As players from last night’s marathon $10K tournament stumbled into the tournament site today they had to ask themselves if they played in the right tournament. The top prize yesterday was $2,500 and you had to fight your way through almost 250 players to get there. Today’s tournament for a beautiful copy of X-Men #1 had only forty-four participants. The estimated value of the prize for first place is at least $5,000 according to Mile High Comics. (Granted, the prizes for second and lower are not nearly as impressive.)
After four rounds of play there were only three undefeated players. With two rounds to go it is possible that there will be no undefeated player going into the elimination rounds. The chart below shows the top of the standings and the deck choices of each player with one or zero losses.
Bill Hodak won the $10K tournament last night/ this morning with his Big Brotherhood deck. The deck debuted at the Philadelphia event in the hands of Jason Dawson and after some minor tinkering was 
one of three undefeated players after four rounds. He was one of four players in that archetype. In the opposite extreme you find Randy Brown playing Brotherhood Burn. The deck is very similar to the one that Matt Boccio uses to win the Philly Championship. Also undefeated was Chris Starr playing FF Beatdown--one of three such decks at the top tables.
Anthony Justice and his Kentucky based playgroup made a splash yesterday with their Common Enemy-sometimes called “The Secret Deck”--which placed two players in the Top 8. Anthony was the only player with a perfect record going into the elimination rounds and Ben Angel joined him at the top tables. It was the most popular choice for many of the players today but it has only put three players near the top of the standings--all with 3-1 records.
1 Christopher Starr FF Beatdown
2 Jason Dawson Big Brotherhood
3 Randy Brown Brotherhood Burn
4 Todd Vanderwalker FF/Doom
5 Chad Daniel X-Men/ Brotherhood
6 David Weitz FF/Doom
7 Israel Quiroz Big Brotherhood
8 Patrick Jansen X-Men/ Brotherhood
9 Jake McNeely FF Beatdown
10 Steven Anderson New Botherhood
11 Andrew Yip Big Brotherhood
12 Vijay Seixas Big Brotherhood
13 Michael Higgins FF/Doom
14 Brian Grimmer FF Beatdown