March 18, 2025 • 48 mins
Welcome to Road to Knowhere, a Marvel Champions LCG podcast. This episode's guest is Kakita Jamie. It is the second in a series of conversations about the MODOK League Season 03 draft: preparation for the draft, drafting strategy, and hero matchups against the four scenarios. Please go listen to Episode 55---or visit the league website linked below---for a more detailed overview of the season.
MODOK Season 03 League website: https://modokleague.wordpress.com/modok-league-season-03-big-bads-season/
MODOK League Discord server: https://discord.gg/6b4zBfchhA
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Hey friendos, welcome to the Road to Nowhere, a Marvel
Champions LCG podcast. Today we're talking about the
Modoc League Season 3 draft. Modoc League is a Marvel
Champions organization designed only for couples.
Modoc it is a two team. It is a two hero team league
(00:31):
where people can play with a partner or two handed on their
own. This season is played with a
modified version of expert usingstandard three with the twist
that an extra pursued counter isput on pursued by the past at
the start of each villain phase.So we have 4 challenges this
season, Ultron with Under Attackand Infinity Gauntlet, Strife
(00:54):
with Hope Summers, Personal Nightmare and Anachronauts.
This is a Con of Heroes challenge from last year.
Red Skull with hydro patrol, State of Emergency and Brothers
Grimm. Mojo with Black Tom Cassidy,
Super Strength, flight and telepathy and this season
features 2 divisions, A10 team real time division that drafted
(01:18):
live and a nine team turn based division that drafted
asynchronously over two days. So each team drafted against the
other teams to pick 4 heroes, one from each of four different
groups. Leadership was banned.
And if you want more details on the season, I recorded episode
55 as a preview to this. You can go listen to that, get a
(01:41):
little bit more on the details. I'm your host, Josh Rue, and
it's time to take you to my conversation with Akita Jamie.
And we're welcoming Kakita Jamieto the pod.
So Brad, how are you doing? Great.
Happy to be here there, Josh. Always great to talk to you.
So what we're going to talk about is, you know, you're prep
(02:04):
for the draft, your experience of the draft, how you're
thinking about the things you drafted in terms of what we're
matching up against, any practice you've done any of
those things. And we'll just kind of follow
your lead and I might, you know,bounce my own experiences off
yours as we're going. Awesome.
Yeah. So what what I typically do for
(02:26):
our group is I will, I learned this, I guess last season.
Season 1 we kind of winged it based off of feel.
Season 2 I built a a simple template for a spreadsheet.
Season 3, I've really kind of cleaned it up and built a
(02:47):
basically a draft board. Yeah.
So most of the time at the once you've once you've announced all
the matchups, which the time between the, I guess the
asynchronous draft starting and the, the initial announcement of
all the the villains took me a minute.
(03:09):
But that's what that's what actually took us so long to make
the second pick. In that time I took and broke
down every matchup into kind of some some bulk categories and
some of them were copies from the last season.
Some of them were unique to the to this season because last
(03:32):
season we had all the nemesis sets in and those presented some
unique concerns. This season we have we have a
bit more of a bit more variety and types, but a lot of more of
the standard decisions. The biggest, the biggest, I
guess wild card and unique 1 is probably Strife and his care for
(03:57):
your variety of card types in your deck.
Yeah. So after kind of doing that once
again, I had thankfully had a bunch of the heroes already, a
bunch of the primary categories already care taken care of.
So I had already gone through a number of the heroes last season
(04:19):
and scored them as are they good?
Are they good at this or are they bad at this or are they
nothing at this? And what I mean by that is
depending on what the score is, like for example, a hero that
depends on allied defense, that's that's going to be a
(04:41):
negative score. Whereas a hero that maybe has
big attacks that can take care of a a large minion, that's
going to be a positive score. If you get no score it means
it's the hero's neither good norbad at it.
Right. And sorry, this is you have
(05:02):
categories like big minion or you have you're thinking more
about against the specific scenario that's a specific thing
that's useful. In this case, yes, I do have a
category specifically for big minions.
Got it. So what can the can the
scenario? Can we stun and confuse in the
scenario? You know, does tough matter in
(05:26):
both end? Right?
Does the villain have a lot of alot of things that are going to
kill a hero that has a lot of toughs and or a lot of piercing
or small, you know, boost boost base damage or is tough removal
important in the matchup? So things like that Is range
(05:47):
important? Do I have a what is this?
Let me grab that real quick. That is where's my count when I
need it? 16 different.
I have about 16 different categories broken down between
all the scenarios here and everyhero option has has a value of
(06:10):
whether it's that and a thumb product into a score that I was
able to rank the heroes and my favorite part.
We'll get to the results later, but I want.
I want I'm out of the edge of myseat.
I want to know. But yeah, yeah.
(06:32):
So the, the neat thing about this round is you broke them
into groupings and you were onlyallowed to draft 1 character
from each grouping. Yeah.
So I got my got my totals, I gotmy, I sorted them by groups.
(06:55):
I had my chart and I, we, we hada draft board sitting there.
I managed to pull that together basically when we were already
on the clock. I think I started it with the
1st. Unfortunately with every with
the way everything timed out, I didn't have much time for prep
(07:17):
prior to the asynchronous draft starting.
OK, but having 24, well, actually I guess we have more
than 24 hours because of think you posted up the boards on
Wednesday and the clock didn't start till Saturday.
Yeah. So took that and what what I
(07:41):
noticed initially from at least from my draft board was that the
groups one and two were pretty weak overall.
(08:01):
For us, yes. Yeah, for US, groups two and one
were pretty weak overall. I don't want to beat up, I guess
I don't want to beat up every single person character that's
in the draft. I think that'll be a waste of
time. But the what what I definitely
realized was where is our first pick was the low end on Group 1
(08:30):
was was way worse than the low end on group 2.
Yep. And so I wanted to make sure as
our first pick that we, we focused on the groups that had
the, the the least median, right.
(08:51):
So in this case, we picked BlackPanther.
I felt like he was he was our best scoring in Group 1 by a
very small, small margin. It was between him or Venom.
Yeah. And I think the only thing that
really knocked Venom out of frombeing perfectly tied was his
(09:13):
nemesis strength. And with this round especially,
I gave a good amount of points towards the strength of their
nemesis and how much it would because we're almost guaranteed
to see. In fact, I, I, we're probably
guaranteed to see both, which the way with the way the rounds
(09:35):
are structured. So Black Panther happened.
We, we chose Black Panther over Venom.
And I really figured about that choice.
I personally like Black Panther a lot and I don't get a lot of
time to play them. You know once, once Round 2 came
around, which us being second pick meant almost everybody
(10:00):
except the except the so amazingly bad had had a pick 2
picks before us. So Round 2 was, and I'm getting
to myself OK. Round two, we wanted to get.
(10:22):
Well, we ended up with Black Widow and she was out of I think
group three. Yeah.
And I'm, I think at that time we're the, a good number of
picks had happened between group3:00 and 2:00 And in there we
(10:50):
felt like most of the good spotshad been most of the good spots
have been eaten. There was a.
Huge. There was a huge run on Group 3
at that. Point Yeah.
So we chose to we just to play it safe and get get our top
(11:12):
character in Group 3, which in that at that time was Black
Widow. It was between Black Widow and
Phoenix, and I really didn't want to take Phoenix in the
round where where we are, we're guaranteed to see the villain.
We actually had a long discussion about how much we
would really want to do it. The other choice at that time
(11:35):
was Shadow Cat and Gambit out ofGroup 2, which were our first
and 3rd flock. And we decided at that point
that Group 4 was definitely going to be our last pick
(11:55):
because we wouldn't be sad with almost every pick that was in
there. I wouldn't there was there
probably be two any of the two picks.
