Vidianto Wijaya (or Vidi to his friends) lives in Los Angeles, but is originally from Indonesia and has been living in the U.S. for the last two years. He said he wasn't originally planning to attend this tournament because he qualified via Limited PCQs and is supposedly awful at Constructed. His 8-2 record in Constructed on Friday would seem to prove that hypothesis wrong. He said he's hoping his New Brotherhood deck will be just as ridiculous for him as it was two days ago so that he can make it through the quarters and into the semifinals.

Eugene Harvey made it into the Top 8 yesterday by the skin of his teeth, going 5-4 in the draft portion after an amazing 9-1 on Day 2. He is the primary designer of the X-Men stall deck that smashed through the Constructed portion of the tournament this weekend, putting him and two of his teammates into the Top 8, and helping three more Team TOGITers into the Top 16. The deck was a great metagame decision, as it preys on all of the slower control decks and medium beatdown decks that have been ruling the roost lately, keeping down the fast beatdown decks. Unfortunately for Eugene, one New Brotherhood deck slipped through the cracks into the Top 8. Talking to Harvey last night, he indicated that the matchup against New Brotherhood was probably the worst possible for his deck, but if he hit his drops right, he still figured he had a good chance to stall long enough to lock even TNB down.

Eugene won the Norwegian coin flip, courtesy of head judge Rune Horvik, and chose to take initiative on the even turns. Vidi started off with a first-turn [Phantazia] followed by [Avalanche] and [Savage Land] on turn 3, bashing [Puppet Master] and dropping Eugene to 41. Vidi missed out on a hefty 3-drop, so he recruited [Pyro] and Lorelei instead, but [The New Brotherhood] turned all his weenies into formidable foes. A team attack from Lorelei and Avalanche on Wolverine knocked Logan into submission, but [Children of the Atom] saved both him and Puppet Master from an early exit to the KO’d pile.

Vidi drew his cards on turn 4 and shook his head at the ceiling, seeming to indicate that his deck was failing to provide him with the curve of attackers that he needed. Harvey recruited [Jean Grey, Marvel Girl] to the fray, and Vidi followed that by playing [Sabretooth, Feral Rage], perhaps indicating that his look to the sky was a thank you to the gods and goddesses of fortune instead of a scree against their random injustices.

'Tooth and [Avalanche] took front row positions, ready to spearhead the assault, while Pyro and the ladies of TNB chilled in the back row, waiting to see what Harvey would do. Wolverine smacked [Pyro], and Jean Grey bashed [Avalanche] (but not before he KO'd [Cerebro]) during Harvey's attack. Sabretooth roughed up Wolvie on the swing back, but Eugene avoided a big loss from breakthrough endurance by using [Burn Rubber] on the littlest X-Man. Of course, that just let [Phantazia] run over [Puppet Master] for another 7 endurance loss, dropping Harvey to 22. Another [Children of the Atom] resurrected Wolverine again from the KO pile, letting Harvey keep all of his men on the board, while Vidi lost 'lanche and [Phantazia].

Vidi again hit his drop with [Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr], while Harvey missed his by a resource point, putting [Rogue, Power Absorption] into play instead of the more welcome[ Sunfire]. Before setting his formation, Eugene put the supercomputer in his head to work, calculating how to take the least possible endurance loss from the various options available to him. Eventually he put Rogue and Jean Grey in the front with Wolverine and [Puppet Master] ducking for cover. Magneto exhausted Wolverine at the beginning of combat and then attacked Jean Grey. Harvey's two [Puppet Master]s exhausted [Lorelei] and [Pyro], the attack was declared legal, and [Savage Land] plus [Genosha] made it huge, activating TNB again. The final attack did 12 to Harvey, and then Sabretooth plus a power up attempted to seal the game by beating down on Rogue, but Harvey gave himself one more turn by using [Acrobatic Dodge] to leave him at 2.

[Mimic] entered the game for Harvey on turn 6, followed by [Blob] and [Mastermind] for Vidi. Mimic stunned el [Blob]berino, Rogue took down [Mastermind] and Wolvie ran over [Lorelei], but [Pyro] sealed the deal all by himself. TNB proved just a bit too fast that game for the stall to get ahead of it.

Wijaya 1 - Harvey 0

"So what's Assets Magazine?" I asked, wondering about Vidi's T-Shirt. He flashed an embarrassed grin at me, telling me that, "I got this T-Shirt at Gamer-Con in L.A. a while back from some random magazine there. I'm only wearing it now because I ran out of clothes this weekend."

Harvey had a really tough mulligan decision facing him in his opening hand, since he had two X-Corporations, Rogue, and a 7-drop [Professor X, The World's Greatest Telepath] (affectionately known as "Big Wheels" among the TOGIT guys) staring back at him. Endurance gain is crucial in this matchup, but if he didn't hit his early drops, he'd get run over. He eventually tossed it back, replacing it with something that had a play before turn 4.

Vidi came out gangbusters in game 2 with two 1-drops, [Rogue, Anna Raven] and two [The New Brotherhood]s, smashing for freaking 10 on turn 2, and then 10 more on turn 3 as Harvey expended two Children of the Atom to try to minimize the damage. Unfortunately a pair of [Puppet Master]s marked Eugene's 4-drop, while Vidi again had the Feral Rage. Wolverine bashed [Mastermind], and [Pleasant Distraction] stalled Sabretooth for a turn, earning valuable time for the X-Men.

Magneto and [Sunfire] prepared to square off on turn 5, but [Sunfire] was much less valuable this game than he would have been last game, since [Mastermind] and Rogue were his only targets. Magneto exhausted Wolverine at the beginning of combat before Sabretooth got his dirty on, savaging [Sunfire] at the cost of a stunned Rogue and an exhausted [Mastermind] hitting Eugene's endurance total for 18 and dropping him to 9. Magneto tried to end the game right then and there, but Harvey still had a [Burn Rubber] to reinforce Wolverine, keeping his endurance total at a precarious 6.

[Emma Frost] for Eugene and Rogue for Vidi were the turn 6 plays, as Harvey tried to stay alive. [Emma Frost] attacked Magneto when Vidi had five resources on the table, shutting down his TNBs, but [Foiled] made sure that they became active again, so the characters traded stuns. [Sunfire] attacked Rogue and [Puppet Master] went active, but that still left Sabes to get his grind on, sealing the quarterfinals for Wijaya.

Wijaya 2 - Harvey 0

After the match, Eugene noted that if he had hit his curve right in either game, he would have had a chance to pull out of things, though Wijaya's outstanding draws clearly did not help. We'll see if he can keep it up for the semifinals.