Discard Pile Diversion (SCL S19 R2, Ep. 60)

Today we are discussing Season 19, Round 2 of the Solo Champions League: She-Hulk vs Standard Infiltrate the Museum + Black Order. This episode has Kakita Jamie and VJackson - Brian individually join the pod for conversations after a brief solo summary of to the round from josseroo.

Joss' YouTube Channel (Solo Champions League Gameplay): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8M_m6TeG3LAzrIZ4o1jkRQ

Solo Champions League Discord: https://discord.gg/dnq9gUPfGHOfficial website for SCL: https://www.bearoverinnsmouth.com/solo-champions-league

MODOK league website: https://modokleague.wordpress.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Hey hey friendos, welcome to TheRoad to Nowhere, a Marvel
Champions LCG podcast. We focus on recapping Solo
Champions League and Modoc League, but if you enjoy
breaking down the finer details of a Marvel Champions match up,
then we have something for you. I'm your host, Joshua.
Joining me a little bit later will be Kakita, Jamie and V

(00:30):
Jackson. Brian trying a little bit of a
different format, kind of there's a new scoring system in
solo Champions League and kind of ranking the the decks slash
players according to how they did overall compared to the rest
of the field is a little bit trickier than it used to be.
So trying to figure out a way tocontinue doing the show,

(00:54):
highlighting people's decks and talking about the rounds.
So I'm going to do a smaller intro on my own today, and then
I'm going to welcome Kakita Jamie and share the conversation
we had about his deck and then talk to Brian about his deck.
And that's fun try to figure outhow to use the information that

(01:17):
Ismuth Bear is is sharing and and really kind of leverage that
to understand some of the different approaches that people
were taking in being successful this round.
So what was the round? It was season 19 round two.
We were playing infiltrate the museum, AKA collector one with
the black order and the requiredgalactic artifacts modulars

(01:40):
difficulty was standard. The hero was She Hulk can play
any of the five aspects are all basic.
And then, as is the current way that the league works, there was
a round challenge and you were trying to have the fewest number
of cards in the collection. We will loop back to what on
earth we're talking about with the collection basically right

(02:01):
now. So Infiltrate the Museum is the
second scenario in the Galaxy's Most Wanted box, and the Grand
Collection is the main scheme and it has a hero action where
you can choose to either spend 2resources of any type or to

(02:24):
exhaust your hero and discard one card from the collection.
Each player is only allowed to do that once per round, so in
Solo you can only get one card out of the collection.
And then there's this other piece where if you have at least
5 cards in the collection, or ifthe stage is completed and it's
a 10 threat threshold, then the players lose.
So if you ever get to 5 cards inthe collection, or if this thing

(02:47):
ever hits 10, then you actually lose.
So you're trying to keep the collection under control.
Additionally, the challenge in the solo Champions League is
actually having it down to 0 when you finish the game or as
close to 0 as possible in terms of getting points.
Now, as you can imagine, there'sa bunch of cards that are trying

(03:07):
to put things in the collection and actually collector himself
has a a thing as well. So when a card player or
encounter would be placed into adiscard pile from play, it is
placed up, placed up. It is placed face up into the
collection instead. So when your ally chump chump
blocks, when you use ready to Rumble to ready yourself or any

(03:30):
of those other things, when those cards that were on the
table would go into a discard pile, then they go into the
collection instead. And that also counts for when
you defeat a side scheme or defeat a minion or remove an
attachment or any of those otherawful things.
Get rid of an obligation and it doesn't go, not the one that

(03:51):
goes out of the game, but when the when you get rid of the
obligation such that it goes into the discard pile.
And of course, there's cards that are handy to get around
this. Clea for example, who has an
interrupt that shuffles her backinto the deck instead of going
to the discard. So anything that interrupts or
circumvents a card normally going to the discard would also
help you. This obviously promotes playing

(04:14):
decks that focus heavily on events or permanents that don't
actually leave play. So you know, things that you
just exhaust to to use. And I actually played A50 card
event based justice deck. That was again, we're we're
talking about playing She Hulk. So it's kind of funny to play

(04:34):
basically an X-Men deck, but it focused on mission training,
which adds some health and one thwart.
And I ended up playing very, very long games.
My shortest game was 11 turns. And we'll talk a little bit more
about my strategy in a moment, But the idea was that these
these allies, I could buff them up a little bit.

(04:57):
They're both allies that actually are allowed to heal
themselves in some way or another.
So I can keep them on the board for a nice long time without
them ever having to go into the collection.
Also, as mentioned, the main scheme has 10 threat threshold
collector stage one has two thwart, Stage 2 has three
thwart. And so we're, we're playing on

(05:18):
standard. So, you know, effectively with,
if you tried to flip down Jessica's eye objectability
makes it an 11 threat threshold.If you got advanced against and
drew advanced, there is a world in which you could actually pop
this scheme realistically, but you're, you're fairly safe.

(05:43):
I, since I was playing justice, you know, I went with under
surveillance and, and some otherthings to protect myself further
and I wanted to be able to flip lots.
But you know, this isn't one of those scenarios where that
threat threshold is so low that it'll just pop without you, you
know, without you being able to stop it very easily, right?

(06:08):
So, you know, usually you have enough control of the game that
you can avoid having it pop whenyou whenever you don't want to.
There are 8 encounter cards thatare in the Infiltrate the Museum
set. Seven of them are trying to put
cards into the collection, including an extra copy of
Caught Off Guard. We got Galactic artifacts.
There's 9 cards. Four of these are these five

(06:28):
threat side schemes that have beneficial effects when you
defeat them, but also have icons.
So that's fun with the pool 5 attachments that have, you know,
varying degrees of terrible in terms of what's going on thing
and I won't even go through whatall the all of them are, but
none of them are great. Some of them are much worse than
others. And then the black order modular

(06:51):
is 4 cards with two different beefy minions, a side scheme and
a treachery that fetches one of the minions.
So that's that was the deck we were dealing with.
As I mentioned, my rounds were long.
They we'll see when I'm talking to the others, but you know, I
went eleven turns, 12 turns and 17 turns and my strategy I will

(07:11):
talk about as soon as we get into how the new scoring system
works, I'm going to look at the overall results and then we'll
talk about the scoring system again.
So in the overall results we hadof the different aspects that
people could choose, 42% of the folks chose justice.
So kind of like me thinking I want to protect that main side

(07:31):
scheme, plus we're going to havethese big 5 threat side schemes
that are are showing up and justice could often really help
with that. Second was protection at 20% and
then leadership, aggression and pool.
We're all kind of similar 11 to 14%.
I'm really surprised to and delighted because I like pool to
see pool up kind of up there with leadership and and

(07:55):
aggression. And then 1% was was basic.
So, you know, maybe that was just one person probably.
As I mentioned, there's a new scoring system this season.
You can score up to five stars based on how you do relative to
the rest of the field. And there's seven different

(08:16):
categories. You're trying to get 10 top ten
in a category to get a full star.
Those categories are the your win percentage.
So of your three games, how manyyou win, the number of turns you
take faster is better. Villains score.
So that's just health on the villain side of the board,
including minions scheme score. So that's main scheme and side
schemes, including personal sideschemes, if you're using them.

