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Michael Pittman
Crisis in the Capital – Dodgy Drafting
Michael Pittman
May 15, 2006
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The keenest of the keen in the nation's capital converged on my garage recently for our first ever draft with the new Infinite Crisis set.

Be warned, the following is more of a yarn than a strategy article from which you'll glean any useful information. Read it to kill time, rather than to improve your game.

Six lads – R1 and R2 (AKA Ryan Murphy and his mate Brendan Ryan ), Big Mac and Little Mac (AKA Pete McCook and his son Jake), Wardy Wonka (AKA Scott Ward AKA bignuts on the VSP forums AKA “The Randomest Random Who Ever Randomly Randomised Stuff”) and Pez (AKA Pasquale Laria AKA paslaria on the VSP forums) – ignored my warnings that the shed in my backyard is about as hospitable as an Arctic wasteland and attended anyway. Hopefully that says something positive about the new set.

After the usual waiting for stragglers, the normal shooting of the breeze and the frightening vision of the boys descending on a bowl of offered corn chips like a cloud of locusts, we took our seats and got stuck into the draft.

Jake, who at only 10 or 11 is still one of the better players in Canberra , was on my left, with Brendan on my right.

I opened my first pack and found the Villains United's Mr Freeze and their rare card-filtering location, Science Spire, leaping out at me. I secretly wanted to force Villains United just because I hadn't had a chance to look at and assess the cards in this set yet and they were my favourite team after reading the Villains United limited series (I was also quite fond of the Secret Six, but forcing them didn't seem like the smartest strategy).

I ended up taking Mr Freeze, reasoning that he could be played even if VU dried up … the same couldn't be said for Science Spire.

Brendan passed me the pack for my second pick and the Villains United offerings in the pack were pretty miserable (I didn't get around to asking Brendan if he first picked a decent VU card, but I believe it ended up being his main affiliation).

Ryan was sitting to the right of Brendan, two seats up from me. I knew he was already in love with Checkmate, having swapped Pez most of his Shadowpact cards to get more CM cards prior to the draft. This led me to want to try to stay out of that affiliation if possible, because I was sure he'd force it.

So, looking through the pack and disregarding any Checkmate cards, I noticed JSA's Power Girl. A 13/12 six drop with flight made her okay, but I really liked the potential for her “Power Girl gets +4 ATK/+4 DEF while in combat with a character with greater cost” power. I took her.

My third pick pack had no Villains United cards at all and I started to think that I better reconsider my options. The pack had a Chimp Detective Agency in it. Just as I was reading the card, Jake spurted out that he already had one or two pieces of Dr Fate equipment (he has an over-developed appreciation for equipment cards) and hinted that he was keen for Shadowpact. I was thinking of shipping the Agency because I didn't want to fight my neighbour for an affiliation if I could help it, but in the end I took it because it was so much better than anything else.

I now had three cards from three different affiliations.

My next pick was Removed from Continuity out of a pack that didn't have any outstanding characters.

I stumbled again on my fifth pack getting excited about the Baddest of the Bad that was still in the pack (VU might still be an option!). I can't remember what else was in that pack, but by this time I had noticed a lot of JSA and a decent amount of Shadowpact was flowing through.

I repressed my inner fan boy and tightened up my strategy from there on, which was easy to do as the Villains United cards dried up almost completely from that point.

I got an excellent run of very solid JSA and Shadowpact characters for the rest of the first round, as well as a T-Spheres, which I rate.

I figured on not getting too much Shadowpact in the second pact and that was more or less true. I picked what I could from that team and still managed to get solid JSA dudes. I also picked up an Abjuration and Justice United.

During the review between pack two and three, I noticed that I had a particular weakness in my five-drop slot (I didn't notice/remember the Mr Freeze I had from my first pick, but otherwise I was bust for five-drops), and I still needed a few dudes at a few of the points on my curve.

Everyone must have been after five drops in the third pack. I picked a Blue Devil, Big Blue, but I didn't see any others that were playable. Besides that, though, my curve ended up pretty good.

Michael Pittman
Crisis Draft
Characters Plot Twists

Atom Smasher
2 x Blue Devil, Dan Cassidy
Manitou Dawn
Detective Chimp, Shoeless Gumshoe
Ibis
Michael Holt <> Mr Terrific
Zatanna, Magical Manipulator
2 x Katar Hol <> Hawkman
Batman
June Moon <> Enchantress, Good Witch
Richard Tyler <> Hourman
Blue Devil, Big Blue
Mr Freeze
2 x Power Girl
2 x Superman
Black Adam, Ruthless Hero



2 x T-Spheres
2 x Abjuration
2 x Justice United
Removed from Continuity
Magical Conduit
Mystical Binding



Locations
Chimp Detective Agency


Equipment
...