So we picked Black Widow ranking.
She was our fourth ranked pick in in Group 3.
Right. So once we got through that, we
(12:16):
knew that that left. And you, you were the 7th pick
in there, so that to get your 4th ranked person is pretty
great. Yes.
So that meant and we knew that was so amazing about having 2
picks in between, he would not be able to pick from Group 2,
(12:39):
our first and third spot. Captain America at that point
was already picked. He was our second and so he came
around. Group 2 comes around, we pick
Shadowcat. He was actually our first play
spot in Group 2 and so that onlyleft in.
(13:00):
Your in your third round, you got the top out of your.
That's pretty good. We got the top out of two of our
our groups and then the third round.
So we had one 1:00 and 4:00. So at the end of it, once again,
we kind of knew anything out of Group 4 was going to be fine and
(13:22):
we landed with Vision and Quicksilver as our final final
two choices in fourth. And I really liked Vision this
round. In fact, Vision was actually my
first place in in Group 4. That's hilarious.
So at the end of at the end of the draft, we landed with three
(13:43):
of our top picks and a a number four pick.
Spectacular you like you like vision for for a bring it type
deck for Ultron. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
I think him. And so I think he's he scored
actually the best out of everybody in the entire in the
(14:08):
entire draft. I feel like to quote Boom Guy,
Vision's a very underrated hero by the community.
Sure. It's a he has a lot of
versatility in his kit and I think people off people look at
(14:30):
his, I guess the expense of his cards, but it's not it's not
hard to mitigate that expense and he's got a lot of
playability in a variety of different ways.
That makes him very versatile for a round like this where
you're in a specific hero type. Now we'll see how this all plays
(14:51):
out when when the rounds over, but that's kind of that's kind
of where we landed on the on thedraft.
It went really, really well for us.
We feel really good about everything we got.
How did it go for you? Yeah, so I, I chatted with Jared
(15:16):
about this a little bit before the we just as a your quick
reminder, we got, we took DoctorStrange in our first round, X-23
in our second round, Ant Man in our 3rd, and Miss Marvel in our
4th. And you know, every one of those
heroes is a hero I could actually picture playing against
(15:38):
at least three of these matchups.
So kind of like you're saying about Vision, I was pretty
thrilled with the things that fell into our lap.
Yeah, Miss Marvel's always been a bit of a mystery to me, to be
honest. In what way?
(16:00):
I could, I can always see the potential, but outside of a
outside of having dedicated other sources of defense, I feel
like she just dies and maybe I'mjust not good at event based.
XI like to play with a lot of upgrades and supports right?
(16:24):
So maybe it's just be. Yeah, I mean, so, you know,
importantly, she really values villains where you're safe to
flip. Yes.
Because her she gets a three card advantage each of the turns
(16:46):
she when she's flipped down, youknow, that's pretty substantial.
So if you can, if you can leverage that, you that's really
going to help you go a long way.And then, you know, if you can
really lean into her, her event recursion where you really get
(17:08):
these, these events that are just super high value and you
know, are really, really valuable in terms of getting
them played, that that's the other big piece.
And so there there's there's a big element of flexibility with
her. And let's just take event based
justice as an example. So event based justice, you
(17:30):
might have something like a multitasking a clear the area
turn the tide. You know, some cards like that
that are definitely reasonable that you're going to play one of
those events twice with her ability.
Well, you know, is it a turn that getting turned the tide out
twice is a really valuable turn?Or is it a turn that, wow, if
(17:52):
you could play multitasking twice and you get to crank it up
because she has has a one time boost to a thwart event, you can
really impact the board. So it's, you know, she just
offers a lot of flexibility. The people who like her, she
offers a lot of flexibility. I think people also just are
(18:12):
drawn to her in part because whenever new cards come out,
it's worth evaluating if they'reuseful cards for for Miss
Marvel. So if you like her, you're kind
of always paying attention to the new cards that come out
through that lens. That is one of my that is
something I do really enjoy about her, her design, if he her
(18:35):
and any hero that when you're when you're getting the new set
you're looking for. Hey, how did we upgrade Miss
Marvel this set? Yep.
And there's, there's not. There's not a ton of heroes with
the level of Miss Marvel's versatility as as new sets come
out. Yeah, agreed.
(18:58):
I mean, obviously when we see, you know, more preparations
where we already know where that's going to go.
But it's just kind of, you know,every single thing of a certain
type of card type when it comes out, you're looking at it and
saying, oh, I wonder if I could use that Miss Marvel so that
that ends up making it really fun too.
So I think, I think that's, that's a small part of her, her
appeal for for folks. Yeah, it's, it's funny that
(19:22):
Black Widow, I don't feel like she got much upgrades past like
when she initially came out. There haven't been a ton of
preparations. No.
Well, the new, the new stuff does, but you know, it's kind of
finally. Right, that's what it felt like
when they now feel it's like, oh, finally we'll get some Black
(19:43):
Widow upgrades. So you're in a good position for
that. Yes, I'm also in a good position
for Black Panther and having Wakanda stuff.
Yeah. Because we still haven't fully
spoiled Sherry. And with the I'm not going to
attempt to pronounce it group. I think there there's going to
(20:07):
be some neat allies to energy with Wakanda, right?
Yeah, I'm, I'm excited. Yeah, yeah, No, I like, I like
that you got a couple heroes that you will actually be
excited as things are getting released during this wave.
Hopefully delays don't make thattoo agonizing for you.
Yeah, unfortunately my local game store has already told me
(20:30):
that it's not in and it won't itthey don't.
Not sure when it's going to be in so we haven't even gotten
ages to shield yet. Yeah, tell me, tell me kind of
how you're thinking about your heroes where let's let's maybe
go through the other way. Let's go through the match ups
and kind of where you're seeing your your your best synergies
(20:53):
from from your perspective. So, so Ultron's the first match,
you know, which of your heroes are you feeling are really,
really good match ups there? Also, it's really funny that you
got shadow cat and vision. I have to I have to add.
Yeah, there is. Speaking of Shadow Cat and
(21:13):
Vision, there's a lot of attachments this round and I
really enjoy that. They're both the heroes with
attachment removal in their kit.Yep, we got I, I, I, I, I got
that. I enjoyed that very much.
And I also enjoy that Shadow Cats basically Vision .22 point
(21:34):
O, but so round one is Ultron and Ultron was at you mentioned
already the you know, bring it vision deck where you just let
the you let the minions sit on the board.
You play a bunch of big bring its you build out your board
real quick and then you find ways to wipe them out quickly.
(21:59):
So I'm really excited for that with vision the the minion
collector decks a deck I've already I've played Brad's
version of it before and I really enjoy playing it against
Ultron. The the other choice is probably
going to be Black Panther and the retaliate is a a definite
(22:28):
minion control. Then he has one of his
attachments that can board wipe,which can if you know, if we get
in trouble with Vision, he'll have the access to that, the
board wipe the vision, the vision minions.
So we can either start over or just get them out of the way so
we can shuffle everything back into Visions deck.
(22:50):
So he gets access to maybe something we lost in one of the
Ultron minions. But the other real exciting part
is change of fortune. So we are going to run him in
protection, getting almost a guaranteed to draw per turn.
(23:12):
I'm really excited for getting to play Black Panther against
Ultron. The right now it's Vision
Aggression, Ultra Black Panther protection against Ultron.
Right, makes sense. Don't.
(23:33):
After that is going to be. Red Skull.
Red Skull Red Skull is probably the the wild card selection.
We really haven't landed on exactly the plan for Red Skull.
(23:57):
Red Skull the the other matchupswere so situational that they
kind of they kind of made themselves.
