by Michael Kornytchuk
Over the previous weekend, I played in a ROC Regional with my Thanos-Heart team and was able to snag first place. It was a lot of fun playing in a big tournament again, and it was exciting to dip my toe into competitive heroclix as I’m typically more of a casual player. Names and teams I posted to the best of my recollection but there may be mistakes.
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The Team
Legacy Thanos – 175
Alchemical Fire – 10
Blackheart – 75
Suited Henchman – 5
Proteus – 10
Location: I Keep The Trains Running – 5 pts
Sideboard
Black Widow ID card – Call in Chase Widow from the movie set
Green Arrow ID card – Call in Elseworlds Green Arrow
Faculty Storm ID card – Call in Prime Storm XDPS
Captain marvel ID card – Call in CAAV Captain Marvel
Gorilla Grodd
Brainiac
Lex Luthor
Deadpool
Black Vulcan
My main thought in creating this team was survivability and versatility. Specifically, can I deal with Sky Tyrants and can I leverage my Call Ins enough to deal with the large variety of teams that Silver Age can offer? After testing, the answer is sometimes which is good enough. So I gave this team a whirl.
Round 1 – Erik
Blackheart
Mini Shredder
The Commissioner
Venom Magneto
Legacy Surtur
Moloid
Power Gem
In this first game, I lost map but was able to get an early KO on Surtur. Unfortunately, that was countered with a 1-2-3 of Rookie pinging Thanos for 1-damage, Sky Tyrant hitting Thanos twice equipped with Power Gem and Empowered by Mini Shredder, and finished off by Mini Shredder pinging Thanos for 1.
Record: 0-1
Round 2 – Errol
Eternals Movie Uni-Mind at 300
Errol is one of my friends who I play-tested with, so I already had a plan in mind to deal with Uni-Mind. Hit him with a Mind Control with Thanos. Use Alchemical Fire to give him a fire token, so he’ll take free damage. Bring him in range of my team and use Green Arrow/Blackheart/Hellfire Guard to get rid of him.
Shape Change rolls were not on Uni-Mind’s side, and I took the win.
Record: 1-1
Round 3
I faced a Magneto swap out team and after swaps it looked something like
Juggernaut
Blackheart
Tri-Sentinel
Hellfire Guard
Venom Magneto
I won map and so we went to Realm of Death. I slowly approached with my team, as my opponent started breaking down walls. Mid-match, with a combination of Alchemical Fire and Green Arrow, I was able to sneak a KO on Juggernaut. Tri-Sentinel then retaliated and rolled a crit miss on the attack. After some damage was done to my Blackheart, and some Hellfire Guards were KO’d on my opponent’s end – time was called.
Record: 2-1
Round 4 – Rick
Rick was playing Dan Powell’s Spider-Thanos team
Legacy Thanos 175
Empyre MJ 40
R&F Dazzler 35
AC MJ 15
Marvella 15
Proteus 10
Alchemical Fire 10
I won map and put us on the Skull Camp with the hope that the train would be able to do some damage (Spoiler: It tried but missed). Turn 1, I was able to destroy my opponents Alchemical Fire but he was then able to destroy mine (Mind Controlled Thanos, had him drop it, and then he shot it.) This game I used my Captain Marvel, Black Widow, and Green Arrow IDs and even was able to trigger a Trouble Alert with Grodd to quake 4 characters. The versatility and damage output of my call ins got me the win.
Record: 3-1
We cut to Top 8 where I played against Jamie with
175 Nimrod
100 Stealth Sentinel
25 Sentinel
In the beginning of the game, I was able to take out Stealth Sentinel and Sentinel fairly quickly. The problem was with Nimrod due to his trait because if you keep rolling high with Nimrod, Nimrod is not dying. And my opponent, kept rolling high. A particularly sad moment was when my Charge/Flurry Hellfire Guard rolled an 11 and he then rolled an 11 as well, KO’ing my Guard. However, I kept at it and was able to eventually KO Nimrod. Alchemical Fire played a huge part doing 1-penetrating to counteract Nimrod’s free healing.
Record 4-1
Top 4 – Ken
Ken was playing a very inventive Avengers swap out team that included
Captain America
Batman Prime
WOTR spider-man (gives avengers KW characters super senses)
CAAV Chase Thor
A.I.M. Red Squad
Emotional Modifier
and 6? Giant Girls at 10 points each.
I was completely unprepared for this kind of team and it took me a minute to really wrap my head around what this team could do. I then went and won my most important roll of the game – Map. I chose Underground Cavern which is my preferred map for dealing with Colossals. Turn 1, I destroyed Emotional Modifier and in subsequent turns I began to attack with Thanos. Due to the map, positioning was an issue for retaliations but Ken was able to pull them off. But in a turn with 4 or 5 Retaliations and a huge attack from Chase Thor, Thanos was able to Super Senses out of 3 or 4 of them. Little by little, I started to take out Giant Girls and Captain Marvel with some Chewy help was able to take out Batman Prime.
Record 5-1
Finals– Anton
(Latveria Theme Team +3)
175 Thanos
75 Doom, The Annihilating Conqueror
30 Molecule Man
10 Alchemical Fire
5 ID Cards:
– Captain Marvel
Shang Chi
Anton won map, chose DOOM for the many faces of Doom trait, and put us in the Negative Zone. This match went back and forth but it was rough going for me in the beginning as Blackheart got hurt, my Hellfire guards were being Mind Controlled, and my gem rolls refused to go over 1. I fought back using Captain Marvel to KO Molecule Man and left Chewie with the hopes of whittling down Thanos. And then things started to turn. In 1 turn, I made 5 attacks (2 from Chewie, 3 from Blackheart) against Thanos. 4 of them utilized BCF and 3 of them were evaded due to Time Gem. But the ones that hit, I rolled a 6 and a 5 doing some heavy damage to Thanos. Next turn, Thanos rolled a 1, chose Soul and used his Captain Marvel to KO Blackheart. I brought in Deadpool as I needed to be able to attack Thanos. And on my next turn, I called in Green Arrow, hit Thanos and Deadpool finished him off.
This left DOOM, a Chewie, and a called in Black Vulcan. I called in my Black Widow. Pen-Blasted Doom, Outwitted Toughness, and generated the Widows Recruit to Poison DOOM, Chewie, and Black Vulcan. I Mind Controlled Black Vulcan successfully and had him KO DOOM. On Anton’s next turn, Black Vulcan rolled for this trait and did 1 damage to himself KO’ing him.
Final Thoughts
I loved how this team played, and found that Black Widow, Green Arrow, and Captain Marvel are near mandatory for this kind of team just for what they bring to the table. But I think my MVP was probably Proteus – his ability for generating Blocking terrain is understated but amazing. I think the only change I would make would be to remove the Storm ID card – I didn’t have as many scenarios as I imagined to use it. Thanks again to my buddies Mac, Errol, and Garret for playtesting with me so much and thanks to Highlander Games for running such a fun event.
