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David John Marotta finishes second at the 1998 OverPower Nationals at Wizard World, July 17-19, 1998

The latest pictures from Wizard World 1998 and the 1998 OverPower Nationals are here!

Getting to the Nationals

Thursday, we drove all day and arrived in Chicago, staying at the Amerisuites. They have a great weekend rate (doing most of their regular business for weekday business customers. They also had a wonderful breakfast bar every morning with packaged snacks (apples, pop-tarts, breakfast bars, and yogurt) that we put into our cooler for the day's lunch at the convention. Saturday night we watched HBO's Batman and Robin movie with Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy, which fit the theme of the weekend perfectly.

Friday (Qualifier and costumed characters)

Megan and I toured the convention on Friday. Marvel had a great booth, costumed characters, and lots of activities. Our family was dressed in Superman shirts, and Megan was in her Supergirl outfit. I will put a link here to last year's pictures, and another link to this year's pictures when then get back from being developed. We bought 4 Fantastic Four T-shirts which we wore Saturday and Sunday.

During Wizard World we met and took our pictures with all the characters at the Marvel Pavillion (Spiderman, Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, and Spidergirl). Megan noticed that Spiderman's voice sounded just like Cyclops, and said they must be played by the same actor, but it didn't change the Magic of pretend at all. We also met people in costume (Supergirl (who we met last year), Psylocke, Mary Marvel (at the DC Booth), and Galactus (who we took an action shot of on Sunday as the Fantastic Four vs. Galactus). Megan also got drawings done by some of the Marvel and DC artists. She had a ball, and had a wonderful time. We also shopped for the comic "What If?" #105 which has Spidergirl in it. If anyone has a copy of this comic, please give me the opportunity of buying it from you. Megan wants one. Email me at marotta@alumni.stanford.org and let me know how much you want for it.

Saturday (Making it to the top 32)

Megan, who is only seven, played 4 games, winning her first game, and then losing the next three. In her second game she played one of the players who was in the top 8 from New York. After I finished my game, I looked and she had 5 completed Missions, 1 reserve and 1 defeated. She was beating him! She ended up losing, but only because Megan's main weakness is knowing when to finish someone by betting more than 2. In here third game she played a player who wanted to win and was having a hard time beating her. In her final game she played Scott, who made her game really really fun for her. When time was called, that battle decided who would win. She was winning 9 to 0, and Scott only had one card in his hand. It was L'il Colossus for 10 points, and Scott won. Everyone who has ever played Megan will testify that she is a great player. Now that she has finished first grade and can read and add to 15 she is even better. As soon as she can add up to as many venture points as she usually hits she will be a player to be reconded with. Scott made it fun by saying "Ouch" when she played her big hits on him. Most of the players adapted their style of play against her to exploit her weaknesses which I won't list here. This is why they could come from behind and ultimately win, but you can't fault them for wanting to beat a seven year old girl, can you?

As a suggestion for future years, they should have a Junior National Champion (under 18 years old). It doesn't have to be a large prize, just the title would be enough. There were less children playing this year, and I understand why. The top 50 adult players will nearly always shut them out of any serious competition. Brendon is the exception, and with a better draw of his first few opponents he would have had a good chance to making it to the top 32. But if there was a Jr. National Championship tournament held at the same time as the Nationals I know that more kids would come, and more parents would bring their kids. The numbers would increase every year. If Marvel wants to encourage kids to play, they should simply hold a Jr. Nationals on Sunday. Pre-Qualify the best under-18 from each regionals, and take the top 32 under-18 rated players for the other slots.

Wouldn't it be exciting for Michael Seher's kids, and Frank Yue's daughter, and Brendon and Megan etc. all to be playing in their own tournament? Just being part of the top 32 young players would be a great accomplishment and make their competition easier. It wouldn't cost Marvel much. Maybe their could have a trophy about the size of a hand but in the same shape as the real Nationals trophy (a Jr. National trophy). That tournament would attract kids to the game.

