Swedish wind 2024 Top Cut

 Top Cut!!!!

No matter how bad I played or how horrible my dice treated me, I made it to top cut so it was time to turn on the skill and learn from yesterdays mistakes.

My first game I'm up against Erich, who was one of the Austrians that lost to us in the finals of the WTC. I knocked him out in the semifinals of the European Master of Warmachine back in 2015. Since then this is our first chance for a rematch. So I'm expecting a lot of terror. 

He has brought Asgard with him, and I've been playing a lot of Asgard since I think they're a viable choice for the WTC, if you want to go for a team that's a little more janky and is all pay to flips. What my experience has taught me is that Sword sucks for Asgard and Thor hates facing ASM. 

He wins priority, picks his own blues and gets Sword, I pull Skrulls. I pick 20 points and we're off to the races.

On this setup I can play both Black Order and Webs but Black order doesn't like Asgard, and webs do so my choice is pretty simple.

Turn 1 Wong starts with giving Thor a power. 

Black cat walks over and picks up the right objective and isn't pushed.

Black widow picks up the left extract and is pushed.

So Gwen walks up to my skrull and pick it up. Then she walks back to safety. Then finally I remember to take a photo.

Bill on his side walks up and picks up the last extract but he's not deployed correctly so he can't reach in only one walk. To be able to pick up your home Skrull with a medium base with medium move, in one move, you can be a maximum of 2" or 5cm away from the middle line. Of course terrain limits this further.

Good Wong walks over and flips my back point and meditates.

Heimdall walks up and flips his right Sword.

Miles walks into 3 of Black Widow and kicks her resulting in one damage, which she happily removes with Thors leadership.

Thor realizes that he will have nothing fun to do this turn so he walks up and flips his left Sword.

ASM feels like it's his time to shine so he double runs to his right sword and tries a 50/50 flip which fails.

Then Hela comes marching over the board to flip my left Sword

Black Panther walks up, pushes her off the point and does 3 damage to her. He then flips back my point and the turn ends with a very uneventful 4-4

As far as first turns go, this is about as good as it can go, of course if I win my 50/50 with ASM I'm hugely ahead, but I have taken no damage and I've put several characters into bad spots for my opponent.

Black Widow doesn't want to stand close to Miles so she runs back to her deployment.

I don't really want to do anything with any of my characters, so I just activate ASM to try and build some power by hitting Wong twice. I do no damage but I roll one crit, so I take another 50/50 and I miss it.

Hela heals with leadership before she goes after Black Panther and does 2 claim souls attacks into him resulting in 3 damage, then she does her little walkie walk and does one more damage. 

So he goes and puts an attack into her with full rerolls, dealing another 3 damage, for a total of 4 damage. Then he runs back to the car within 3 of Wong and hidden by the safety of Gwen.

Thor has nothing to do again, so he walks up and flips the point before he puts a hammer into Black Panther in cover. Which does no damage but shocks him.

Good Wong heals Black Panther back to 3 damage taken. 

Evil Wong walks up to the point and heals Hela to 2 damage taken.

Miles Jumps up, tries to kick Thor off the point, which fails, but he does three damage, so he can afford a 50/50, which he gets. Then he walks over to opponents left Sword and flips it since no one is there. 

Bill walks up to Wong and tries his luck punching the dodge master and fails. So he can't afford to throw and flip. So he takes a 50/50 and fails it.Sadly he has placed Bill outside of 3 of Heimdall so he can't get rerolls on the flip. 

Gwen does a push shot at Thor and gets the wild so she can push him off the point. Then she walks up and takes the point.

Heimdall realizes that he needs to flip more. So he double runs to Miles point and fails his 50/50. 

Black Cat then walks in and tries to kill wong, resulting in 3 damage but then fails her 50/50.

This ends the turn with me having 3 of the Swords, and 2 extract, so I'm in the lead 9-7

I  forgot to take a picture here but this is a representation. 

I use the sword push to get bill away from Wong, since he's the super star keeping my right sword safe.

Thor is hurt and needs to get the ball rolling on this turn to get this game back into order. So he charges into Gwen who is the only character without access to spider tracker. He smacks her twice doing 4 damage and then tosses her into the house forcing out brace. 