(08:40):
So you got to clear them, you can't just leave them out.
Hero score. So that's your health and your
allies health. There's a bonus challenge like I
mentioned. So that's having the collection
be as low as possible is worth more points.
And then there's XP, which is a normalizing factor that is
trying to account for, you know,when there's a bunch of
different heroes, how they are, how they perform compared to

(09:02):
each other. So did you take somebody there
where it's easier to perform better or somewhere where it's
more difficult to perform better?
And so across those, personally,I look at those and I say, well,
I don't have, I can control XP, but I don't always know exactly
what's going to turn out to havebeen the one that would get you
the highest XP. So I kind of avoid that one.

(09:25):
Turns. I also don't have a ton of
control over how fast everybody else goes, so I focus on the
other one. So I focus on win percentage,
villains score, scheme score, hero score, and the bonus
challenge. So I try to Max out my points on
the bonus challenge, win all my games and have the games be
clean and I'm abandoning turns. So I go as long as I need to to

(09:49):
to make that happen. And this feels like a little bit
of a degenerate strategy becauseit feels like now all my games
are super long. I can kind of Max out these
other things if I want, but thatthat's how I've been playing it.
We'll see if I keep on doing it that way.
OK, so let us move on to my conversations with Takita, Jamie

(10:10):
and V Jackson. Brian, All right, And with us,
we have Kakita Jamie dropping into talk about She Hawk, She
Hawk, She Hulk leadership. Brad, how are you?
I'm good. Thank you for having me, Joss.
Always a pleasure to to chat with you.
We get a chat in the alliance. We get a chat, you know, on the

(10:32):
pod, all sorts of good, and we're going to get to see each
other at Con Heroes. Absolutely.
I am really excited and Bruce isgoing to probably get to come
with me this year so. Oh, right.
So you're the whole team? Yes, Sir.
Oh my God. OK, sounds like all of the
gamorans are going to be there. Yeah, the whole team, that's

(10:55):
pretty exciting. I never didn't even consider
that. But you're right, we're all,
we're all going to be there and even even some of our juniors
are going to be there. Oh, we get to meet Josh Junior.
Yeah, yeah, he's gigantic. So it's it's high.
It's high comedy. He just got a haircut.
He looks way taller. Normally he has just his
monstrous head of hair and actually makes him look shorter,

(11:17):
but he's got like a nice haircut.
So he looks really, really taller.
Weird. I'm excited to get to play with
just everybody. It's it's going to be a good
year. There's a lot of SCLRS coming, a
lot of Modoc people coming. And lots of people that will
just be in that that that right time of year that it a holiday

(11:38):
will just feel so great. Absolutely.
It's a great time of year to have it.
I'm I'm so glad that they do it kind of right there.
So let's let's check in with youabout your actual deck.
Maybe before we do, let's check in what big picture what are

(11:58):
your feelings on collector one AKA infiltrate the museum so.
I didn't really start till sinister motives.
So the whole galaxy's most wanted is a rough, hard to do
box period was already passed and kind of starting to mellow

(12:18):
out by the time I got into the game.
And so when I finally got to sitdown and play, I was I had much,
you know, we had access to much better stuff.
So my first, my first time playing collector wasn't, wasn't
bad. I just had to figure out, OK,

(12:39):
don't put stuff in the collection and keep stuff out of
the collection when it gets in there, you know, control the
board do do good stuff. I don't think he's a tough
matchup. I think in when you're trying to
focus on FDL scoring. Yeah.

(13:02):
He becomes a tough matchup, but if I was just playing him
casually and I just wanted to win, I would care significantly
less about the collection than Idid for this round.
Yeah, that's very fair. And I, you know, I think
personally that, you know, like a lot of the more recent

(13:27):
villains or scenarios that have had, you know, different
mechanisms that have discouragedchump blocking.
I think, you know, this is another way to discourage some
certain play styles or to force you to build a deck in a very
specific way, which I think is really neat.

(13:48):
I think maybe the restriction onhow many things you can get out
of the collection per turn is pretty tough.
That's that was actually probably the hardest part of
this round was that restriction.Right, so before we get into
your deck, let's let's look at about your deck real quick in

(14:09):
terms of the overall performance.
So we've got this, you know, newer scoring style in the
league that we're all figuring out.
And we got you got five stars inwin percentage, one star in
turns like just like me, you didn't get zero, you didn't get
zero stars in turns like Astrodar did, though.
So we we both got defeated by Astrodar in that one.

(14:33):
Yeah. You got five stars in villain
score, so that's, you know, having no villain health left at
the end or, or, or sorry or minion scheme score you had five
as well. Hero score you had five.
So you're out way past Max health and then you got a
challenge bonus of .7 stars, which is due to the aspect that

(14:59):
you chose. Oh, everybody.
Oh, wait, no, no. Sorry, no, not challenge bonus.
That's the XP bonus. Sorry, XP bonus was that, but
everybody got the same challengebonus.
Sorry, you got .7. So that was based on how much
stuff was in your collection. So we're going to find out you
still had some stuff in your collection.
Unfortunately, yes. But your net was a five star

(15:20):
approval rating. So we got, you know, you're,
you're in flight 2 because you're still building up XP or
you know, you're second in in the flight, but until you have
some more XP, you won't move up to the next, the next one.
And of the folks in your flight,there's looks like there's 10/7
of you got five stars. So lots of people that were very
successful in this, in this round.

(15:42):
Yeah, the flights are interesting because I think at
the end of last season, Bear hadput me in Flight 1 in one of the
at the end of one of the rounds.So I don't know.
I don't know if that was just a coincidence because I think the
last round a lot of people bailed on.
Right. Yeah, Yeah.
The the mechanisms by which people move up in the flights

(16:06):
are still a bit opaque, which issometimes fun, but sometimes
we'll just want to understand, right?
Yeah, the flights don't catch meas much as the XP bonus catches
me. I really would love to have a
better understanding of that. Yeah, I mean, it's ultimately
meant to be, to my understandingjust kind of a balancing

(16:28):
mechanism so that you you basically get a bonus to your
score based on the difficulty ofthe thing that you that you
chose. So if you chose an aspect that's
traditionally not performing as well and didn't perform as well
in this round, it's a mix of those two things, then you you
see a bigger XP bonus. Yeah.

