This weekend there was a team event in Manchester, UK, called nations and I was hoping to get a Swedish team together to go, but no one else wanted to join me so I applied to be a mercenary and the Irish team was in need of some assistance. Then two Irish players had an issue so we needed two more mercenaries. This lead to a rag tag bunch of players joining together at the last minute to play their best. It was a story about hope against all the odds.
The event is a 16 teams five men per team, so 80 players, run out of Elements Games in Stockport. The location is an old factory so it's very well isolated and gets hot, even on a slightly cooler day it was still a scorcher inside.
Nations has a strict highlander, so each team of five can only have one of each character, one of each team tactics card. Since there aren't enough scenarios you can have duplicates there but you must play all and can't have 3 of one.
In the team was me, the world champion of MCP, for another couple of months at least. I hope to see everyone of you at the WTC for a shot at defending the title.
With me was Mike, the former captain, that I beat up and stole the right to be captain title from. Mike was playing Kingpin with a Sin splash, until the card changes where I stole his Dark Reign and forced him to switch to Shadowlands Daredevil as his back up for Kingpin.
Craig was the other Irish player on the team, a newer player that was playing Shield. Which is a very good choice in a team tournament with restricted team tactics cards because they can have their own cards and let the team get the good stuff.
Andrea was the first english man to rise to the call for extra players, and he selflessly jumped onto playing x-men at the event because of the reason that you needed to play all scenarios, so he took the pay to flip bullet.
Finally there was Dan with his Dark Dimension, the hero that was kept until last in two of the matchups and took the bullets from their teams.
The matchup process is different compared to the WTC, and I will speak on this at a later date hopefully on the Huggy and Kollar, Masters of the Multiverse podcast, but I think it's good to know that my general strategy was to toss out someone with one bad matchup, then toss out myself to give my opponents the chance to give me the worst matchup possible. The week leading up to the event I ran a lot of simulations of different strategies for how to pair people. So I expected to face a lot of pay to flip teams, and people playing scenarios I don't want to play.
I let my teammates build their rosters first, then I checked what scenarios were leftover that someone had to take. It worked out to Deadly legacy, Skrulls, Cosmic invasion and Intrusions. So looking at that list it was clear that I would have to go for a fighty team, but they also had to be capable of playing on a D map, which makes Black Order jump out to me. Then it was just about filling in the blanks in the Black Order plan, and Red Skull 3 works really well there. Which I wasn't alone about thinking since two other players did the same dual affiliation.
The event started at 8:30 so I showed up at 8:15 to a closed door and people inside hustling to put up terrain.
Game 1
We get paired up with Team Tritex, we do as planned in the pairing process. and I get a defender player my way. I win priority and he has Sword, which just turns into a 50/50 rolling fiesta so I try to avoid playing that as much as possible. Instead I get his research station and my own Intrusions.
So he is stuck between 15 and 19. My two best threat totals, and he picks 19. Deciding he would rather die to Black Order than to the Red Skull 3 bullshit.
He brings ASM, Shang- Chi, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Daredevil. I bring the dream team of Black Order and Zemo.
Turn 1 starts with him playing passively so Luke Cage durdles..
I put Zemo in the middle.
He runs up ASM on my left flank.
I put Proxima in the middle.
He puts Daredevil on my right flank.
I decide I don't have to do anything so Corvus stands on the middle as well.
Iron Fist now feels safe enough to run up and stand within 3 of my characters at the middle.
I double walk and space Thanos and move away Iron fist, and portal away Daredevil so I'm alone on my right flank.
Then Shang Chi walks up, kicks Zemo in cover and with the extra power he Mystic Wards the researcher, so I can't score it, and turn 1 ends with an interesting 2-1 to me.
I don't feel like I have to go with the power couple here, so instead Zemo starts, he gets deaths decree and does a master swordsman strike into Shang-Chi. Which does 2 damage. Then the second attack gets heroesed by Luke Cage and he takes a couple of points of damage and is thrown away.
Luke then tries to stagger Corvus but doesn't get it but does about 2 damage to him.
Proxima goes and tries to finish Luke but fails, so Corvus has to help out, and then also does an attack into Shang Chi.
Shang Chi is then angry. So he beats down Corvus and pushes Proxima and him to give them stun.
