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Contest of Champions podcast episode #1: The Draft

Welcome to the first episode of Comicattack.net‘s newest podcast! Contest of Champions (CoC) is an interactive player vs. player game where your favorite Marvel characters go head to head to answer the eternal question of “who can beat whom in a fight?”

Join Jeff Jackson and Ian Johnson every week as they welcome two team managers who have a stable of five characters who duke it out each week. It’s a little bit fan fiction, a little bit debate, a little bit role playing, and a whole bunch of fun! It’s an interactive adventure for the managers, and for the Comicattack.net community.

Here are our managers for our first “season”:

Here’s how it works for the managers:

1. Randomizer: Manager’s names are loaded into an online randomizer to determine drafting order and scheduling order.

2. Draft: Our 1st episode is a live draft! The draft is a “snake draft,” meaning that we start with whoever drew the first overall pick and move down the list to whoever drew the last pick. The person with the last pick chooses two fighters. Then we move back up the list towards number one who also chooses two players.

3. Characters status: All fighters take their current powers into the fight. Power upgrades/downgrades for each and every fight are based on the most current information available in comics. A fighter’s personal status with regards to predicaments, incarceration, geographic location, etc., mean nothing. Just because someone is in jail does not mean that they can’t show up to a fight. Wolverine is currently stuck under a mountain? That doesn’t mean he shows up to his fight with a mountain on top of him. This does, however, include losing one’s powers. If they lose powers in the most recent issue, they lose them here, too.

4. Power Cap:  Jeff & Ian will determine whether a character’s powers exceed the set cap or meet the standards set. The power cap for this game will be Thor.

5. Schedule: A schedule will be posted, indicating when and who each manager fights, as well as whether they are the home team or away team. (Home team advantage means that the home team picks the environment from a list of pre-determined environments.)

6. Cards: Each team will be allocated “cards,” which when used will offer their fighter some type of advantage in the fight. The cards will have one time use applications. Only one card can be played per manager at a time. The manager must submit the card at the time they submit their character before the show. In other words, you have to submit the card before you know who you’re fighting. Here are the cards for this game:

  • Double Team Card: Allows manager to secretly submit two fighters instead of one.
  • Environment Steal Card: Allows manager to steal home field advantage, which lets him pick the environment, and who defends first on the show.

7. Before the show:  Managers secretly PM Ian their fighter(s), environment (if they are the home team), and any card they wish to play during a match at least 24 hours before their fight. During the show, the managers give their rationales as to why their character can win. There is time for rebuttals and general conversation about the fight.

8. Rotating characters: Every character must fight once before a character can be submitted a second time. Your order can change round to round, but a new character must be submitted each time. If you fail to submit three times, you will be eliminated from the competition.

9. Environments: There will only be three environments in play at one time, and in each round an environment will be taken away and one added.

The first three Environments are: Oil Rig Hibernia, Central Park, New York City, NY, & the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA.

10. Judging: Winners will be determined by three “judges.” You have to convince Jeff, Ian, and the Comicattack.net community (through the poll below), best 2 out of 3, in order to win the match. If you win the poll, but fail to convince Jeff or Ian, then you lose. Likewise, if you convince Jeff but not Ian and lose the poll, then you also lose. The winner of the fight will be announced at the beginning of the next episode. Last character (or team) standing is the winner!

Here’s how it works for you folks at home:

1. Listen to the podcast.
2. Come back here to Comicattack.net to the post for that episode. Share your opinion, comment below, and help sway the public opinion. Even comments provided by the Comicattack.net fans will be considered by Jeff & Ian in their decisions.
3. Vote on the poll in the post. You have until Sunday nights at 9:00pm EST to vote. That’s when we record the show. Votes at the time of recording will be the only ones that will count.
4. E-mail us at jeff@comicattack.net or leave us a voicemail at 706 761-0115 with your questions or comments. You may make it on the show!
5. Listen to the next episode to see who wins! The winner will be announced at the beginning of the show.
6. One small disclaimer: This is all subjective. Have fun with it and if your favorite character doesn’t win, laugh it off and keep on listening!