(16:50):
But it's tricky. I actually got, I, I got a bunch
of data from Innsmuth Bear one time to try to use some kind of
more sophisticated statistical analysis on it.
And it's just the way the data are structured.
It's actually really hard to to do this in any sort of a
reasonable way. Yeah, I think we all just got

(17:12):
points because it was She Hulk. Yay.
All right. So you, you played leadership,
do you want to run us through your deck and maybe a little bit
of your overall strategy? Yeah.
So I was last pick in our group and justice got taken, which
felt like the correct answer andthat left protection which was

(17:37):
taken by Ashtar and I generally felt you could play a perfect
defense deck and do really well this round.
So that left leadership, aggression pool, Yes, leadership
and basic. I landed on leadership mainly

(17:58):
because the wart I felt was the biggest issue, especially with
galactic artifacts sitting in there with coming out with 55
threat side schemes and and you have to maintain the main
because it's not exactly a it's not a big main.

(18:22):
While while it is 10, it's it's it starts out with, you know, 4
thread on it and you know, one bad, one bad scheme and you're
really close to the edge there. Still, I played around with a
couple of ideas, pool and mainlyaround pool and leadership.

(18:45):
And when I landed on was pool could be good, but if I ever
drew dread pool, it would be a really it'd be a really rough
time because it'd take extra readies.
Second thing I established was OK, well let's go leadership.
What can I do in leadership to guarantee threat we'll play

(19:08):
allies? Well, I don't want to play
allies and have them go into thecollection.
So what else can I do? The old school She Hulk strategy
of Let's play Hellcat as many times as possible.
Brilliant so as just as the quick reminder to everybody

(19:28):
Hellcat has action returned Hellcat to your hand so you can
make it so she never has to go into the collection.
Yeah, one of the. So looking at that, that
concept, I'm like, how can I buff her to make her more cost
effective while not you know, why not put an upgrades?

(19:50):
Because if I put an upgrade on her, that's going to get
discarded as well and go into the collection.
And what I realized is OK, well,mighty Avengers in play gives
her plus 1 + 1 and team traininggets her an extra activation.
Great. Let's focus on getting those two

(20:11):
in the play and we'll get extra value out of every play of
Hellcat and we won't risk. Putting anything into the
collection to get Hellcat better.
Well if I'm going to run Mighty Avengers, that means I need to
run all Avengers. Good base idea.
Let's get some allies that'll get the most use out of Mighty

(20:34):
Avengers. I can run Avengers Tower which
will help me play Hellcat more, or a regular relatively cheap
price. Plus I'll get an extra ally slot
because I'm already going to runall Avengers.
Yeah. So now I had to be selective on
ally choices, and that's I didn't want to run a whole

(20:57):
gambit of allies and have a bunch of dead cards.
So I had to be, I had to cull itdown to a very tight list.
I chose Wonder Man because for two costs he has three health
and the his discard ability isn't doesn't affect his thwart

(21:18):
so I will always be able to playhim for two and maybe get 8
thwart. Not quite 8 thwart, but I can
get as many thwarts out of him before he died.
US Agent has five health for three 'cause I get more
activations out of them. Dinger is a free ally spot.

(21:39):
Ant man is probably the most cost effective Avenger but
unfortunately doesn't work with team building exercise and
Avengers tower. But I can multiple games both in
testing and in play. Ant Man saved me before I could

(22:02):
get Hellcat in play. Yeah.
Blade doesn't take consequentialdamage.
Yeah, I got a discard fists, buthim not taking consequential
damage is stay. As long as you want.
Right, stay as long as you want.So running The Avengers package,

(22:22):
I also realized I need more readies and I'm running an
Avengers package. Earth's mightiest heroes.
Great. Hey, I can't use blade this turn
Earth's mightiest heroes, hey, they only have one hit point
left and I don't want to lose. I don't want to put anything in
the collection or Smitey's heroes.

(22:43):
Add that he Hulk gets access to limited stamina and we get now
we have a ready package, which allows me to remove more from
the collection. So after that it was just kind
of gap filling resource generators to be able to play,

(23:04):
to be able to more effectively play Hellcat multiple times.
So. So you have team building
exercise and Avengers towers as things that are not exclusively
dedicated toward that, but you know really about the engine for
her. So that.
She's now kind of A1 cost and you can use your resources or

(23:26):
some of your other resource generators.
Yep, at Helicarrier, Queen Carrier and the mansion and you
got a number of a number of value.
Outside of that, I had some space for some tech I went with
ready for action. Another thing I can do with

(23:46):
allies once they've once they'veeither if I don't want to use
their have them take consequential damage or I want
them to, or they're at the pointwhere I don't really need their
value. Rally the troops was actually
really fun here. Both.
It helped with my HP score. Right.

(24:10):
And it also helped get the extraactivations out of allies.
So without having like, I could get more, two more activations
out of Hellcat without paying her cost.
The Stinger that's been sitting on the side of the board forever
get some extra stuff, but I didn't want to.

(24:32):
I initially had I think one or two more side schemes in there.
But what I found was rally the troops.
I could play for 0, have it sit there.
The others I would have to dedicate resources to and
activations to and it just wasn't, it wasn't as big a deal,

(24:54):
but I ended up cutting all those.
I cut clarity of purpose at one point due to just the health.
The health hit was, was too big.Over time I'd I'd end up taking
55 damage and I just couldn't find time to recover that.

(25:15):
The I was going to observe that the rally the troops synergy
with team training is really nice because it then means that
you know, even your two health allies have room to have taken 2
damage and heal 2 damage. So that that's a really nice
synergy. Yeah, yeah, this is the first

(25:35):
time I've really gotten used to that in an SCL game.
Yeah, it's cool. But generally speaking, most of
the most of the Hulk's cards didn't get played.
Yeah. I maybe played law division if I

(25:56):
could. Most of the events I'd play 1-2
punch and split personality and pretty much everything else was
there as resources to play my non my non my my traded cards.

(26:16):
Well, with that in mind, did yougive any consideration to going
up to A50 card deck and really just trying to drown out the She
Hulk cards? I initially thought about that.
My reasoning for that is I wanted to make sure I got a
support down and I wanted to increase the the likelihood that

(26:42):
I get a double with one of thosesupport.
What ended up happening many games and testing is if I didn't
get a good double resource generator in turn one.
It became really hard once you got in the hero form and dropped

(27:03):
that four to that four card handsize.
To. To effectively play and so as a
result, just to almost, it decreased my likelihood of
getting double s. I stuck to 40.
Gotcha, gotcha. I it's funny.
So I actually ended up playing A50 card deck and I only

(27:25):
included genius as as my double.So I, I really went in the
opposite direction of kind of some of the reasoning that you
went through. Yeah, I've noticed that about a
number of decks that I've seen on SCL that how I seem to value
the double s very highly and some people don't.

(27:48):
And I, I know it's match up specific, but I really value
that. And I can tell you multiple
times when you get hit with that, when you get hit with some
of the the attachments. Yeah.
I was thankful I had the full set of double S especially

(28:09):
actually all of them. The the the cloak was I was just
taking damage to the face with the with unless I had a tough on
board Cloak of Hercules would have really really hurt my game
if that stayed out on board. And nobody wants the power wand.