At this point I only have Thanos left to go, so I pass.
Ironfist walks up and flying kicks Corvus but does no damage.
Then ASM jumps over the building and with a kick and spender puts down Proxima
Then Thanos walks over to the middle and moves Shang+-Chi the hell away from me by a spender, Mind stone and Portal.
Lastly Daredevil walks to a portal and jumps straight into the middle, where he does a couple of points to Thanos.
So we have the exciting 2-2 game
Now it's time for Corvus and Proxima to start. Proxima wants to soften up Luke Cage but gets sacrificed into Daredevil. Which does nothing. Then I do another red attack into Luke Cage and does a point of damage. I can't let Daredevil spender me, that much is for sure. So Corvus has to kill him with a deaths decree counting blank strike. Luke Uhms and awwws about taking the attack, but it has pierce and the next attack doesn't so he decides to let Daredevil take this one, which daces him. Then I do a spender into Luke Cage and he lives on one.
Luke Cage Sweet Christmases Thanos to toss him away and also tosses the car into him.
Thanos then puts Shang-Chi in the dirt with a huge attack and places back to the middle and also moves Iron fist super far away from the action.
Iron fist just double durdles back towards the middle.
Zemo goes back and tries to kill Luke Cage but fails.
ASM jumps in and dazes Zemo and Thanos and wins the researcher.
For a 2-5
Proxima starts the round by finally killing Luke Cage. Then Corvus puts down ASM and uses that power to spender The man without fear and well he was scared so he ran home.
The Iron fist then did the Iron fist into Thanos.
Zemo then tried to kill the Iron Fist but failed.
Shang-Chi ended the turn by killing Zemo and pushing Thanos off the point, but since he couldn't reach within 2 of Corvus he couldn't push both my characters off the researcher so Corvus scored.
For a 5-5 game.
I start with an injured Corvus that kills Shang Chi and ASM, then Proxima dazes Iron Fist.
Thanos then spreads out and I score 5 points to a 10-5 game.
Last turn Everyone runs to a corner because the only way my opponent can win is by tabling but Thanos goes last, moves him away and uses mothership to place Corvus on a point.
For a 14-5.
Some huge spikes early from ASM made the game very nerve wrecking for a bit until ASM got greedy and wanted the scenario points and gave up on his hit and run strategy. So Corvus could just farm him for power to do spenders into other people and cleaned up the board. If your plan is to kill Corvus then you have to kill Corvus. You can't daze Corvus and then decide that other people are more of a threat. He has to die or be untouched.
Mike and Andrea clutched their games and we won the first game.
Game 2
Then round two it was time for the Irish team to face the "Irish" team. We figured out that at least everyone on my team had visited Ireland, can't say the same about those pretenders... I heard rumors they all live in Ireland but I don't trust them!
The matchup process went about as expected. and I got their Defenders player again.
He won prio and picked his secures for mutant madmen, I got Skrulls.
His team was x-23, Valkyrie, Daredevil, Namor, and Luke Cage. While I played Black Order with Nebula.
He did the "safe" grab with Namor on my right Skrull.
Proxima did the safe grab on my middle Skrull.
Daredevil safe Grabbed his middle skrull. and rotated towards the left
Then Thanos fished in Namor and put 2 damage into him, flipping my trap and putting Namor close to it on the way.
Luke then Flipped his trap.
Corvus Walked up and with a deaths decreed strike did 4 damage into Namor, which meant the trap was enough to finish him off.
X-23 walked up flipped the trap and then stood away from all objectives so I couldn't get rerolls with Nebula against her.
Nebula then walked up and put 2 damage into Daredevil with her gun.
Finally Valkyrie walked charged Proxima and did 1 damage which was enough to pick up the extract.
Leading to a 2-5
Corvus then starts by killing Namor, Mothershipping over to the other side and putting down X-23 as well, before passing to Proxima, who fails to kill Valkyrie.
Valkyrie is pissed so she puts Nebula and Proxima in the dirt and flips the point.
Thanos then tries to bully Luke cage but he can't get any power with his attacks so Luke Cage shows Thanos who is boss and tosses him off the point with Sweet Christmas and walks up and flips it.