Staggerd she just runs away to the board edge. 

Evil Wong walks up and heals Thor.

ASM then flips his point and jumps into the middle where he tries his luck at killing Hela, but she has Odins blessing so my spike doesn't really matter. Then I walk down into my left corner and succeed with a 50/50 flip

Bill walks over to ASM and tosses him off the point into Panther, who blocks 2 and takes 1. Then Bill flips the point.

Good Wong heals Panther to 2 damage taken.  

Widow activates back in the corner and does nothing.

Black Panther then walks up to the point and does mantle so he can guarantee to not do any damage to Bill before he pushes him away. Since I don't do damage he can't aggressive back to within 2 of anyone for mission objective. Then I jump into Thor who blocks 1 and I think I dace him before my opponent reminds me that Evil Wong was Evil. 

Heimdall rolls dice into Miles and does 2 damage, then he flips the point and fails even with his own reroll. Since he's a loser. 

Miles walks up on the house and then does a spender into Bill to steal his extract, and since he's not inside 2 of anyone he can't sac or mission objective. 

Hela realizes that the game is over if she can't kill Black Cat so she goes for it and gets in 3 damage with a 7 dice attack then does 1 more with her walkie walk. She succeeds with a 50/50.

So the game is over if I succeeds with two 50/50's in a row. And guess what? I'm good at this game so of course I do it.

So the game ends 16 to 8

Pay to flips are so stupid. I succeeded with 5 and failed 3 50/50's while my opponent succeeded with 1 and failed 3. Still a 15-9 or 14-10 game would still be incredibly difficult for Erich to catch up. 

Game 2

Most of the people I really wanted to play lost the first game in the cut. So I had the options of facing Seth and getting a rematch from TTS, then Eussebio for a rematch from the last game yesterday, finally I could get Björn, my teammate from the WTC. So of course I pulled my teammate.

He wins priority and picks his secures and gets intrusions while I get my extracts. and once again gets Skrulls. Definitely the worst of my options in this matchup since it's a civilian which means Teragenesis works.  Oh well I pick 19 and I'm happy to play Black order.

So I deploy everything centrally while he has beast on the right side for eyes on the prize play, The king then medusa centrally, finally Rhino and ms Marvel on the left. 

He starts with Beast who steals a power activates Eyes and then picks up the right extract, being pushed towards me and finally running away as far as he could.

Zemo goes up and picks up my home extract.

Then Ms Marvel walks over and picks up on the left side and doesn't get pushed.

So I'm stuck in a bad situation. If I'm not pushed Proxima is super safe behind a house. So I take the 57% gamble and double run her to opponents extract and pick it up, but I'm pushed and I get to stand straight in front of Black Bolt without anything.

So Black Bolt activates and oneshots Proxima, then walks up and picks up the extract.

Thanos fishes in Black Bolt and punches him in his stupid face, but in classic Björn ways Black Bolt blocks 4 on 6 dice and it's a sad punch even with a Zemo reroll.

Then Rhino waddles to the middle and just barely makes it onto the point, which I thought he wouldn't be able to do.

Then Corvus walks up and puts 7 dice into Black Bolt with the help of one two punch which does 4 damage. 

Finally medusa walks up and tosses Thanos off the point. 

Ending it 1-5.

My plan here is to have Corvus go first do the 2 damage into Black bolt with two normal attacks then kick over too Proxima who with a deaths decree will go after beast with a spear throw. But Corvus fails to do 2 damage with 2 attacks. So Proxima has to jump back there and solve that issue. 

All of a sudden my whole plan for the turn is out the window because Corvus can't roll dice. 

Rhino goes after Proxima and robs her after getting in a damage in two 5 dice attacks. 

Thanos sees an opportunity to get rhino into medusa Twice, which would daze her since there's no brace and that could save the game for me. So I go for it, but the angle with the house is slightly too tight and it hits the house instead of her. Then the second throw goes into her and does 4 damage.

Then Medusa decrees forward over rhinos fat base, and double taps Zemo which is followed by a throw from Thanos into Zemo. This dazes Zemo and I'm in major trouble. She also decrees Rhino to the point before she walks up and picks up the objective.