(28:33):
Yeah, I think I saw that Cloak of Hercules maybe in one of my
games and actually just ended upjust eating it because I didn't,
I didn't have a great way to getrid of it.
Yeah, actually if anything the the obedience potion was

(28:53):
probably like my least concerned1 to get, but I mean, I still
wanted to get rid of it, but that was probably the one I
cared less about being out on the board.
Well, and then as you also mentioned, the you know, you're
ready. Your She Hulk readies are often

(29:13):
getting used toward clearing outthe collection.
So you're not you're not using your basics as much as you might
otherwise use them. So the the penalties that you
suffer from obedience potion just maybe aren't quite as
impactful. Yeah.
And I often found oddly, I was actually holding off going to

(29:38):
Phase 2. I would, I'd want to, I'd want
to take the damage hit instead of the collection hit.
And so I would intentionally notuse my attacks sometimes just to
kind of delay it because with the new system, I don't want to
say we're not penalized for turns, but we're only penalized

(30:00):
for turns if something else goeswrong in the other scoring
categories. Yeah, you you can make a
strategic decision to not worry about turns at all.
Right as a as witnessed by all of our scores.
Yeah, we're very conspicuous alliance that way.

(30:22):
So your your turn counts just looking from you through your
deck. You went 1514 and 13.
Yes. And I and I agree that there was
definitely motivation to just kind of hang out in stage 1 of
Collector until you felt like you were in a good spot to
actually move on to the next. Yeah, I'm, I'm curious.

(30:43):
I didn't look because of the of the way the new scoring works.
We have no clue from at least the scorecard how people did on
turns. I think we can get some data
from the the statistics at the very end.
You know. But I'm curious how many people
just threw away the collection and went straight for turn and

(31:08):
how successful they were. That is something we can
actually look at because we do know the challenge bonus for,
for this one, right? So that's that's a thing.
That's a good point. That's a good point we can
actually see. So I think it looks like you

(31:35):
know of of people that got five stars, we have a bunch of people
that did .7 so that we you lose at 5, right?
And so let's assume that the challenge bonus was based on not
5. So if you had four, maybe you
got 00. No, because maybe if you lost to

(31:56):
it, you actually got 0. So it probably was not even
quite that. Yeah.
And look, looking at it, there'sa like you said, there's a bunch
of .7 hidden in with with five stars, but I think only a few of

(32:17):
them actually had had five starsreturns and a .7 as in challenge
score. It looks like Kamehameha, Greg
and think that's it. Oh, no lexicon.

(32:39):
Oh, and Mr. Wub too. I hate it.
I hate to exclude people. And then no, no surprise, baby
corn managed to get perfect scores across the board.
I don't know how he does it. What a charmer.
What a charmer. He is one of my favorite people
that I have met going to a kind of heroes, Yeah.

(33:01):
And I, I don't know how he does it with the decks he does.
It's so amazing. He's he's just exceptionally
good at Temple play. Clearly.
Clearly, clearly, clearly. Well, let me tell you if if you
want to know the recipe for getting zero stars on turns, it

(33:24):
is 14 rounds, 23 rounds and 22 rounds from from our guy
Astrodar. Well, I'm going to try not to.
Yeah. But it may be a goal at some
point, you know, maybe this round with, with.
Oh yeah, this one's a little slower for me.

(33:44):
Yeah. Cool.
So any any other things you wantto add about your deck?
Or come like. Cut in lower.
My game, too. I ended up with four in the
collection. I probably could have drugged
the game out, but I would have really had a significant risk in

(34:05):
losing the game if I didn't justend it.
I had a bunch, a couple of bad collection turns where I got
like double encounter cards and both of them were collection.
And once you have that one per turn, we talked about you run
the risk of getting the four. And if you keep going and you

(34:27):
stretch that game out to get better score, you might run the
risk of stopping the game. So game 4I just I just went for
the win Once I got once I got stuck on 4.
Gotcha, Well, cool. Well, Kakita Jamie, an absolute

(34:48):
pleasure to have you drop by thepod.
We're going to have a chat with you as well about Modoc league
for for another episode and that'll be fun too.
So, so thank you for sharing your your deck building and and
strategy on on this round. Thanks for having me.
Always a pleasure, always an absolute pleasure.

(35:10):
And we are joined by V Jackson. Brian, how are you doing?
Hello I am doing well. How are you?
I'm great, I'm great. So this is your first time
joining us on on the pod, so maybe we'll spend a little bit
of time to get to know you before we we check in with your
deck. You're kind of relatively new to

(35:32):
solo Champions League. Yeah, I joined sometime in 2024,
I think right after kind of heroes maybe over the summer.
I, I, I met a few people at the con who were into solo Champions
League. And then I am from the Maryland,

(35:55):
DC, Virginia area and we have a pretty decent sized contingency
there. And many of the the locals do
SCL and they have an alliance and you know, after hearing
about it at the con and then some of the local fellas

(36:16):
soliciting my entrance, I thought it was worth joining up
for to join the team. So.
And I've had I've had a blast with it so far.
I typically play a lot of different player counts so play
a lot of multiplayer and would play solo occasionally, but this

(36:37):
has gotten me playing it a lot more now.
Right. Very, very different motivation
to to play for sure. Yeah.
And then I, we, we met at the con and then if I remember
correctly, I think you know someof your local buddies who were
playing in SCL, you were sometimes kind of talking to
them about the rounds and deck building and stuff.

(36:58):
Yeah, I dipped my toe in being interest, kind of piqued my
interest as they were creating the Alliance and talking about,
you know, who was going to be playing the different heroes or
the different aspects and thinking about challenges.
So sort of being a sounding board to bounce ideas off and

(37:19):
eventually I was like, all right, all right, I'll join, you
know, let's do this. So it's been a lot of fun.
I really like the alliance. If people are are looking to
join alliances, I highly recommend it.
It was a lot of fun to sort of figure out who's playing what
and and sort of have that team aspect to it adds a little bit

(37:40):
to it. How does how does your alliance
make their choices for who's playing what?
Oh, that's a good question. So typically what we do is we
have a draft order. So whoever was fifth the time
before the month before in the upcoming month, they'll be first

(38:01):
in line and we just rotate through and it's pretty easy to
to do. I think everybody has slightly
different priorities and playingstyles and interests, so usually
we can find something we're happy with.
Every once in a while, somebody who's 5th is sort of like, well,

(38:22):
I guess I'm playing this whatever is leftover.
But usually someone will kind ofsurprise us, you know, pick
something. We thought maybe it was a lower
priority, a little higher on thedraft than otherwise, maybe just
because they haven't played it in a while or never played it or
just was interested in using that hero.