Something I missed with this activation order was that Daredevil reaches over to my back trap and flip that. Leading to a 4-11 game.
You might think this looks dire, but you would be totally wrong. This was so easy :D Corvus just kills X-23 and Valkyrie but fails a flip. He then picks up a thing and is pushed away.
Luke Cage staggers Thanos with the double wild on his builder.
Then Proxima flips two points and picks up a thing.
Daredevil runs away from Thanos because he's scared, totally not to Mystic Ward one of my points on the other side of the board, nope only because he's scared of Thanos.
So Nebula Hunts down Daredevil and spenders him for 3 more damage which is exactly enough.
Thanos moves away Luke Cage and flips both points.
Now it's a 10-12 game
I forgot to take a picture here, so just enjoy how stupidly handsome this man is for a bit.
Just kidding, you thought I forgot? I'm perfect :D I never forget pictures nope nope not me.
I even got a second angle where you can see how Daredevil hides like a coward.
Valkyrie wakes up, puts Corvus in the ground, picks up the thing and is pushed, so she sadly walks to the point and flips it.
Proxima runs the heck away from Daredevil and tries a flip on the portal and fails it. Making it my second failed uncontested pay to flips. Just a note for newer players, Valkyrie is injured so she doesn't count as contesting for mutant madmen.
Daredevil then walks fails an uncontested flip on a portal, and then picks up the Skrull he dropped
Nebula then Tries to kill Daredevil as well but leaves him on 2.
So Luke durdles and flips both points on the right side.
Then Thanos goes last. He needs to flip both points to not lose, and... drum roll please... he succeeds, and I don't need the back up plan of hoping 6 dice yellow does 2 damage into Daredevil
So then the game turns to 15-15
Valkyrie tries to kill Corvus again but fails, so then Nebula with deaths decree just puts Daredevil into the dirt for that sweet last VP and I win 16-15. Black Order OP!
Mike and Andrea pulls through again and we prove that we are the better Irish team, not the first time a Swedish person came and took over Ireland. I hope my ancestors are proud :D
Game 3
We get matched up with the League of Losers, who were what I thought one of the favorites and the team I picked as winning after I saw the lists. They had also knocked out London B team and Bunga Bunga Boys, which were two good teams but we were 2-0, so it was time to play like it but I was ready for the Cinderella story to end.
The matchups happen and I get their Xmen player. He seems to be a less experienced player. He wins prio, picks his extracts and gets Sword, I draw Alien Ship.
So he picks 15 threat and it's time for the Red Skull 3, Zemo Thanos list. Against it he picks Storm, Shadowkitty, Cable and Psylock.
Shadow Kitty jumps over cable, picks up the middle core and runs away.
Redskull 3 picks up the right core.
Then Storm goes on a suicide mission to pick up the left core. He thought the only chance he has is to get some lucky dice and I don't think it's wrong. It's definitely gambling but when you're in a bad spot you have to take gambles on your dice.
So Thanos walks up, fishes her in, flips his sword. and does 2 damage with his punch. An important detail here is that I pick to take the damage from the leadership to save 2 power so I can death's Decree.
Then Psylock walks sadly and flips her sword. Which I think was a big mistake, He could've used to me my x-men to flip 2 points or to go after Redskull 3 and get one extra attack with Cable
Zemo then goes after Storm but is just shy of two. So I flip I'm a Baron after all to do a spender and Thanos gives a deaths decree. I do 7 hits and she's dazed even if she uses Xaviers dream. I don't have any power so I take 1 from the leadership and I can't pick up the core but such is life.
Cable then walks up, slides, puts some damage into Zemo and flips his Sword.
Zemo is pushed away by the sword push. and it's 2-3.
Zemo starts and goes after Storm, she uses dream, but the second attack gets her and life is rough.
Cable then dazes Zemo, and puts some damage into Thanos.
Thanos puts Cable next to Zemo and touches his sword and in two attacks he dazes Cable.
Psylock is very sad so she just goes and flips a point.
Red Skull walks over and touches a sword.
Then Shadowkitty tries to hit Reds Sull but only Incinerates him, before she tries a 50/50 flip and fails.
Meaning the turn ends 7-5
I push Psylock away with the Sword Base
Zemo kills Cable in one attack and does 4 damage to Psylock with a spender before running far away from her.