But Red Skull I had Black Panther and Shadowcat or very
well against them. That's kind of that's the base
(24:17):
plan. But as of right now, that's
that's up in the air. Unfortunately, like Red Skull
just means, hey, let's have a lot of thwart.
But the fun part about Red Skulland hint, hint for people that
might not be playing have thought about Red Skull yet.
(24:39):
This that might be a really goodpull round.
Most of those side schemes have at least one.
Well, they all have. I think all but two of them have
icons on them, right? So you can really take advantage
of maybe guaranteeing some of the pool icons early in that
(25:03):
round. And in fact, that may be where
Shadowcat lands in Pool, right? Because especially because then
she can, she can ignore especially crisis.
Yes, we can ignore crisis if it comes up and it's the only other
aspect with the defense card. That's fun.
(25:24):
And that defense card, if you are playing negative icon pool,
that is really powerful. Yeah, yeah.
That's. A really powerful.
One, yeah, so thankfully she doesn't need the icons, but
having at least one is importantto getting to getting that
(25:45):
defense activated on her, her phasing ability.
So that's a cool idea. So Black Panther if if I play
them, will probably be injusticejust because it make it makes
the most sense to run justice against Red Skull.
(26:06):
Like, I hate to, I hate to simplify it that way, but
there's really no other way to put it.
You want You want at least one. Yeah, you you definitely want at
least one round 3 is Strife and.Yeah, I got those backward.
Round 2 is Strife and round 3 isRed Skull, but we're the third
(26:27):
round we're going to talk about is Strife, so keep going.
Yeah, the third strife is why isalmost certainly why I wanted
Shadowcat. With the way his ability works,
he's going to have a massive attack and being able to just
(26:49):
nullify that it, yeah, I feel like that's pretty big game.
So the intent is to go shadow cat protection, and the other
part of that is vision. Again, they're running vision
injustice. So what's what's vision bringing
to this one? What I wish I had crossed
(27:14):
reference in this case a lot of him having AI got to click over
to the wrong. I was on the wrong feet there we
go so vision brings Christ as aversion.
(27:36):
That's what it that's that's whyshadowcat and vision both scored
well this in this round. The thing I've kind of noticed
about about the the stripes matchup is stripes grasp you
really you want to get rid of it, but if you can stall it, you
(27:59):
can really you can. You can get a lot more build
time before he starts set, getting the that extra cost on
all your cards in the after you've progressed it.
So I'd really like to avoid thatas early as possible and delay
delay him a little bit and beingable.
(28:20):
Having crisis aversion is a big deal in delaying strife.
Yeah, you're talking about his just passing through event.
The yes. Remove 3 threat from a scheme
and ignore patrol in crisis. Yes.
OK. So him having that dado cat
having the natural crisis aversion due to phasing made
(28:43):
made, plus her ability to in protection defend a lot made
them a really good combo. And let's see.
OK, so we talked about Red Skulllast matchups, Mojo.
Well, before we go into Mojo or I'm just curious for Strife,
(29:08):
what sort of consideration did you give to the synergies with
Hope? None.
I wish, I wish I could say I gave some synergies to it, but I
didn't. More than likely in deck build
with Shadowcat. Well, by by the synergies I
(29:30):
meant more because she gets the she gets the attack and sport of
of the hero that she's currentlysitting in front of.
So in the case I guess Vision and Black Widow, No, pardon me,
Vision and Shadowcat, they're both 222 heroes.
(29:51):
I honestly did not account for that in the in my scoring.
Gotcha. Probably because I forgot.
Very fair, Very fair. But now that you're mentioning
it, yeah, that, that, that mighthave been valuable to think
about. I think at the end of the day
all did all my heroes or two twotwos.
(30:15):
Yeah, yeah. I believe I mean vision
obviously a variable 222, but the rest of my heroes are all 22
twos. I didn't really account for
that, probably should have in hindsight.
I just run Next evolution with Psylocke and Angel and Stylock.
(30:39):
Having that, the ability to adjust her stats to threes was
actually extremely valuable. With Hope in the round still.
Yeah, did not account for that. Did that play into y'all's draft
choices? We probably over prioritized it,
but for you know, for example, Ant Man with his super sized
(31:06):
strength gets get get his attackup to five when he flips up to
when he flips up to giant size. Oh man, that's really good.
That's really good. And X-23 also has, you know, a
similar ability to really pump up her, her.
(31:26):
So you know, there's, there's some nice opportunities there.
The, the challenge with both those heroes is that Strife
benefits heroes who are trying to play bigger events.
So vision's a great one for, forStrife in this example, right?
Because because everything goes up by 1 in cost, all the cheap
(31:49):
events are really annoying to have to play against Strife.
So if you know if if your game if your gameplay style with a
hero is usually that you're playing 2 cards out of your hand
every turn, then Strife does hasno effect on you other than
giving you more choice. Right, Yeah, I haven't played
(32:10):
the match up nearly enough, but I think I'm pretty comfortable
with with the way we went. And that's a good call.
That's a really good call on your your choice.
I didn't even think about that for Ant Man and X-23.
Sounds like that's what y'all are dollars striving to do
against strife, huh? Yeah.
But it's going to be really expensive.
(32:32):
But anyway, it'll be fun. We'll see.
I don't know if we'll actually ultimately stick with that plan,
but it was, we just kind of looked through the heroes and we
were looking for the ones that really had the opportunity to
get their stats up nice and high.
We're like, oh, this will be very fun.
Did y'all did when y'all were, when y'all were picking?
How much of that, how much of synergy played into your draft
(32:58):
picks versus each other, synergywith the characters versus
versus say the power level of characters?
So the way we drafted, we drafted based off of, you know,
the best pick at the spot. Sure.
But I know some people have talked about, oh man, if I get
(33:20):
this, this hero and this hero, you can do this neat synergistic
thing with these match ups and that we didn't think about that
as much. No, I mean, I think it's pretty
tricky in a draft. Obviously picking out pairs of
heroes that would be nice to gettogether where the one that you
(33:40):
would pick first, you're going to be happy either way and you
just kind of hope that the otherone falls into place.
So, you know, I can't remember if it was the last draft or the
one before that. Somebody grabs Hypo OPS and
Iceman. Yeah, right.
Yes, yeah, that was that was last draft, I believe.
Right, just as an example, right.
(34:01):
So that, yeah, where Cyclops makes a lot of sense, has a
reasonably high pick, and then, you know, later on, if Iceman
kind of falls into your lap and feels like a pretty good pick,
then then you're laughing. But if not, it doesn't hurt you
that you took Cyclops. Right.
(34:22):
Yeah, we didn't. We didn't really do that.
OK, yeah, Cyclops is the one of those picks that I I struggle
with a little bit. I feel like his economy is so
it's rough to support the the multi aspects they didn't give
him, like they gave spider womanthe two finesses, right, to
really play into the fact that you can't use an aspect specific
(34:47):
double. They didn't.
I feel like they they didn't give Cyclops that and I feel
like that's a shame in, in the design of Cyclops, right?
He he's just another example of a hero that though in situations
where you're able to flip every other turn, his economy is
great. Absolutely.
Being able to pull that tactic every turn, or yeah, every turn.
(35:10):
And then get to use all the mutant supports.
Yes, yes. So last round is Mojo.
Yeah. And Mojo is a round that
definitely punishes you for flipping often.
(35:32):
And why do you why do you say that?
Well, once you have enough threat, Oh, I guess it's not.
Maybe not for flipping often, but for flipping is probably the
right word. Because when you flip, that's
when you're going to get to all that threat, knocked off,
(35:52):
knocked off of your character and on to the main scheme.
