Neil Reeves

Neil Reeves can only be described as “a good old boy.” A hulk of a man, Neil could be described as boisterous, in your face, brutally honest, brash, supremely confident, and out and out cocky. Is it any wonder you’d be hard pressed to find a better-liked player on the Circuit?

As long as there’ve been games to play, Neil’s played them. One at a time, he’ll approach a game and master it, finally moving on to the next only when convinced he’s gotten as good as he can at any particular pursuit. Hold ’Em, Magic, Stratego, Omaha . . . you name it, the guy loves using his brain in confrontational (but non-violent) ways.

Originally from Arkansas and living in Texas, the professional game player took to Vs. System the moment it came out. “Craig Krempels is playing the deck I built the first day I saw the game, card for card”. When Krempels tries to protest, Neil can only interrupt, “CARD FOR CARD!”

Reeves’s tournament didn’t begin as planned. Starting 2-2 with his Doom deck, Neil needed to go 2-1 just to make Day 2, but went one better, running off three straight victories. A draft specialist in his past TCG life, Neil dominated on Day 2, drafting a 3-0 Teen Titans deck, followed by a Gotham Knights/Teen Titans deck, which he piloted to the last win he needed to make Top 8. After winning the mirror match against teammate Walls in the quarterfinals, Neil was felled by bad luck in what he deemed a 75-25 match up in the semifinals against Craig Edwards.

“I like the game a lot. I like the characters and how complicated the board situations get. I mean, there are times late in the game when you just know how things are going to play out, and for me they seem pretty mechanical,” he notes.

Having playtested for this tournament with fellow Top 8 finishers Brian Kibler, Nick Little, and Gabe Walls, it’s looking pretty obvious that Neil’s set himself up to be one of the Pro Circuit’s forces for a long time. He’d be the first to tell you so. Of course, you can’t really blame the guy for that kind of arrogance—when you’re this good, you’ve earned the right to be.


Matt Boccio

Having good players surround you is a must when trying to excel at any game. Matt Boccio, the typical cool Italian New Yorker, is a classic example of that. Matt started playing TCGs when he was fifteen with friends who were strictly casual, but soon thereafter he started heading to tournaments, and it didn’t take him too long to fall in with the TOGIT crowd.

The Only Game in Town, located in Somerville, New Jersey, is one of the most famous game shops in the world. Home to such TCG pros as Craig Krempels, Eugene Harvey, and Gerard Fabiano, the store has produced a number of TCG celebrities, also recruiting a couple of out-of-towners like Antonino DeRosa and even providing such luminaries as Kai Budde and Jelger Wiegersma a temporary gaming home away from home. It was in the companies of these titans that Boccio started to develop into the TCGer he is today.

Matt started attending Magic tournaments, competing as a junior (finishing as high at sixth in national competitions), but his accomplishments were constantly overshadowed by his teammates. However, after scrubbing out of a semi-major tournament, Adam Horvath informed Matt he had a new game to show him.

The two sat down with Starter Set decks and quickly sorted through the rules. By the end of the day, Matt was filling the final seat of his first draft, going 3-0. With his success came an instant liking for the game. Working with Horvath, Krempels, DeRosa and Tony Tsai, the game’s secrets began to open up to him, and with New Brotherhood in hand, he won the $10K in Philadelphia, and Vs. System had a new star.

Matt rode his $10K momentum into this weekend, piloting the Fantastic Four to a 6-1 finish on Day 1. A fan of concentrating on one unified team in Booster Draft, Matt managed the 4-2 record he needed to qualify for Top 8, drafting League of Assassins and then Gotham Knights.

Joining Krempels in Top 8, Matt’s incredible run finally came to an end at the hands of Craig Edwards’s Rigged Elections deck. Heading to Binghamton in a week, he was thinking about stepping away from the game, but with his multiple successes, it’s now apparent he’s in it for the long haul. Sadly, that means his opponents will be getting better. After all, there’ll be one more good player in their midst.


Brian Kibler

Brian Kibler’s not a shy man. When he’s doing well, he’s a guy who’ll tell you so with pride. When plan’s go awry, he’s equally willing to lament his poor performance, but whether he’s boasting, complaining, frustrated, or exuberant, the man will definitely communicate it with charisma.