So Psylock sadly walks over and flips a sword, before she does her combat training and puts 7 dice mystic into Red Skull, leaving him alive on a couple.
So Red Skull kills Shadowkitty and ports himself to my back right sword and gets it.
Then Thanos goes and puts Psylock in the naughty corner.
13-5
Shadowkitty then tries to kill Zemo but fails, and well that's all they wrote.
My opponent didn't use to me my x-men and mistimed xaviers dream when they were dead anyway. Those are two very powerful resources to not use. He could've gotten a lot of attacks turn 1 to try and kill Zemo and Redskull 3.
Dan and Andrea pulled through and it was time to go on to the finals where Norberts team was waiting.
Game 4
The Brotherhood of Evil Londoners vs Banshee's Bones in the finals. I don't think anyone would've predicted it but we got here so it's time to play like it.
The matchup process went exactly like I wanted and I felt super confident that we stood a good chance at the title. It's the classic story of good versus evil. Nice "Irishmen" against "Londoners". What could ever go wrong?
I get matched up against Norbert, he wins priority and picks his pay to flips. I draw my Alien Ship and he gets Spider Portal. So I pick 17 threat, because I think it's important to not let him go 6 wide with 3's at 18. It means I had to play Redskull 3 with Bob, which is a huge liability but such is life.
He plays Iceman, Logan, Storm, Shadowkitty, and Nightcrawler.
Shadowkitty uses to me my X-men and grab the middle and rotates backwards and takes a huge gable in flipping the point. A skull on that and she's in major danger, but she's safe.
So Bob walks up to the house and picks up a thing.
Nightcrawler walks up hits Bob, but cover keeps him safe, then he flips the point over Bob and Bampfs backwards out of range.
Zemo walks up to the point left by Nightcrawler and fails an uncontested flip.
Then Storm walks up and puts a shot into Zemo looking for a wild to get a shock but doesn't get it.
Red Skull doesn't feel like becoming Logan food so he rotates to my home, flips it and then walks onwards towards Storm.
Logan then jumps off Iceman, but the container is in the way of where he wants to be, so he can't reach the point in one move, which then means he doesn't want to pick up to be a target for Thanos, so he just flips the point.
So either I walk up Thanos and fish in Storm, or I go and score the points with Thanos on the left, and well I don't think Storm will be more important than 2 VP's during this game. So Thanos double walks spaces himself to the point, picks up and flips the point. While sending Logan out of 3 of Thanos with the mind gem.
Then Iceman double walks and tries a contested flip but fails it.
So Turn 1 ends 4-3
Bob is holding something and close to Nightcrawler which doesn't feel like happiness. So he touches the point before he just runs back to the home point.
Nightcrawler puts up a stun on Zemo, flips the point and bampfs away again.
Zemo shakes his stun and swings at Nightcrawler, getting 6 hits, but nightcrawler blocks 6. Oh well. So I lose my power to the leadership and it's looking bad.
Storm doesn't feel safe either so she walks to be a jump spot for Shadowkitty.
Thanos then puts down Iceman with a spender. He doesn't really care about being slowed and he ignores the damage from Iceman. Since I spike and do it in one attack I get to move closer to Logan and double move him backwards to the table edge before I space myself to the point.
Logan double walks and jumps on Iceaman, to the point, but he doesn't have any power to flip.
Red Skull plays it passive and walks up to the point, flips it, and then puts a shot into Nightcrawler, making it mystic and does 2 damage.
Shadowkitty double walks tries to flip over Bob but fails and rolls a skull so she goes towards Red Skull and Zemo.
So this turn ends 9-5.
Zemo goes for Nightcrawler. He has taken 2 damage so I only need to do 4 with two attacks, easy right? NOPE! Nightcrawler decided that he's blocking everything today.
Iceman then staggers Thanos, who uses fallback to make sure he's out of a second attack and has cover against Logans bullshit.
Redskull has to pick up the slack where Zemo is concerned and finally dazes Nightcrawler.
Logan then attacks Thanos twice and does the 5 damage needed to daze him.
