The 1997 OverPower Nationals at the Chicago Comicon, July 4-6, 1997

Brendon Marotta (9), Megan Marotta (6) and I (David Marotta) left at noon on Wednesday, July 2nd traveling to stay with Michael Seher near Apollo, PA. The traveling was long, but Brendon and Megan and I kept each other entertained with tapes and car games and sights along the way. We stopped at Denny's that night for dinner, and later bought a box of Snicker's ice cream bars while we were waiting for Michael and his family to meet us. Since there were six of them we each had to eat two since they wouldn't keep! I played a couple of warm-up games with his family. I won the games, but realized that the competition was going to be at a very high level. The following day we traveled all day and arrived at our hotel in Chicago just in time to take a quick swim and turn in for the night. The kids were impressed by the skyscrapers on the Chicago skyline.

On July 4th we drove to the convention, walked around the convention center for a while and then entered the first OverPower tournament. It was a sealed deck tournament, where you got 1 deck of Monumental OverPower and 4 booster packs of 15 cards each. with these 120 cards we had 15 minutes to make our best decks of at least 51 cards or more. I had some hard choices to make and spent too much time thinking about them rushing myself at the end. As a result I put one card in my deck that no one on my team could use. I noticed this during my first game, and after asking one of the judges found out that I would have to keep in my deck for the rest of the tournament.

Brendon, on the other hand, made a good deck, and got a very rare and very powerful card called "Bastion" which negates any special card. The tournament was double elimination so each of us could afford to lose only once without getting knocked out of the tournament. Additionally, there were over 65 people playing in the tournament, so the odds of continuing to win clear until the final 4 players was small. In fact, Brendon lost his first game, and I lost my second game. In my second game I kept failing to remember that my only hero who could use level 6 energy cards had been knocked out first, hence I kept keeping unusable cards in my hand. I did this three straight battles. The penalty for keeping usable cards is automatically losing that battle. I was playing our host from the first night, Michael Seher, who was very appologetic for winning, and suggested we put an asterick next to this game to remind everyone that it shouldn't really count. It was a good reminder to me that I needed to be very careful for all the tournaments, and I only made that mistake one additional time.

So now Brendon and I were both 1-1 and in danger of being knocked out of the tournament if we lost again. We played and played and played, and we won and won and won. I kept expecting Brendon to have lost his game or me to lose my next game. The tournament had started at noon, it was about 5pm, and the next tournament was scheduled to start at 6pm. Brendon and I were then required to play each other in the semi-finals to determine who would play Norman Barth (probably one of the best players in the country) for first place.

Now you need to know that Brendon and I had previously met three times in tournaments and he hadn't beaten me yet. But Brendon had improved even in the two months prior to the Nationals, and I knew he was a really good player.

My game with Brendon was probably one of the most exciting games played. Brendon won the first three battles venturing two mission cards each time. This meant that he had completed six of his seven missions and only needed to win one more battle to win the game. But I had knocked out three of his 4 heroes and had hit his last hero with two of the three different skills needed to knock him out. All I needed was one large energy hit in order to knock out his last character and win the game, and I had drawn and placed an energy 7 special which would do the trick.

Brendon played a level 6 attack against me which I had to let hit. I played my level 7 special against him for the knock out and I would also win the venture 7 to 6 and he pulls his "Bastion" negate any special card out of his hand and foiled my attempt to win. Brendon hit me with 4 more points so the score was 10 to zero, but I still had a fist full of cards left, and hits which would knock out his hero.

I started hitting Brendon with hits, and in a gutsy move Brendon continued to pass, hoping that I would not be able to get over 10 hits before knocking out his last character. I hit him, he passed. I hit him, he passed. I hit him with my last attack knocking out his last character and the score stood at 10 hits to 9. Brendon's team had won, giving their all in order to complete their mission and win the last venture.

Brendon played Norman Barth, one of the best players in the country, in the last round and lost to finish second which I finished third. This was a great way to start the weekend, and was one of the highlights. Brendon won a stack of all of the DC rares, and I won a box of DC and each of us received a stack of the original ANY HERO cards.