Right. The I mean, I think the big the
big counterpoint went to that one is that he only adds the
threat and turns through the deck when he attacks or sorry,
when you end your turn on hero side, not when you end your turn
(36:15):
on alter ego side. Yes, so that's the right after
your turn in, discard the top cards, the encounter deck and
one thread on your hero for eachcard displayed this way.
That does not belong on Mojo. And yeah, and then it's a.
Trade, it's a trade off. Right, right.
(36:36):
So my intent and the way I last really attacked the mojo problem
was in FPL. He's got a Moto problem, yeah.
Yeah, and the way I chose to do it was just to not have him
discard off the top of the deck.And I don't remember what the
(36:59):
hero choices were that round, but the the decision I made was,
hey, can I just stay in Alter Ego?
The the the main schemes got? I think it's 25 threat per
player on there. Can I just sit and alter ego and
beat up on Mojo? And that way I'm not turning
through the encounter deck and getting all this extra.
(37:23):
I'm getting the extra threat through him scheming.
But I can control that a little bit.
Now this round, I think it's a little bit different.
Is Mojo the round where No, no, he's he's stunning, confusable,
but I think he gets steady through something.
If I remember correctly. Yes, he does, yeah.
(37:43):
Right off the bat, actually, I think because he gets super
strength. Yes.
The Super strength attachment right away.
He's a little bit more controllable, so my intention
for that round, if we can make it work, is to play out of Alter
Ego with Black Widow and Vision.Yeah.
(38:07):
So Black Widow, obviously, right, comes with.
Yeah, she's Speaking of people who have great economies when
they're in alter ego. Right, her economy gets amazing
in alter ego. You can she has built in
confused, though the steady makes that less less useful, but
(38:27):
still useful. And she's just built to be able
to be played mostly in alter ego.
Then the the the issue I kind ofran into initially when
discussing with Bruce was who dowe pair with Black Widow for the
mojo matchup? And funny story is it's it's
(38:49):
vision again. So it it the current plan is to
use vision three out of the three out of the four rounds.
Your last pick? Yep, but Vivian being able to
play an alter ego and you just get to keep bringing her back
with the with the Hickory lane and being able to repeatedly do
(39:15):
3 thwart being able to run reboots the whole the whole
Vivian package, you know, reallymakes her make makes makes
vision actually a very viable alter ego hero.
That's an oxymoron, isn't it? Well, we get you.
(39:36):
And alter ego character. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, that's a. That's really fun.
Yeah. So and then we're we're excited.
What did you say your aspects plan for that was?
For Mojo, it's likely just this Black Widow with a protection
(39:59):
vision. Right, because protection plays
well into healing Vivian as wellas being and being able to use
the Android package. Because the only other androids
that aren't basic are all in protection.
Yes. And even.
(40:22):
Interestingly, Disguise is a play under any players control
card. Yeah.
So you can you can get 2 disguises out with one justice
player. Yep, it's it's I, I'm very
excited for that, for that round.
As a as as referenced by previous rounds, I really enjoy
(40:47):
playing Alter Ego deck. I think it's, I think it
presents unique challenges that you basically just need to learn
how to manage the threat at thatpoint.
And if you, as long as you can manage all the threat you're
accumulating without scheming out, you can, you can do some
(41:09):
decent stuff. My other one of my personal
favorite Black Widow decks is anaggression alter ego Black Widow
where you can use tac team out of all alter ego to do your
damage right. So I'm really hoping with this,
the shield stuff that they make tech team more playable.
(41:34):
I haven't really evaluated the deck sense, so I have.
I'm sure there's something already out that I'm missing.
Yeah, I haven't, I haven't. I haven't gotten my box yet and
you know, just like you and I haven't really been playing in
(41:57):
any of the places where might beable to play the cards already.
So I haven't really dug into toomuch of the deck building
opportunities that the box presents.
Yeah, I don't even think it's onCTS yet.
So, but I haven't checked in a couple of days, so maybe I'm
wrong. Cool.
(42:21):
I like I. Like your plan?
Yeah, how's how y'all feeling about Mojo?
So I'm trying to think what we we played Mojo once just to see
if our plan against Mojo was viable.
(42:41):
And I think what we did was Doctor Strange in X23.
Oh that's right, Doctor Strange has has the boost in the upgrade
in his kit where he. Yes.
Can stat boost X 23? He can stat boost X-23 he both
(43:07):
those characters are perfectly happy to flip down to alter ego.
You know, unfortunately, I mean,you know, poor privileged guy,
but unfortunately Sorcerer's Supreme doesn't boost your hand
size and alter ego. So the Mystics aren't quite as
incentivized to flip down as other characters are from that
perspective. But you know, he he does have a
(43:28):
car draw engine in Alter Ego, sohe does.
He certainly doesn't mind flipping down.
No, that's going to be great. I'm excited to see the results
on that one. And yeah, that, so we, we, we
tried that out. It seemed it seemed viable.
We didn't dig into it too ridiculously, you know, we, we
(43:49):
just did some quick tests on some of them just so we could
actually make some decisions forthe very first match up, right?
Because that's the challenge of of this one.
You do have to think through allof them and maybe test test them
out a little bit just to see if the things you're thinking about
are actually as viable as you think they are.
Yeah. And unfortunately, we haven't
done any testing right with withmy current work schedule and
(44:15):
Bruce's current work schedule, we haven't even had a chance to
test any of them out. So everything I just talked
about is pure theory. Yeah, I think we've only played
three games so far and I know like TJJJ and Jarrett for
example, are doing, you know, 2 handed on their own just to see
(44:36):
how things feel and then kind ofcoming back together.
Yeah, I think we need to start probably doing that as well.
I, I, I'm going to steal that from them.
Well, you know, the other thing,the other thing I I like about
that way of doing it, and I mean, I'm not doing this with
Josh Reed junior because we justkind of do it together.
(44:56):
But in in other times where I'vematched up with other partners
is each person kind of going offon their own and building the
deck that they like for, you know, you both pick the same
aspect combinations or whatever and you go off and you, you
might find cards that are more effective than you realized by
(45:17):
each having made some independent decisions.
So you you're kind of doing somerapid prototyping on on deck
building and not putting yourself quite in the same
corner. And I definitely appreciated
that. Yeah.
And I've already at the beginning of that this season
with the the at least the Ultronmatchup, I've built what I think
(45:38):
should be the base decks. And Bruce has been working on
what he thinks to be. So yeah, I appreciate that.
I'm going to have to use that inmy in our future rounds.
But it seems like these these rounds are going to be tough to
do quick. Yes.
And I mean, I was especially unkind by setting the first gate
(46:01):
at six turns, which is in most situations not going to be
realistic. No, I don't.
I don't think it is. I'd.
I'd be surprised if anybody getsto it.
Also the particularly inclined in the Nemesis.
The Nemesis? Yeah, I got about all my heroes.
(46:22):
Shadow cats. The only Nemesis that we're
really scared of though. Yeah, that that one is terrible.
I, I do like having it, you know, set up so everybody is
realistically going to drop a point.
The fact that it's kind of all the same point doesn't really
accomplish anything, of course, because it the point doesn't
have to have existed, but you know that there may be some
(46:45):
viable routes to dropping a point somewhere else and getting
it done in six would be the ideal.
Yeah, I really hope it works outin the in the rounds that some
people do achieve. And I know some people do like
to really rush at the here at the villain.
Obviously us and the Gamorons for the SCL league, we're we're
(47:09):
we're good at slow playing. Oh my God, I don't even know
what to think about all that. We're.
Yeah, right now. It's still a funny and fun game
to me that, you know, that we can just say, OK, well, number
of turns doesn't matter. How can you just get the best
board state? But in the long term, I don't
(47:32):
think that's going to be something I'm going to want to
do. No, no, it it it loggy round are
are rough and I forget which which round from last season was
a real flog to run through and Iwas very happy when we're done
it well. Kakita, Jamie.
