This blog is getting out later than I wanted to – but I came home from the Heroclix For Huntingtons ROC event with the typical travel/con crud. I felt fine all weekend but when I woke Tuesday to go to work, I could feel something starting in my throat. As the week progressed, I had a fever, tonsils swollen and a ton of coughing. Its a dry cough and I had negative tests for Covid. My stomach, back and ribs were so sore from all the coughing! I’m on the mend now with just a lingering cough, but thankfully it’s not nearly as frequent now. Lots of fluid with water and hot honey lemon, vitamins, cough drops/syrups and early bedtimes definitely helped with the healing. Just something viral according to the Dr. and not much she could do, other than things to help symptoms – which I was already doing.
Let’s get into the trip! This is a 6 day trip, including travel, from Wednesday to Monday, with clix events happening 5 of the days. I met Jay at the airport at 5am for an early start to the day. Security and customs went easy and so did the flights. We had a 3.5 hour layover in case of issues but all went smooth. When we landed, Dan and Jackson were waiting for us and we headed to the Airbnb with a stop along the way to grab some groceries and dinner before heading over to the store. The Airbnb was nice. 3 beds, 2 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and a living room. I took the time while we were eating dinner to hard boil the eggs I bought at the grocery store so they’d be ready for some good protein in the morning for breakfasts along with yogurt and fruit. I know I don’t make the time to stop and eat all that well with the long days of playing, so I love starting my day out with some good stuff to keep me going. 
Wednesday night was the Tracy Brock Memorial event. This is a 3v3 event using super old product. I’m playing this event with Jay and Jackson. A player was the 400 points of whatever they could make from whatever was left after the other teams were built. B player was the DC player and could only use Teen Titans and SLOSH at 300 points. C player had to play 400 points of Lord of the Rings Hobbit pieces. Jay had to be the A player because he’s the one we signed up our group under. Jackson and I had to choose between us the B and C spots. Neither of us really wanted to play the LOTR stuff, so when Jackson pulled 2 pieces to make a team of Emerald Empress and Cyborg, he handed them to me and said “here you go Emily, play this – it’s Thanos light” and he took the LOTR stuff himself. It was a quick event of 3 rounds of swiss followed by a top 4 cut. I don’t remember at all what I faced, I just remember having the most fun ever playing against Alyssa in round 2. Both Jay and I won all our games so we made it into top 4. All 3 off us lost our games in the cut, but top 4 was our goal, so we were happy. Prizing was fantastic! We each got a Venom God of Symbiotes, Wonder Woman Generations, The Watcher, Hawkeye and Hawkeye, Thorgwen, The Joker and the Lucas, PJ, Scott bystander. We also got a Earth X Captain America and Doomsday as participation prizes for this event.
Thursday was a noon start day, so we got to sleep in a little – which was great after a long day of travel and late night playing. The event for this day was a 400 point Silver Theme Regional event. I made the decision that I didn’t want to play in it and instead take a day to play battle royals, socialize and have no formal structure to the day. This ended up being the best decision ever! I had so much fun just playing some fun relaxed games and meeting new people while socializing. I cleaned up pretty good too and came home with a bunch of great stuff! Chases Kate and Lucky, Jack and Elsa, TV She-Hulk, prime Iuwa, SR Abomination, broadsword and a few Jokers. All stuff I didn’t yet have!
Friday was the event I was most looking forward to (I heard this same sentiment from many others – it was definitely one of the favorite events of the weekend). 3v3 400 Modern Team Extreme Highlander. My partners for this event were Jackson and Adam. We’d decided to each pick a big 300pt tentpole with some support. Adam was on the prize Apocalypse, Jackson did the Kong and I played the Genesis with CSS with Khonshu and both Porters – white shirt having the yellow ring.
Round 1 I faced Bob who played Kong at 200, Deathstroke at 100, Porter and Madisynn. Genesis did Genesis things in this game and her flurry with precision strike for minimum 7 damage did great work to get through the long dials. He only managed to take out one of my Porters and I won 400-25.
