|
“A Heroic Draft”
The Canberra Vs drafting scene is a bit behind (cough-understatement-cough)
that of Sydney and even some of the other bigger Australian centres, but I
figure there might still be people out there who would like to read about our
first, shaky steps at drafting in Canberra.
I figure most of what will follow won’t appeal to more experienced drafters, but
if you haven’t drafted much or are interested in trying, then I hope the
following might help illuminate your path.
This is the tale of the inaugural House of Heroes draft night.
House of Heroes
is a new comic book store in Canberra that has adopted a scruffy bunch of local
Vs players into its warm, nurturing embrace.
Prior to finding a home at HoH, organised Vs play was very sparse in Canberra.
As a result of the combined efforts of myself, “Pez” Laria (paslaria on the
boards), other local players and HoH owner/manager Blake Davis, not to mention
the great support of UDE’s Chris Zantides, we have established a twice-weekly
Hobby League and are growing every week.
Our Hobby League is sealed deck one day of the week and constructed the other.
The one venture we hadn’t undertaken so far was drafting.
I held a few private Vs drafts way back with Marvel Origins but those
were primarily attended by my Magic playing friends.
Drafting is still very new and challenging for the current crop of Canberra Vs
players, but we’re on our way now.
Four players gathered at HoH on a recent Tuesday night – Blake (the
aforementioned owner of HoH, who has taken up the game himself), Heng Yip, Scott
Ward and myself – for our inaugural Marvel Knights draft.
What follows is a bit of a yarn about what happened.
The final results were:
1st – Michael (3-0)
2nd – Scott (2-1)
3rd – Heng (1-2)
4th – Blake (0-3)
“Hang on, you’re only writing this to big-note yourself … and maybe make fun of
Blake!”
I can see how it might look that way (and it never hurts to get the digs into
Blake … I owe him a few), but I thought it might be good to evaluate some of the
factors that produced that result, as well as try to look back on some of those
little mistakes we all made that contributed to it.
Secret of My Success
I believe the three biggest factors in my win (in reverse order) were:
3 – Experience. The last time I properly drafted, Vs Marvel Origins was the only
set on the block. Now that wasn’t that long ago in terms of the calendar, but it
was forever ago in terms of the development of this game. Regardless, though, at
least I have drafted Vs and I’ve also sought to read everything I can find on
the limited game (mainly on Vs Paradise, but Paul Ross’ series on Marvel Knights
drafting on Metagame.com was excellent too). I also used to regularly draft
Magic, which provided some small foundation to build on. Sadly, my friends didn’t have that experience. I think they all did pretty good regardless
and hopefully last night will be of benefit to them the next time we draft.
2 – Luck. There’s no two ways about it … I was a lucky, lucky bastard last
night. I really screwed up the draft from the point of view that I only ended up
with one six-drop and one seven-drop for my deck. I told the boys to try to have
three six-drops and two seven-drops in their deck, so I failed miserably at
heeding my own advice. I generally mulliganed any hand without at least one of
my big dudes in it and kept any hand that did contain one of those rare gems.
The only exception to that rule was in the final game against Blake, in which I
gambled on a hand with my one team up in it and a good lower curve. Against both
Heng and Scott I ended up drawing both of my big drops and against Blake, I drew
the six-drop and the game finished on turn six. I could pretend that all of this
was pure skill, but I’m not that delusional.
1 – Being the only X-Statix drafter. I think this was the number one factor in
my ultimate success. I was also one of only two guys playing Underworld too.
This gave me access to some great X-Statix plot twists, particularly the
defensive ones. Having good access to Underworld also meant that I was able to
pick some of their bigger bodies (like Zarathos). In the end, I didn’t have a
single off-team character and I was getting X-Statix guys very late.
The Draft
 I was sat between Scott (on my left) and Blake, with Heng between them. I was
passing to Scott for the first pack.