(47:56):
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining.
Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure to chat with
you and we'll say thank you listeners for tuning in and
we'll see you next time on the road to nowhere.
Hey friendos, welcome to the Road to Nowhere, a Marvel
Champions LCG podcast. Today we're talking about the
Modoc League Season 3 draft. Modoc League is a Marvel
Champions organization designed only for couples.
Modoc it is a two team. It is a two hero team league
(00:31):
where people can play with a partner or two handed on their
own. This season is played with a
modified version of expert usingstandard three with the twist
that an extra pursued counter isput on pursued by the past at
the start of each villain phase.So we have 4 challenges this
season, Ultron with Under Attackand Infinity Gauntlet, Strife
(00:54):
with Hope Summers, Personal Nightmare and Anachronauts.
This is a Con of Heroes challenge from last year.
Red Skull with hydro patrol, State of Emergency and Brothers
Grimm. Mojo with Black Tom Cassidy,
Super Strength, flight and telepathy and this season
features 2 divisions, A10 team real time division that drafted
(01:18):
live and a nine team turn based division that drafted
asynchronously over two days. So each team drafted against the
other teams to pick 4 heroes, one from each of four different
groups. Leadership was banned.
And if you want more details on the season, I recorded episode
55 as a preview to this. You can go listen to that, get a
(01:41):
little bit more on the details. I'm your host, Josh Rue, and
it's time to take you to my conversation with Akita Jamie.
And we're welcoming Kakita Jamieto the pod.
So Brad, how are you doing? Great.
Happy to be here there, Josh. Always great to talk to you.
So what we're going to talk about is, you know, you're prep
(02:04):
for the draft, your experience of the draft, how you're
thinking about the things you drafted in terms of what we're
matching up against, any practice you've done any of
those things. And we'll just kind of follow
your lead and I might, you know,bounce my own experiences off
yours as we're going. Awesome.
Yeah. So what what I typically do for
(02:26):
our group is I will, I learned this, I guess last season.
Season 1 we kind of winged it based off of feel.
Season 2 I built a a simple template for a spreadsheet.
Season 3, I've really kind of cleaned it up and built a
(02:47):
basically a draft board. Yeah.
So most of the time at the once you've once you've announced all
the matchups, which the time between the, I guess the
asynchronous draft starting and the, the initial announcement of
all the the villains took me a minute.
(03:09):
But that's what that's what actually took us so long to make
the second pick. In that time I took and broke
down every matchup into kind of some some bulk categories and
some of them were copies from the last season.
Some of them were unique to the to this season because last
(03:32):
season we had all the nemesis sets in and those presented some
unique concerns. This season we have we have a
bit more of a bit more variety and types, but a lot of more of
the standard decisions. The biggest, the biggest, I
guess wild card and unique 1 is probably Strife and his care for
(03:57):
your variety of card types in your deck.
Yeah. So after kind of doing that once
again, I had thankfully had a bunch of the heroes already, a
bunch of the primary categories already care taken care of.
So I had already gone through a number of the heroes last season
(04:19):
and scored them as are they good?
Are they good at this or are they bad at this or are they
nothing at this? And what I mean by that is
depending on what the score is, like for example, a hero that
depends on allied defense, that's that's going to be a
(04:41):
negative score. Whereas a hero that maybe has
big attacks that can take care of a a large minion, that's
going to be a positive score. If you get no score it means
it's the hero's neither good norbad at it.
Right. And sorry, this is you have
(05:02):
categories like big minion or you have you're thinking more
about against the specific scenario that's a specific thing
that's useful. In this case, yes, I do have a
category specifically for big minions.
Got it. So what can the can the
scenario? Can we stun and confuse in the
scenario? You know, does tough matter in
(05:26):
both end? Right?
Does the villain have a lot of alot of things that are going to
kill a hero that has a lot of toughs and or a lot of piercing
or small, you know, boost boost base damage or is tough removal
important in the matchup? So things like that Is range
(05:47):
important? Do I have a what is this?
Let me grab that real quick. That is where's my count when I
need it? 16 different.
I have about 16 different categories broken down between
all the scenarios here and everyhero option has has a value of
(06:10):
whether it's that and a thumb product into a score that I was
able to rank the heroes and my favorite part.
We'll get to the results later, but I want.
I want I'm out of the edge of myseat.
I want to know. But yeah, yeah.
(06:32):
So the, the neat thing about this round is you broke them
into groupings and you were onlyallowed to draft 1 character
from each grouping. Yeah.
So I got my got my totals, I gotmy, I sorted them by groups.
(06:55):
I had my chart and I, we, we hada draft board sitting there.
I managed to pull that together basically when we were already
on the clock. I think I started it with the
1st. Unfortunately with every with
the way everything timed out, I didn't have much time for prep
(07:17):
prior to the asynchronous draft starting.
OK, but having 24, well, actually I guess we have more
than 24 hours because of think you posted up the boards on
Wednesday and the clock didn't start till Saturday.
Yeah. So took that and what what I
(07:41):
noticed initially from at least from my draft board was that the
groups one and two were pretty weak overall.
(08:01):
For us, yes. Yeah, for US, groups two and one
were pretty weak overall. I don't want to beat up, I guess
I don't want to beat up every single person character that's
in the draft. I think that'll be a waste of
time. But the what what I definitely
realized was where is our first pick was the low end on Group 1
(08:30):
was was way worse than the low end on group 2.
Yep. And so I wanted to make sure as
our first pick that we, we focused on the groups that had
the, the the least median, right.
(08:51):
So in this case, we picked BlackPanther.
I felt like he was he was our best scoring in Group 1 by a
very small, small margin. It was between him or Venom.
Yeah. And I think the only thing that
really knocked Venom out of frombeing perfectly tied was his
(09:13):
nemesis strength. And with this round especially,
I gave a good amount of points towards the strength of their
nemesis and how much it would because we're almost guaranteed
to see. In fact, I, I, we're probably
guaranteed to see both, which the way with the way the rounds
(09:35):
are structured. So Black Panther happened.
We, we chose Black Panther over Venom.
And I really figured about that choice.
I personally like Black Panther a lot and I don't get a lot of
time to play them. You know once, once Round 2 came
around, which us being second pick meant almost everybody
(10:00):
except the except the so amazingly bad had had a pick 2
picks before us. So Round 2 was, and I'm getting
to myself OK. Round two, we wanted to get.
(10:22):
Well, we ended up with Black Widow and she was out of I think
group three. Yeah.
And I'm, I think at that time we're the, a good number of
picks had happened between group3:00 and 2:00 And in there we
(10:50):
felt like most of the good spotshad been most of the good spots
have been eaten. There was a.
Huge. There was a huge run on Group 3
at that. Point Yeah.
So we chose to we just to play it safe and get get our top
(11:12):
character in Group 3, which in that at that time was Black
Widow. It was between Black Widow and
Phoenix, and I really didn't want to take Phoenix in the
round where where we are, we're guaranteed to see the villain.
We actually had a long discussion about how much we
would really want to do it. The other choice at that time
(11:35):
was Shadow Cat and Gambit out ofGroup 2, which were our first
and 3rd flock. And we decided at that point
that Group 4 was definitely going to be our last pick
(11:55):
because we wouldn't be sad with almost every pick that was in
there. I wouldn't there was there
probably be two any of the two picks.
So we picked Black Widow ranking.
She was our fourth ranked pick in in Group 3.
Right. So once we got through that, we
(12:16):
knew that that left. And you, you were the 7th pick
in there, so that to get your 4th ranked person is pretty
great. Yes.