This is a man who should have a portable pulpit hanging from his chest. When Kibler speaks, people listen. A long-time Magic: The Gathering personality, Kibler’s been voted into that game’s Invitational all-star tournament via Internet vote four times, and when he lost this year at the US National Championship, some of his younger fans were on the verge of tears.

This following comes from his participation in the TCG community. Where most pros go to tournaments, get their cash and go home, Kibler is a gamer 24/7. He’ll write strategy articles, respond to general misconceptions in online forums and build decks with the best of them. He’s known to fans around the world as “the Dragon Master” for the fun, casual-style decks he’s piloted to the highest levels of TCG excellence. For most, the mind is what’s dedicated to the game. For Kibler, it’s the heart.

Kibler’s Vs. System journey began when he heard about the game at a Magic Pro Tour. An expert and enthusiastic deck builder. Kibler immediately took on the new challenge, informing one and all a week later that he’d broken the format. Of course, this was months before the PC, and metagame changes rendered his developments obsolete.

Kibler played Common Enemy on Day 1, running up a 6-1 record. Going into Saturday, he knew he wanted to draft the powerful Gotham Knights, and with most drafters gunning for Teen Titans, it worked like a charm, producing a 3-0 result in the first draft. In the second draft, he drafted a Gotham Knights /Teen Titans hybrid, getting the win he needed to Top 8 despite conceding to friend and teammate Gabe Walls. As of this writing, Kibler had advanced to the finals.

Brian winning this tournament would be one of the best things that could happen to this game. $40,000 goes a long way towards inspiring loyalty in a man, and there are few personalities that could be a bigger boon to the Vs. System community. One only needs to mention the game to Kibler, and his eyes light up as he talks about how much he likes the mechanics and the subtle designs that make Vs. great. Sure, we’ll all know first hand that the guy is talented, but let’s be honest: we knew that from his performance here.


Gabe Walls

One hard, true fact about Gabe Walls: the man can play. It doesn’t matter what, it doesn’t matter when, but the man can play. Every game Gabe Walls has taken on has fallen before him. He was a junior state tennis champion, he’s dominated Vegas poker tables, and his meteoric rise to the top of the Magic world saw him represent the USA in winning the world championship. Now, Vs. System is the goal.

Along with Neil Reeves, Gabe was singled out from the many Magic pros who attended PC Indianapolis by the Vs. System community as being “one of us.” He embraced the game upon its released, played it hard, played it well, and gained the respect of his peers with a Top 8 finish at Origins. When the game released, he embraced it excitedly: he immediately got in touch with Nick Little, convincing the latter, “There’s this new game, there’s lots of money, it looks pretty good, let’s give it a try.” The rest is history.

Working primarily with Reeves and Little, the gamers exhausted the Marvel gambit. They didn’t give much credence to DC decks, sighting the greater size and strength of individual Marvel cards. Finally, with Kibler in the mix, the team, dubbed “The Nuts”, made their way to the Pro Circuit.

Walls posted a 6-1 record Day 1, with the deck coasting through the competition. Day 2 had its hiccups: Walls has a history of drafting unusual decks where things occasionally go terribly wrong, and this was one of those times. Ask him what team he drafted and he’d just laugh in your face: he drafted a total of four teams, leaving him with remarkably little synergy. Yet, despite the bumpy ride, he managed to pilot the deck to a 2-1 record. The second draft came much easier, with Teen Titans apparently underdrafted at the first pod. Walls scooped up all he could for what he could only describe as an insane deck, and won the two matches he played.

In the quarterfinals, Walls met what had to be considered his co-favorite, Neil Reeves, in a true mirror match. Card for card, their decks were the same, and they both felt whoever had the good fortune to win the coin flip would win the match, but after Gabe did so, Neil “broke serve,” and soon thereafter, Walls was done.

Of course, that’s just a momentary reprieve for the rest of the community. Gabe’s sure to be back, fighting and commiting crime through his comic cronies. Nothing’s stopped him before, and his enthusiasm for the game is obvious. This is the guy you don’t want across from you at the table.  