So all of a sudden I'm looking at a 0-7 turn and a total score of 12-1 Not exactly ideal. 

But it's my turn to punch back. Proxima starts by spear throwing medusa and getting that two damage, then punching rhino doing a damage and getting him down to 1 left.

Then it's time for Corvus. He pays for a spender with counting blanks and Thanos acts as a cheer squad. I deal 7 damage to him, and get my trigger. So I swing another attack into him dealing no damage. All of a sudden I'm in a really bad situation. So I have to cut for 3 with no matter the cost to do another spender, which does 2 damage to black bolt and gets my free trigger to kill Rhino.

I breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.. Being forced to use No matter the cost hurst but I got it done.

Then my opponent just activates ms marvel and stands there.

Thanos moves himself up to the point with space, then he places Zemo on the point. Then Thanos moves through the portal and puts two attacks into ms Marvel dealing 3 damage, before he tries to jump back to Beast, but he fails the jump so he's placed back into the middle.

Then Beast goes and stands on the point.

So Zemo jumps through the portal and puts two 6 dice with full rerolls into him, but fails to kill him. 

So it's a 3-2 turn making the game 4-14

Then the fact that I pulled Skrulls comes to end the game for me. Since he jumps in with Medusa, hits Corvus twice and leaves him on 1 before Terragenesis deals the last point and he scores two vp for the win.

Truthfully I feel like I lost two 50/50's on Thanos dazing Ms Marvel and Zemo killing Beast. 

My only real play issue was that I should've been able to move Rhino to a slightly better place turn 2 and then if I get the wild twice I can get the throw into Medusa twice. That would save the game for me since then Zemo wouldn't be dazed. 

But in the end I feel like it comes down to dice. I feel like I gave my dice so many chances to work but they just didn't and I don't know what to do about it. Just such a simple thing as Thanos failing to do 1 damage on his first attack for the third game in a row is frustrating, which forced me to burn one two punch which would've been a great card to have later in the game.

Or what if Thanos second jump worked in the last turn and I could get deaths decree on Zemos attack. Then Beast is super dead.

Or what if Corvus did 2 damage on his own so I could send Proxima after Beast?

I can't see any huge mistakes I made in the matchup, which frustrates me a lot. Oh well.

Game 3

So at 1-1 there are 3 players I've already played this weekend, so my last game will be a rematch guaranteed. Luckily it's against Eusebio, who crushed me the day before. This means I get a chance at revenge.

I win priority and take my secures, getting extremis, my opponent pulls Skrulls, and for a bit I think I pulled senators once again and I'm ready to pack my stuff up and go home, but Skrulls is very playable.

My opponent picks 17 and we have a complete rematch except I don't play fallback I play I'm a baron instead. 

I start with Gwen walking up and picking up the home Skrull, gets pushed but still makes it back to my home secure.

Toad walks up picks up his home Skrull, but is out since he's deployed too far to the right. So he has to double walk. Second Austrian that failed to deploy their home Skrull taker correctly a Coincidence or a weakness in their game play to abuse? Anyway He's not pushed so it doesn't really matter.

ASM runs up and picks up the right Skrull 

Dr Voodoo then runs up and picks up the left Skrull.

I place Black Cat next to ASM as a Mission objective tag team.

Wong powers up Strange and goes to the back point.

Zemo runs up and stands next to Voodoo to create trouble for him.

Strange Ports up Rhino, and goes and stands on his point.

So Miles runs into the middle to be Mission Objective partners with Gwen.

So Rhino has nothing fun to do, and just double walks over to the left point to outnumber Zemo.

This ends the turn 4-4 which is perfectly how I want to play.

I start the turn with Zemo trying to kill Voodoo and does 3 damage. 

Wong heals up the damage from Voodoo.

I activate Black cat and do nothing.

Dr Voodoo walks back to the point and uses the extremis to heal, before he shakes the bleed.

Gwen stands still on her point.

Toad walks backwards and stands on the roof of the house.

Miles stands still

Strange double moves over to my home secure and ports Gwen forward. 

ASM runs over to the back point and contests it from Wong. 

Rhino tries to hit Gwen to get power to rob but does no damage so he sadly just walks back to his point. 