If they really wanted to attract kids to the game, they would have a small prize for each tournament they support for the under-18 player with the best record, and if two are tied, a play-off match. I have always tried to give away my own prize support for the kids who finsh out of the prizes (top 4). If a kid could win a small prize just by showing up and playing they would keep coming. And then someone else would come and compete for it, and soon there would be lots of kids. Our tournaments are mostly kids, but they rarely make it to the top 4 slots. But they know that they will receive prizes anyway.

My Games Making it to the Top 32 on Saturday

Matthew used a very similiar deck to defeat my Fantastic Four deck in the Atlanta Regionals. In my third game in Atlanta I played Matthew Pucket. His team was: Marauders, Scarlet Witch, X-Babies, with Hawkeye reserve. He played six Vertigos, and that seemed to work well. He also used Any Heroes and KOed my battlesite. I lost the game when time was called, but I believe I would have lost it anyway. And it made me interested in trying to forge an anti-battlesite deck.

We conversed, found we shared Christian faith as well as an intereste in OverPower, and I asked, since he wasn't heading to the Nationals, if he would send me his deck for gleaning ideas from it. Originally I was interested in it because it was a Marauders, X-Babies, and Scarlett Witch deck. I thought I could glean the basis for creating a better deck with Flash in Reserve and the Onslaught citadel battlesite which I have seen used so effectively.

At this point I owe a thanks also to Matt Fell. Matt Fell and I share an interest in the game theory mathematics underlying OverPower. Matt Fell was one of my favorites to win the Nationals because I know his interest in theory gives him an edge. He and I played nearly identical FF Plaza decks in our regionals (he came in first in the Salt Lake City Regional), and I share the complete contents of my deck with him, and he was kind enough to return the favor. I used some of his ideas to help Brendon and Megan's tune their FFP decks slightly changing 2-3 cards in them. Matt Fell also wrote the following:

It seems to me that the Nationals will be a showcase of the "meta-game". Some of our (overpower) colleagues do not like this. I am somewhat against it, but I can play along for awhile. The meta-game is this:

FF beats most everything.
Certain Vertigo decks beat most everything.
Bet-7 is very powerful against FF, good against Vertigo, and poor against mega-negate.
Mega-draw (lots of draw 3 and draw 4) is frequently very good, but is very risky and hard to play against negaters.
Mega-negate is a good counter to Bet-7 and draw and maybe Vertigo, but gets crushed by FF.

So, it's almost a matter of estimating the likely opposition and choosing the best deck to beat them. It reminds me of the Strength and anti-Strength deck, except there's a couple more options.

So the winning deck needed to have Vertigo, X-Babies, Scarlett Witch, negates and something else to counter a similiar deck. And that is were Matthew Pucket's simple concept of using ANY HEROES came in.

Most people assumed that the event "New Lease on Life" to Reshuffle the dead pile and power pack back into the draw pile was supposed to make battlesites have unusable activators. Brendon and I had play tested this enough to learn that it rarely happened. Most of the time there were still activators to be used, and only an occasional unusable. But, even though there were activators to be used, they weren't the best activators. Most players put in one activator for a special they really want to play, and then several additional activators to "front load" and increase the chances of this important activator coming up early in the game when it is needed to win.

By causing them to reshuffle their decks, it increases the chances of these common activators (for their best specials) to come up again, after they have already played their best specials and when they have to settle for a level 4 or 5 attack instead. In contrast, the ANY HEROES are just as effective the second time around as they are the first. (A different powerful event which can be used with ANY HEROES is the "No cards with a such and such icon can be used to attack")

Any hereos gave me a sligh edge against all battlesites, and I was fairly certain that no one else in their right mind would be playing ANY HEROES. In this last assumption, Matthew Pucket and I were correct, there weren't many. It was a great victory to stand in the final four, knowing I got their with any heroes after spending hours writing my soon to be released Battlesite Building Program. It was also fun to play old friends like "Confusion", "Guardian Angel", "Savage Land", and "Fortress of Solitude". That last card was the card that gave me the most fun to play during the tournament.

