With a massive Christmas patch adding a veritable SLEW of new legend options, support and card fixes, the table was set for a high-octane trial of champions, as they all would fight in nail-biting matches culminating the conclusion of VS Remix's third season of beatdown and general badassery. Many showed interest, but when one adds "Worlds" to an event tag, it can more often than not, lower attendance metrics for any feeling a bit sheepish regarding their skill.
After all, nobody wants to embarrass themselves, right? Hoping to offset this tendancy for the more casual players enjoying remix to balk at the free sign-up was a cornucopia of prizing, as several sponsors were quick to donate content from signed art, to signed cards, to playmats.
Regardless of these measures, our final total of participants was 7. not record setting- but not bad either, considering the quality of the player-base. I was elated and excited to get some high calibur games in.
Personally, I elected to go a bit standard with my list selection. choosing to bring Doomsday as my legend in a monoteam Revenge Squad list looking to steal turn 5 and the game on 6. I didn't run any focused tech, as, it doesn't quite sit well for me and likely for others, when the lead designer of the project wins that project's biggest event, but god damn it, there's no way I'm not going to join in on THAT sweet, sweet action! Better to play at a disadvantage than not play at all.
As the reigning overall points champ, Wes won a free round 1 bye, but it occurred to me that it wasn't exactly a big advantage with an odd number of players, so I instead elected to make the point value of the round 1 bye have a value above 1 for the purposes of edging tiebreaks in the seasonal overall leader's small favor.
Alarm bells probably should have sounded when I noted almost half of the lists were all punisher legends running his new special sauce:
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| Drugs and card design don't mix folks. |
As a general rule I do my best not to pay attention to submitted lists until there is a realistic need to check them, as it presents a unique and potentially unfair advantage knowing everyone's secrets. It is also for this reason that both myself and Nick Fletcher have made it a standard practice to post our lists publicly before lists are due if we are taking part. This allows the more paranoid players to hard counter us, should they so desire. Oh and how they do.
But I digress, In Remix, vehicles are a unique character subtype can be played at a much lower cost if you overlay them on their required crew, so while the tank costs 6, and stuns for 6, it can be crewed for 2. Beyond that, the vehicle gains the name as well as uniqueness to other cards with that overlaid name, in this case, Punisher, so it's a functioning character named Punisher in its own right. Additionally, visible vehicles must be crewed by visible characters, hidden vehicles by hidden, and so on. By design, the tank only has 2 possible visible targets, the 4 drop punisher, Remix's version of Guns Blazing, and the 7 a stat refit of the legends 7 drop.. And had that been the end of the story, Things would have been fine. A free-re-readying tank. A fair interaction. And the resting silent knowledge that peace among mankind could be possible.
But no. Worlds would instead become everything besides.
Cesar Rodil (Second place) is an interesting, amazing, talented deckbuilder and the community is better for having him in it. He lends his off the wall ideas and balancing suggestions as a casual voice in the Remix design team. Lending his credence to vetting card ideas, and an occasional revelation of broken interactions during testing.
That smug jerk.
Him and that stupid brain doing stupid things.
He'll tell you he warned me about the interactions and i'll tell you i have no recollection of that at all, but none of it matters, suffice to say that, a simple gotham knight interaction of using batplane to move the 2 cost punisher visible allowed for a turn 3 punisher tank. And what's more, if you took a quickfate philosophy beyond that, you could suddenly produce 2 swings to the tune of 20+ ATK by turn 3, on the body of a 10/12 tank.
And it was so, that Remix Worlds became a Punisher Tank Spank fiesta.
As the progenitor of the list, he had to test it, and that's where our champion, Alexander Hancock entered the fray. His submission another turbo Tank, except teched to win the mirror. The tech? nothing big. Just a god damn Infinity Gauntlet. Exploited into play due to the tank's overly inclusive wording on "sent" equipment.
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| Offering fist enemas since 1991 |
Team up Marvel Knights and Gotham Knights. Use Batplane to move Punisher, suicide run visible. Then tank on 3 over the visible Punisher with the biggest equipment and largest playable pumps possible. And clap that ass. Violently.
Barely into round 1, the sirens went off. Power cut, red lights spinning as lockdown protocols failed and fizzled. I became immediately acutely aware of the release of Cesar's and Alexanders monstrosity.
Word of mouth travelled fast as Darius was the first reported loss to these disproportionate margins of abuse. There was seemingly no outplay, no metric of safety against the tank.
It's unforgiving statline trumping all comers as it stole initiatives and bashed peoples brains in.
Fathers languished.
Children cried.
Mothers lamented.
Gods fell.
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| ...and Jeremiah Johnson nodded in silent approval |
But there was no sympathy that could be seen behind the tank's cold uncompromising frame.
All fell before the power of the turn 3 tank. All were made equal before it's singular might.
I myself fell across Alexander in round 2, truly, an apt summary, losing summarily in two consecutive games. My best consolation being that I had managed to live to see turn 5 in game 1. (Apparently a rarity!) Having finally seen the beast first hand, I can attest to the fact that tanks should not be liberally applied to unaware anuses. After the match, I still felt a need to stare into the abyss of my own thoughts, the invasion was forcible and I noted a sudden compulsion to find some local authorities to point at the section of the doll where the bad man touched me.
There were of course, the whirlwind of emotions playin at many competitors, at best, with these two absurd monstrosities were clearly on a collision course for the final table, perhaps we could all take solace in a fight for third place.
Ah but hunting silently across the arctic tundra, there was yet another presence. The unmistakable presence of a third Punisher Tank list. But different. Unique.
Norman Halimsetiawan. (Third place)
Known entity. Fierce card-fighter. Doting father. Absurdly gifted deck-builder. Loyal friend.
What a cock.
While not running the turbo tank engine on 3, he elected to play a more balanced concoction focusing instead on Sniper shot abuse and methodical board control through KO control. Thanks to the tank's innate re-readying, this too proved to be too much, as his list could consistently add a sniper counter during every phase with regularity. This meant it could actually land a counter during draw, build, combat AND recovery. netting scenarios where you could KO each turn and still build up to a turn where you still manage to KO a second character while doing so. All snuggled safely into a ko control list featuring other KO options. Just a brilliant build really.
And so it came to pass, that the entire top three podium of VS Remix Worlds finishers, all played Punisher legend decks focused on Punisher Tank.
And it is here in the afterglow of our concluded event, we reflect on design errors, gameplay lessons, and the therapy sessions I will surely require before my dreams stop being haunted by indestructible skull-adorned tanks. And the adult diaper prescription such dreams forcibly mandate.
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| Who does number 2 work for? |
Once more, I digress, so before dropping an overcorrecting errata to the Punisher Tank, one last bow for our top finishers!
1st - Alexander Hancock
2nd - Cesar Rodil
Congratulations to all that participated, expect to hear from me as I reach out to each participant to mail out our participation and top cut prizes!
As an aside, in the future expect some closer care given to set balance from the design team. While it is fun and entertaining to celebrate those that break formats, it can be frustrating to opponents and the community when a winning deck is no longer a legal one. And that's on me. Remix remains young, and it will continue to grow as we continue to find new ways to play this wild game we all love.
Until then, See you next time around!