Episode #1: The Draft
You can click the link to listen to the podcast or right click “save link as” to download it.

For our first episode, the whole gang (minus Andy for reasons explained on the show) is gathered for the LIVE DRAFT! Listen to hear who they pick! Then vote below to make your early prediction!

Next week’s fight: Eli vs. Dan!

Music: This Is Why We Fight by The Decemberists from the Album The King Is Dead

Jeff Jackson
jeff@comicattack.net

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This Post Has 45 Comments

  1. SpidermanGeek 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    Yay!

  3. Capekiller 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    I think you were too afraid speech!

  4. Jeff 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    SomeONE is missing…too bad he was sitting in the hospital and wouldn’t return any phone calls!

  5. ShenValleyInitiative 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    CoC LIVES!!!! muahwahahahahahah

  6. ShenValleyInitiative 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    24 mins in, awesome draft so far fellas! good job! headed to work…will catch the rest later! this is going to be a fun CoC…..I know which team I’m leaning towards already!

  7. Aron 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    Way to lay down the LAW on Ghost Rider, Jeff! BOOM!

  8. Eli 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    Yeah, Speech mysteriously disappeared after I was added to the list of contestants. Its OK Speech, you’re not the only person in whom I instill fear.

  9. Eli 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    Yeah Shen, I figure you’ll be pulling for Tom’s team, but I think I can give him a tough time.

  10. Jeff 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    Wow, Dan’s team has the most votes so far? That Thor/Black Bolt combo is tough.

  11. Eli 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    Nah… Sue can take Black Bolt

  12. Nick 10 Aug 2011 Reply

    This is a whole new level of geekiness. Wow…just…wow.

  13. InfiniteSpeech 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    Eli I’m pretty sure you had something to do with my “accident”

  14. Jeff Jackson 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    We don’t call Eli “Tonya Harding” for nothing. 🙂

  15. ShenValleyInitiative 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    I think you can too Eli. Nice recognition of my Gladiator fanboy loving statement. 😀 There is one fight in this competition I’m definately wanting to see…but I think it will be towards the end of the game. Off to finish listening to the podcast. This game continues to grow and evolve. Loving it!

  16. Jeff 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    Shen–I’m hoping you’ll join in the next one! We’d love to have you, bro!

  17. ShenValleyInitiative 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    great job fellas! some very good teams. 2 of those opening enviroments would have been ideal for Namor. I’m assuming Surfer is over the cap, otherwise I can’t believe no one would drafted him! Looking forward to the fights.

  18. ShenValleyInitiative 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    Thanks Jeff! Maybe next time! My laptop is fried…..won’t have anything til around Christmas. But I love watching/listening as much as I do playing.

  19. SpidermanGeek 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    You’re correct, Shen. Silver Surfer was deemed to be over the power cap.

  20. Eli 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    Oh come now Speech… there are no “accidents.” But no, I had nothing to do with it — nobody scares me now that I have Beta Ray and Sue.

    Shen – I’m thinking of two fights I’d love to see, and we might be able to make them both happen.

  21. InfiniteSpeech 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    I did like how Jeff put Andy on blast about the whole B Day thing! 🙂

  22. Billy 11 Aug 2011 Reply

    Great first episode guys!

  23. Moses 13 Aug 2011 Reply

    This is the first time I’ve followed a CoC. I’m interested to see just how geeky this will get.
    I’m curious how the birthday went for Andy… any follow up on that?

  24. Eli 13 Aug 2011 Reply

    Oh, it gets ridiculously geeky. I get the feeling that my wife and friends want to disavow any knowledge of me whenever the subject comes up.

  25. Billy 13 Aug 2011 Reply

    @Eli- So when is someone gonna start the “smack-talk” thread. 😀

  26. Jeff 13 Aug 2011 Reply

    Go for it! Smack away!

  27. Capekiller 15 Aug 2011 Reply

    First fight went really well. Dan had a script that seemed as though it was prepared by the House of Ideas itself and Eli came in with his usual deft understanding of Marvel characters. Great start!

  28. Andy 16 Aug 2011 Reply

    Shoulda drafted Mockingbird. Then I would have had ONE vote.

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