The other reason I wanted to play the ANY HEROES deck is because I wanted to have fun. I wanted to play something at least a little unique to make me stand out. I didn't want to be another typical deck, but I wanted to play what I thought would have a chance. I have listed some of the strategy for playing the deck with the list of the deck itself. You can view the Second Place Any Heroes Deck here. It has only 13 power cards in it!

On to the games themselves:

1) Tyler Bertraund playing Maruaduers X-Babies, Onslaught, and Professor X in Reserve with an Outback Battlesite and Eye of the Storm Missions: This was one of the most enjoyable games I played. Tyler had his battlesite specials in hard plastic cases which made them stand about twice as high as his missions. (After the game I asked, and he had 15 specials). I spent several battles going after Tyler's battlesite and losing ventures. Just after I KOed his battlesite we each drew events. His event moved all his completed missions to the reserve missions pile, and my event had us reshuffle all of our piles (and all his dead activators) back into the draw pile. His discarded activators, and lack of completed missions made the rest of the game impossible for him to win. Though I attacked battlesites in other games forcing my opponent to conceed or let me KO the battlesite, this was my only battlesite KO. Tyler is a great young player. I think he beat Brendon a round or two later. He is one of the players who would do great in a Junior National Championship. Record: 1-0

2) Dave Keffer playing Marauders, X-Babies, Heroes for Hire, and Flash in Reserve with Onslaught Citadel Battlesite and Fatal Attractions Missions: The Keffer brother are both very good players. Dave set up playing Post's "Obfuscate" (Post is not affected by Event cards for remainder of game.) as an activator on the Marauders in one battle and then the Event "Best Laid Plans" came up (Sort through the Draw Pile and choose any four cards. Reshuffle Draw Pile. Put four chosen cards on top of Draw Pile.) His plan included the event "Down But Not Out" (No Special cards may be played this battle. Affected Specials are not discarded.) Along with several activators which he could play from the Marauders who even had a Vertigo placed on them. His high venture that round won him the game. The only defense is to negate Obfuscate when it is played, and I didn't have a negate in that hand. Record: 1-1

3) Scott Pallito playing FF Plaza's Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, old Namor and Thing in Reserve with Mojo World Battlesite and Anniliation Affair Missions: I don't have any notes from this game to remind me, but I believe that I started by betting one and going after the battlesite and forcing Scott to conceed to keep it from being KOed. After I got some discard one placed card specials and Leech which causeded Scott to use or discard his defenses and then went after his characters in the next battle. The delaying tactic of letting a special hit and then negating it as an offensive action to make your opponent play all their attacks (and therefore their power card defenses) such that they have to conceed or lose a character works well against the FF. FF decks have lots of power cards which can be moved to the X-Babies and let sit their forever. Please drop me a note, Scott, to help me remember more of the game. I did end up winning. Record: 2-1

4) Doug Simms playing Nick Fury, The Hand, Star Jammers, and Bullseye in Reserve with a Mojoworld Battlesite and The Crossing Missions: I don't have any notes from this game either, but I do remember that Brendon had just been defeated by an "Any-Power 8" deck, and though it was a different player I was looking hard at how to down this team. I used the delaying tactic again to let a special hit, and decide later if I wanted to negate the any power 8 or wait and see if he had an 11 or a draw three waiting in his hand. Several times my delay allowed Doug to get lots of hits on me and then conceed rather than lose a character. Drop me a note Doug if you remember more. I won this game. Record 3-1

5) Karl Borst playing FF Plaza's Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing, and the old Namor in Reserve with Onslaught Citadel and Separation Anxiety Missions: This is the same characters we use in our FFP decks, so I knew basically what he had. I have always considered Onslaught Citadel Battlesite to fit poorly with FFP, but Karl beat me so how can I be critical!? I didn't get any Vertigo the first hand and conceeded three mission cards. I didn't get any Vertigo the second hand, but couldn't stand to conceed two more missions, so I fought it, won the venture and lost the Marauders. I was dead. One memorable card was when I played Fortress of Solitude to stop Karl from winning. It was a surprise for him to see that old card. The value of that card is huge. Record: 3-2

