Cookie League Report: Darkhawk!

We had a smaller turnout than normal this week, and it made for a quiet, laid back night. The format was Silver Legends, and the decks everyone brought were pretty surprising. Two were Spider-Man, one was Galactus, one Beast Boy and one Lex Luthor (piloted by me. Posted below.)

The Lex Luthor legend is a lot of fun. Whereas Andrew likes to play good guys, I’m usually drawn to control decks (and by extension, bad guys.) My original plan was to make it a dual Joker/Lex Legend, but I figured that this would probably work out better. Plus, I love Revenge Squad, so it was fun to play a deck built around one of my favorite villains

Last night I also learned the power of Darkhawk. Ludin was running him in Spider-Stall, which at the time confused me. The character has vanilla stats, and a generic power to remove flight from certain characters. Isn’t there someone better to run? However, once again I was proven wrong. On multiple occasions he was able to lock down an opponent’s attack step, stalling the game further and further!

Damn, Darkhawk doesn’t mess around.

HL Update: 5/28

This week at our local Fullerton Hobby League we’ll be running a Silver Age Bring Your Own Legend tournament, followed by some fun with the Coming of Galactus raid deck. Since we’re lacking in prize support this month, this will free us up to do some new things.

Also, if Billy remembers, we’ll be trying out the brand spankin’ new Marvel Ultimate Battles card game! I had a chance to try it out on Friday night, and I was taken back by how simple and fun it was. That’s not to say MUB is lacking in depth, far from it, but there aren’t a thousand different variables to confuse newer players.

Be there and be square! Also, Andrew is on baked goods duty this week. Everybody wins!

The Prophecy Fulfilled: Part 4

After many tough decisions my New Gods deck was finally ready for play.. or so I thought. Hours before the tournament began a couple of us from The Realm gathered for some playtesting, and I quickly discovered the multiple weaknesses in my deck. Combat was a disaster; although I could remove attackers from attacks I was totally unable to do much else.

In the end I took enormous amounts of damage, and in three matches the game ended on turn 6 (or sooner!) Something had to change, and I had very little time to do so. My back-up plan was a JLA power-up build, but with Nth Metals banned from the format that could also prove to be difficult. I settled upon a third New Gods deck, this time focusing on a shorter curve and heavily statted characters such as Big Bear and Valkyra.

The New Gods Fight On: Part 3

Yesterday we explored the characters available to us in our totally awesome New Gods deck, and today I’m ready to put it together!

After a brief (but meaningless) flirtation with the Forever People I have come to realize that the New Gods’ true power is stall. I’m not saying that it’s an amazing power, but clearly we’re trying to make the best of a bad situation.

As I mentioned yesterday, having multiple Mister Miracles on board should ruin my opponent’s attack step. This will give me the power to stall to later rounds, with Orion set as our final goal. Unfortunately getting to turn 8 may take longer than I anticipated: In some light playtesting Takion’s power has proven far too unreliable, so I will be switching him out with the much more aggressive Big Barda.

From a thematic standpoint I couldn’t be happier to have two Mister Miracles and Barda fighting together, but having an extra round of combat creates new challenges. Even with two super escape artists on their side, can the New Gods hold out long enough to achieve victory?