So that meant and we knew that was so amazing about having 2
picks in between, he would not be able to pick from Group 2,
(12:39):
our first and third spot. Captain America at that point
was already picked. He was our second and so he came
around. Group 2 comes around, we pick
Shadowcat. He was actually our first play
spot in Group 2 and so that onlyleft in.
(13:00):
Your in your third round, you got the top out of your.
That's pretty good. We got the top out of two of our
our groups and then the third round.
So we had one 1:00 and 4:00. So at the end of it, once again,
we kind of knew anything out of Group 4 was going to be fine and
(13:22):
we landed with Vision and Quicksilver as our final final
two choices in fourth. And I really liked Vision this
round. In fact, Vision was actually my
first place in in Group 4. That's hilarious.
So at the end of at the end of the draft, we landed with three
(13:43):
of our top picks and a a number four pick.
Spectacular you like you like vision for for a bring it type
deck for Ultron. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
I think him. And so I think he's he scored
actually the best out of everybody in the entire in the
(14:08):
entire draft. I feel like to quote Boom Guy,
Vision's a very underrated hero by the community.
Sure. It's a he has a lot of
versatility in his kit and I think people off people look at
(14:30):
his, I guess the expense of his cards, but it's not it's not
hard to mitigate that expense and he's got a lot of
playability in a variety of different ways.
That makes him very versatile for a round like this where
you're in a specific hero type. Now we'll see how this all plays
(14:51):
out when when the rounds over, but that's kind of that's kind
of where we landed on the on thedraft.
It went really, really well for us.
We feel really good about everything we got.
How did it go for you? Yeah, so I, I chatted with Jared
(15:16):
about this a little bit before the we just as a your quick
reminder, we got, we took DoctorStrange in our first round, X-23
in our second round, Ant Man in our 3rd, and Miss Marvel in our
4th. And you know, every one of those
heroes is a hero I could actually picture playing against
(15:38):
at least three of these matchups.
So kind of like you're saying about Vision, I was pretty
thrilled with the things that fell into our lap.
Yeah, Miss Marvel's always been a bit of a mystery to me, to be
honest. In what way?
(16:00):
I could, I can always see the potential, but outside of a
outside of having dedicated other sources of defense, I feel
like she just dies and maybe I'mjust not good at event based.
XI like to play with a lot of upgrades and supports right?
(16:24):
So maybe it's just be. Yeah, I mean, so, you know,
importantly, she really values villains where you're safe to
flip. Yes.
Because her she gets a three card advantage each of the turns
(16:46):
she when she's flipped down, youknow, that's pretty substantial.
So if you can, if you can leverage that, you that's really
going to help you go a long way.And then, you know, if you can
really lean into her, her event recursion where you really get
(17:08):
these, these events that are just super high value and you
know, are really, really valuable in terms of getting
them played, that that's the other big piece.
And so there there's there's a big element of flexibility with
her. And let's just take event based
justice as an example. So event based justice, you
(17:30):
might have something like a multitasking a clear the area
turn the tide. You know, some cards like that
that are definitely reasonable that you're going to play one of
those events twice with her ability.
Well, you know, is it a turn that getting turned the tide out
twice is a really valuable turn?Or is it a turn that, wow, if
(17:52):
you could play multitasking twice and you get to crank it up
because she has has a one time boost to a thwart event, you can
really impact the board. So it's, you know, she just
offers a lot of flexibility. The people who like her, she
offers a lot of flexibility. I think people also just are
(18:12):
drawn to her in part because whenever new cards come out,
it's worth evaluating if they'reuseful cards for for Miss
Marvel. So if you like her, you're kind
of always paying attention to the new cards that come out
through that lens. That is one of my that is
something I do really enjoy about her, her design, if he her
(18:35):
and any hero that when you're when you're getting the new set
you're looking for. Hey, how did we upgrade Miss
Marvel this set? Yep.
And there's, there's not. There's not a ton of heroes with
the level of Miss Marvel's versatility as as new sets come
out. Yeah, agreed.
(18:58):
I mean, obviously when we see, you know, more preparations
where we already know where that's going to go.
But it's just kind of, you know,every single thing of a certain
type of card type when it comes out, you're looking at it and
saying, oh, I wonder if I could use that Miss Marvel so that
that ends up making it really fun too.
So I think, I think that's, that's a small part of her, her
appeal for for folks. Yeah, it's, it's funny that
(19:22):
Black Widow, I don't feel like she got much upgrades past like
when she initially came out. There haven't been a ton of
preparations. No.
Well, the new, the new stuff does, but you know, it's kind of
finally. Right, that's what it felt like
when they now feel it's like, oh, finally we'll get some Black
(19:43):
Widow upgrades. So you're in a good position for
that. Yes, I'm also in a good position
for Black Panther and having Wakanda stuff.
Yeah. Because we still haven't fully
spoiled Sherry. And with the I'm not going to
attempt to pronounce it group. I think there there's going to
(20:07):
be some neat allies to energy with Wakanda, right?
Yeah, I'm, I'm excited. Yeah, yeah, No, I like, I like
that you got a couple heroes that you will actually be
excited as things are getting released during this wave.
Hopefully delays don't make thattoo agonizing for you.
Yeah, unfortunately my local game store has already told me
(20:30):
that it's not in and it won't itthey don't.
Not sure when it's going to be in so we haven't even gotten
ages to shield yet. Yeah, tell me, tell me kind of
how you're thinking about your heroes where let's let's maybe
go through the other way. Let's go through the match ups
and kind of where you're seeing your your your best synergies
(20:53):
from from your perspective. So, so Ultron's the first match,
you know, which of your heroes are you feeling are really,
really good match ups there? Also, it's really funny that you
got shadow cat and vision. I have to I have to add.
Yeah, there is. Speaking of Shadow Cat and
(21:13):
Vision, there's a lot of attachments this round and I
really enjoy that. They're both the heroes with
attachment removal in their kit.Yep, we got I, I, I, I, I got
that. I enjoyed that very much.
And I also enjoy that Shadow Cats basically Vision .22 point
(21:34):
O, but so round one is Ultron and Ultron was at you mentioned
already the you know, bring it vision deck where you just let
the you let the minions sit on the board.
You play a bunch of big bring its you build out your board
real quick and then you find ways to wipe them out quickly.
(21:59):
So I'm really excited for that with vision the the minion
collector decks a deck I've already I've played Brad's
version of it before and I really enjoy playing it against
Ultron. The the other choice is probably
going to be Black Panther and the retaliate is a a definite
(22:28):
minion control. Then he has one of his
attachments that can board wipe,which can if you know, if we get
in trouble with Vision, he'll have the access to that, the
board wipe the vision, the vision minions.
So we can either start over or just get them out of the way so
we can shuffle everything back into Visions deck.
(22:50):
So he gets access to maybe something we lost in one of the
Ultron minions. But the other real exciting part
is change of fortune. So we are going to run him in
protection, getting almost a guaranteed to draw per turn.
(23:12):
I'm really excited for getting to play Black Panther against
Ultron. The right now it's Vision
Aggression, Ultra Black Panther protection against Ultron.
Right, makes sense. Don't.
(23:33):
After that is going to be. Red Skull.
Red Skull Red Skull is probably the the wild card selection.
We really haven't landed on exactly the plan for Red Skull.
(23:57):
Red Skull the the other matchupswere so situational that they
kind of they kind of made themselves.
But Red Skull I had Black Panther and Shadowcat or very
well against them. That's kind of that's the base
(24:17):
plan. But as of right now, that's
that's up in the air. Unfortunately, like Red Skull
just means, hey, let's have a lot of thwart.
But the fun part about Red Skulland hint, hint for people that
might not be playing have thought about Red Skull yet.