(38:45):
Yeah, I love it. The our our alliance.
We're all kind of a little slow to make our picks and you know,
are just saying, oh, you know, I'm really busy.
If you know, the next person in line wants to pick ahead of me,
go ahead kind of thing. So even though in principle
there's an order, the order is never really how it happens.

(39:07):
It it ends up kind of being a bit of a DIB system that doesn't
even really happen until the second-half of the of the round.
Yeah, we're pretty good about it.
I think some of us, like myself,are pretty eager to get right to
it. I, I typically I want to pick
the day it's announced and I love it right to my games.
I usually play them in like the first week.

(39:29):
This month I'm a little behind. I haven't played this month and
it's already the 20th, but usually I do it in the first
week or so. I'm just real anxious to get in
there and and try the idea out. Oh, that's so fun.
I love it. Cool.
I Yeah, it's good to good to have you in the league.
Good to hear about your experience.

(39:51):
I think the big topic today is we wanted to check in you're
kicking around in Flight 3. You're, you know, by all
accounts looks like you're, you're doing really well in
terms of how you're scoring. But of course, you have to inch
your way up through the flights by kind of accumulating an FXP

(40:13):
and good performance. Yeah, I, I like that system.
I think it's, I think it's fun to sort of have all the the fret
bases down there and having thatthing to strive for to level up.
Right. And then it looks like, it looks
like I'm just noticing on the most recent results thing that

(40:39):
it actually says what the minimum XP to be in each flight
is. Now that I don't know when that
got at it, but it's so to get into flight 2, you need a
minimum of 125 XP. So kind of you need to be have
an overall approval rating that would put you in the flight and
have that minimum XP. And then to get into flight one,
it's 250XP. Yeah.

(41:01):
So there you go. Cool.
Yeah, it's good to know that stuff.
And and it, it works out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of
50 XPA season. So you're, you're about a full
season away from kind of being eligible for that.
Yeah, So, you know, gives me incentive to keep, keep pushing,

(41:24):
but keep. That's the that's the other
thing about the alliances. You, you don't want to let the
team down. So it's always time to do your
best. You do feel extra bad when when
things go poorly because you're it's not just on you.
Yeah, it's it's funny, you know,anytime I think it's, it's
always like self driven, right, Because it's like the person who

(41:44):
is like I had, you know, I drew the double advance and I lost
and they feel real bad and everyone else is like, oh,
whatever, it happens, no big deal.
We're good. And you know, if if you're the
person that did it, you know, you feel bad.
I definitely, I learned, I thinkin my second game we I wasn't
100% sure about how the scoring worked.

(42:06):
This was my second round when I in last season and I just went
for speed and kind of left a lotof thwart hanging.
And then when the scores came back, they were real low and I
felt real guilty. I was like, oh, I, I, I totally
should have done my homework andfigured out how the scoring
worked better and kind of let them down.
Of course, nobody cared from theAlliance, but I cared that I let

(42:29):
them down South. I think it's a really typical
rookie arc. I had the, I had the exact same
thing. And then and then, you know, the
scoring, the new scoring system is even further.
You know, you kind of really want to consider the scoring
system because it really can mold a lot of things.

(42:51):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then, you know, you know,
maybe before we go onto the deck, just since you, you
mentioned kind of heroes you're planning to go this year.
Yeah, I am very excited to be joining again.
This will be my second time there and definitely already
have, you know, a list of all the people that I met last year

(43:13):
that I didn't get a game in withthat I'm.
I'm looking to get a game in with and people who I played
with last year, who I'm looking forward to seeing again.
And we I went back and Speaking of the alliance in the local
area, you know, really talking about and we, we have a a pretty

(43:33):
good show. I think like a dozen plus people
will be showing up when amazing,but at least half of them are
new this year. First time or so looking forward
to it. That's awesome.
Have you have you been starting to think about the decks you
want to bring? Yeah, I have a list.
I think I have too many. Last year I brought 2 in each
aspect except pool. I only brought one pool, so I

(43:57):
had 9 decks and then I actually pulled along an extra leadership
cap deck, so I ended up with 10 decks.
I think I'm going to be right around that same number.
I played them all and I, I, I don't like to stick with
anything too much. You know, I know some people
like for example, you had all the different Valkyries last
year or some people are borroweddecks or just play the same 2,

(44:19):
but I don't know, varieties of spice of life.
I like to have a little bit of everything.
So I've already already packed agood number of them are already
in my box, have a couple lined up.
We'll see, I'll probably pull like 5 or 6 audibles on the way,
but let's see if we get there. 10 is a pretty reasonable number

(44:40):
because it gives you lots of choice.
Lots of them. You'll probably play twice, but
that kind. Of worked out pretty well yeah,
that's basically what what endedup happening last year and it
fits well in the box and I stillgot the room for everybody the
scenario stuff and that tokens and what have you.

(45:01):
It fits in my backpack. You can play at the airport.
Worked out well. So I'm if it ain't broken, you
don't fix it. So I'm like, I'm going to go
with that this year again. Yeah, I've, I've only been
brainstorming. I haven't actually built
anything yet. Yeah, I have a few trying true,
you know, decks that I've been playing this year that I then
went away from with the new stuff.

(45:23):
And then I was like, I should goback to this deck that I know I
liked, you know? Do you want to bring something
to the con that you are excited about or something that you know
Will would be something you're not having regrets about
bringing? So yeah, bring in a couple stuff

(45:43):
that's sort of new and I'm excited about and a couple
things that I know I like. The worst case scenario, I have
decks I enjoy. Yeah, yeah, I one of the things
I'm pondering is bringing as many different Spider Woman
combinations as possible that. That'd be cool.
So you would just have the the one hero and just.

(46:05):
Well, no, I know I'm going to bring some other stuff too.
I just, but it's more I often think about just, you know,
wonky combos that playing with lots of players facilitates.
You know that you don't you don't have to be in charge of
taking care of the whole table and trying to get your wonky
combo set up. And of course, you know Spider

(46:28):
Woman is pretty much the best place for for wonky combos, so.
Yeah, definitely I I am excited for, you know, I have a a gamble
deck that I hopefully as long asthe the new packs come out on
time, there's a card in one of the upcoming packs that is total

(46:50):
combo silliness and I'm hoping to unleash that at the con.
Try to do get a little that any action going and see if I can
break 50 damage from a single defense.
Yeah, the I think the next the the next two heroes after the

(47:10):
box are currently scheduled for April and kind of really hoping
that actually happens. Yeah, I looked yesterday.
I think the 18th is official date.
So as long as we don't have any more shipping delays, we should
be good. Yeah, the Agents of SHIELD
hasn't showed up in any of the Canadian stores so far as as far
as I can tell. Yeah, that's I heard that.

