No, my friends, you did not read that title bar wrong…this is the end of Clix Bait. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the last month while I tried to get my game funded, and I just realized it was time for me to step away from Heroclix. There’s a lot of factors that went into the decision, and I plan to go into all of them with the hopes that I don’t get too self-indulgent in the explanation, but if you don’t want to read all that then you can skip ahead to the bulk of the blog. This may be the last blog, but I still intend to give you a full blog, and everything I have in the finale! So thank you for sticking with me over the years, and thank you for reading my fond farewell.

It’s Not You, It’s Me…

At the heart of my departure is simply how I’m feeling when I play anymore. Even before I went to budget builds, I wasn’t doing very well at events, and that starts to wear on you after a while. I haven’t had the time to practice the way I need to to be successful, which served to exasperate the time it takes me to digest sets and figure out what’s good. My mind can’t see the new combinations that are hitting every three months in time to make use of them before the counters are found, or the updates are made. I’m just not that clever, I’m afraid. Heroclix is evolving quickly and I’m just feeling like it’s a job trying to keep up. I respect the top tier players that can do it tremendously – I just recognize that isn’t me.

The financial concerns have factored into it as well, although to a lesser degree than you might initially suspect. To be honest, with the great community we have, you would be hard pressed to not be able to find pieces to borrow to play teams you want to play. But the teams are getting more expensive and I’ve seen signs of strain on the resources to support the lending community on the high end pieces, so that could be changing. However, even without considering the cost of teams, there’s still the cost of time and travel to consider, making the game rather more expensive than I can really afford.

Finally, I haven’t been able to build a community locally since Covid. Maybe that’s not all on me, but most locations are so full of Magic that finding space to play and host events is nearly impossible. Without a consistent place to play and showcase the game, I haven’t been able to expose myself to enough variety in the game to keep it fresh and interesting. Yes, I could play online, but you don’t generally get the fun, off-the-wall formats of casual gameplay to keep the game fresh when you only get to play online or at events you travel for. You don’t realize how refreshing your comic-accurate or femme fatale theme nights are until you don’t have them.

Well, Maybe It Is You, Too…

And by You, I mean WizKids, and not my readers. It’s not been intentional, but they’ve created a rather awkward situation in succeeding in a stated goal. In simplifying the lower tiers of rarity they have been remarkably successful, but the goal of that simplification I feel not been achieved. Rather than making it easier for players to get into the game, they have actually stratified the environment, making it easier to learn the game, but more difficult to enter into the competitive scene. Players with less experience are now more likely to be surprised by what they encounter at the tournament tables, and therefore more likely to be soured by the experience.

Pulp is going to go a long way to address this, I am certain. I am thrilled to see the community embrace the format as they have and sincerely hope that this will serve as the bridge between casual players and competitive players. This is something that really needs to happen as the transition from casual to competitive is pretty brutal right now, and getting worse with every subsequent set. While people I discussed my departure with on Saturday pointed at this as a reason for me to stick around, especially after all the effort I put into Pauper, it’s still not quite enough to get me there. The speed of new sets is going to effect Pulp as much as Modern, and while the pieces are cheaper, the investment in time is no less regards to the new format.

And it’s not just the big money chases that make for this rough transition – all the added game elements like Tarot cards and Legacy cards are just serving to complicate further things that WizKids were trying to clean up. I recognize you have to keep introducing new elements in order to keep the game interesting to the player base, but honestly, new pieces with new power combinations do enough to keep things fresh. Adding more pieces to carry to the table doesn’t really make the game more interesting for me. It just makes it more tedious. Adding things like the Sidekick mechanic and Shifting Focus mechanic keep things fresh without forcing players to keep track of yet another game element.

To sum it all up, there’s no one thing that really lead to my decision to leave the game, but a lot of little things that have ultimately led me to see the game as more of a chore than a fun hobby, and when that happens, regardless of how you feel about the people you’re sharing the experience with, it’s time to go. I would rather that than stay through some sense of obligation that would eventually have me resenting the community I love so much. I’ll still be available to anyone who wants to talk, but I probably won’t want to talk clix.

OK, Enough About Me!

My farewell event was the ROC Kentucky State Championship at Lemonjuice McGee’s in Somerset. This is a great venue, even if it’s off the beaten path, and they went above and beyond with additional prize support to make sure everyone who played left with something cool. Thanks for hosting a great event! While it’s a bit of a drive for me, I could see myself traveling there on occasion just because it’s a cool place to hang out and shop!

We had 17 players compete in the event, and they represented the entire spectrum of skill and creativity. The top 8 was fantastic, with an epic showdown in the semis between Jay and Jaylen Major. Congratulations to Jay for getting the win, and getting the state title that has been eluding him for years. The match between Dan Powell and Randy Carter on the other side of the semis was pretty epic too, and while tense, ended well thanks to two great competitors that really respect each other.

