Tim Willoughby is twenty-one years old and from Suffolk. He spent the last year in London working on part of his degree, and that’s where he picked up Vs. System along with Rich Edbury. He’s now located in Birmingham, where he’s been readjusting and finding new people to play with and compete against. Heard about the European players that made a big splash at Gen Con Indy? One of them was Tim Willoughby, winner of the Gen Con $10K tournament.

Willoughby played Teen Titans, and as always I was curious as to why he played the deck he did. Apparently it was just the result of testing. “We had a few playtesters—a little group of Ian Vincent, John Ormerod, and several other London players.”  Between them, they figured that Common Enemy was possibly the best deck in the current environment, and that was a big factor when deciding what to play.

Tim was working on some special decks that are going to be ready for Gen Con SoCal, but figured it was more important to play something he knew well. He eventually went with Teen Titans, especially against Spider-Friends and other new decks. I asked Tim what the new decks were that he’d worked on with his group, but it seems secrecy may have factored into his deck choice as well—he wouldn’t tell me a thing!

His overall goal was to have a consistent deck, so Tim made the choice to play Teen Titans. He figured it would be a safe play since not many cards from Web of Spider-Man were in circulation yet.

“I think [Teen] Titans is exceedingly consistent, it can have a fair match against most things. I think I got a little unlucky and that affected me, but that just seems to be the way one-game matches can go sometimes.”

He really liked Jeremy Gray’s Onslaught Stall deck. We agreed that it was a really good twist on a deck that had seen play before that had evolved incredibly well. “I think it’s admirable that it has a good matchup against the best deck in the format Common Enemy, and had we known about it I think we would have playtested it too. It’s very consistent.”

However, it really feels like Common Enemy is the deck to beat. “I’d encourage people to test against it more than anything else. I don’t feel it needs to be played as well as other decks to be dominant. For instance, Teen Titans is a total headache to play.” He tested against John Ormerod, and in the process realized that Teen Titans had such a high level of confusing options.

Tim was helping out a lot with supporting the game too, doing demos and teaching people how to play. “If you’re thinking of coming down, please do. I’ve been practicing losing in the $10K, so I’ll probably lose to you!” Tim has a great sense of humor about himself.

What does he love about Vs. System? “I love that no matter what you draw, you’ll always get to play. Even if you draw a really poor hand, you’ll generally still get to do something and it can still be a competition. That’s really great.” Clearly, Tim is a man of good reason and good taste.