(24:39):
This that might be a really goodpull round.
Most of those side schemes have at least one.
Well, they all have. I think all but two of them have
icons on them, right? So you can really take advantage
of maybe guaranteeing some of the pool icons early in that
(25:03):
round. And in fact, that may be where
Shadowcat lands in Pool, right? Because especially because then
she can, she can ignore especially crisis.
Yes, we can ignore crisis if it comes up and it's the only other
aspect with the defense card. That's fun.
(25:24):
And that defense card, if you are playing negative icon pool,
that is really powerful. Yeah, yeah.
That's. A really powerful.
One, yeah, so thankfully she doesn't need the icons, but
having at least one is importantto getting to getting that
(25:45):
defense activated on her, her phasing ability.
So that's a cool idea. So Black Panther if if I play
them, will probably be injusticejust because it make it makes
the most sense to run justice against Red Skull.
(26:06):
Like, I hate to, I hate to simplify it that way, but
there's really no other way to put it.
You want You want at least one. Yeah, you you definitely want at
least one round 3 is Strife and.Yeah, I got those backward.
Round 2 is Strife and round 3 isRed Skull, but we're the third
(26:27):
round we're going to talk about is Strife, so keep going.
Yeah, the third strife is why isalmost certainly why I wanted
Shadowcat. With the way his ability works,
he's going to have a massive attack and being able to just
(26:49):
nullify that it, yeah, I feel like that's pretty big game.
So the intent is to go shadow cat protection, and the other
part of that is vision. Again, they're running vision
injustice. So what's what's vision bringing
to this one? What I wish I had crossed
(27:14):
reference in this case a lot of him having AI got to click over
to the wrong. I was on the wrong feet there we
go so vision brings Christ as aversion.
(27:36):
That's what it that's that's whyshadowcat and vision both scored
well this in this round. The thing I've kind of noticed
about about the the stripes matchup is stripes grasp you
really you want to get rid of it, but if you can stall it, you
(27:59):
can really you can. You can get a lot more build
time before he starts set, getting the that extra cost on
all your cards in the after you've progressed it.
So I'd really like to avoid thatas early as possible and delay
delay him a little bit and beingable.
(28:20):
Having crisis aversion is a big deal in delaying strife.
Yeah, you're talking about his just passing through event.
The yes. Remove 3 threat from a scheme
and ignore patrol in crisis. Yes.
OK. So him having that dado cat
having the natural crisis aversion due to phasing made
(28:43):
made, plus her ability to in protection defend a lot made
them a really good combo. And let's see.
OK, so we talked about Red Skulllast matchups, Mojo.
Well, before we go into Mojo or I'm just curious for Strife,
(29:08):
what sort of consideration did you give to the synergies with
Hope? None.
I wish, I wish I could say I gave some synergies to it, but I
didn't. More than likely in deck build
with Shadowcat. Well, by by the synergies I
(29:30):
meant more because she gets the she gets the attack and sport of
of the hero that she's currentlysitting in front of.
So in the case I guess Vision and Black Widow, No, pardon me,
Vision and Shadowcat, they're both 222 heroes.
(29:51):
I honestly did not account for that in the in my scoring.
Gotcha. Probably because I forgot.
Very fair, Very fair. But now that you're mentioning
it, yeah, that, that, that mighthave been valuable to think
about. I think at the end of the day
all did all my heroes or two twotwos.
(30:15):
Yeah, yeah. I believe I mean vision
obviously a variable 222, but the rest of my heroes are all 22
twos. I didn't really account for
that, probably should have in hindsight.
I just run Next evolution with Psylocke and Angel and Stylock.
(30:39):
Having that, the ability to adjust her stats to threes was
actually extremely valuable. With Hope in the round still.
Yeah, did not account for that. Did that play into y'all's draft
choices? We probably over prioritized it,
but for you know, for example, Ant Man with his super sized
(31:06):
strength gets get get his attackup to five when he flips up to
when he flips up to giant size. Oh man, that's really good.
That's really good. And X-23 also has, you know, a
similar ability to really pump up her, her.
(31:26):
So you know, there's, there's some nice opportunities there.
The, the challenge with both those heroes is that Strife
benefits heroes who are trying to play bigger events.
So vision's a great one for, forStrife in this example, right?
Because because everything goes up by 1 in cost, all the cheap
(31:49):
events are really annoying to have to play against Strife.
So if you know if if your game if your gameplay style with a
hero is usually that you're playing 2 cards out of your hand
every turn, then Strife does hasno effect on you other than
giving you more choice. Right, Yeah, I haven't played
(32:10):
the match up nearly enough, but I think I'm pretty comfortable
with with the way we went. And that's a good call.
That's a really good call on your your choice.
I didn't even think about that for Ant Man and X-23.
Sounds like that's what y'all are dollars striving to do
against strife, huh? Yeah.
But it's going to be really expensive.
(32:32):
But anyway, it'll be fun. We'll see.
I don't know if we'll actually ultimately stick with that plan,
but it was, we just kind of looked through the heroes and we
were looking for the ones that really had the opportunity to
get their stats up nice and high.
We're like, oh, this will be very fun.
Did y'all did when y'all were, when y'all were picking?
How much of that, how much of synergy played into your draft
(32:58):
picks versus each other, synergywith the characters versus
versus say the power level of characters?
So the way we drafted, we drafted based off of, you know,
the best pick at the spot. Sure.
But I know some people have talked about, oh man, if I get
(33:20):
this, this hero and this hero, you can do this neat synergistic
thing with these match ups and that we didn't think about that
as much. No, I mean, I think it's pretty
tricky in a draft. Obviously picking out pairs of
heroes that would be nice to gettogether where the one that you
(33:40):
would pick first, you're going to be happy either way and you
just kind of hope that the otherone falls into place.
So, you know, I can't remember if it was the last draft or the
one before that. Somebody grabs Hypo OPS and
Iceman. Yeah, right.
Yes, yeah, that was that was last draft, I believe.
Right, just as an example, right.
(34:01):
So that, yeah, where Cyclops makes a lot of sense, has a
reasonably high pick, and then, you know, later on, if Iceman
kind of falls into your lap and feels like a pretty good pick,
then then you're laughing. But if not, it doesn't hurt you
that you took Cyclops. Right.
(34:22):
Yeah, we didn't. We didn't really do that.
OK, yeah, Cyclops is the one of those picks that I I struggle
with a little bit. I feel like his economy is so
it's rough to support the the multi aspects they didn't give
him, like they gave spider womanthe two finesses, right, to
really play into the fact that you can't use an aspect specific
(34:47):
double. They didn't.
I feel like they they didn't give Cyclops that and I feel
like that's a shame in, in the design of Cyclops, right?
He he's just another example of a hero that though in situations
where you're able to flip every other turn, his economy is
great. Absolutely.
Being able to pull that tactic every turn, or yeah, every turn.
(35:10):
And then get to use all the mutant supports.
Yes, yes. So last round is Mojo.
Yeah. And Mojo is a round that
definitely punishes you for flipping often.
(35:32):
And why do you why do you say that?
Well, once you have enough threat, Oh, I guess it's not.
Maybe not for flipping often, but for flipping is probably the
right word. Because when you flip, that's
when you're going to get to all that threat, knocked off,
(35:52):
knocked off of your character and on to the main scheme.
Right. The I mean, I think the big the
big counterpoint went to that one is that he only adds the
threat and turns through the deck when he attacks or sorry,
when you end your turn on hero side, not when you end your turn
(36:15):
on alter ego side. Yes, so that's the right after
your turn in, discard the top cards, the encounter deck and
one thread on your hero for eachcard displayed this way.
That does not belong on Mojo. And yeah, and then it's a.
