This one is a little late, but we wanted to get it out none the less. Rincevent was crowned champion of the last Two Team Takedown, and he was generous enough to write up a little bit about his road to the top. Congratulations again, and take it away…
I want to begin by thanking all the great folks of DM North as they did once again an amazing job, the tournament was as smooth as it was fun!
The format this time was a 20×20 which meant that each participants had to build two distinct teams choosing only one card of each of the sets/campaign boxes/team packs/promos of the previous Modern Rotation. It was a real headache but it was also really fun to build, leaving us with many dilemmas and though choices to make.
After hours of brewing, I decided to go with a Jubilee team and a God Catcher one.
What Did You Play?
Team A: Jubilee, Hope and Dani
The team is based on rare Jubilee from the DPS sets which deals damage to a dice or player each time you use energy from an x-men dice to field a character or pay for a global. It had Hope to double the inputs of damage and Dani as the main source of energy (to trigger Batman global mainly) and as removal/sidekick deterrent. Clayface was there obviously to get access to even more x-men energy each turn. Mimic was there for removal and my main weapon against “Black Widow: Agent”. I also added “Poison Ivy: Red” against tokens. At the last minutes and in the few sets that remained, I choosed The Rock as I found it was sometime difficult to get rid of fielded sidekick (since I wanted to attack with only Dani in most of my turn). For the BAC, Static Field was pretty obvious to protect myself against unwanted attackers as was Booker T, Ringside Announcer for Dani.
Team B: God Catcher
For my second team, I looked at what was left. At this point, I didn’t have any DnD in my first team so God Catcher (GC) was the elephant in the room especially considering that it doesn’t need much to work. Conveniently, it was still possible for me to choose Istrid to stop Static Field and Under Surveillance (US) to get the damage through. I also added Thor for the discount on actions and because it provides a solid plan B. My first tryouts with this team were far from great though. In particular, I could not get a win against my team A. I really had a lot of problem to insure a continuous flow of GCs and to time them right with US and Istrid. At that point, I had Meteorite in Team A and decided to swap it and add Atlas in this team.
I also added Supreme Intelligence and Atlantis to give me some bag management options. With those, I was able to ensure lethal a lot sooner and even though I still find it hard to get a win against my Jubilee team, I was definitly closer. I wanted to add a direct damage plan B. Thor can do that but he is a bit expensive and not that easy to switch too, especially if you are in a tight spot. With the number of actions I had in the team, Vajra seems perfectly to fit the bill. I also took Big E if I had to face another GC, Becky or a Master Mold. For my second BAC, I went with Grombrindal’s Fury as it could trigger Vajra two times in a turn.
Round 1 (jourdo)
Match 1: Jubilee Vs Domino
It was his Domino and Hope against my Jubilee team. The two teams were not as competitive but he still managed to slow me down effectively with black widow and deal some damage with hope/domino (even though they never did roll more than one energize in a row) but I was grinding down his life faster with either hope or jubilee until I manage to field them both in the same turn and use dani’s dice to deal lethal damage.
Match 2: GC Vs Anti-Monitor
He switched his teams because his anti-monitor could allow him to ko my god catcher tokens. Unfortunately for him he missed his first anti-monitor roll and when it came back one GC already went through. Furthermore, I was able to field enough sidekick thanks to atlantis to avoid having to ko my GC tokens. It was finished in the next few turns with another GC going through with under surveillance.
1-0
Round 2 (JLucer0)
Match 1: Jubilee Vs Ork/Spider/Batman/SR Jubilee
In the first game, I played my Jubilee team against his first team. This team is really frightening with two really strong combo: the (almost – because he can opt out of it) infinite loop combo of Ork/Spider/Batman AND the SR jubilee/Batman combo. The fact that we both had clayface helped me a lot there. He went for ork and spiderman first but I was able to keep spiderman out of the field with Dani. So when he did draw a Batman, he only had an ork in the field. Furthermore, his Batman rolled missed and I was able to finish it soon after that.
Match 2: GC Vs Attune team
In this game, I managed to buy 2 of his brick to slow him down as he went early on for big E to protect himself from my GC. He then focused on manshoon and seething corruption with great effect. He was able to field a lot of sidekick, keeping his bag really thin which meant he could roll his seething corruption almost every turn. I turned to Vajra to try and deal some damage to him and possibly get rid of big E but she kept being koed and eventually I missed a roll and she was back in bag. He then turned to wasp for attune and boosted attack damage and he mange to kill me very quickly.
Match 3: GC Vs Ork/Spider/Batman/SR Jubilee
For this game, Jay went for Jubilee which dealt me quite a lot of damage but when my GC started to go out I was able to koed his stuff on a regular basis, slowing him down enough and giving me enough time to buy 3 GC and 2 US. Both US rolled at the same time and that was it.