6) Jason Van Etten playing Marauders, Heroes for Hire, StarJammers and Thing in Reserve with an Onslaught Citadel Battlesite and Eye of the Storm Missions: My last game for the day, and I knew I had to win it in order to qualify for the top 32 players. Jason's record was 5-1, and I had been paired against him by the random draw of some 3-2 player who needed to play some 5-1 player. Lucky me. Additionally, Jason had won the Toronto Regionals, no small feat! Fortunately, Brendon and I had gotten a report of the characters he used in the Regionals and had built a similiar deck to try it out. I had played Jason's deck while Brenon played mine, and I had lost badly again and again. While I am certain my practice deck of Jason's wasn't as finely tuned as his deck, he said he had had a poor record against Marauders and X-Babies decks. This game proved no differently and I won, Qualifying with a record of 4-2 for the top 32 play-offs on Sunday.

Sunday Morning: The Top 32 players

1) Dave Keffer playing Marauders, X-Babies, Heroes for Hire, and Flash in Reserve with Onslaught Citadel Battlesite and Fatal Attractions Missions: The Keffer brother are both very good players. Last time, Dave had set up playing Post's "Obfuscate" (Post is not affected by Event cards for remainder of game.) as an activator on the Marauders. This time when he played it, I negated it. Couldn't let that happen again! I lost the first couple of venture, won, and then bet 4 when I had a great hand. Time was called during this hand, and Dave said if I won it I would tie. I did end up winning it, but he had made a mistake, and I was ahead on venture. The time period was very short, and I would have prefered to win the hard way. The short time period effected the way most of us were playing, and we wished for the easy to get ahead FFP decks. Record: 1-0

2) Myles Head played me in the second round. I forgot to write down his information, but I believe it was a Marauders and Heroes for Hire and Starjammers deck, but I am not certain. He won by Venture in a very nicely played game having lost to me in Atlanta. Myles, please send me the details, and if you would a complete record of your deck. Myles and I are fairly evenly matched, and I enjoyed both our games greatly. I was very glad to say that renegs or misplayed did not effect any of the games I played. Record: 1-1

3) Michael P. Pachniak playing FF Plaza's Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Thing and She Hulk in reserve with an Outback Battlesite and The Comming of Galactus Missions. I played for Venture because of the short time limit. Michael ended up KOing the Marauders about when time was called, but I was ahead on Venture. If we had played it out I would have lost, but then again, given a longer time limit I wouldn't have risked the Marauders for the venture. Confused yet? Record: 2-1, qualifying me for single elimination.

One more item. I can't remember who, perhaps it was Dave Keffer, but I don't think so, played me with Thor on their team. It was Marauders and Thor and ? I don't remember. (Help me out if you played this deck, or remember). The interesting Thing was that they had two duplicate "Gift of the Gods" (Choose one Thor Special from Draw Pile and place in hand. Cannot be a duplicate. Reshuffle Draw Pile.) in their first hand. Clearly this was a "trick" (bet 7) type of deck. The interesting play, however, was when they played "Gift of the Gods" and asked me if I wanted to negate it. I figured that they were going to get "Viking Pyre" (Remove any cards from Thor's Draw Pile and discard into Dead Pile. Reshuffle Draw Pile.) to set up the 8 cards for a winning hand, but I had a negate placed and a negate in hand, so I would negate Viking Pyre. I wanted them to draw it so that it would be out of their deck. The funny part was the performance that if I didn't negate "Gift of the Gods" it was all over for me. "Can I do it?" with the expectation that I would be a fool to let them. I let them. And then the next hand they play "Gift of the Gods" again. They had simply gotten another "Gift of the Gods" out of their deck. They spent several turns playing "Gift of the Gods" to get another "Gift of the Gods" and Reshuffling their deck.

