Greetings HeroClix Masterminds!
With just two weeks until Gen Con, we’ve started to see local stores experimenting with Pulp and top players testing teams out! Two larger events were held recently, at Sci Fi Factory in Texas and Highlander Games in New Jersey. We saw a great variety of teams and strategies, and we’re highlighting the top eight teams of each event below!
First off, congratulations to the winners of these events, Kenny Minks and Isaac Arnold-Berkovits.
Sci Fi Factory – 6/24 – 31 Players
Both teams in the finals of the Sci Fi Factory event utilize Avengers 60th Anniversary Falcon, but to very different ends.
The top team at Sci Fi Factory was an aggressive build piloted by Kenny Minks. With Falcon for positioning, Deathstroke can be deployed wherever the Pulse Wave from his Sonic Burst Katanas can do the most damage. Mary Jane Watson can keep the opponent’s team tied down with Paparazzi, while Dr. Psycho both disrupts the enemy’s positioning with Mind Control and gives out action tokens to slow their response.
No doubt David Way’s second place team gave it a run for its money, though. Also using Falcon’s spectacular placement ability, David’s team can deploy Hulk deep into the map to deliver tremendous damage. The team also has fantastic repositioning potential, with every figure other than Hulk able to use Telekinesis or Carry. Manifold and Teen Lantern can protect the team while it gets into position to deliver the most devastating Hulk smash it can.
If you haven’t had the chance to brew your very own Pulp team yet, perhaps the biggest takeaway from viewing these teams is that this metagame can be a bit like real estate: location, location, location!
Highlander Games – 7/8 – 20 Players
The finals at Highlander Games was epic, but the teams were about as different as night and day, with only 15 points of figures in common. The match-up was even more entertaining because it pitted father against son!
Highlander was also won by an aggressive build featuring Deathstroke, piloted by none other than the 2019 World Champ Isaac Arnold-Berkovits. Like Kenny’s team, Isaac used Mary Jane’s Paparazzi to gum up his opponents. Unlike Kenny, Isaac ran Deathstroke at a lower point value and did away with some of the support to make a team that can hit all the harder. The addition of Leader and Party Thor lets the team double up on both Mind Control and bestowing action tokens, and Red Widow lets the team assassinate any problematic figures. Isaac needed all that firepower to take down his father’s defensive shell team.
Ed’s second place team capitalized on ignoring line of fire with figures like The Watcher and Peepers to ensure he always had attacks to make, and Enhancement and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team ability to make those attacks hurt. Mary Jane, Teen Lantern, and Star Sapphire could litter the battlefield with Barrier and bystanders to keep opponents away from the core of the team, with Teen Lantern also pulling double duty and relocating the team’s core when needed.
All in all, there’s a lot of diverse teams here, and some rather interesting ones. While Deathstroke is starting to show up as the figure to beat, players have begun to experiment with ways to do just that; Karima especially has begun to appear as the go-to answer. Other teams have leaned into themed teams to control the map, with both Animals and Hydra making a strong showing.
Now for some interesting stats about the main forces of the 16 teams from these event’s Top 8s:
- In total, 59 distinct figures can be found across these teams.
- A60 Falcon and BTU Deathstroke were the most common figures used, each appearing on 7 teams (11.8% of teams). AF Dr. Strange and SVAC Mary Jane Watson were tied for second place with 6 appearances each (10.2%) and the third most popular figure was Blue Marvel on 5 teams (8.5%). While these figures are fast becoming the stars of Modern Pulp, they’re not yet dominating the field.
- The most common set used was Avengers Forever with 22 total figures used, followed by Avengers 60th and Batman Team-Up, both with 14 figures used. 105 figures total were fielded across these 16 teams, meaning the top three most used sets comprised about 48% of the total figures played.
The fields at these tournaments were diverse, and teams and figures were sampled from a wide range of sets. Players did a great job of responding to the challenge of an uncharted metagame with creativity, thoughtfulness, and excitement. As we head into Gen Con and the first major Pulp event, we’re excited to see how the meta shapes up. Will a new team emerge to conquer all others? Will one of the existing teams find a more perfect build? We hope that you can join us at an event later this year and find out first-hand!
As a reward for your curiosity about the Pulp format, check out this figure preview!
