The balance... it is hard to find

Hello,

          I had a great conversation with Dan the 2011 Champ last night about heroclix. He wanted my input on a team he was designing to win The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. He wanted to win the piece but not in an over powering way. The conversation reminded me a lot of this episode. I wanted to give him some nice Batman, Beta Ray Bill, Cypher combo that would pretty much guarantee that he would walk away with the figure with little to no resistance. 

        Then the rub came in. He wanted to have a strong team, but it had to give everyone a chance to win. This is where, if I had hair on the top of my, head I would be pulling it a bit. I would not be pulling my hair due to Dan, but to the fact that I had to restrain my mind. When you come from a meta where there are 4 other guys that could hand you your clix you tend to be default on "Go for the throat" mode. 

       Dan's main concern was valuing and growing the player base at the venue. Dan wanted not to scare off the newer players at the venue. There were some players, as of this posting, had only played 1 heroclix tournament.  Accommodating that level of skill level is a tough thing to try to do. Valuing a new player base at the risk of a desired figure is at times a tough thing. In many situations venues can only afford one OP kit. This means there is one chance for you to get a figure. In venues like that I can see why it can be tough to put the kids gloves on. It can be even harder if you don't have a lot of money and you are looking at prize support for either income or trade bait. Keep in mind that I'm not saying a person should go around sharking venues. I'm talking about this from a singular venue perspective. 

     In the end we designed a team that had  certain strengths yet gives his opponent a chance to fight back. I really felt good about the team we made. Could we have created a Death Star surrounded by Decepticons charged with toxic waste rays from the 80's? Oh yes we could have. We didn't because we knew Optimums Prime flying in wielding the force was a galactic long shot.

Thanks for reading,
Edward Shelton aka Darklogos