What I am not sure is, was this just a delaying tactic? Hoping that ultimately I would have to play my negate offensively, or was this a way of filtering all the "Gift of the Gods" out of the deck so that they wouldn't duplicate so much except in the first battle when the chance of setting up a Bet-7 before any negates came up worked. It did get worrisome knowing that I had to keep taking a real turn, and they could delay and delay and delay their turn. It was a most interesting technique. Michael Seher had mentioned that one of his sons had been defeated by the "Viking Pyre" bet seven technique in the first hand, and I assume that it was the same opponent. Now I can remember who was playing it. I do remember resolving that I would leave a negate placed on the X-Babies as long as I could, even if it meant duplicates.

Sunday Afternoon: The Top 16, 8, 4, 2...

Top 8: Philip Keffer playing Marauders, Thor, X-Babies, and Flash in Reserve with an Onslaught Citadel Battlesite and Fatal Attractions Missions. I have correct Philip's team. I originally had him playing with Heroes for Hire, but I have changed it to Thor. I beleive it was Philip who was playing with Thor. Philip Keffer (Dave Keffer's brother) was dressed in a dark jacket, dark tie, and psych-em-out dark glasses against me in blue jeans and an FF logo t-shirt. He was worried that Megan might stay and watch. I think it was Philip who kept drawing multiple "Gift Of The Gods" waiting for me to negate them. Having multiple negaters on my team really helped defeat Philip. In his first hand he had two duplicate Thor "Gift of the Gods" which I took to be a bad sign that he was trying to set up a Viking Pyre Bet-7 victory. I had placed a negate on the X-Babies, and had another in my hand for Scarlet Witch. I resolved to hold onto the Negate in my hand for the inevitable Viking Pyre. I wanted that card out of his deck, so I wanted to let him draw it out of his deck and have it negated or discarded. It was worrisome having to take my turn over and over again while he didn't have to take his, but instead drew another Viking Pyre each time. It is an interesting technique for building a deck of fewer than 56 cards. Just put in lots of "Gift of the Gods", take the first hand to filter them all out of your deck, and then play with a very minimalist deck. Ultimately he stopped this process, I think getting Thor's spectrum 8 and then conceeded. I would love to know what was goint through his mind, because I wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to accomplish, but I was determined I was going to thwart it. There was one battle which was particularly memorable. Philip had ventured four because he had a ton more hits than I did, during the course of the battle, though, I was able to negate his vertigo, and other defenses he had. I threw a multi-3 to KO his Marauders and he declared it a fighting attack to defend with a Beast Activator and an avoid one fighting attack. (Alway remember to declare your multi-attacks, even specials, to be something, otherwise your opponent gets to declare them for you!). At the end Philip had massive hits on me, and I just had a few on him. I had one level 6 energy card placed which would KO his Marauders and one card in my hand. he spent minutes trying to decide if he should lose 4 mission cards or the Marauders. Finally I decided it was taking too long and called a judge who watched for another minute and a half. Philip decided that winning the venture was more important, possibly because of the short time limits. He passed. I KOed the Marauders. He passed again, and I played the card in my hand: Fortress of Solitude! No mission cards moved, and a few battles later I had won on venture as his massive discards did him in. It was fun to see the power of this ANY HERO card.

At this point the Wizard photographer stopped us to take pictures of each of us with the trophy, in case we won, by ourselves, in case we didn't, and all together. We were all happy and amazed to be there. A defeat at any point wasn't going to bother me. I'd been having fun all day, and playing the hardest games I'd ever played, and I knew that I was playing a down-hill skiiers deck. You either win or you wipe out at 120 miles per hour. At least wiping out in OverPower doesn't cause broken bones. For some players it obviously mattered a lot when they lost. One player next to me was pounding the table, another ripped up his cards. When I lost in the finals it wasn't a crushing blow, nor even a disappointment. I have finished second more times than first. Like the best olympic athletes, it was easy and honest to applaud the winner as having manuevered the course at 120 mph without wipping out. It is all a matter of perspective. I viewed it as winning the silver not losing the gold. I would have been happy to be in the top 16 again.

