Galactus Humiliates Us

Now, we in Athens have beaten the Big Purple Hat before. We've crushed it, though in the interest of fairness, I will admit that it crushed us right back in the next game just about every time. Batting .500 with the Big G, and with 6 players at our local hobby league, we thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and do a 5-on-Galactus match.

This was a mistake. I will now record for you just how much of a mistake it was.

The Alliance!

Terrell was playing Hamburgler, a Marvel Knights/Manhunters/Future Foes/New Gods/Injustice Gang deck in which every card in the deck in some way facilitated taking cards from an opponent's deck and removing them from the game.

Monji was playing Golden Age X-Men swarm. Lacking the requisite Marvel Legends cards, however, his deck wasn't exactly packing a punch.

Koz decided to throw down the beats with Squadron Supreme. 'Nuff said.

Jeremy threw down a Jean Grey Legends deck, making him the first Silver Age legal deck of all of them.

I followed suit with the ww.bb.com deck that I wrote about earlier in the week.

The teams named: Marvel Knights, JLA, X-Men, Squadron Supreme, and Thunderbolts

Turn one didn't open up poorly. Koz nailed Galactus with a Surprise Attack, like the dirty bastard he was, and then the game actually started. Galactus threw down Red Shift, Herald. I had Ray Palmer, Monji threw down Archangel and fetched Worthington Industries, Koz had a Joystick. Jeremy whiffed, and Terrell pitched Dagger to fetch a Midnight Sons, which he then rowed and passed.

And that was 12 to our face.

Turn two began much the same way, as Terrax was thrown down on Galactus' side. Terrell had sexy EA Blade, Nightstalker. Koz threw a Thunder Jet on Joystick. Jeremy provided Black Rose, concealed. Monji had a Jean Grey, Teen Telepath, and I had Red Tornado, Elemental Android.

Cleverly, we swung Joystick into Terrax. Yes, she suicided...but the little-used second feature of the Thunder Jet kicked in, exhausting Terrax and allowing Blade to lock him down. Thanks to a formation error or two, after that, we had absolutely no chance of stunning Red Shift, so we passed and sucked another 12 damage.

Turn 3 began in good spirits, with Terrax out of the equation. Until, of course, Galactus flipped the planet Turbulus, dicking over some of our plot twists for the turn. He then played Morg. Terrell played Enemy of my Enemy, fetching Black Panther, which then fetched him a Philosopher's Stone. A Midnight Sons gave BP the Injustice Gang affiliation...and only then did he realize that he was never, ever going to cause breakthrough. I threw down a 3/3 Beast Boy, Monji doubled that with a Wolverine, Logan. Koz had a Lady Lark with an Image Inducer, and Jeremy had Jean Grey, Teen Telepath.

Thinking ourselves clever, we team attacked everyone but Beast Boy (he wasn't teamed up) into Morg. Knowing himself clever-er, Galactus asked a simple question that shattered us all: You Dare? Still, we had Galactus down to 87 endurance. Admittedly, we were in our 60s, but...baby steps.

Turn four came. Taur, Dense Core was flipped, giving Galactus this initiative. He already had two planets, and as we played our characters, we knew we couldn't prevent him from doing breakthrough with all of our boards so small. Especially when he dropped The Fallen One, reducing us all to a single character. Still, we gamely played the turn out. Terrell had Pan, the little-used Manhunter 4-drop, and a Midnight Sons to team up. Monji had Cannonball and a replay of Jean Grey, Teen Telepath. Squad contributed Golden Archer, reinforcing the fact that Squad did literally all the damage we did to Galactus, Jeremy had Iceman, and I had Wonder Woman, Ambassador for Peace. I double Call of the Wild'd...which was only made more embarassing when Galactus flipped Nebulize. Before the combat phase, I played Misfits twice, getting rid of Beast Boy's two counters to search out Beast Boy, Freak of Nature, and Robotman, Cliff Steele.

As we stared at Galactus, we realized we were sucking about 40 damage to the face and giving Galactus a fatal 3rd planet. It was about now that we scooped, and realized just how ineffectual we all had been.

Except Squad.