This time it's a 3-3 turn for the riveting 7-7 game play. 

Once again I forgot to take a picture so here's a representation.

My Zemo play didn't work and I burned I'm a baron for almost no gain, but I also didn't get robbed so it was pretty okay. I've also set up several dangerous activations to go into his models here.

I'm pretty torn among the choices here but I decide that running away Gwen is the first priority so she goes to the right extract and sits on a dumpster there.

Rhino then comes over to ASM and robs him of his objective.

Zemo the goes into Voodoo and this time his dice are a bit hotter, so Voodoo uses fall back and bumps to safety. Zemo then charges after him but hits Toad instead because of sacrifice. Toad then slipperies away from ASM because he's scared of the kick to the face. 

Wong activates and heals Voodoo for 3 with heal and the objective.

Miles sees Toad in the middle of between this home and the left secure but that's reachable with a jump and a walk and a kick. So he goes for it and puts down Toad, and doesn't get pushed when he picks up the extract

Black Cat runs down and stands next to Wong, contesting that secure. 

Voodoo double walks up to the point and forces Miles to drop his objective. 

Strange feels like he's forced to stand on the objective for another turn. 

ASM then gladly jumps over, kicks Wong in his face, gets the trigger so he bounces over all of Rhinos base and gets into position to pick up the extract that Miles dropped. 

I score 3 and my opponent scores 3 for a 10-10 game

So robbery was used and it didn't result in a vp lead. That means I'm doing fantastic this game.

Dr Voodoo is scared and surrounded by angry spiders So he runs to his friend Dr Strange, healing on two extremists on the way. 

Black Cat walks up to Rhino and takes back the extract. 

Wong activates and heals himself and gives a power to Rhino. 

Zemo then goes after Toad, does 2 damage and toad slipperies away, so he charges into wong and acts as Black Cats mission objective anchor on the point. 

Rhino has nothing fun to do so he tries to build some power but 5 dice attacks against webs is just not fun.

Gwen has nothing fun to do so she just dances a bit on that secure.

Toad then runs to the home secure to heal a bit.

ASM jumps up and puts wong in the dirt, before he runs to the left secure to save Miles incase Strange comes running over.

Dr. Strange double moves strange to his home point and ports Black Cat away from her Mission objective bubble.

Miles here has the choice between running into his home secure or running to voodoo, Neither seems like a good idea but I need to deny the point somewhere to actually get a lead this game. I pick his home secure which definitely is the wrong choice. 

I've gotten the extract lead and I'm scoring 2 secures so all of a sudden it's a 5-2 turn. For a 15-12 vp lead.

Strange is in prime position to start doing damage so he does his spender, but Zemo blocks strong while Miles and Black cat goes down. 

So Zemo does a spender into wong killing him, and picking up an objective before he runs to ASM for cover. 

Rhino then Walks and Stampeeds over to Gwen and one shots her. I don't know what it is with my opponents hatred for Gwen. Twice he one shots her on the first attack with absolutely horrible odds to do so.

All of a sudden I only have ASM left but that's good enough, so I pass.

Voodoo walks up and tries to do an attack into Miles to build power but Witty banter and lots of rerolls keeps him safe. 

Then ASM goes over to the point my opponent has vacated. 

So my opponents only shot is Toad one shotting Zemo, which thankfully he doesn't do and the game ends 18-17

Ignore Voodoo there we moved him when we were talking about alternative plays, such as Voodoo staying on the point to guarantee one more turn but I think that's a horrible plan since then all the webs will come back full of power and will have a nice All Webbed Up turn. He needed to sneak through 1 damage and get the skull to make me drop my extract. Which Toad then could pick up. 

Conclusion

The tournament was awesome. Thank you Anders and Hugo for their hard work. Also a huge thank you to all my opponents, I had a lot of great games. I'm frustrated with my performance but all my opponents were awesome and played incredibly well. The food was also a lot better than I'm used to at a tournament. 

There are always things that goes wrong when you arrange a tournament in a new location for the first time. For next year I hope for better lightning and for foreigners to not have to play against each other. I think it's really bad to get people from all around the world coming to our tournament and then they play  against each other. That's not good. 

Oh well time to get back to figuring out what the hell I want to play for WTC.