Top 4: Myles Head rematch: At this point I outplayed Myles as in the first round of single eliminations by juggling the many hits played against me onto just the right characters. Myles and I were both glad to be in the top 4 players, and having described others, let me hasten to add that Myles was gracious and genuinely glad for me beating him this round and finishing second. Myles is a great player.

Top 2: Duncan Yueu: Duncan's complete deck can be found at ,a href="http://www.tor.shaw.wave.ca/~burnout/">http://www.tor.shaw.wave.ca/~burnout/. The Heroes were Marauaders, Heroes for Hire, X-Babies, with Flash in Reserve. Duncan's Winning play against me was just two attacks: Heroes for Hire Black Knight special (Acts as a level 3 Fighting attack. May make 1 additional Power card attack. Neither attack may be defended with a Special card.) on the Marauders followed by a level 8 strength power card and then Black Knight on the Marauders followed by a level 3 multi-power card for the KO. I had only a level two intellect placed on them, and you can't put Vertigo into play to defend a Black Knight attack nor can you negate it. Ducan had a negate placed on the X-Babies to prevent an offensive play of vertigo. It was superbly played, and although Ducan was no where near winning by Venture the game was virtually over.

But never to throw in the towel so quickly I fought on for several more battles. My only hope was, well I didn't have much hope. Nevertheless, without vertigo Scarlett Witch went down followed by Flash. In the end, the X-Babies were throwing level 1 intellect power cards at their enemy. (In retrospect, this is exactly like the X-Babies to be throwing sarcastic level 1 intellect attacks!). It was a glorious wipe-out at 120 mph, and a well played win by Duncan.

Second Place: I know that many of the players watching that final battle were routing for me, and I felt their happiness that I finished second. I know many of the hundred players there had helped make the experience a great one for Brendon and Megan, and you can bet we will try to return next year. I got to pick out two pieces of OverPower original art, and it was all really beautiful. As a matter of course I told Brendon and Megan that they could each pick one, and that seemed to please all the players who were there watching. Megan picked a Black Cat drawing (our cat was named Felicia because she is Black with White fringe just like Felicia Harding aka The Black Cat) and Brendon picked a large and beautiful Sabertooth drawing from his strength 7 card. We will frame each of them with the card and put them put in the kids rooms. I also received an Ironman Battle Book, 4 comic subscriptions, a collection of rare cards (Galactus, any heroes, YEAH ANY HEROES!), and a box of Image to be send later. We also get "Honorable Mention Publicity for 1998-99 Season" which should be fun.

Last year the prize was $3,000 cash, but that would have just gone in the bank. The memories and fun was worth more. We do try to earn some money off of OverPower to help pay for all the money we spend. In fact, if you haven't seen the great deals on cards I have, please visit my site which has for sale: OverPower Boxes, Other CCG, Super Hero Books, and Marvel Super Dice. All this blatant and crass salesmanship has even won me the dubious "Art of the Deal" award by Codeman on Codeman's awards page which has Lex Luthor making someone sign a contract by holding a gun to their head. So, yes, where else can you buy 100 foil packages that used to hold IQ cards, but we do have a good collection of stuff for sale so buy something while you are here! (How about the new FF book Countdown to Chaos or The Death of Superman?) Have I mentioned that you can buy things here? (smile)

Coming home was a long drive. We drove until 5am Monday morning making a wrong turn somewhere and ending up on the Canadian boarder instead of Ohio finally finding our way to a friend's house in Oberlin, Ohio, Sleeping until 10am and then finshing the drive until 10pm Monday night.

I was glad and excited to have finshed second. And really don't have any regrets. I made several mistakes in several games, and will play that much better OverPower by learning from them, but that will always be true. I think it says more about us from how we handle disappointment than how we handle sucess. Remember to play for the fun of it. Otherwise most of your cards will never get played with!