I tried to make up for my lack of five drops with an extra four-drop, which could be supplemented with a T-Spheres. Also, Hourman could fill in if I missed my five-drops and hit him. I was also hoping that Detective Chimp and Chimp Detective Agency would help me to hit the important drop later in the game (although I never had the opportunity to use either of them).

Finally, I wasn't too concerned about running only one seven drop, as I was keen to get Power Girl into play on turn six and boost out Superman to give them both two +1/+1 counters. Power Girl could then conceivably attack my opponent's seven drop as a 19/18.

The need to build some “Relationship Credit” and specifically turn around a recent “Quality Tim e Deficit” with my wife meant that I voluntarily took the bye two out of the four rounds (conceding the matches I played and also electing to take the last pick in the rare draft … it wasn't sanctioned so no one minded these shenanigans). I was more interested in getting in the drafting practice as drafts can be few and far between in Canberra .

I was paired against Pez for the first round. We managed to squeeze in two games in the time that everyone else played two, with my deck not being charitable towards Our Friendly-Neighbourhood Spider-Fan. Pez was playing Villains United and Shadowpact. His main plan was to utilise powerful effects like Alex ander Luthor, Duplicitous Doppelganger and Madame Xanadu before getting out an early Nightmaster, Demon Slayer. After our games, Pez came to the conclusion that Infinite Crisis in general was not going to be kind to him, as the first flight of the Sneak Preview had him finishing last.

Still, I gave him the win for that round and wished him better luck. I took the bye for round two and went inside (next to the heater) and watched part of a chick flick called The Family Stone with my wife, Erin.

Round three saw me paired against “Onezy” (yet another nickname for Scott Ward … the man has a million of them, which is about the same number of personalities I think he has). Wardy was also Villains United, with bits and pieces (I can't remember/didn't see that many cards from other teams). Our game was much closer.

I had evens and led off with my Atom Smasher … which was too good for The Calculator, which Scott had just played. Smasher grew to a 2/2. I missed my two-drop, but my one-drop grew to a 3/3 to help compensate. On turn three, I played Michael Holt with his trademarked T-Spheres. Atom Smasher became a 4/4. Not much damage was being done as a result of these plays. Hourman hit the field on turn four, which was mocking my Shadowpact stamped twists that I had played into my row. Wardy played Bizarro, but I was pretty happy with the way things were going and how my board was developing. I ended up losing my over-sized one-drop at the end of the turn.

Turn five saw a Cheshire hit play for Scott and I finally played a Shadowpact guy in Blue Devil, Big Blue. This turn was a bit of a massacre for me, as Scott opened up a big gap in our endurance (helped by me giving him endurance with Hourman and sacrificing endurance to Blue Devil). He stunned my Hourman and Mr Terrific ignoring Blue Devil, who would stun back if he tried to attack back through the unstunned Bizarro. I really wanted him to attack Blue Devil, as I had two Abjuration in my row and no team up as yet. I opted to maintain my board for my initiative and passed on my opportunity to attack.

On turn six I played my Power Girl and finally teamed up, which was met by Scott's Dr Pyscho. I attacked Dr Pyscho and then targeted him with Removed from Continuity. I ended up KO'ing Blue Devil in recovery instead of Hourman, just so I could get some endurance back … I knew I'd be needing my Abjurations the next turn and I was starting to get low.

Scott played The Phantom Stranger, Fallen Angel on turn seven and I boosted out Superman. He sent his biggest guy against my 15/14 Superman. I played double Abjuration to stone wall … a bit of a risky play, as if he could pump Phantom Stranger by 3 ATK, I pretty much just killed myself. Luckily for me it didn't turn out that way. I played conservatively in my attack step because I was only on two endurance, but at the start of the turn eight build phase I gained 10 endurance, which put us equal on 12. He told me he had Dr Fate in the deck, but he didn't rip him. I can't even remember what he played, but my Black Adam (coupled with the initiative) basically gave me the win … which I promptly gave back to Scott so that I could take the bye for the last round.

In the end, Ryan won the draft 4-0 with Checkmate and another team (I didn't play him, so I didn't get a chance to find out). Pez fared better after our game and ended up 3-1, including my concession.

I managed to pick up a Removed from Continuity, Dodge the Bullet and – ick – End of All That Is picking last in the rare draft at that end.

We hope to get some more drafts in over the next few weeks, which I look forward to as I'll be attending the Adelaide $10K and need all the practice I can get with the set.

Until next time,

*BAMF*

 

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