I opened a pretty unexciting pack that didn’t have any standout characters or
plot twists. I had told the boys to try to not commit to their teams too early,
which normally means drafting generic cards that can go into any deck highly …
but there weren’t any of those that were worthwhile either. So I ignored my own
advice and took the Marvel Knights ATK-pump Head Shot for my first card. I knew
that Marvel Knights would probably be the most popular team (I think all of the
other guys were in this team to some degree in the end), but I took Head Shot
anyway.
The pack Blake passed me was devoid of options too, so I ended up taking a
second Head Shot.
My third selection was the multi-teamed Lacuna (I think).
The fourth pack (which Scott had opened) contained Anarchist (7), so I assumed
that I was right to power into that team.
As the first pack progressed, I began dabbling successfully into Underworld and
picked up my first Zarathos surprisingly late. The X-Statix plot twists were
plentiful, but I think Heng was picking up some of the better Underworld support
cards.
In the end, I probably should have focused a bit more on characters, since no
one wanted the X-Statix plot twists at all, but my crystal ball was on the
frizz. I know I passed a Nightmare that I really wish I’d nabbed and I could
have picked some off-team six-drops like Nuke and Damage but didn’t.
I opened a Marvel Team-Up in the second pack and windmill slammed it (especially
since I had a Lacuna to search it out).
Scott passed me some fine goodies and I continued to amass my X-Statix/Underworld
army. I picked up a Blackheart (which was ultimately my only six-drop) in the
second pack.
I was getting multiples of some good cards including Zarathos, Centurious and
The Spike, which are great for important power-ups.
The third pack was more of the same, although I couldn’t score six and
seven-drops to save my life. Blake may have been cutting them just to be
vindictive.
The Deck
2RC – Bloke, Corkscrew, Lacuna, Steel Wind (I wanted more of these than usual to
try to use Centurious)
3RC – Marie Laveau, Skinner, 2 x Suicide
4RC – 2 x Centurious, Saint Anna, 2 x The Spike
5RC – Anarchist, Dead Girl, Vivisector, 2 x Zarathos (I ran extra fives to try
to cover me for the lack of six and seven-drops, luckily my five-drops were
pretty big too)
6RC – Blackheart
7RC – Anarchist
Locations – Dracula’s Castle
Twists – 2 x Missed Drop, Supporting Role, Day of the Dead (great name for a
card), Grandstanding, Marvel Team-Up, Nerve Strike, Overexposed and Spin
Doctoring
I was pretty happy with this, with the exception of the lack of bigger drops. As
it turned out, many of the plot twists didn’t get much game time, as my
generally beefy characters were hard to overcome on defence and didn’t need any
help on attack.
As far as I could tell, Heng played Underworld/Marvel Knights, while both Scott
and Blake were Crime Lords/Marvel Knights.
Round 1
First up, I played Heng. I won the dice roll and picked odd initiative. I had no
idea, but I figured Blackheart was good on defence, while Zarathos and Anarchist
were best on attack.
My opening hand had both Blackheart and Anarchist (7) in it. In fact, I had
every drop from two to seven except for a five-drop. Things looked pretty good.
My first play was Lacuna, which I used to get Marvel Team-Up on turn three. I
played Suicide, The Spike, Zarathos and Blackheart on the following turns.
Heng came out strong, but Suicide’s 5 DEF caused him problems and then he missed
his five-drop. This became game-breaking on turn six, as I had Blackheart and
Heng didn’t have enough to break through Zarathos and him. I won on that turn.
Scott defeated Blake in what was almost a “mirror match”, since they were both
playing CL/MK. I think I heard Blake say he lost it in the early game, as Scott
came out too aggressive and he couldn’t catch back up.
Round 2
This time I took on Scott. Scott won the right to choose initiative and decided
on evens, meaning I was odds again.
I didn’t draw one of my big drops, so I mulliganed as a matter of course. I drew
one of them, as well as a bit of an early curve, and drew into everything else I
needed. For the second game running, I didn’t miss a drop.