(47:32):
I don't know what's going on. Just living, living vicariously
through others and you know, playing on the online sources.
Yeah, we have the the border guards to thank for that.
I won't throw too much blame around.
I'll just, I'll just. Throw my brow.
Yes. So yeah, let's let's check in on

(47:53):
your deck. You this was a She Hulk round,
obviously in protection. So you know, what did your deck
look like? What was your overall strategy
in playing this? Trying to keep that collection
under control? Yeah, so, so just typically with
solo Champions League, I, I think I probably I'm a little

(48:15):
more seat of my pants or just like a little more, less
surgical about my deck choices than, you know, I think probably
is advisable. So usually what happens, you
know, I pick AI pick a hero or aor aspect, you know, for the

(48:35):
round. And then I look at the decks
that I already have. I I, I'm building things
constantly. So I look at something and I was
like, well, you know, this, thismight work for this hero for
that round. So that usually works out.
I think there's been, you know, maybe two or three times where I
built a deck specifically for SCL, but usually I just take a

(48:56):
deck that I know works and kind of tweak it.
And sometimes I just, you know, Yolo Roscoe Roscoe, sorry, I,
you know, Yolo Leroy Jenkins right into it without even
practicing. And I did that with Valkyrie,

(49:16):
for example, when we did that because I, I, I know that deck
and I'm confident with it and itwas a lot of fun.
But you know, it was like this could really bump my face.
But with with this deck in particular, I think I had maybe
third pick on aspect and I had had a deck here that was She

(49:41):
Hulk protection. And usually I kind of build two
types of decks. One type of deck I build is
really focused on an idea and those are usually a little more
janky than the others. And then the other type of deck
is sort of like an all around your deck.
It usually has one or two thingsthat it really wants to do, but

(50:03):
it's able to pivot. And so, you know, typically
those are the type of decks where I'll just say, Oh yeah,
this is good for, for solo Champions League.
So this is an example of I, I had a deck with she Hawk that
was, you know, shortly after that rule change.
I think in, in 1.5 or 1.6, I can't remember which RG it was

(50:24):
where the superhuman strength will not fall off if the enemy
is stunned or if you defeat the enemy.
So, you know, had a protection deck that was taking that, you
know, loophole in the rules, if you will, and trying to make

(50:45):
sure I got some extra stuns and,and ways to really exploit that
big, you know, possible 7 attackthat she can get if you get them
both down. So the, it has a, a few ways to
stun in the deck. And the original deck, as I

(51:08):
said, the one that I, that I hadhad was sort of a combination of
two ideas. It was focusing on the stuns and
the superhuman strength and readies.
So you could just keep hitting into that stun over and over
again with the, with the big attack.
And then it also had a little bit of repurpose in there
because you know, if you're in protection and you're doing

(51:29):
readies, repurpose is a great way to get that ready.
And you know, Seahawk has with that big attack and if you get
the attack even bigger with readies, maybe you can take out
some of the huge minions with one shot and keep it going.
So I had Repurpose in that, but when I looked at this challenge,

(51:54):
it's collector and Repurpose is going to just feed collect the
collection. So I was like, OK, we got to
take Repurpose out of this. So the deck I just looked at
what I had and sort of removed the Repurpose pieces and it it
worked out well. I think I added Rogue who I

(52:17):
didn't have before because I built the deck before she got
released and just up to the numbers of some of my events
just to make get it back close to 40 card deck.
And then I went and tried. I did not go face right into

(52:37):
collector without practicing. I did do one practice game to
sort of feel out that matchup. Yeah, 'cause 'cause Collector,
he, he's a bear. I think he, he's down there in
the the scenarios that I probably am least looking
forward to facing when it comes up.

(52:58):
Probably him and Loki, just cause Loki can be a bit of a
slog. But yeah.
So my first game, my practice game went all right and I kind
of saw all the problems that I was that I needed to account
for. So I don't think I adjusted the

(53:19):
deck after that. Maybe I did, but so before I
talk about the the match up, we'll just talk about the the
ideas behind the deck. So as I mentioned, the focus was
on a little bit on that stun combo with superhuman strength,
but not leaning so far into it that that's all you're doing.

(53:41):
So with that, there is Iron Fistprotection ally who can do
damage and do a stunt. There's the Mockingbird classic
ally from the corps who can get a stunt on the the the villain.
And then there's not any other stunt.

(54:04):
I know you could run tackle or something, but I, I didn't
really feel the need for that inthe times that I had played.
So it's not leaning so heavily into that stunt archetype, but
it's there to some degree. And then the other thing is
really just trying to get as many readies as possible.

(54:24):
So there are three leading blow because if you get that, she's
got three attack. And if you get superhuman
strength down or symbiote suit, you got more than enough to make
sure this the leading blow triggers.
And the nice thing about the leading blow is if you do have
both superhuman strength down and they're the villains not

(54:47):
stunned, you can leading blow your attack.
You get the, you know, 7 or 8 based attack.
If you get the SIM bed suit down, stun the villain, lose 1
superhuman strength, but then you're readied and you can
attack again and not lose the second one.
Then limitless stamina, which ofcourse, you know, it's just kind

(55:12):
of stapled to any big, big hero that's got 14 or more and then
what doesn't kill me because youknow Seahawks going to be taking
damage. So that was really the the core
pieces. There's I already mentioned
Symbiosuit. I I don't really try to play
that unless the opportunity feels right.

(55:35):
I think in my three games for Seli played it in one game for
toward the end of the game it. Can be scary and solo.
Yeah. So I think I played it toward
the end of the game, either the last or the term before.
And you know, the extra heel andthe extra numbers, especially if

(55:57):
you got a couple of readies workout well.
And then typically if I'm playing this deck regularly, the
priorities are getting down the focused rage because I think we
all know this is a core hero. So we we've all experienced her.

(56:21):
Her big problem is that hand size, that forehand size is, is
a struggle, especially if you'rea hero like her who's not
doesn't have the cheapest eventsor the most efficient events.
So typically I want to get focusrage down as early as possible
and then just, you know, try to get that four hand size up to a

(56:44):
six hand size. But I did not use that at all in
the SCL. There just really wasn't time
for it. So I find that so often.
I think I might have played one of my other build cards, Quinn
Carrier, I might have played once, but it can be great if you

(57:08):
get them on that first turn in the in the solo Champions League
for me. But for me, I when I play solo
Champions League, I'm sort of looking for the efficiency in
which a lot of times is allies and events and I don't really
feel like I have a lot of time to build so.