Nick Little

Nick Little understands he may get a little lost in his surroundings. A long time casual game player, Nick teamed up with Brian Kibler, Gabe Walls, and Neil Reeves for PC1. One of these things is not like the others: his three teammates have all had huge success in competitive TCG play, while Little’s the unknown element in the group.

Little’s origins in gaming are among the funnier you’ll hear. Attending a friend’s party on Labor Day during his high school days, the party was attended by what Little describes as “Ghetto thugs.” The thugs broke out various substances, became inebriated, and busted out a couple of Magic decks. Magic at a Labor Day party? “We were dorks,” Little explains.

It was years before Little started playing in TCG tournaments, and when he did, he found that a lack of time and natural skill led to one natural conclusion: tournaments weren’t his thing. Semi-serious was the way to go, attending the occasional qualifier tournament to see friends and the like. It was during one such visit that he met Gabe Walls.

Having gaming in common, the two became fast friends. Eventually, when Walls decided to give college a try, they moved in together for a year. “Gabe mostly gamed online,” Little remembers. The experiment lasted less than a year. Gabe left Little’s place and went back to more competitive gaming, leaving Nick to his less serious pursuits until the release of Vs. System.

Knowing the strategies would be undeveloped in the early going, they started playing a lot. Gabe’s finish at Origins gave them reason to be enthusiastic: “Coming in, I thought Gabe and Neil would Top 8 and I’d Top 16.” Little was almost right. Playing the same Common Enemy deck as his teammates, Nick went 6-1 in the Constructed portion of the tournament. He had an Arkham Inmates strategy going into Day 2 and managed to draft the team, taking it to a 2-1 record before drafting a combination of Inmates and Gotham Knights to record another 2-1 in the second draft.

Once in the Top 8, he managed to dispatch powerhouse Craig Krempels, but the semifinal mirror match against Kibler just wasn’t to be. Little explained that his missing his 7-drop in both games was the difference maker: Kibler went on to win the tournament.

“I’d rather have fun and play at 80 percent than wreck myself and play at 100 percent.” Nick says in the spirit of the true gamer. His hobby of playing old-school video games reflects this. Of course, now he’s tasted the limelight and seen the fruition of his efforts, one might think this will change a little, but it doesn’t have to. Sure, gaming is fun, but winning is too.


Steve Horowitz

Sometimes, the path to the righteous land is the road less travelled. This event featured a lot of players with complimentary invites due to their status in other games (Gary Kasparov was a no-show). Others, of course, won PCQs, ensuring a place in history. For Steve Horowitz though, nothing was certain. He made his way to Gen Con with only a deck and a dream.

A long time gamer, Horowitz admittedly didn’t try to hard to qualify, only having played in two PCQs. Antonio DeRosa had told him about the game and Gabe Alonso had taught him the basics, but he didn’t go to the $10K tournaments. When he made his way to Indianapolis, he figured he’d be playing in Saturday’s $10K event and a few random non-Vs. System events. He was wrong.

Playing the Brave and the Bold, Horowitz entered Thursday’s Last Chance Qualifier and won, changing his itinerary. He continued his winning ways on Day 2, piloting the deck to a 6-1 record. With a history of competitive drafting, that was the start he needed for a real shot at Sunday glory.

Saturday started with Steve drafting a Teen Titans/Arkham Knights hybrid, with which he went 2-1. The second draft was eerily similar, seeing the same two teams in his deck and another 2-1 record. Steve was ready for his moment of glory. Vsuniverse.com predicted he’d win the whole thing based on the matchups, going so far as to proclaim him the winner in an erroneous update. Unfortunately for Horowitz, it didn’t happen that way.

In the quarterfinals, Horowitz had an excellent matchup against Brian Kibler. Despite winning the die roll, which he deemed crucial, he lost one game to a brutal draw and another to Kibler’s deck coming out too strong to stop. His day, and his tournament, were over.

“I think this is a really good game,” Horowitz props. “There are no manascrews, no sure thing matchups. There are a lot of decks you can play, and the field is wide open.” Finding success after many years of trying in other TCGs, Horowitz looks like a lock to stick around. After all, when you come as close as he did to the brass ring, its tough to walk that road to complacency.