All of a sudden this game looks really bad. I'm going to need 3 power for Dark Reign on someone next turn and that someone is preferably Bob. So he shots Shadowkitty to hope she uses her protective thing and is without power but Norbert does the right choice. So it's with a pit in my stomach I see the dice roll 3 hits and he only blocks one so I do 2 damage which is perfect for him to afford his spender. Bob takes the second action to try and run away, but he's not fast enough.
Shadowkitty walks up, puts a spender into Bob and dazes him.
Finally Storm double walks over and picks up the thing dropped by Thanos.
The game is now 10-10.
Zemo goes for round 3 of trying to double tap Nightcrawler, but fails again.
So Nightcrawler gets his pop off turn where he dazes Red Skull with a spender chain. Then tries to kill Zemo but they clearly had a non aggression pact because he fails, but he flips the point over Zemo so it's all good.
Bob decides it's his time to step up, so with the help of Dark Reign he goes after Shadowkitty. Two pistol shots later she's down and he picks up her thing.
Logan tries to kill Thanos and does about 3 damage.
Then Thanos decides it's his time to be in the lime light. He flips Power of the Cosmos. After that and a spender he dazes Storm and kills Iceman but after such awesome dice he fails an uncontested flip. Finally he moves Logan away.
Ending the round 11-15
Logan starts the round with walking down picking up a thing and dazing Bob for the second time.
Red Skull decides that he's done with letting Zemo try to kill Nightcrawler so he decides to do it himself.
Shadowkitty then picks up a thing and runs to the corner.
Zemo runs over and flips a point.
Then Storm double walks and flips over him and that's the end of the game
But to rub salt in the wound, Thanos fails another uncontested flip, before he walks down and moves Storm away from the point and the game ends 15-18. Three failed uncontested flips is really rough to deal with but such is the game.
It's so easy for me to look at this game and blame the dice or blame the fact that I have Bob instead of Bullseye because I gave him to Mike but in reality there are 3 small mistakes that matters. If Red Skull was on the inside of the diamond he could've walked and jumped to flip the top point. If I had let Zemo Daze so he had power to charge the turn afterwards he could've gone after Logan. If I didn't "waste" fallback but kept it to an important moment that could've done the difference. Oh well. It's easy to be nit picky after the fact. I played well enough to win that game the majority of the time, but Norbert made less mistakes than me and that's what matters.
My team went 1-4 this round with only Mike pulling his part so the Cinderella story ended like it often does in reality, with the bad guys winning. Oh well. I'm hella proud of my players, they played their hearts out, clinched in important positions and it almost was good enough to win the whole thing. Just a few dice rolls going the other way and we would've brought it home.
A huge thank you to Mike, Craig, Andrea and Dan for trusting me as their captain and playing their hearts out. Truthfully I didn't feel like the WTC was a huge achievement for myself personally. I got served up easy matchups on a platter five games in a row because my team knows I'm going to get the wins.
While at Nations I felt like I was the carry. I put myself out second because that was the least advantageous spot in the pairing process and I played my way through all the pay to flips which is considered a bad scenario set up for Thanos. I had some really rough dice at points but I didn't let it tilt me and I just kept playing and tried my best to crush all my opponents. I'm really proud of this performance.
That said, you can't perform in a team tournament alone. You win as a team and you lose as a team. It's never just one player making the difference. Which I feel like is something the teams as Nations haven't really understood. There were a couple of teams at Nations that had a "star player" that took their list, and then forced everyone else to play around them, which I really don't think is the proper way to build lists for team tournaments. Winning all your games only matters if two other teammates also win. Something that is much harder for them if you're stealing key splashes from your team just because your roster is better that way.
Stockport is awesome, the airport is easy to get to and the event is well run. Thank you to all my opponents for being good sports and having enjoyable games.
My only complaints is that for lunch we got chips and 3 chicken nuggets with no sauce. What the hell was that? I thought it was weird that so many English people thought the food at Multiverse at Malmö was amazing and mind blowing. It was good don't get me wrong but if this is the competition then yeah of course it is the best food in the world. They couldn't even be bothered to give me some ketchup to my snack.
This isn't the last you've seen of me Manchester! Hopefully I can convince some proper Swedes to come over next year and we can actually conquer Nations instead of failing in the finals. Now it's time for me to put my aim at the WTC and get my butt in gear for the survival meta.
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