Round 2 I was against Jay Major who had 300 Apocalypse with Death Metal Wonder Woman and Genesis – all 3 with Soul Swords. I chose Blackbone this game. I first took out Genesis then turned Wonder Woman, making her use the revive. Then took out Wonder Woman and started work into Apoc. I played a little lose and gave up some points I didn’t really need to, by pulswaving with Porter that put Apoc to stop and making me lose the yellow ring and he turned that Porter into his target. I won 400-35. Full disclosure and learning experience here. Neither me or Jay realized I played the Blackbone wrong and Adam caught it when I was talking about the game after. I should have lost the sword when it passed the stop click, even though it didn’t stop – but was still revealed. I still win the game, just a little slower, but I would have needed to do different order with Wonder Woman first and do both attacks on her to make her revive then die and then go into Apoc to bring him down to half dial then just don’t be adjacent with anyone but Genesis so he can’t flurry the small guys and use the stop sign to block him in and finish off his Genesis with CSS. Then the next turn taking out Apoc between the Genesis flurry and CSS attacks. I of course had a talk with Jay after I found out and apologized for playing it incorrect. He was totally cool about it and agreed it was still my game to win as soon as I chose Blackbone.
Round 3 I played against Alex who was playing a Detective team of Batman, Batman, Sherlock, Watson, Irene Adler, Lex, Misty Knight, Porter. I didn’t know what most his stuff did, having never played against most of it before. I asked to see his cards, but it was so much to look through and try and grasp in a short amount of time. I really wish it was something I’d played against before to know what Sherlock did. He did a bunch of barrier and I found a way to have CSS to blow out 1 square and my +2 charge card was up so Genesis could make it in after a TK – surprising him I could get that far. I took out a Batman and Lex with my flurry. This is where things went very bad for me. I had no clue that Sherlock turned off safeguard and he had enough outwits that he could get rid of my stop click, invincible and invlun. Between poisons and attacks, he took out my full point Genesis in 1 turn. I tried to finish off anything else, but just couldn’t do it. I lost this game 115-400.
Game 4 was with Asael. He was running Kong at 200, Man Thing, Blackheart, Elsa prime, Jennifer Kale and Porter. This was a great game of super back and forth attacking. I took out his Blackheart to take out the mobility then just kept trying to pick off the little guys. He also went after all my little guys. In the end, he just had Kong and Elsa (who had stollen my sword) on the board and I had Genesis still, so I won 170-110.
My personal record for the event was 3-1 but unfortunately Jackson and Adam had some losses. Jackson had the worst matchups and dice and went 1-3 and Adam went 2-2, so we didn’t end up making cut.
That evening there was a Quarterfinals championship for those with only 50 ROC points to try and secure their spot for Sunday. I didn’t need to play in it as I had over 100 ROC points to get right into the event. So instead, I did a battle royal and hung out with friends. I even watched the Quarterfinals a little while hanging out with Miles, who was judging it, and Ryan who was also hanging around.
Saturday was another early morning for the Scott Porter vs the World event. This was a sealed event, with all proceeds going to HDSA. We ended up having 134 players – surpassing the amount of product that was available for the max of 120. They ended up taking the brick that was meant for prizing for the event and the brick that was in the auction and using it for the event so everyone could play, and promised to mail out the bricks to the winners, instead of getting them in hand that day. Everyone was on board for it and everyone got to play. So everyone got 1 booster of the not yet released Deadpool Weapon X set and 1 booster of Marvel Studios Next Phase, with the option to mulligan the MSNP booster up to 2 times. I pulled terrible in my booster so I lined right up to mulligan. Still pulled lousy so chose to mulligan again and pulled a Werewolf By Night. I filled out the team with Leap Frog, Wong (40pt), Cyclops, Scout and a Timebreaker. I didn’t take pictures of my opponents builds for this event, but I wrote some short notes to make a little comment on.
Round 1 I faced Joe, a really nice guy who was at the event for his first time. He had a lucky pull of Deadpool Wolverine chase from the new set. He moved up just a little, but it was enough for me to be able to get to him, with the TK I had in Wong. I had Leap Frog do his placement to get him closer and then took a move action to put him where I needed him to be for the empower. I TK’d out Werewolf and hit his Deadpool Wolverine for 5 exploit to get him off his good clicks. He did some hurt to Leap Frog. I was able to finish off Deadpool Wolverine on the next turn. I made a critical error in this game, where I was double tokened with Werewolf, when adjacent to someone who was hurt and almost KO’d. I completely forgot that I had 2 rage tokens and could have removed them to take out that figure, but instead just cleared without attacking. I realized it the middle of his next turn that I could have done it. Missing out on that KO caused me to lose the game, 135-160.
Round 2 was against Will. I again did the Leap Frog set up and got up with Werewolf to do a whole bunch of damage to his She-hulk so she wasn’t as scary. Shatterstar was his MVP, getting a ton of Super Senses rolls successfully, making it take me so many extra attacks to actually take it out. In the end, I was able to get through his team and won 300-165.
Round 3 I played with Brandon, a new friend I’d met playing battle royals. This was not a great matchup for me. My team is very close combat and he had all the range. He had great positioning, that I couldn’t quite reach him and he could snipe at me. I lost 90-300.