2-0
Round 3 (Danny)
Match 1: Jubilee Vs MASTERMOLD
Danny went with his MasterMold team and I chose my Jubilee team for the first match. He started first, buying and preping an Atlantis to grab a MM on turn 2. He rolled him the first time and if it went through for 5 damages, it left me with 2 token to deal with. They kept knocking all of my sidekicks out and stopped me from having a lean effective bag. On my side, I had a hope soon but missed my Jubilee several times in a row which stopped me from hitting second gear. When MM came back, Danny also had a Venerable Dreadnaugh which was really bad for me as my dice tend to have poor defense. He didn’t have lethal at that point but he cleared my field and dealt me serious damage which I never recover from. The next turn, I aimed my Dani at the big guys (MM and VD) but if MM went, VD came back. He finished me with another big sweep. Well played Danny, it was the only defeat of my Jubilee team for the whole tournament!
Match 2: Jubilee Vs Attune
I kept my Jubilee team against his attune team. His team gave me a second Clayface which was very welcome. I ignored the temptation to buy his bricks (as my match in prep showed me that it only slowed me down) and stick with the plan. He went first and was able to field an Iceman on T3. As usual, I went with hope and Dani first and roll both on character faces. It allowed me to try and reroll his Iceman with Dani but stopped me from buying a Jubilee. Unfortunately, Iceman came back on character face as he would do all through the game. The energy needed to reroll his Iceman (which in turn meant I had to buy more Hope to clayface in shields) and not rolling bolt on one turn prevented me from buying Jubilee for the whole game and I had to make do with only Hope. Fortunately, two Clayfaces meant I was still able to do a lot of damage. In the end, it was a lot closer than I thought it would be. Indeed, I dealt him just enough damage to kill him in the global window before his attack step in which he would have had lethal too!
Match 3: God Catcher Vs Attune
Last match was his attune team Vs my GC. As he had bricks and a solid counter to my GC in the form of the 2 cost GC, I decided to go with plan B. I bought two of his brick and then went for Vajra and Atlantis. Atlantis did really well with bricks allowing me to prep those that would not roll and always keep them around. In this context, Vajra did a lot of early damage. I was even able to buy and prep a Thor at one point as I had rolled all my dice thanks to Atlantis prep the turn before. I finished the game with a really lucky roll of 2 bricks with spark, 1 God Catcher with spark too and 2 sidekicks which all triggered my Vajra and Thor for lethal direct damage.
3-0
Round 4 (ccm00007)
Match 1: Jubilee Vs Colossus
The first match was his colossus team versus my jubilee. We had a very similar team (mainly because I inspired myself from his last TTTD team!) but I thought I may have an edge with the flexibility of Jubilee. It allowed me to deal damage to dice during my opponent turn which provides a solid counter to Dani. This, in turn, would permit me to field sidekicks and keep my bag light. My plan was then to manage my bag with his atlas at the beginning then field as much sidekicks as I could as soon as hope or jubilee were fielded. It turned out I didn’t need it that much in the end as he had a really bad turn 1 and 2. He started first but did not roll a shield. Then, on T2, he did roll 2 sidekicks which meant he could not buy a hope nor prep. On my side, everything went according to plan, my hope rolled on turn 3 et I was able to field sidekick comfortably from that point. Laurier did manage to buy a colossus on T3 which was a smart move as it would be way more difficult to ko him than Hope. He did roll him at the first occasion too but my game was already a bit more settled and he was on the backfoot. Jubilee rolled the first time too but on her expensive level 3 which cost me a turn. I had the luck to send his Colossus to used with the first attack of my Dani. He went for Mimic to deal with my field but I was able to end it before it rolled with Dani’s masks and Clayface.
Match 2: God Catcher Vs Colossus
It was his Colossus team versus my god catcher. As he had both Poison Ivy and Static Field, I did not have much hope for this one and the game proved me right. Laurier did not experience the same bad luck on the first turns, he went straight for a poison ivy and then for a hope which gave him both a defense and an attack in one smooth move. Poison Ivy rolled right away but not his Hope giving me a bit more time. When it rolled though he began dealing me serious damages each turn. I managed to get one GC through but it really was only a consolation. He dealt me the final blow the next turn dealing me 10 straight damages with his 5 characters for my remaining 4 life. Ouch.
Match 3: GC Vs Turk/Venerable Dreadnaught/Ork Nob/Kevin Nash
The final match was his intriguing Turk/Venerable Dreadnaught/Ork Nob/Kevin Nash team against my GC. This game was hard to predict, his team had many options and I did not know what to expect at all. I decided to stick with plan A and go for GC and Under Surveillance. I felt like I had the edge early on, as he went for defense first, investing strongly on gazers and confront the mighty. I manage to keep my bag in check while buying pretty effectively. My game plan was not to field GC early on (they would get intimidate anyway) but roll them to energy as much as possible to buy 2/3 GC and 2/3 US and manage my bag to land them on the same turn. It almost worked very well and then almost ended up very badly for me.
