by Matthew Ventura
What is up everybody out there in heroclix land?! My name is Matthew Ventura and I’m here to bring you my first tournament report from my victory at the Scott Porter Invitational Heroclix for Huntington’s Online Charity Event. Before we get started, I’d like to say how proud I am of our community for being so supportive and raising over $30k for this cause. Thank you to Scott Porter for putting the event together, Wizkids for providing such generous prizing, ROC for hosting, and a massive thank you to all the judges.
This is the build I ran:
Doom the Annihilating Conquerer 75
Sky Tyrant 50
Mister Oz 40
Valeria Richards 40
Valeria Von Doom 30
Molecule Man 30
Dark Phoenix 30
Spin Ring 5
Latverian Village Map Bonus 0
Maps: Latverian Village, Negative Zone, Mount Olympus
I’ll briefly go over the team to provide some context for my games. Every figure on the build had a specific function that gave me options, while being straight forward enough to confidently pilot through several rounds. The go-to strategy is use Sky Tyrant to take out support or threats, go up on points and tempo, and do my best to maintain the lead for the rest of the game. Mister Oz almost didn’t make the team but when play-testing (going second against the Secret Six) Oz’s ‘Intercept the Projection’ trait paired with DOOM’s ‘Life is Conflict’ trait resulted in having more reach than my opponent. Which was critical to raising the win rate in that matchup. Valeria Richards was another figure I went back-and-forth on but ultimately decided that when I went for a strike with this team I’d really need it to stick so her +2 purplex from ‘Here, Uncle, I Built This for You’ would be valuable. Ok let’s get into game day.
Round 1 – Matt Donham (who also made Top 8).
He was running an Onslaught/Doppelgänger Monster’s theme team. He wins map roll and takes us to Ancient Hold. He knows I have more reach than him so his strategy is to make me come to him. He also had an uncommon Proteus with the trait ‘Warping Reality’ that takes away improved movement abilities. So while I have the reach to get Sky Tyrant to his team, Tyrant will not be able to “fly over” his characters once he’s within 3 of Proteus. This meant I needed to get further up the map for a flank attack or be within range to destroy a wall for an opening. I finally get a chance to go in and don’t consider that it was a suboptimal play. I’m able to hit Onslaught to his last click but get stuck between his figures. He takes out Sky Tyrant with ease, I blow out a wall to Colossal Retaliate with Dark Phoenix but unable to finish of Onslaught. Phoenix goes down on his turn. Game ends 80-15 starting my record 0-1 for the day. First game nerves have calmed down I’m ready for more heroclix.
Round 2 – John Hudecek.
He’s playing a Ruler theme consisting of Terrax, Psycho-Man, Dario Agger (+25 for ‘Legacy of Minos’), and Aleksander Lukin (+10 for ‘A Man of Two Minds’). I win map this game, off to a good start. Rather than go to my default map (Latverian Village) I choose Mount Olympus’ for the outdoor extending starting areas. I equip and reposition, he moves up to the middle of the map. Valeria Von Doom uses ‘Hunting Anomalies From Other Worlds’ to FREE place herself, Sidestep, and take a MOVE action to be with 3 squares of Aleksander and ‘spin’ him away from Psycho-Man. (In case Psycho hits his Shape Change I could Flurry Lukin down, with no one to Mastermind to, and Dark Phoenix could take the shot to KO the now replaced Red Skull). Tyrant goes in, Psycho misses his Shape Change and I go up 75 points with a Resurrection token for Sky Tyrant’s ‘I’ll Rack Up So Much Blood, We’ll Reincarnate Forever’. John takes out Valeria Von Doom but I’m able to stick to my strategy for the remainder of the game and just stay ahead. Time’s called with 175 for me, 35 for John. He played a good game but brought a knife to a gun fight. My record is now 1-1, feeling better.