Round 4 I faced Dan. I knew his team was way more powerful than mine and I didn’t really have a chance, so I just had fun with it. He had a whole lot of fun yelling Jump Scare every time his Man-Thing vooped over to me. As predicted, I lost 40-300. At this point, I know I’m definitely not making cut – but this event is for charity and I was having fun with my team, so I decided to keep playing and kept using all 5 charity probs each game, for charity, and encouraging my opponents to use theirs too.
Round 5 I got to play Rylan, and this made me so happy I stayed in to play and got to face him. I really enjoyed meeting him last year and was excited to get to play a match against him. We just met in the middle of the map and battled. His dice were better than mine with successfully hitting and he took the win. 130-300.
Round 6 was against Josh. This was a blast because I was also sharing a table with Miles and Justin, who were also having a great time in their game and having fun. My dice decided to turn around in this game and I was able to squeak out the win, 245-75.
Saturday evening was the auction. The live portion was super entertaining and people definitely stepped up and gave some big bids. I was bidding on a few things on the app and unfortunately the app crashed at the last moment, so the crazy last minute bids couldn’t continue – but when I refreshed the app after being able to log back in, it turns out I was the highest bidder on 2 of the 3 things I was bidding on, and it was the 2 that I really wanted! The Brock and Roll map and the Major Bunkers map. I was so excited! Once I picked them up, I found Easton, Jay and Jaylen and had them all sign the maps they designed for me. This was an excellent year for HDSA – this weekend overall raised the highest we’ve ever raised at one of these events and it was over $60,000 by the end of the weekend!! The clix community is so generous and really come together when it comes to charity and helping each other.
At the auction, Howard also made an announcement that Lucky Dice Café was closing. He was downsizing to just a smaller game store. He’s still doing the ROC and the Cup will still happen next year, it’ll just not be in his store anymore. I can’t wait to see where it’ll be next year – fingers crossed that it’s in a hotel and the air conditioning is great. My favorite events are ones that in hotels. It’s just so convenient to not have to find a way to travel to a venue each day and have it all in one place.
Sunday was the silver tournament. I decided that I wanted to play my guy, legacy Thanos. As soon as they unbanned it, I knew I needed to try him out again. I even titled my team He’s Unbanned – It’s inevitable! My team was legacy Thanos with the mandarin ring that gives penetrating energy explosion, both Porters – white shirt with the yellow ring, Star Sapphire with the pink ring, MOE swap starting with Dark Phoenix, Cosmo with spin ring, Hope Summers and the traffic barrel. My sideline had MOE swaps, Black Vulcan, Grodd and Destroyer. My tarot deck was willpower, mind control, phasing, energy explosion, +1 d6 rolls and High Priestess.
First round was against Justin who played prime Elsa with trick arrows, both Porters, Kong, Ghost Rider, XRF Blackheart, 2 Trisentinels, 2 Wendigos and the WWE ring. I won initiative and took us to Krakoan Garden. He got a bunch of counters on Ammuts Tomb with the Trisentinels both shooting and sidestepping into blocking. I flipped my phasing tarot and chose phasing and power for my gems. I perplexed up my range, TK’d out, phased up for 5 and took out the 2 Trisentinels that had broken first turn immunity from that sidestep out and then used my costed action to move back to my starting area, far away from him. He didn’t realize that sidestepping out and back in would break the immunity and said he took that as a lesson learned for his future games. He moved a bunch of people up. I Tk’d white shirt into a position to be able to pulsewave his Elsa, Kong and I think something else too. Then I mind controlled to take something out – I think it was Blackheart. He got a good Kong attack off. I had Destroyer come out from that. We’re coming down to the last 2 minutes of the game and he had a Wendigo close enough to charge in on Destroyer (who came out on click 3) and between the flurry and after resolution attack, he KO’d Destroyer and put him up on points. Such a good close game! 235-300
Round 2 was against Ryan. He played Arachknight, Weapon Hex, Dr. Strange, MJJ, Jennifer Kale, Felix Faust, Captain Britain and Scott Porter. I won initiative again and took us to Morlock Tunnels. He did some great positioning to get himself such that everyone was covered by the emod. I positioned up a little, but still behind the wall. He inched up some more, still keeping emod coverage. I inched up to right at the wall. He broke a wall and for the first time broke positioning to get some people in place to strike the next turn. This was my chance to try and score something. I got my 3 SHIELD’s next to Cosmo and Thanos and turned off super senses on Weapon Hex with Cosmo. Thanos’s mind control successfully hit Weapon Hex and Dr Strange – I was hoping that one of them would be able to take out his Faust. He unfortunately rolled the senses on the attack I hit (I missed one of the attacks), but I did break up his positioning with moving them away from each other and back just far enough that he didn’t quite have the movement to do what he wanted to do. But, he did come up in the last few minutes of the game, broke a wall and got some great attacks in and took out a bunch of my stuff – including Thanos and Cosmo, to take the win, right before time was called as I was setting up to get some attacks in with those I had left, swapping into Black Skull for the flurry. 0-300. This game was when I realized a critical mistake I made. When flipping my tarot cards, the mind control card didn’t come up and I realized that I’d only taken 5 cards out of my box and not 6. I knew there was no way I was making cut, but I was there to play and enjoying my team, so I decided to play it out and not drop.