(57:29):
I'm curious, did you, did you ever end up having focused rage
in an early hand and then decidenot to play it or was it just
kind of by virtue of not ever really seeing it that early?
No, I definitely would use it asa resource instead of playing it
because you know, especially early when you have that
forehand size and with collector, he's not giving you a

(57:52):
ton of time. He's, his stats are still
basically high for somebody who's got this alternate win
condition. And then, you know, the other
thing is I'm trying to keep the election clear.
You're getting 2 per player, Brett, every start of the

(58:13):
villain phase is that I I think usually what would happen is I
get focused rage and then I'd have, you know, an ally or a
couple events I could play and just say to myself, you know,
there's it's just not happening,not today.
Yeah, I can do more right now and, and keep ahead if I play
the other cards. But you know, if I'm, if I'm not

(58:36):
playing collector and trying to,you know, get out of the museum
as fast as possible, I would definitely play those early, but
did not. And I think every other card I
played other than, as I said already, the the Quinn carrier,
you know, that surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, but the

(59:02):
superhuman law Division, I actually found pretty relevant
and useful in this case because he's adding so much threat on.
And there were the those victoryside schemes that come out and
they can be they can be troublesome.
And I found myself a couple times, you know, having the

(59:24):
option of, yeah, I could play, you know, this event or this
other card and do a little something, or I could just, you
know, take care of this threat and get rid of this side scheme
or, or, or keep the fret low. And I was like, all right, you
know what, I'm doing it. I'm spending the mentals and
removing the threat. And I think in general that that

(59:47):
was the the good choice in that case.
But you know, it's typically notsomething you're doing with you,
but. Well, it's pretty precarious
because you know the collector his his main scheme threat
threshold is is low enough that it is a little dicey to flip.

(01:00:08):
Yeah, yeah, you have to plot. On the other side of luck.
Yeah, she does have that benefitof the I object, but it really
is it's yeah, when he's adding two and he's as I said, his
stats are not not small. So it was it's definitely

(01:00:28):
something that if you're going to flip, dump the resources and
clear the scheme completely. I think that's really what ended
up happening in those games. And she does love the flip.
So, you know, I did take the opportunity.
I think I flipped, you know, at least once a game, maybe twice a
couple games. So it was worth it.

(01:00:49):
And then, you know, with the collector, I just had to make
those sacrifices to keep the collection clear.
I, you know, the I, I kind of see what In's mouth Bear was
doing with this set up because he is somebody who can get away
without jump blocking. She likes events and does damage

(01:01:13):
quick. So I would use my allies down to
their last health and typically not let them go to the
collection unless there was collection was completely clear
and I knew I can get them out right away.
But that was it's a lot to balance.
It was it was a tough match up. I I definitely want to say that

(01:01:33):
when I was done with it, I was like, I I never want to do this
again. Well, and then you know, from a,
a speed perspective, the, the way the information is being
communicated has shifted with the new scoring system, but we
still see in, in the overall performances, you know, it looks

(01:01:54):
like you had a average of 6.5 turns overall.
So, and that was, you know, at least a turn faster than well,
maybe not the overall. Oh no, So that that wasn't your
average, that was what the average of the league was.
Sorry. So what was your average number

(01:02:14):
of turns that was? OK, I got my reports here.
So my first and third round were55 rounds and then my second one
was 7th rounds. I remember in my second game, I
did get shadows, so that slowed me down enough to to lose those
two turns on the on the average.And then I was able to get Iron

(01:02:43):
Fist out in game two and three first turn.
So being able to to keep him stunned really accelerates,
especially because she has such great damage.
If you're not, if he's not activating, you don't have to
worry about it. Get ahead pretty, pretty well.

(01:03:06):
But yeah, I had to, yeah, it says in, in.
So in game two, it looks like I,that was the one where I got
Shadows and had to deal with Titania and I got also some of
those victory side schemes. And that was the one where

(01:03:27):
Superhuman Law Division really came through.
I dumped my entire hand to get rid of all the scheme and that
helped me, you know, climb back out of that that hole I was in.
So it was it was pretty precarious.
I know one game I won with the drawn a a gamma slam to finish

(01:03:53):
him off. And I think in that game I was
looking at my board state and thinking, you know, this is this
is not going to go well if I keep going.
I'm just going to end it now. So I think I left a few few
threat out that game. But yeah, getting that iron Fist
early was key. And I don't know, half the time

(01:04:17):
it's just luck, right? You you, you get a good hand to
start or you get a bad hand to start or you get a terrible
encounter card or a good one. And that kind of flavors the
entire game. Early early Shadows for example
just means you're playing from behind most of the game.

(01:04:38):
Yeah, so, but yeah, I just I I just tried my best.
I think Rogue adding that last minute was was an MVP because in
the games where I saw her being able to to get, you know, a a
clean 3 thwart on her and do just do a damage to G Hulk, who

(01:05:02):
has plenty of help to do it and just being able to to clear
those three threat size schemes.That magic number of 3 was
really helpful. Oh yeah, interesting.
I I hadn't even considered that you would be using it for
thwarting when I first saw it. Because, you know, she, she
leeches off the, the base stats.So, you know, she also got a

(01:05:25):
attack of three. That means rogue's got an attack
of five. That's amazing.
But yeah, you're right, Rogue. Rogue as a thwarter is is really
efficient still. Yeah, I think that was a key
thing for me to realize in the game.
The first game I got her out andI had it there and I think I
drew one of those side schemes that had three threat on there
and I was just looking at it andI was like, wait a second, you

(01:05:46):
know, I can just ping the Hawkeror Mockingbird or, you know,
whoever is out there with just one work and it's plenty enough
to to clear that side scheme. Those the side schemes at least
give you a little bonus for clearing.
So sure do was useful. I think I might have used Rogue

(01:06:07):
with she hulks attack maybe once.
But yeah, typically I was leaning on the thwart for her,
with her. Love it.
And how, how much were you actually able to kind of get the
superhuman strengths done combo?I mean, as you mentioned, you
had Iron Fist early in the game,so you're probably able to
actually maybe hit that a coupletimes.

(01:06:28):
Yeah, I was able to hit that a few times at the last game.
I definitely know I had the fullsuite out.
I got both of those superhuman strengths out and played
Symbiotes. You know, as I said, the the
last turn or so and was was really hit and hard, but I think

(01:06:51):
I had at least one out every game.
That was it. It was a priority because I kind
of felt that even if I lose it to the collection, I'm stunning
him so I can get it out of the collection and then still be
ahead. And then if I can, you know, one

(01:07:16):
shot any of the minions or take out, you just do that extra
damage to try to get out of out of the scenario as soon as
possible, all the better and. Then and then overall, were you,
I'm assuming not trying to keep the collection, I mean as low as

(01:07:36):
possible because you know, you don't want to lose in other
things, but you you weren't really trying to get the best
possible score on, on that aspect of the the challenge.
I see it. I think I left one in the
collection once and the rest of the time I saw that I was
nearing the end and trying to make sure I kept it clear.

(01:08:01):
I definitely had one game where the collection, I think my
practice game, that is what I learned from that practice game,
because I think in that practicegame, I had a situation where
the collection was getting scary, you know, mid game.
And then I pulled myself, you know what, I'm just going to
focus on keeping that collectionlow.

(01:08:23):
If I have to throw a card away to do it every turn, I'll, I'll
do it. So, you know, playing with
attacks with a forehand size hero is, is not easy, but, but
I, I was able to keep it relatively clear.
Usually what happened I think was I'd get to like turn 2 and
be able to at least sacrifice a card when needed.