Round 3 – the formidable Tom Kerr
He also brought a Latverian theme via Doom the Annihilating Conqueror’s trait ‘Conqueror of Timelines‘. Tom had a different approach by also adding a Sue Storm to ‘Form the New Fantastic Four’ and change team members to adjust for matchups. He wins map and takes us to Negative Zone. At the beginning of the game for “The Many Faces of Doom” he chooses Lord Doom and I go with DOOM (067). Tom aggressively moves out SR (F4) Wolverine and with the extended starting area is able to make it out far enough to take my Spin Ring. Going after Wolverine would be fruitless as he doesn’t score points because of ‘I Don’t Stay Down Easy’. I need a turn to wait out the First Turn Immunity the rest of his team has so Molecule Man Barrier’s and uses ‘Molecular Manipulation’ to add additional blocking terrain protection. Tom, also sporting a Molecule Man, does the same and has Wolverine clear. I assess the situation and decide to wait another turn before attacking. Tom repositions a bit and stays patient, also waiting for the right opportunity. Turn 3, I miss Willpower on Molecule Man which means I cannot Barrier again. I need to strike this turn. Triple Perplex Sky Tyrant’s Attack up, Telekinesis him out, Dark Phoenix carries Molecule Man who uses ‘Molecular Manipulation’ on Tom’s Barrier needing a 2 or higher to change blocking terrain squares into water. I roll a 2. Molecule Man Outwits Lord Doom’s ‘Doom Laughs at Your Feeble Attacks’ and Sky Tyrant Flurries him down to start another 75-0 lead. ‘Sky Tyrant Flies Again’ allows him to move away after successfully hitting and escapes to the edge of the map. Tom Colossal Retaliates with his Dark Phoenix and, due to a misposition by me of 1 square, KO’s my Phoenix in the process. Another misplay by me was forgetting to put a FREE Smoke Cloud under Mister Oz to give him Stealth and Wolverine was able to throw the Spin Ring at him for another KO. Dark Phoenix moves back to base command for protection. With a tied-up score and Tom taking a massive tempo lead, I was so frustrated with myself and did my best to get back in the game but ultimately lost. Record is now 1-2. I actually considered dropping at this point and enjoying my day off but my gut said to keep going. I’d need to win the next 2 games in a row to make top cut. Pulling myself together I knew what I had to do and moved on.
Round 4 -Cory Gould
Nearly a mirror match, with a +1 map bonus over me I win the dice roll and we go to Latverian Village. I choose DOOM again and grant Dark Phoenix Mastermind through the Map Bonus, he takes Dr. Doom the Sorcerer Supreme. I equip, move Dark Phoenix up adjacent to a Latverian Peasant, take his equipment with another Peasant, and pass. He inches up and Barriers in anticipation of Sky Tyrant’s assault. Dark Phoenix blow’s a hole in his Barrier and my Tyrant takes out his, followed by a move farther away from my team to minimize his Dark Phoenix’s effectiveness. He retaliates and takes out my Tyrant. The game went on like this, each scoring something nearly every turn making it a close game in the end. Going first was a huge advantage and helped me secure another win to be 2-2.
Round 5 – Dan Powell
Final Round of Swiss and I have to win as I don’t have a significant amount of victory points to advance with 3 losses. My Opponent; a 2-time ROC Cup Champion, Dan Powell, piloting a Cosmic Darkseid team. Who was also 2-2 fighting for that top cut spot. With a +3 initiative bonus over him I win map and we go to Latverian Village. I do my normal first turn equipping, moving up Phoenix, and take his Power Gem with a peasant. He double Barriers with Star Sapphire and Molecule Man. Phoenix deletes a square of his Barrier and Tyrant takes out Molecule Man and Star Sapphire. Dan’s behind now and is forced to be more aggressive so he gets Darkseid and High Evolutionary in my face. I try locking down Darkseid with a Barrier but he escapes and is able to take out a few of my support figures before I’m finally able to put him down just before time was called. Stressful but really enjoyable game. Final record for Swiss is 3-2 and I make the cut!
Top 32
I’m more excited about winning a Scott Porter Bystander than anything and go into my first round of single elimination with a carefree attitude. Who better to have a fun game 6 with than Mr. Cram Company himself, Scott Crampton. Running a quite challenging team with Bishop Prime’s Shard bystander (‘Absorb the Ambient Light’) and Harry Leland (‘Hard to Move, Hero?’) he really limits his opponent’s lines of play. I do win map and proceed with my standard first turn. Scott positions in such a way that I cannot go after his Sky Tyrant so I’m left with limited options. I decide to go for Bishop and Shard to allow my Dark Phoenix to at least take advantage of her big range and start popping shots. His turn 2 whittles my Tyrant down to last click with zero Resurrection tokens and Outwits his ‘Sky Tyrant Flies Again’ and Outwit. But does not have the action economy to finish him off thanks to my DOOM. While he’s taking his turn I’m going through scenarios in my head what the next few turns may look like if I leave Tyrant there or just fly him away. I find an extremely risky but potentially game winning line if everything goes right. Valeria Von Doom hits Leadership using ‘Head of the Institute for Gifted Youth’ and chooses DOOM to gain Outwit for the turn. Valeria Richards Perplex’s DOOM’s to a 13-Speed and with some help from Oz makes it 21 squares across to map to Outwit Scott’s Sky Tyrant’s Outwit which gave my Tyrant his Outwit to use on Harry Leland’s Outwit which gave Tyrant his special Charge/Flurry back. Tyrant charges Sky Tyrant, 9-Attack on 17-Defense I need to roll an 8 with 2 Probability Controls against and 2 theme Probs. First attack of Flurry, we both use up our available Probs and my final roll is a critical miss! One more chance, I hit! With a lucky Blades/Claws/Fangs roll to top it off I KO his Sky Tyrant which effectively cancels out the crit miss damage. That turn didn’t literally win me the game but it did set me up In a strong position and make it extremely difficult for Scott to come back from. We had a great game, he went off to dinner with “a hot date” and I was off to find out what game 7 had in store.