Craig Krempels

“The most important thing to know about me is that I owe any success I’ve had to the people around me”

It’s tough to keep your head when you reach a certain measure of success. To say that Craig Krempels has reached and passed that point is an understatement, but if the above quote is any indication, he’s maintained his dignity and that of those around him. “Sonne, Horvath, Eugene, Osyp . . . everyone I’ve gamed with has helped he reach the levels I have. Without them, there’s no way I’d be here right now”

The “here” Craig’s referring to is more or less the top of the mountain. Starting his TCG career in Magic, Craig saw people at school playing the game and “saw the smart kids beating the dumb kids,” and found himself analysing while his casual friends just wanted to play. Frankly, he didn’t see the point of playing without at least trying to win. He started going to tournaments in search of competition, found it, and then started looking for more.

It was through this process that Craig met and befriended his teammates on TOGIT (The Only Game in Town). When they all started qualifying for the Magic Pro Tour, it was only natural they start working together. Krempels was amongst the most successful of their number.

Craig finished second in the Magic 2002 Rookie of the Year race, establishing himself as a real threat, yet the next year saw him realize little of the potential he’d shown. Early in 2004, he heard about VS. System and started looking into the game, but his play was interrupted by a major event in his life. See, this summer, he won Magic’s US National Championships, and $25,000 along with it.

Money and prestige like that will change a life, and it did so for Craig. Amongst the bounty of his labors, Krempels found himself receiving a complimentary invite to PC Indianapolis, a fact he really appreciated. He immediately started to prepare. Apparently it paid off.

Playing Doom, Craig finished Day 1 in second place at 7-0. He then drafted Teen Titans to a 2-1 record and a Titans/Gotham Knights hybrid to 2-0 before conceding to Gabe Walls. In short, he completely destroyed the Swiss portion of the tournament. He went to Day 3 as the top seed, but lost in the quarterfinals to Nick Little.

“This game is really hard,” said Krempels. “I made so many mistakes, but fortunately I still played better than my opponents. I think I had a good handle on draft, so when I started 7-0, I was pretty excited about the possibility of Day 3.” With his success here, Craig’s pretty sure he’ll be coming back. He’s looking forward to bringing his friends with him.


Craig Edwards

Craig Edwards is the gamer’s gamer. “Whatever it is, I want to try it,” the 24 year old law student says. Outspoken and blunt, Edwards is a man who wants to experience everything in the gaming world. He’s played every TCG to hit the market, so when Vs. System came out, it was only natural he wanted to give it a try.

When friends told him about Vs. System and the Pro Circuit, Edwards immediately went online to check the game out. He read up on the rules and loved the mechanics, so his interest was piqued. He built a few decks online, tried them out, and found that he and the game gelled. He ordered a bunch of boxes with friend Nick Cuenca, started playing more, and built a play set. Then he won his first PCQ.

Craig agreed to a team up for the PC with Rob Dougherty, owner of famed TCG store Your Move Games (YMG), and immediately the two found they worked well together. “Steve Horowitz ended up playing a deck I’d originally wanted to work on, and while the rest of the team didn’t think it was much of an idea, Rob really listened. His willingness to open himself to new ideas inspired me to work on our eventual deck.”

Citing a love for all things combo, Craig built and played Rigged Elections, finishing Day 1 with a 5-2 record. That set him up for his strong suit, the draft, which he felt thoroughly prepared for thanks to his past TCG draft specialty. He came out hard, trying to get the coveted Teen Titans deck, and ended up with what he deemed “the best Teen Titans deck I’ve ever seen.;” Not surprisingly, it went 3-0, as did the League of Assassins/Teen Titans deck he wound up with in draft 2. He was ready for Sunday.

Citing an extremely good matchup, he dispatched of Matt Boccio in the quarterfinals before beating Neil Reeves in the semis despite a poor matchup. He lost to Kibler in the finals, but still felt vindicated. “People said my deck was inconsistent, but I won my first four games Sunday on turns 6, 5, 6, and 5. I’d say that’s pretty consistent.”

Now, with his newfound check for $24,000 paying his school debts off, we’re sure to be seeing more of Edwards. “Now that I have some cash, I’m definitely going to want to see just how good I am. I figure I have to try.” Really, that’s all a man can do: Be open to possibility.