(01:08:48):
I also was kind of lucky that I didn't get a ton of those cards
that put things into the collection.
And as I said, I was, I was avoiding killing my allies.
I was just face taking attack. And you know, if need be, as I
said, I flip down once every turn.
So usually healed and she had a big enough heal at that case.

(01:09:10):
When you're packing lots of readies, you can get away with
using your recovery. You can get away with using your
recovery and you can get away with using the exhaust to to
pay. Yeah, exactly.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I was using that pretty,
pretty well, Especially, you know, if I had something like a
1-2 punch, what doesn't kill me or, or limitless stamina.

(01:09:34):
I could, you know, play around saying, OK, instead of punching,
I'm just going to get something out of the collection, had this
extra ready. Just use a little bit of
discipline to, you know, go go from your first inclination to
hit the villain because you've got a big attack to to doing
something else with you already.Yeah.

(01:09:54):
I think that does speak to sort of my, my play style because I,
I feel like that's sort of one of the strengths that I, that I
would like to think I have is that I relatively adaptable to
whatever is going on on the board.
And I'm not a not afraid to, to deviate from the original plan.

(01:10:14):
I something that to deal with what's in front of me.
So yeah, if it means I, I lose aturn or lose a big attack, that
would be exciting to do. But instead I, I can clear the
collection or dump cards to clear threat.
I'll do it. You know, I find in solo in

(01:10:35):
general, and you know, especially in the solo Champions
League, to lean a little more heavily into those what is good
now rather than what is good later.
Whereas I definitely think in inmultiplayer especially, you
know, I always, I always start to try to lean early into the
what is the good later and then only focus on what is good now.

(01:10:57):
If it's saving my team, Yes, Yeah.
Right, The you know, hence the we're not all playing Avengers
Mansions on Turn 1. In solo exactly.
At least not anymore. Yeah, I mean, you can if, if
you, if you plan the the right scenario and you, you got time

(01:11:19):
on your hands, but you know, youdo want to win relatively
efficiently and quickly and if you're keeping score.
That's right, mostly. The solo Champions League
definitely incentivizes, yeah. Exactly.
Going quickly except for the newscoring system because you you
can just say well of the different things I can score on,

(01:11:41):
I can just completely ignore number of turns and really focus
on other stats as well. Yeah, I think that's actually an
improvement because I think for some people that might be a
little bit of a turn off becauseI think some people can really
like, you know, getting playing a control style where you're

(01:12:06):
you're focusing on those other things and those tend to be a
few turns longer. Or a lot more are I don't know.
I don't know if you looked through through the results.
I had a really, really good laugh in that the this past
round, the the, all the different alliances, right, The

(01:12:31):
overall performances are are there.
So the three of us in our alliance that played had an
average of 15.7 turns this this round.
That's impressive. I don't.
For me, it felt like I I needed to get out of there in order to
not make the situation worse. Yeah, we were really playing to

(01:12:52):
keeping the collection down and scoring Max points on that it
seemed, and we didn't. We didn't all collectively agree
to do so. It just was really what ended up
happening. Yeah, I think that that second
game I had where I got the shadows and I left some threat
on the board and I think a card in the collection, I finished

(01:13:14):
that game. And then I asked myself, I was
like, I wonder what had happenedif I had tried to clear it the
next turn. And I looked at what my
encounter cards were going to beand it was like a hot mess.
And I was like, oh, thank God I ended what I did because that
would have been a lot worse. Made it another three turns if I
to pull out the whim. I have.

(01:13:35):
I have one more quick question for you, just about about the
build of your deck. You had the Daredevil ally.
How much use did you feel you got out of that?
Pretty good. I I had him for the thwarting,
you know, just flopped out and, and thwart for two.
I mean, typically you're, you'regonna thwart for two, maybe and
and chump with him or, or takingattack from a from a minion or

(01:14:00):
something. But in this case it was just
throw him down thwart for two because any little bit of thwart
helps in this matchup. Right.
I think I did actually that thathe he could be AI think one time
I I think in the game where I was able to play rogue and user

(01:14:20):
a few times, I was able to ping that daredevil.
I think I defeated him, but thenexhausted to to get him out of
the collection. But you know, getting Rogue to
be able to get a fourth wart anddig me out of a hole I think
was, it was pretty clutch. Well, yeah.

(01:14:43):
Well, I I really haven't played much with that rogue Ally.
I think I maybe played one deck with it that wasn't my own, just
kind of my local meet up when I was was grabbing a quick deck on
on the way out the door. But yeah, I think spending a
little bit of time to try to focus on, I've seen some really
cool decks on Marvel CDB that that focus on her and seem seems

(01:15:04):
like there's a lot of fun opportunities there.
Yeah, I'm I'm excited to have that card in the game.
It's I will I will admit that this actually probably was the I
think the only time I've played her was in this deck and I

(01:15:24):
didn't even, you know, intend toplay her.
As I said, I was getting rid of repurpose and trying to think of
what would be good in this matchup.
And I thought any any new alliesor anything.
And I saw Rogan, I was like, Oh yeah.
So yeah, yeah, it really sold meon her.
I mean, I like you. I saw I've seen some some really

(01:15:46):
cool decks with it. And yeah, if if you can get
first aid or Med team or something with her, it'd be
really a cool setup to do. And you know, maybe with Spider
Woman, yes, I think that'll. Be on my list.

(01:16:07):
That's right. Yeah.
And there's my green and blue deck right there.
Yeah, there you go. And you know, you could, you
could do that, try to try to gether an honorary and inspiring
and then, you know, tag team with Captain Marvel and get a
get some, some big allies. And it's thematic, too.

(01:16:28):
You know, Captain Marvel and Rogue and side by side.
Yeah, frenemies yes, there's a there's a long comic history.
The reason she's strong and can fly exactly.
Well, Brian, thank you so much for coming on and, you know,

(01:16:49):
letting us know a little bit more about kind of you and
getting into the community here and and about your your deck
building. I I love it.
You, you know, you have a fairlytempo oriented play style in
terms of how you're thinking about what's going on in the
league and, and flexibility, which we see from, you know,

(01:17:09):
baby corn as well as somebody who and we, we look, look at his
decks and see those. You know, it's really that's a
great path to success in in the league.
Yeah, thank you. It was a pleasure.
And yeah, you really hit that that day on the head.
I, I lean tempo usually when I play that, that works well in

(01:17:30):
SCL and you know, it's a, it's agood game for tempo.
I, you know, you play tempo and some TCGS or head to My
indecisiveness works out well inin this game.
Paid off. Exactly.
All right. Well, yeah, thanks again.

(01:17:51):
Yes, it was my pleasure and I'm I'm glad to have the opportunity
to talk to you and I look forward to talking to you again
and see you at the con and everybody else who shows up.
Yeah, absolutely.