Gongaii 2×2 Heroclix Tournament

Yay for more tournaments! This one is a 2×2 tournament. This means that you and a partner each build a team and as a team, your wins and points get combined to see if you advance. We’re placed in pods of 4 teams and because I’m player A, I’ll play the other player As from the other 3 teams. The top 2 teams will go on to play in single elimination.

My team that I’ve been playing since rotation hit is already highlander, so I was able to play the same team and Mike agreed to be my partner and built his team around my team so I could continue playing my same team. I’m sticking with my same Vulture/Jason team and Mike built a Spider Man Family team. The only change I had to make was replace Brainiac for Black Manta so Mike could use Brainiac on his team. 

Pod play game 1 was with my friend Lucas. He was playing a team with prime Punisher War Machine, Spider Pharaoh, Spiderman 1776, Magneto 2×2, Mary Jane Watson, Peggy Carter, Green Proteus and Carnage Symbiote. He won map and put us on Campsite. He equipped PWM turn 1 but needed to make a Paparazzi to grab the object after I moved PWM back with Oz after he was TK’d to it. I TK’d the arms to Vulture with Oz and brought in a Gaea to put up a barrier in front of the team. Valeria only rolled a 1, so she didn’t get close enough to pick up the spin ring. He came up with the crew, wild carding SHIELD, using it to increase damage and used his running shot to blow out a barrier marker and then use his free attack for having 2 tokens to attack Vulture. He missed the attack and probbed it, hit, I probbed with Oz, crit missed, theme probbed, missed, theme probbed it then crit hit. I rolled a successful Leadership with Valeria, gave the Outwit to herself and got Valeria to her ring and equipped it. I made a Chewie pog with Jason and perplexed it up to a 13 attack and pushed Oz to TK Chewie over to PWM. I used Valeria’s outwit on PWM’s invincible and flurried with Chewie. He didn’t roll either shape change so my first attack hit and I rolled a 2 on blades, putting him on the other invincible click. My second attack also hit and again rolled a 2 on blades. I was really hoping for at least a 3, but no such luck. That was my 3 costed actions, but I still had Tri-Sentinel to retal. I hit with that attack, but he probbed it with Proteus who was outside of the pulsewave and made my hit a miss. He double targeted Tri-Sentinel and Valeria with PWM and hit Tri-Sentinel but missed Valeria. Then used the free attack to KO Valeria. I perplexed up Jason’s attack and went for a mind control. PWM hit shape change so I went for Pharaoh, hit but she rolled senses. I put up a barrier with Gaea and cleared Chewie and Oz. He came over to retal with Proteus and I rolled a successful shape change with Jason. Then he blew out a barrier and double targeted Jason and Chewie, and Peggy outwitted the senses on Chewie. 1 damage to Chewie and 4 to Jason. I rolled a successful Leadership with Jason to take the token off himself to try and mind control again. Don’t I roll a 4, reroll with Oz and roll another 4. I move Oz up so he’ll have a TK line. I also got to do something with Cadmus dude that I never get to do – I used his poison! With the retal placement, Proteus was adjacent to Oz, so I actually got to do something with him more than his intended purpose. He outwitted Oz’s senses to KO him with the free attack, which healed him to an energy explosion click, which he used with colossal stamina to hit Jason, Gaea, Cadmus dude and Everett. I rolled successful senses with Jason and only had him left with Wesley. I just perplexed up defense and cleared and he double targeted Jason and Wesley to finish them off. I knew going into this match that it was likely my hardest game of the pod, so even though I had a ton of fun playing Lucas, I’m glad that game is out of the way. The final score was a 300-10 loss for me.