Round 3 was with Dan. He had Emperor Gladiator, Green Arrow, Kong, Pegasus Cap, Felix Faust and both Porters. Again I won initiative and took him to Morlock Tunnels. My dice were not kind to me this game. My initial mind control, I wasn’t successful in taking anything out. I really wanted his Pegasus Cap or Green Arrow out, but the attacks I made completely missed. This put him in a great position to get in and take some stuff out. It really turned into a slugfest with everyone just in a big group and seeing who could actually hit attacks. Turns out he had more stuff stick than I did and he took the win 185-255.
Round 4 I played Kevin. His team was colossal Carnage, Kamo, both Blackhearts, Venom Dr Strange, Surtur, The Commissioner, Porter and Groot. We sat down and both of us having lost all our games, we just wanted to have fun. I won initiative again and said I was just going to take us wide open to Krakoan Garden and that I wouldn’t use barrier so we can just roll dice and have fun. He sends Kamo my way with the Shark. I take the bait and try and get some hits off but it doesn’t amount to much. He came closer with some of his other pieces to be set up to come in the next turn, while trying to do more work with Kamo and the Shark. Now that 1st turn immunity is over, I go out with Thanos and double target his Surtur and Groot to take them out so I don’t get retal’d on. I don’t remember what happened from here, but we rolled a ton of dice and had a bunch of back and forth, but in the end I was able to take his team and got 400-205.
After not making cut, Az approached me and asked if I wanted to be a 4th in a battle royal with him, his partner Danylal and Jason. This is Danylal’s first time ever playing a clix game, even though she always comes to the events and hangs out – so he wanted it to be with friends who were going to be kind and helpful. I of course said yes. We let the judges know that we wanted to do our own thing and not bother with a timer and we’d agreed that we’d all just get 5 turns, no matter how long they took, so we could help teach as we played. They were cool with it and let us do our thing. Danylal ended up winning the game! She had the awesome booster with rare Moon Knight to play with and I think she enjoyed herself and would play another casual game like that with friends again.
After that I hung around and watched Lucas play his top 16 and top 8 games. I love watching top tables play and see the thought processes and moves that others make. It helps me learn and gives me ideas that I can implement in future games. I so enjoy seeing the differences that others do compared to where my thoughts go for the move I would have made.
I would have kept watching the top games, but I was approached by Brad and asked if I wanted to be the 4th in a battle royal with him and Spencer that they were going to soon play with Scott Porter. Of course, I said yes! I think it was around midnight that we played and we had such a fun time. It turns out we were the only ones to actually beat him in a battle royal all day. He had 3 of the Critical Clix sponsored mugs left for beating him that say Greater Than Scott Porter Award 2024, so we each got one to bring home. What a great way to end the weekend!
Monday was travel home day. I’m glad I took the time Sunday when we got back to pack my stuff – even though it was super late, so I didn’t have to rush in the morning. We checked out of the Airbnb at 10am and headed to the airport. Our flight wasn’t until around 2, so we had lots of time to wait. We spent that time in the little restaurant and our table kept growing as others saw us sitting there. Asael and Josafa both joined us for brunch and a bunch of great conversations. The flights were easy and nothing to note, it was just a long day with a 5 hour layover on top of all that initial wait time and we didn’t arrive back to Toronto until midnight. I’m sort of regretting not paying the extra $100ish to get home at 5pm – next time for sure. I didn’t get home until after 1am and needed to work in the morning, so it would have made for a much easier time to get home earlier.
As always, my favorite part was getting to see friends, make new friends, hang out, have great conversations and lots of hugs. I have zero regrets that I save my vacation days for these big clix events and can’t wait for the next one! On my radar is Canadian Nats and Worlds – I hope you’re going and I’ll see you there!
Until next time, xoxo
that sounds like an awesome, fun-filled time!
It was!! Thanks so much for reading, friend <3