Top 16
Matty V VS Matty G. (3rd Champ in a row but who’s counting?) He’s got a Shifting Focus Wonder Woman backed up by Giganta Prime, his own designed piece The Flash, and some other Justice Leaguers. I win an important map roll, back to Latverian Village. We do our first turns, turn 2 begins and I roll for Willpower on Dark Phoenix, I go to remove an action token and before I can finish Matty tells me she’s going to get a token instead because of the map bonus consolation he paid for “I know how the bat thinks.” With no easy way to deal with his Barrier Sky Tyrant goes after what he can and is able to KO a Flash and Stargirl. He gets rid of Dark Phoenix and the peasants but left Giganta just within reach of my team to Outwit her Defense and take her down with DOOM. I was never able to catch his other Flash but had another fun game and to my amazement, anther win.
Top 8
Pairings are up, I see the name I was hoping not to see all day, Colin Bell. My teammate, good friend, and core play tester preparing for this tournament. Aside from Colin being an incredible heroclix player, he knows my build and how I play very well. Colin Ran a +9 Justice League theme also with Wonder Woman and Giganta. Arguably the most important roll of the match, he crit misses for map and I pick village. His turn 1 he pulled out a clever move by having SR Green Lantern carry 2 Billy Batson’s and Superfriend Robin to Perplex Dark Phoenix down to an 8-Attack. I set my eyes on Giganta as the biggest threat and get her off the map as soon as possible. We battle for board control harder than any game I played that day. We trade a few figures and I barely maintain the lead. I tally our points up in my head and count Giganta as 75. This leads me to make an unnecessary play where he has a chance to take the lead right at the end by scoring DOOM but just isn’t able to roll a 6. I squeak out the win and advance.
Top 4
Fourth Champion, a monster of a player, Tylor Spees. I continue my going-first win streak beating his +11 Robot theme team. Turn 1 I don’t see a good reason to move Dark Phoenix up this game so I equip/pass and Tylor spreads out his team best he can with the 3 action cap DOOM limits him to. Turn 2 Sky Tyrant makes quick work of Tri-Sentinel and makes it back nearly to safety. I completely forget to Sidestep carry a Latverian Peasant behind Phoenix and his Danger Room Magneto uses 2 bolts to duel target them meaning Phoenix is not able to Mastermind so she’s out. DOOM uses ‘4-Armed Monstrosity’ to nearly take out his Danger Room Sabretooth by himself. Superman robots start closing in and Molecule Man helps slow down the pressure. Danger Room Mister Sinister comes over to start disrupting from inside my formation but was probably a bit late on the action to do too much. My team being able to work together every turn while his pieces had to come to me and all separately helped me pull off my favorite game of the day as we had a lot of great laughs.
Final Game
Brad Broyles. No stranger to Top Cuts and piloting a mechanic we all unrated; he had chase Apocalypse, Lila Cheney, 2 Maggots, Bishop Prime, and 2 Dark Phoenix. Both a little delirious, with as much brain function as we can muster, we press on to close this (what would be) 15 hour day. My streak ends and I loose map. He takes me to his default which is Ultron’s Layer. Naturally, I choose Lord Doom this game to limit his main form of offense from his bystanders. He does a set up turn and moves out, I do some math to go after a Dark Phoenix but my 3am brain is having errors and can’t figure it out so I barrier and pass. Next turn he moves 1 Phoenix even closer to me as bait. Feeling like I don’t have a choice but to remove both Dark Phoenix first that’s what I do. He Colossal retaliates, I do the same back and heal up a bit. He comes in close and gets some poisons off, I keep up the barrier best I can to slow him down, even gaining a second barrier from a krakoan bystander. I was scoring points but he never lost tempo, because of ‘Krakoan Revival’ he could keep his maggots on the board. After a grueling 10th round, time was called. We tallied up scores and next thing I knew Scott Porter was asking if I wanted to design a switchclix or bystander as my first place prize.
It was an amazing day that I played hard for and learned a lot from and as any winner will admit, some things have to go your way too. Special thanks to my team Secret Invasion including David Newmark who’s kicking off live Heroclix this summer with the Clix Cup. Thanks for reading!
