite in front of Professor X, so he could share his 18 Defense with Defend, and Moira and Charles could perplex them. I tried to keep Hellion next to Professor X for the leadership and close to Mercury to TK her into position and tie up opposing figures.
With this new strategy and positioning it was very hard for my opponents to try and hit my high defenses with shape change and super senses. Theme team props became super helpful in protecting my figures from an Alpha Strike Attacks.
I would move my force out 7 squares and try and bait my opponent to try to hit my 18/19 SC SS. When they moved their force within range, I created a kill box with Professor X by using Mind Control, moving 1 of their figures next to my close combat pieces and scatter the rest of their force across the map. The combo of Leadership, Perplex and Theme team probability control proved to be very lethal. I was able to KO a figure per turn on average while my opponent had to then regroup and try to advance being down on points.
Im not going to recap the other 3 games as everything went according to plan above. I think I used all my Theme Team Probability Controls every match as my dice were not rolling all that hot.
Top 8 Matchup:
Mike
SR Wolverine, Prime Magneto, Uncommon Cyclops, X-Trainee
Again I was able to win map roll and played Muir Island. By this time my team is a well oiled machine and I was able to KO Cyclops and move everyone back to the opponents side of the map. He TK’d Wolverine up to charge on Mercury and ended up only rolling a 2 on Blades. It took 2 turns to KO Wolverine cause of the stop clix, but I was able to keep his Magneto at bay while doing so and ended up taking his team.
Top 4 Matchup:
Casper
SR Gateway, Broo, Uncommon Jean Grey, Common Cyclops, Leech, Anole, Moira
This was a weird match-up as he had a taxi for his whole team, but the minute he came within range of Charles I would be able to Mind Control them to scatter. We went back and fourth about 5 turns of me rearranging his team and then him re-positioning until I was able to get his Moira free from the pack and tie her up with Mercury. From there it was kill box time. This match ended up going to time, but I had him on points 125 to 110.
Top 2 Matchup:
Alex Rosado
Common Cyclops, Common Iceman, Surge, Sprite, Jubilee x2
Surprise Surprise, I won map roll again, and chose Muir Island again. I kill boxed his Jubilees and tied up surge and cyclops with Mercury. This move left me open for a charge attack on professor X from sprite, He only needed to hit an 8, but 2 theme team probs saved me and I ended up chewing through the rest of his force.
A Few Take Aways:
Mercury: Incredible for 35 points: Plasticity, Precision Strike, Shape Change and Super Senses, what more do you need???
Professor X: MVP of my tournament, 12-Attack 18-Defend, Mind Control, Leadership, Perplex. I was skeptical at first, only being able to move your opponents figures and not attack via mind control, but being able to do that to everyone within range, you can control the tempo of the game. I can see this figure being meta worthy especially now that we have a shiny new ID card to call him in for only 5 points… what a steal.
Named Theme Team, I was able to win map 6/7 of my games, and TTPC was clutch.
Don’t get down after a loss, learn from your mistakes and do better next game
Thanks for reading. I will hopefully see most you guys at Origins for Nationals.
I want to thank the ENTIRE Smetch Rat Crew for their love and support. I foresee big things to come for them in the not so distant future.