The first turn I had both a GC and US, I didn’t roll US. Then, on one turn, I drew two GC and two US but I rolled only one US which I could not even use as I had no token at that point.
And then, the tide turned totally. The main weakness with my plan was that it left me with only sidekicks to defend my field. Laurier was as quick as ever to exploit it and turned to Ork Nob, VD and then Orion forcing me to make my first really hard decision of the day. Knowing that he would roll the 3 of them next turn, should I keep my sidekicks, which he could ko with VD to give his Ork Nob a boost? Or should I attack with them and take the risk to burden my bag making it hard to land my GC and US together?
I took the risk to keep them in the field, he rolled his dice well and I was then faced with a massive Ork Nob, an average Orion and an angry VD. Ccm had the generosity to point out that he still had a fist in prep that changes everything (it could turn the average orion into a huge one making it lethal if everything went through) which I may well have missed. Thank you very much for that, good sir! It still left me with another really hard choice: who was I letting through and who would I be blocking? I only had one badly damage GC (from the leftovers of VD range damage) to defend with. The only character I could block without koing my GC was VD. I went with the “all in” approach letting the two big one through for 15 damages and I blocked only the VD as I did not fancy my chances to field in enough GC in the next few turns.
On the next turn I was faced with my third big decision as I drew only one US and no GC. I sticked to the “all in” approach and attacked with my only GC which left me with a lean field to defend my meagre 5 life. Keeping a GC was not that a solid option anyway with all his gazers. It then all depended on him not rolling is VD on the next turn. He did not, I drew 2 GC and 2 US the next turn and that was it. Phew! Totally insane match which left me shaking with adrenaline!
4-0
Match 1: Jubilee Vs Thor
In this match, we decided to go with a draw to choose the teams. Mike was unlucky, setting the tone for the day. I really feared to played his dani/black widow agent team with my jubilee team but he did draw his Thor team while I drew Jubilee. Phew! I opted to go second and went the usual Dani then Hope fielding as many sidekicks as I could in the process with Batman global. My dice rolled pretty much exactly what I wanted and I was able to field Hope and buy Jubilee on T3 and then field Jubilee on T4. He went for yawning portal and Venerable Dreadnaught first. On T3, Yawning Portal with some sidekicks allowed him to add a Thor and a Plague Marine to his bag. Then, on T4, he drew both Thor and VD but both rolled single energy! They didn’t had time to resurface with my Dani always rolling on masks to deal enough damage.
Match 2: God Catcher Vs Dani/Poison Ivy
Against my GC, he opted to change his team as his second team had Poison Ivy: Red. In the early game, I gambled on him not going for Dani and sticking to Poison Ivy and started to save energy to Atlantis. Unfortunately for me he saw me coming and bought a Dani which meant I had to switch for a more conventional bag management. It was tricky as I did not have the right number of dice in used to prep right but I manage to land on my feet in two turns and could resume my buying of GC and US with a clean bag. He did manage to koed a GC with poison ivy but with a combination of good bag management and lucky rolls, I managed to have simultaneous GC and UC the first two time they were out of the bag together and that was game.
5-0
Post-Mortem:
I definitely benefited from the fact that a lot of good players are now tired of the main wincons and selected others combos. On this point, I was really impressed by Nick and Jay’s almost infinite loop combo. Jay and Danny’s attune teams gave me a very good scare too. But the big 3 are not there for nothing and, in the end, GC really helped to hide my misplays!
I began the tournament with huge confidence in my Jubilee team which was still undefeated at this point and some doubts about the God Catcher one. As Rob pointed out, TTTD is a search for something like a balance between your two teams. I felt like I gave too much to the Jubilee team and not enough to the God Catcher one. It turned out that if the GC team did struggle a bit more, I was over-worrying. My bag management options allowed me to almost always keep a clean bag and have a sturdy supply of both GC and US. God Catcher is a beast no matter what.
Surprisingly for me, for many of my opponent my main threat was the GC team. To me, it shows that this rare Jubilee is still largely underestimated. With Hope, she was really amazing giving me both a very effective wincon and a removal on my opponent’s turn. It was really fun team to play too. At some point I played so much stuff during my opponent turn that I would forget it was theirs and would call “your turn” at the end. Sure, I had to keep a lot of energy in reserve but most of the time I ended up buying only 4-5 cheap dice. In the end, all I really needed was 1 hope, 1 jubilee and 2 Danis. Nevertheless, in the curent modern, this Jubilee is badly hurt by the loss of both Clayface and Hope. It’ll be interesting to see if she can work nevertheless!
– Rincevent