I had Lacuna, Suicide, Centurious, Zarathos, Blackheart and Anarchist (7) over
the course of the game. I also got my team-up early, although I didn’t get an X-Statix
guy into play to flip it until turn seven.
Scott had a two-drop (can’t remember which one) and then Death Stalker. He had
to bring Death Stalker out of hiding on turn three to try to blunt my attack and
in the end, we didn’t really do very much (as my Suicide couldn’t get past him).
Scott had Luke Cage on turn four. This was the turning point of the game, as
Scott gambled on trying to swing his Death Stalker up into Centurious (using
Made Men to gain the flight ability). He pumped up his attacker for just enough
for the stun, hoping that I would not have an Underworld weenie in hand to power
him up. I did, but I also had Dracula’s Castle in my row to foil his plan. Death
Stalker stunned without advantage. Luke Cage then had to beat up on Centurious,
which resulted in a double stun, this allowed me to stun his two-drop with
Suicide, retaining my full board and reducing him to just Luke Cage. This was
exceptionally bad, as Scott had the double-loyalty Elektra (CL) in hand for the
next turn and at that point had no way to get her into play.
Scott prayed for his Dagger or Midnight Sons to allow him to use Elektra (he had
a two in nine chance of doing it). He didn’t. Desperate, he even used Melt Down
to replace a resource in the hope for a super lucky play. But that didn’t work
either. He played Masked Marauder and got stomped by Zarathos on turn five.
Turn six was a bit of a reprieve, as Scott played Kirigi, to join Masked
Marauder. He maintained his board by attacking down with Kirigi and exhausting
my bigger guys with the Marauder.
It didn’t diminish my board, though, which hurt on turn seven, as I had
Anarchist (7) compared to his under-dropped Damage, along with an Armed Escort
(which went onto Kirigi). My row was full of unused X-Statix twists as well,
which meant the end came quick and brutal from there.
In the other game, Heng beat Blake.
Round 3
I won the right to choose initiative in my last game against Blake. I stuck with
odds, since it’d worked so far.
For the first time, I broke my mulliganing rule, keeping a hand with a team-up
and an early curve.
I played out Lacuna, Skinner, The Spike, Zarathos and Blackheart (sooooo lucky)
in this game. The game didn’t go to turn seven, so it didn’t matter that I
didn’t draw my lone seven-drop.
Blake had a Marvel Knights one-drop and stuck me for one on turn one (the cheap
shots are his favourite).
Turn two was sad, though, as he didn’t have a drop and I had Lacuna.
Skinner on three was an equal match for Blake’s Kingpin (3), so we traded stuns.
Blake had Luke Cage (I think) on turn four, but couldn’t stop losing his board
this turn. This screwed him on turn five, when he really wanted to play the
double loyalty Elektra (CL). Luckily (or not really), he had Elektra (MK 5).
Unfortunately, his Elektra was not too hot on defence as a 0/8 and an
Overexposed on my part, allowed me to drag her out and smash her.
Blake had a Natasha Romanov <> Black Widow on turn six, but it was all too far
gone at that stage. A general lack of twists and such meant Blake had a hard
time all game overcoming my bigger dudes.
The Rare/Foil Draft
We drafted the rares and foils, which is standard practice in Sydney.
Luke Cage (6) was the most expensive card on the table, a card I wanted for my
Marvel Knights deck and a card I was missing for my collection, so it didn’t
take long for me to snaffle it.
Scott picked up Spin Doctoring for its value and because of his general
affection for X-Statix.
Heng’s first pick was Scarlet Spider <> Spider-Man, while Blake went for a card
for his collection (I can’t remember which one).
Everyone seemed to have fun and pizza was an added extra.
Hopefully more of local guys will be able to join us next time.
*Bamf* 
|
Editor: James Paraha. Wednesday 11th May 2005.
