For months now I have been waiting to get my hands on the Marvel Evolution Set. I have had such an enthusiasm for this set mainly because of the legend support for Cyclops and the Marauders. T’Challa could confirm I never play villain teams, with the Darkseid Elite exception, but Marauders would have to be another exception after the preview season. I have never been a big fan of the X-Men, but Gambit has always been the greatest treat for me when reading their comic series. I am definitely not your pro TCG player, I much rather go to a tourney and play what I like and lose than play something someone else concocted. That was the case when I developed my decks that I wrote about in previous sets and the Shadowpact deck I piloted in a number of PCQ’s. Such is the case with my Marauders/X-Factor deck that revolves around the Cyclops/Sinister/Gambit relationship. The deck reveal will come tomorrow, but let me tell you about the Release Celebration I participated in at Groovy Gecko’s this past weekend.



This event was simply going to be one of those times where I was just playing for participation prize support because I have the worst luck to be truthful, which often means bad news for sealed play. That means opening up packs and getting no goodies, to drawing bad cards in decks I have had help with creating. I am very superstitious about these aspects of my TCG experience and T’Challa can confirm this as well.



So the day wasn’t looking to be off to a good start when I opened my packs and realized I had no combat pumps to play with what so ever, but then I became increasingly happy as I looked at all the team ups I pulled, 7 or 8 in 5 packs. So the best thing that happened was I pulled a bunch of Marauders and then some X-Factor, which made the picture brighter when I drew into The Falls Edge and my favorite 4 drop in the game, Cyclops, Man of Action. Well I started looking through my cards and noticed I had a Random, Alex in there and it so happened that I like the way the two looked together. I decided they would be my turn 4 and 5 play which panned out in two particular matchups really well. Other than that I ended up drawing into Albert and 6-cost Wolverine, along with a Murasame Blade which looked real good as a backup.



So the deck was something like this;

Iceman on turn 1, Malice, Tempo, or Unuscione on turn 3, Washout, Lady Mastermind or Albert on turn 3, Cyclops or Random on turn 4 and 5. Turn 5 had Joanna Cargill if I managed not to draw into Cyclops or Random. Sinister was there as a backup. Turn 6 had Wolverine and Malice. Turn 7 was Sinister, Kid Omega and Mystique, I drew no 8 drops.

I had some other filler characters in there that were X-Factor, Marauders or Weapon X, but these were the cards that really got me over the hump for the day. Plot twist was limited to Friendly Rivalry, 6 different Team-ups Sinister Disciples and Falls Edge. Friendly Rivalry went off in two of the 6 games I played.



I managed to go 5-1 with the deck. The one matchup I lost was to Brian and it was due largely in part to the fact that I got really screwed on the draw and managed not to get any of these character cards listed above as well as missing drops in general. I was playing filler both games like Valerie Cooper, Fantomex and one game I missed turn 1-3 without a significant drop while he was playing a shift deck that was put together rather well. It would have been a better matchup but it was what it was.



Not to demeanor any of my other opponents but the last matchup was against T’Challa and I absolutely wrecked his deck. It all started when he though he had the leg up playing Sabretooth. Neither of us really noticed it at first, but I had one of my key cards down that really won the matchup and that was Iceman who locked-down any energizing from ever happening. I was able to hit hard after that dropping in Cyclops without ever playing Random and then dropping Joanna Cargill who just got bigger and bigger. On turn 6 I handed the game over to T’Challa with my endurance at 40 and his at -3. The writing was clearly on the wall, but T’Challa went through his Machinations anyway.



I walked away with 7 copies of the Ten Rings, thanks to all the guys who didn’t want them, and some quick trades with Kelly that probably really not worth the trades for some commons that I will probably never use and 4 copies of the 6 drop Punisher from MEQ. It was a funny ending because T’Challa was talking a little smack to the guys and I smacked his butt down, in front of his son, Christian who was at his first versus tournament and for all intents and purposes would have won the tournament if he knew a lick about how to play the game in an average way. He is a beginner and pulled almost a complete Blink run out of 5 packs. The kid is lucky, he even won the random giveaway, I still have yet to win a random give away.

Thanks to the guys down at Gecko’s and I can’t wait to get back and play on the 30th for that box of MEV. I have purchased 6 boxes of MEV already and I will probably purchase 1 or 2 more. But I am pretty much happy I was able to trade for all the cards I needed to get my decks that I wanted to complete done and now I can get some great table top against T’Challa later and utterly destroy all hopes he has of beating me ever again…

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