Clix O’Clock: Con In Your Store

Hey everybody! Welcome to Clix O’Clock, a new weekly feature here on We the Nerdy! Assistant Editor Henry has been playing Heroclix for a very long time and wants to spread his love of the game with everybody who’ll listen! This week he talks about his personal results from Con In Your Store, the latest and greatest in series of new promotional tournaments that Wizkids has been running in their effort to encourage competitive play!

This past weekend was the Con In Your Store event for my local venue of Heroclix (Shout-out to Dragon’s Den Poughkipsee). For those who don’t know, Con In Your Store is an initiative that Wizkids (Makers of Heroclix) undertook in an effort to move out their older product in exchange for the opportunity to win pieces that were previously only available and conventions. I personally think it’s a brilliant thing, because it benefits just about everybody involved. Sure, I didn’t really want to buy more packs from some older sets, but it gives me the chance to possibly pull something I missed from these series. So to me, I don’t mind much.

The first part of Con In Your Store is a sealed qualifier. My venue expected 28 players, of which only 12 showed up. This was a little underwhelming, but it allowed us to play our sealed qualifier using a mix of older product (Invincible Iron Man) and newer product (Guardians of the Galaxy). The top eight after two rounds would move on to the constructed event. In my packs though, I pulled poop. Out of the ten figures in my two packs, I already owned nine of them, and wasn’t particularly impressed. Ultimately I chose to go with a very straightforward team from my Guardians pack, Ronan the Accuser and Korath the Pursuer, two figures I previously owned but hadn’t played yet. In the first round of the qualifier I went up against a friend of mine, on of the best Heroclix players in the world according to this year’s World’s Tournament from Gencon. Oh yeah, and he killed it in sealed nationals too. Swell. I love playing against him though, because it forces me to think out what I’m doing and makes me bring my “A Game”. He pulled a Stark Industries theme with Happy Hogan and Freak from IIM, and Cosmic Iron Man from GotG. For a moment I thought I had the upper hand, especially after I was able to get in a good chunk of damage to Iron Man, but the numbers game and a critical miss on a pulse wave sealed my fate. I took his Happy Hogan out, but it wasn’t enough. Round two proved to be a different matter, as I faced a Count Nefaria and Dreadnaught from IIM. Here I simply had better range and more actions to use which made for an easier battle. With that victory, I qualified for the constructed component.

I’ll be honest here; I wasn’t expecting to play Con In Your Store. I had plans that couldn’t be avoided for the same day as the event, but they fell through at the last minute which forced me to build a team very quickly. My previously planned teams didn’t quite live up to my expectations, so I through together what I lovingly called my “Twenty Dollar Team”. Highlighted by Emerald Empress from Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, with Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy as secondary attacker and Jinx from Teen Titans as a support figure. It wasn’t a very sturdy team, but it had strong attacks and was hard to hit. With the Green Lantern Battery resource backing me up, I was actually quite happy with it. And then I played against Lydea Mallor on a themed Entity team. Using literally the exact two things that would nerf my team, Lydea and his own Green Lantern Battery, my first round opponent had my number early on. Luckily, a number of successful super senses and shape changes kept my team alive long enough that the game ended on a time out instead of my utter decimation. While I did lose, it was to a far superior player using a team that I knew had a clear advantage over mine. I was very proud of this game and my placements, which led to a few moments where I came close to taking him down with me. In defeat, I had won.

Granted, my second game I was just sloppy. Facing off against another Lydea, this time I kept my resource and was able to use my battery to full effect. My opponent, who also used White Witch and a Book of Skulls resource, was very aggressive and I got lucky on a lot of poor rolls. But I played things too intimately and it quickly led to my downfall. While I was very proud of how I played in the first round, I definitely should have taken my time more in the second game, forcing him to play in my comfort zone instead of falling into his. Despite this, I did still walk away with KO-ing his Bizarro, so it was something. My third game was a different matter altogether, as I played against a very straightforward Green Lantern team without resources. Winning map roll, I picked maps that would serve to Yondu’s advantage and took him down pretty quickly. My dice just rolled too well for anything to matter.

Ultimately I placed fifth in my venues Con In Your Store Event. While it didn’t go as well as I wanted, I still walked away with some cool pieces and I won two exclusive constructs for the Star Sapphire battery. Conveniently, the exact two I wanted above all else. It was my first real taste of more serious competitive play and it left me feeling confident. I think that given time and effort, my desire to eventually enter the competitive Heroclix circuit is possible, even if it will be filled with nonsense and frustration. It’s a great game and a lot of fun.

Thanks for taking the time to check us out! Be here next week at the same time, Clix O’Clock!