My second game was against Matthew who was playing a Spider-Man Family team of Marvella, Invisible Woman, The Thing, Mary Jane, Steampunk Peni, Tri-Sentinel, Danger Room Magneto, Superman, Suited Henchmen, exospex, spin ring, zero ring and WWE ring. He won map and put us on Hedge Maze. He swapped out Invisible Woman and The Thing for Valeria Von Doom and Black Leopard. He rolled a 6 for Papparazi and was able to get all of his objects and equipped. Exospex for Magneto, spin for Valeria and zero on Panther. He moved Tri-Sentinel up a bit, carrying Magneto. I TK’d the arms and Vulture equipped.  Valeria free moved and equipped. I had Tri-Sentinel activate retal to blow up a bunch of the blocking around the team and then had Jason make a Gaea to put up a barrier that wasn’t adjacent to most of the team to protect them from Magnetos line of fire. Tri-Sentinel sidestepped and brought Gaea along with him to get him away from the barrier. He perplexed up Magnetos attack to a 15 and chose energy explosion with the exospex and targeted the only one he could see, Tri-Sentinel, and hit – KOing both him and Gaea. He moved the rest of his team way back and blocked them all in with Marvella barrier and the free zero square so I couldn’t get in at all if I could get there. With my Tri-Sentinel gone, I had trouble finding long enough lines of sight to get Vulture over to Tri-Sentinel/Suited Henchmen, which would have allowed me to build up 2 charges if successful to be able to break a barrier and get in, but no such luck getting there. Jason was too far to get close enough to Magneto to make a Chewie so I ended up just perplexing up defenses and sidestepping everyone up a little bit. He did some repositioning, barriered up again and cleared.  Now I was close enough that I knew I could get Magneto this turn if all my attacks hit. I brought Jason over and made Chewie who perplexed down Magnetos defense and flurried. I hit with the first attack and missed with the second attack, even with my Oz prob. Then I perplexed up Vultures attack and charged in.  I hit both of those attacks. Then I rolled for Valerias free movement and got exactly what I needed, a 6.  That got me right where I needed her, with the sidestep to be able to spin Magneto for one more damage.  Because she didn’t need to use an action to move there, she was able to punch him and even after he theme probbed me, I still hit and was able to KO him in one turn.  I knew a retal from his Tri-Sentinel was coming and that’s exactly what he did.  He perplexed up his attack and came over – outside of Valerias 4 – in a position to get my entire team except for Chewie. That attack only KO’d Oz and hurt everyone else. He moved others into position closer and made a Paparazzi. I perplexed movement on Vulture with Valeria and used Everett and Wesley to perplex down Tri-Sentinels defense. I sidestepped with Vulture to KO the Paparazzi using close combat expert to just need a 3 to KO it then charged over to Tri-Sentinel. As I started the charge, time was called so this was my last chance to get enough points. He had meant to outwit charge on Vulture but forgot to say it (Valeria had gotten leadership and gave outwit to Tri-Sentinel that turn). I used flurry this time so I’d have 2 chances to roll the 6 I needed to KO him and got it.  It was enough for me to win the game 80-70 and putting me at 1-1.  If that outwit had have happened, then I would have just vooped or moved Valeria close enough to just spin Tri-Sentinel instead of Vulture doing it as that was my next move if there was more time and Vulture missed. Great close game. 

Pod game 3 was a mirror match with Markus.  His version is Jason Wyngarde, Vulture, Mr. Oz, Everett K Ross, Tri-Sentinel, 2×2 Magneto, Billy Batson, Robin, octopus arms. This was a typical mirror Vulture match, in that it was over on turn 2.  I won map and put us on Ha Ha Hacienda and did my equipping. He did some perplexing and prayed for the best. I perplexed up to 14/5, activated Cadmus dude, TK’d over and away I went through his team and got successful hits on all of them to take his 300 points in one go. 

I’m 2-1 and Mike is 1-2 going into the cut to single elimination.  His win was against a team that I also won against.  We both lost against the same team.  The deciding game to either put us into the cut or not was my other win and his loss – and he gave up few enough points that we got the match win and made it into the cut!  We’re 15th going in out of 20 teams which means we’re in the bottom 8 teams and play in the first round to see if we’ll be part of the top 16 or not.  Mike talks about his matchups on the Married With Clix Meta Lab if you want to hear about his games. 