I am a bit concerned with the Masters of Evil shennanigans, and agree with a post I read earlier in the week stating that it’s no longer a 300 point game, but rather a format where you find a way to squeeze as many points onto the table as possible. Still, there were teams that made the cut that made it clear that creativity can still overcome long odds and an oppressive meta, so whne building, these are things you need to think about, but don’t necessarily need to make them the focus of your build.

So What Is Going On?

We’re going to finish Clix Bait with a run-down of all the teams played at Kentucky States – The good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ll give you a rundown of my day at the event, and take a closer look at a piece that may have slipped under the radar in Avengers 60. I may not have any paints or mods to share with you, but I have some very useful info for bystanders, some of which I had been searching for for years. So there’s good stuff in my good bye, and I hope you enjoy it!

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I’m not going to go deep into a build this time around, but I wanted to share with you all 17 builds from Kentucky States. Carnage Silver Surfer, SIM, and Masters of Evil were really the stars of the show, but be sure to look at Randy Carter’s build as an alternative to the current meta. Apologies are due to people that I have misspelled names, or omitted entirely. There is one player whose initials I THINK are TP that I couldn’t quite make out,  but other than that, I think there is only one misspelling.

Champion: Jay Major

Runner-up: Randy Carter

Semifinalist – Dan Powell

Semifinalist – Jaylen Major

The rest of the Field (in no particular order)

Chris Cottrill

Audie Payne

Brian Estes

Jason Alvey

TP?

Chris Waits

Dylan Cunningham

Emma Bradforth

Jeremy Costello

Jim McKinney

Josiah Garuzu

TJ Wheeler

Kim Van Meter

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I don’t have a lot to share with you this time around, outside of my direct experience at States. Overall, it wasn’t a red-letter day for me, but it was still better than I expected after my one practice session. It was a pretty one-sided fight in practice, so I was prepared for a long day, but it turned out to be not as bad as I expected.

In round one, I faced Jaylen Major’s Dark Phoenix/Sky Tyrant build that nearly made me cry. Even after all this time, Sky Tyrant is still really broken, and since I have a lot of evasion abilities on my team, the Necrosword made my life that much more difficult. Sky Tyrant had me wrecked on turn two, and SIM kind of finished the deal. We spent more time talking after the game than playing…it was pretty brutal. The placement effect of Dark Phoenix combined with the swaps makes her very irritating, and the prime Hulk is downright absurd since he can heal past his starting line before you can get to him for just 10 points. Jaylen played me on a long map, but since Sky Tyrant was designed with those maps in mind, I can really see how much worse he could be on smaller maps, and the Necrosword makes him even worse. This may sound like I’m knocking on Jaylen’s team – I’m not. It’s a great team and he played it very well…I just want to make it clear how oppressive it can be so that others can build a team that can survive long enough to play a game. My team was not that team.

Round two put me up against an unusual build centered around Doom Supreme run by Audie Payne. I was able to single out and focus on Absorbing Man enough to take him down, and scored some extra points thanks to Ultron Drones that Ultron brought in, which was enough to get me the win. I wasn’t able to get Doom beat down thanks to his white box power allowing him to heal a lot, but I was lucky to only lose Karnak. I’m not sure if I disrupted his game plan with my use of Barrier and focusing on Absorbing Man, but I didn’t get a real sense of how the team was supposed to operate. I didn’t see a real synergy, despite it being a theme build. I’m curious if anyone else looks over the build and sees what I don’t.

I was less fortunate in round three, as Dylan Cunningham showed me how brutal Spider-Man prime and World’s Finest can be. It wasn’t quite as brutal as the beatdown Jaylen gave me, but my counterstrike missed everything (although that was bad dice, not bad planning or ridiculously hard to hit numbers), and left me open to a third turn mop-up. Dylan commented that he thought people looking at his team would just see a bunch of meta pieces thrown in together to see what worked, but in action, I can tell you he had a definite game plan, and executed it quite well. So now two out of three games had no need to go to time, but I was less upset about it than I’ve been in the past.

I faced Chris Waits in round four, who was running a legacy Apocalypse/Annihilation build. I think he may have been a bit too aggressive with Apocalypse, and I was able to sneak behind him after taking down Deathstroke (Karnak’s Outwit made this possible) to get Annihilation out of the equation. After they both went down, it was just a matter of mopping up. Sadly, Chris’ dice were not friendly, as he didn’t play bad, but the score made the game look a lot worse than it really was. I really put him on the defensive early on, which kept him from really utilizing his pogs to the best of his ability, and increased the pressure by splitting his team.

I finished up the day against Brian Estes and his Carnage Surfer/SIM build. I was able to take out Surfer after he had more or less crippled my team, but it took everything I had, and left me open to Sac and Sky Tyrant finishing me off. I like Chuck and Buzz, but they kind of help Sky Tyrant survive, and makes him a much less appealing target. I thought I had myself placed to make it difficult for him to get a really good swing, but as usual, my placement was not great.