Trade, it's a trade off. Right, right.
(36:36):
So my intent and the way I last really attacked the mojo problem
was in FPL. He's got a Moto problem, yeah.
Yeah, and the way I chose to do it was just to not have him
discard off the top of the deck.And I don't remember what the
(36:59):
hero choices were that round, but the the decision I made was,
hey, can I just stay in Alter Ego?
The the the main schemes got? I think it's 25 threat per
player on there. Can I just sit and alter ego and
beat up on Mojo? And that way I'm not turning
through the encounter deck and getting all this extra.
(37:23):
I'm getting the extra threat through him scheming.
But I can control that a little bit.
Now this round, I think it's a little bit different.
Is Mojo the round where No, no, he's he's stunning, confusable,
but I think he gets steady through something.
If I remember correctly. Yes, he does, yeah.
(37:43):
Right off the bat, actually, I think because he gets super
strength. Yes.
The Super strength attachment right away.
He's a little bit more controllable, so my intention
for that round, if we can make it work, is to play out of Alter
Ego with Black Widow and Vision.Yeah.
(38:07):
So Black Widow, obviously, right, comes with.
Yeah, she's Speaking of people who have great economies when
they're in alter ego. Right, her economy gets amazing
in alter ego. You can she has built in
confused, though the steady makes that less less useful, but
(38:27):
still useful. And she's just built to be able
to be played mostly in alter ego.
Then the the the issue I kind ofran into initially when
discussing with Bruce was who dowe pair with Black Widow for the
mojo matchup? And funny story is it's it's
(38:49):
vision again. So it it the current plan is to
use vision three out of the three out of the four rounds.
Your last pick? Yep, but Vivian being able to
play an alter ego and you just get to keep bringing her back
with the with the Hickory lane and being able to repeatedly do
(39:15):
3 thwart being able to run reboots the whole the whole
Vivian package, you know, reallymakes her make makes makes
vision actually a very viable alter ego hero.
That's an oxymoron, isn't it? Well, we get you.
(39:36):
And alter ego character. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, that's a. That's really fun.
Yeah. So and then we're we're excited.
What did you say your aspects plan for that was?
For Mojo, it's likely just this Black Widow with a protection
(39:59):
vision. Right, because protection plays
well into healing Vivian as wellas being and being able to use
the Android package. Because the only other androids
that aren't basic are all in protection.
Yes. And even.
(40:22):
Interestingly, Disguise is a play under any players control
card. Yeah.
So you can you can get 2 disguises out with one justice
player. Yep, it's it's I, I'm very
excited for that, for that round.
As a as as referenced by previous rounds, I really enjoy
(40:47):
playing Alter Ego deck. I think it's, I think it
presents unique challenges that you basically just need to learn
how to manage the threat at thatpoint.
And if you, as long as you can manage all the threat you're
accumulating without scheming out, you can, you can do some
(41:09):
decent stuff. My other one of my personal
favorite Black Widow decks is anaggression alter ego Black Widow
where you can use tac team out of all alter ego to do your
damage right. So I'm really hoping with this,
the shield stuff that they make tech team more playable.
(41:34):
I haven't really evaluated the deck sense, so I have.
I'm sure there's something already out that I'm missing.
Yeah, I haven't, I haven't. I haven't gotten my box yet and
you know, just like you and I haven't really been playing in
(41:57):
any of the places where might beable to play the cards already.
So I haven't really dug into toomuch of the deck building
opportunities that the box presents.
Yeah, I don't even think it's onCTS yet.
So, but I haven't checked in a couple of days, so maybe I'm
wrong. Cool.
(42:21):
I like I. Like your plan?
Yeah, how's how y'all feeling about Mojo?
So I'm trying to think what we we played Mojo once just to see
if our plan against Mojo was viable.
(42:41):
And I think what we did was Doctor Strange in X23.
Oh that's right, Doctor Strange has has the boost in the upgrade
in his kit where he. Yes.
Can stat boost X 23? He can stat boost X-23 he both
(43:07):
those characters are perfectly happy to flip down to alter ego.
You know, unfortunately, I mean,you know, poor privileged guy,
but unfortunately Sorcerer's Supreme doesn't boost your hand
size and alter ego. So the Mystics aren't quite as
incentivized to flip down as other characters are from that
perspective. But you know, he he does have a
(43:28):
car draw engine in Alter Ego, sohe does.
He certainly doesn't mind flipping down.
No, that's going to be great. I'm excited to see the results
on that one. And yeah, that, so we, we, we
tried that out. It seemed it seemed viable.
We didn't dig into it too ridiculously, you know, we, we
(43:49):
just did some quick tests on some of them just so we could
actually make some decisions forthe very first match up, right?
Because that's the challenge of of this one.
You do have to think through allof them and maybe test test them
out a little bit just to see if the things you're thinking about
are actually as viable as you think they are.
Yeah. And unfortunately, we haven't
done any testing right with withmy current work schedule and
(44:15):
Bruce's current work schedule, we haven't even had a chance to
test any of them out. So everything I just talked
about is pure theory. Yeah, I think we've only played
three games so far and I know like TJJJ and Jarrett for
example, are doing, you know, 2 handed on their own just to see
(44:36):
how things feel and then kind ofcoming back together.
Yeah, I think we need to start probably doing that as well.
I, I, I'm going to steal that from them.
Well, you know, the other thing,the other thing I I like about
that way of doing it, and I mean, I'm not doing this with
Josh Reed junior because we justkind of do it together.
(44:56):
But in in other times where I'vematched up with other partners
is each person kind of going offon their own and building the
deck that they like for, you know, you both pick the same
aspect combinations or whatever and you go off and you, you
might find cards that are more effective than you realized by
(45:17):
each having made some independent decisions.
So you you're kind of doing somerapid prototyping on on deck
building and not putting yourself quite in the same
corner. And I definitely appreciated
that. Yeah.
And I've already at the beginning of that this season
with the the at least the Ultronmatchup, I've built what I think
(45:38):
should be the base decks. And Bruce has been working on
what he thinks to be. So yeah, I appreciate that.
I'm going to have to use that inmy in our future rounds.
But it seems like these these rounds are going to be tough to
do quick. Yes.
And I mean, I was especially unkind by setting the first gate
(46:01):
at six turns, which is in most situations not going to be
realistic. No, I don't.
I don't think it is. I'd.
I'd be surprised if anybody getsto it.
Also the particularly inclined in the Nemesis.
The Nemesis? Yeah, I got about all my heroes.
(46:22):
Shadow cats. The only Nemesis that we're
really scared of though. Yeah, that that one is terrible.
I, I do like having it, you know, set up so everybody is
realistically going to drop a point.
The fact that it's kind of all the same point doesn't really
accomplish anything, of course, because it the point doesn't
have to have existed, but you know that there may be some
(46:45):
viable routes to dropping a point somewhere else and getting
it done in six would be the ideal.
Yeah, I really hope it works outin the in the rounds that some
people do achieve. And I know some people do like
to really rush at the here at the villain.
Obviously us and the Gamorons for the SCL league, we're we're
(47:09):
we're good at slow playing. Oh my God, I don't even know
what to think about all that. We're.
Yeah, right now. It's still a funny and fun game
to me that, you know, that we can just say, OK, well, number
of turns doesn't matter. How can you just get the best
board state? But in the long term, I don't
(47:32):
think that's going to be something I'm going to want to
do. No, no, it it it loggy round are
are rough and I forget which which round from last season was
a real flog to run through and Iwas very happy when we're done
it well. Kakita, Jamie.
(47:56):
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining.
Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure to chat with
you and we'll say thank you listeners for tuning in and
we'll see you next time on the road to nowhere.
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