My opponent for this first round of single elimination is Tyler H. He’s playing a team of Onslaught, 1776, Gwen of Arc, Tri-Sentinel and Etri with waldo arms, octopus arms and power gem as options. I took away the octopus arms and he chose the waldo arms to put on the map under Gwen. Because Tri-Sentinel doesn’t have the right keywords, he didn’t have a theme team and I actually won the map roll. I put us on Ha Ha Hacienda and did my usual equipping. He equipped Gwen and perplexed up Onslaughts defense. I perplexed up Vulture and had 2 choices. I could activate Cadmus dude/TK/only reach Onslaught or I could skip Cadmus and double TK (Oz and Valeria)/reach the back to get Etri and Tri-Sentinel and possibly fizzle on Onslaught if he rolled shape change.  I decided to do the first option.  My first attack didn’t hit, but the second attack did. He retaled with Tri-Sentinel and then finished Vulture off with Onslaught.  He used his free TK with Onslaught to get my octopus arms to 1776 who equipped them. I retaled with Tri-Sentinel to take out Onslaught and then got Valeria close enough to spin his Tri-Sentinel to KO. Then I took a move action with Tri-Sentinel to carry Valeria back. He cleared.  I moved back even further and just perplexed up defenses. The rest of the game, he hung back and just kept perplexing up defense and I did some sidestepping positioning and perplexing up defenses.  I was slowly trying to get in a position to double TK Chewie over to try and get some more points without giving up any points.  There was no reason for me to move any pieces closer as I’m up on points. Just as I finally rolled the 6 on Valeria to get her up enough for that double TK, time was called and I won 155-50.  Mike also won his game against Paul – which means we advance into top 16! 

The A player of the top 16 match is PJ. He’s playing a Spider-Man Family team of Spider Hamurai, prime Batman, 1776, Steampunk Peni, danger room Magneto, SHIELD Agent, Superman, Brainiac, exospex and influence ring. He won map and put us on Ultrons Lair. He got the influence ring and got it equipped, knocked back Batman and moved up Magneto. I equipped Vulture and brought in Gaea to barrier. He knocked back Batman again to get him on psychic blast, then shot through the barrier in front of Vulture.  He got Batman up to 6 damage and one shot Vulture and Tri-Sentinel. I did a mind control chain with Jason and wasn’t successful with any of the attacks with his pieces, but did roll a 1 with Magneto for his first error token. I put the barrier with Gaea back up. He moved some people into positions and mostly cleared. I decided to go for a hail mary and brought in Chewie and TK’d it over to Hamurai after perplexing up his attack to a 13. Needing 8’s to hit and missing both attacks, even after using Oz prob. He attacked with Batman again, KOing Valeria, Chewie, Oz, Wesley and Gaea. I used Everett to perplex up Jason’s attack and this time was successful in hitting some things and managed to get Batman with Magneto by knocking him back after hitting him and also got the SHIELD Agent. He brought everyone a whole lot closer to deal with my last few figures. He charged in with Hamurai on Everett to put him on last click. He running shot with Magneto, I rolled a successful shape change with Jason so his only target was Everett and KO’d him but he rolled another 1 in that attack. I could only use leadership and sidestep but failed both those rolls. Somewhere in there, he’d gotten 1 more error tokens on Magneto too, taking away the limitations on him. So he went in for a single target pulsewave on Jason, and wouldn’t you know, he rolled a crit hit which took him out in one shot. I’m missing a turn somewhere in there because I also took out his Brainiac as the score in the end was 300-65 as a loss for me.  Mike won his match against Easton, but the final score was 155-10, so not enough points for us to advance. 

If you got this far, thanks for reading! I’ve had a blast playing in the tournament and learned a whole lot and have ideas for what to do next time against the likes of Batman and PWM that I hope to make it a tougher matchup for my opponents. That’s how I learn in this game, by playing and when I lose it teaches me what to tweak the next time – I’m always trying new things within my team to make it stronger. Thanks Eagle crew and Gongaii Games for putting this on. I look forward to spectating the top 8 and beyond games to the finish. Thank you again to Mike for saying yes to playing with me – we made a great team!

Until next time, xoxo