So I finished the day two and three, and I really wasn’t all that surprised or disappointed. After the event, Randy and I talked and decided that I should have run his new take on Mission Points after our practice session turned out so bad for me, but it was a great day hanging out with friends and saying goodbye to clix.

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Randy Carter had an unusual build that he ran to the finals on Saturday, and while a lot of folks might focus on Ant-Man prime, Falcon is a much more interesting piece to me for a variety of reasons. Being an Avenger, there’s going to be plenty of teams that could make use of him, and he very obviously paired well with Scarlet Witch. More importantly, he’s a rare, which means that he can find himself in the discussion for Pulp builds and increase team maneuverability.

We’re going to start with the bad stuff – he’s 50 points. That doesn’t sound too bad on the surface, but when you compare him to Carnage Surfer and the like, then he doesn’t look as great. The other thing to note is that you can’t use his trait and his special movement (Charge) at the same time, so he can’t be offense and taxi at the same time.

But since the placement power is a trait, he doesn’t lose it as long as he’s on the board, allowing you to place your offense pretty freely even after his combat effectiveness has dwindled. It may not be game-breaking, but I always enjoy pieces that can move, attack, then move again, although I feel like he deserves a point or two move of movement. Perhaps we need to chalk this up to adjusted movement scores for smaller maps. He still has significant offensive potential outside of his placement ability, as between his Close Combat Expert and Avengers team ability, he could be swinging with a 13 attack for three damage. The damage isn’t huge, but with the right equipment, you can either give him BCF or a more status-related power to take advantage of the high attack value. I’m really fond of the idea of equipping him with Seducer to get potential spike damage plus a Mind Control.

Again, though, I’m not sure how much use he’s going to see in Modern due to the point cost. On the other hand, in Pulp, that placement I feel is going to be worth a lot more, and the lower damage is going to be a little less of a drawback. He’s going to be a great tool to extend the reach of a lot of teams, so don’t sleep on him!

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I leave you with two fantastic ways to put together your bystanders! While preparing for States, I had an idea to make the process of making bystanders a bit easier, and make the dials more accurate at the same time. But then, due to time crunch, I decided to try and just print bystanders rather than modding pieces, and I made an awesome discovery – one that I had been searching for for years, and now find it on my way out of the game. I still get to share it with you, though!

But first, for the less cool bystander trick. For the longest time, I’ve been using HCTools to print dials, and then finding pieces with bases that match the bystander, and painting over the names and other incorrect info on the base. I was asked to make dials for Robot Ants for Saturday, and I realized that I didn’t have any bases that were even close to right for the ants. But as I was putting together the dials, I recognized that HCTools actually is set up to print bases, as well. So this actually made the dial-printing process a lot easier – get a poker chip, then glue the printed dial to the chip. Since you don’t need to turn the dial, you can print the base from HCTools, cut out the stat window, and just glue it over the top of the dial. It’s not a perfect fit, and some printers don’t do black as well as others, so you’ll have to use a little trial and error to get the process right, but when you’re done you’ll have a base that you can glue your modded mini to.

If you’re not into modding minis, then follow this link to an amazing web site, and I encourage you to donate as a thanks to these guys. It allows you to design your own token, complete with imported art, and then print it out to glue on your own poker chips. It’s a Spanish web site, but due to the layout, the language isn’t really a problem. Just remember for every component on the bystander, there’s a button to press to lock in your choice. There’s also a button to download the image. If you just try and right-click to save the image, you just get a circle with the black background behind the stats.

So one trick and one tool for making your bystander experience easier…not bad, huh? Consider it my thanks for all the creativity you’ve shared with me over the years. I hope someone else will pick up the banner for modders moving forward!

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Man, it’s been a great run! I may be moving on, but I will maintain that the Heroclix community is the best community in all of gaming. The support I have received over the years has meant the world to me, and I am constantly amazed at how cool most of the players can stay in the face of some hideous misfortune. If I were to come back to the game, it would be for this sense of camaraderie and respect that I have found.

It is for this reason that I need to make sure to give out special thanks to special people. Thank you to Dan Powell and PJ Bolin for answering even my most ignorant questions as I wrote the blog. Thank you to Randy Carter, Jay Major, Jaylen Major, Jorge Masson, and Trent Morello for being great teammates and friends over the years (even for those that have moved on to other teams and pursuits). Thank you to Anthony Barnstable, Kalder Ness, and Patrick Yapjaco for helping us start Pauper, which has probably led us to the Pulp format we now have. Thank you to Grover John-Michael Smith and the Puerto Rico Heroclix community for being especially supportive of my writing. Finally, thank you to everyone who has invested the time and interest into reading my ramblings week after week. It has been my privilege to entertain you over the years, and to know that I have a small but loyal following.

With that, I bid you farewell, and all the luck in the world with your future endeavors. You’re the best!