No sooner had Brendon finished coming in second but it was time to start another tournament. This tournament allowed us to try out our constructed decks of Mr. Fantastic, Neron, Beast, and Lex Luthor in reserve. I lost two out of my first three games and was eliminated rather quickly. One of the games I lost to Aaron Schoenke who was the twelve year old who finished second in the Hemet Regionals and went on to win 2nd place in the Nationals. Brendon played Aaron Schoenke two games after my defeat and Brendon won. He and Brendon were clearly the two best youngsters there. I don't think there is anyone younger than Aaron (12) better than Aaron. And I don't think there is anyone younger than Brendon (9) better than Brendon. And I don't think there is anyone younger than Megan (6) better than Megan!

Brendon continued winning until he played Cherrie Briggs (who defended her National championship and finished first again). This game he lost, though Cherrie confessed that she thought about half way through that Brendon would beat her. Brendon still had all four heroes when she was down to only two, but she managed to complete her ventures before Brendon could capitalize on his advantage. Brendon did very well in this tournament, keeping us at the convention late into the evening.

The next day we had modified our decks, playing Dark Beast, Mr. Sinister, Mr. Fantastic and Robin in Reserve. Brendon played in the Nationals qualifying event in the afternoon. There were around 70 people trying to qualify by making it to the top 8. It was difficult competition, and after 3 games Brendon had won 2 and lost one, putting him in contention. He played an additional game and won giving him a record of 3-1 and qualifying him for the top 32. At this point the games became single elimination and Brendon lost his next game failing to make it to the top 16. He successfully stopped his opponent from winning four times but could stop him a fifth. Many people were routing for Brendon since he had proved himself the first night to be one of the best young people there.

Between Brendon's games in the qualifying event, Megan and I toured the Comic Convention, getting artists to sketch for us, taking pictures with super heroes, and getting celebrates signatures. This was a fun afternoon for Megan and I to spend some time having fun together. We met Cat Woman, the Black Cat, Wolverine, and Super Girl. Megan was dressed as Super Girl and we met another older Super Girl. One of the Wizard photographers posed them together against a backdrop and took several pictures. Everywhere we went someone treated Megan and I as part of the celebraties because I had on my Superman shirt and she was dressed as Super Girl.

That night there was another tournament and I had a change to win against Norman Barth. It must be tough being as good as he is, because everyone wants to beat you.

The next day was Sunday, the day of the Nationals. There were only 24 people who had been seated for the 32 spots in the Nationals, and I considered myself lucky to be there. I won the first two games in very stiff competition, and I lost the third game when time was called and I was slightly behind on missions. That left my record at 2-1 and qualified me for the top 16 and single elimination. My next game was against one of the Canadian players, (Marcel Lojet, now ranked 7th, I think). On the opening hand he ventured 5 out of the 7 Mission cards. He had had an phenomenal draw, and even after getting to draw three extra cards I could not defeat him in that battle. The next hand he ventured his last two mission cards and won the game. It was the quickest defeat I have ever experienced, and I comfort myself with not having made any playing mistakes.

While I was playing in the Nationals, Brendon had a choice of another sealed deck tournament or another constructed deck tournament. Having had such fun coming in second he decided to play another sealed deck tournament. That turned out to be a good choice since the constructed tournament had over a dozen players, but the sealed deck tournament had only 4 people, as booster packs were getting hard to find. That meant that Brendon would win a prize and finish in the top 4 no matter how badly he did. But try to form Brendon showed his deck building skills and playing skills and defeated each of the other three players in order. Brendon won a Batman Avenger holoflash hero worth about $40 and some other cards.

After this we packed up and started back.

After the Nationals my rating dropped from 6th to 14th which seemed very reasonable since I made it into the top 16 (out of the top 32) but didn't advance beyond that to the top 8. My rating dropped 50 points from 1780 to 1730. The bonus points given for getting to the Nationals probably helped me from dropping further. Some of the players I beat were tough opponents.

Brendon moved from 1701 to 1678, dropping 23 points. I am certain that his 2nd place win in the sealed deck tournament boosted his rating, but these results also factored in his 2-2 record in the second Charlottesville OP tournament. In that tournament Brendon lost to players rated 1575 and 1442. That tournament probably dropped his rating some, and the Nationals brought it back up. With the competition at the Nationals so high these were good showings. Brendon is now ranked as the Legion's 23rd best player. This would mean next year Brendon has a good chance to make it to the Nationals.

Hopefully we'll be back next year!