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Gabe Walls drafts Prankster, Gary Wise looks up to a Yu-Gi-Oh! player, and twelve-year-old Kevyn Lee pilots the Arkham Inmates to victory, all inside the Day 2 coverage blog! |
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Check out the event coverage blog from Day 1 for the famous TOGIT deck, $40 Hippos, what Emma Frost does, the joy of typing a Sentinel decklist, and bowling with the OMC! |
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Coming into this tournament, the Common Enemy deck was at the top of every player’s hit list. Deck choices were made based on whether or not the deck in question could take down Brian Kibler's Championship-winning Pro Circuit Indy deck. On the heels of his win, Common Enemy became one of the most dominating archetypes on the Constructed landscape. |
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Ryan Jones is a computer programmer from Long Beach, California who got to this point in the tournament by running over everyone who got in his way. |
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Of the three players piloting Eugene Harvey's revolutionary X-Men Stall deck, Antonino DeRosa was the last survivor. He sat down for his semifinals with little of his usual jolly demeanor. |
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"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." |
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It was a cold, cold morning in LA . . .well, cold for California, anyway. And raining. Everyone got to experience this, as the Top 8 spent some quality time outside following the second fire alarm at Gen Con. Luckily, this one had the courtesy to happen before games were being played. |
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Mark Slack is from that other group of Indiana players. While Gabe Walls and Nick Little earned a lot of attention after their Top 8 appearances at PC Indy, Indiana had its share of successful players before them, and Mark is continuing in their footsteps with his Top 8 appearance today. |
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This game broke all records as the longest Vs. System match in the history of the game, between two decks that were built to take on just about anything except themselves. |
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Historically, most TCG Constructed Top 8s have been decided more on matchups than any other factor. While both luck and play skill obviously have their influence, getting paired against the right deck means more than anything else. While I don’t think any of the matchups in the Top 8 are lopsided enough to call an outright bye, the following are my predictions on who will be the Gen Con So Cal PC champion. |
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Check out profiles of the Top 8 here! |
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Brian Kibler was the reigning Vs. System PC champion, having won PC Indy with Common Enemy deck. |
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The final round between Ray Punzalan and Matthew Dunn would be perhaps the most important match of the day – at least, it was certainly the most important for these two gentlemen, as the winner of this match would move on to the Top 8, while the loser would miss out by the single win, in eleventh place. |
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These two players were jockeying for top position all day yesterday during the Constructed portion of the event. The Draft portion of the event has not treated them as kindly, and now, the two players find themselves battling for one of the remaining Top 8 berths. |
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A detailed look at this weekend's metagame! |
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Adam Horvath is an experienced Magic: The Gathering player, boasting top finishes in a variety of high-level events. His opponent in round 18 is Gabe Walls, whom you may recognize from various featured matches over the weekend, as well as his Top 8 appearance at PC Indy. |
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David Fielder has successfully flown under the radar and into position to make the Top 8. |
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Repeat PC qualifier David Fielder and former Magic Pro Paul Sottosanti squared off in the featured match arena in round 17, pitting Spider-Friends against Spider-Friends, each deck with the potential to be explosive. In a match where losing may have an effect on whether or not the player makes Top 8, every move was important, every decision integral. |
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The winner of this draft pod would certainly make the Top 8 and it was more than reasonable to expect that two of the 2-1 players would share that privilege as well. Neither player wanted to lose any matches at all though as there were no certainties for anyone but the 3-0 player. |
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As the final results from round 16 dried up, it became apparent that from the Top 8 class of Pro Circuit Indy, only Nick Little had the best shot of repeating that feat this weekend. Gabe Walls and Steve Horowitz had an outside shot with five losses, but only Little could even afford to take another loss. |
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"Stun your guy, stun your guy, tap someone down, and Thing . . . he's got something for the ladies . . . I think he'll be Pleasantly Distracted. Oh yeah, and while I'm at it, Dagger will throw a knife at you for another 4 endurance loss." |
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In what looked to be one of the best matchups of the day, Dave Spears and Gabe Walls sat across from each other in Round 16 – the last round of the second of three drafts. |
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William Postlethwait is a Magic: The Gathering player. His current major accomplishment is a fourth place finish at this year’s Magic U.S. National Championships. He is playing against Eugene Harvey, another Magic player and a former U.S. National champion. He has also made the Top 8 at multiple Pro Tours. |
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Before the game began, Horowitz showed off one of his drafted cards, a [Bamf!]. It’s great in Constructed, but almost unplayable in a draft, because Web of Spider-Man only has two X-Men in the set. |
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Currently ranked 45th in the world in Constructed, Jason Dawson always seems to be among the top players in any tournament. He plays for Team Universe, the team representing the Vs. Universe website whose roster boasts some of the best players in the game—including Jason himself! |
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The first round of the Spider-Man drafts had Vs. Universe stalwart Jason Dawson, facing off against consummate Pro Peter Sundholm. Jason, a Top 50 Constructed player, is much more comfortable with his draft skills this time around. “Last time (at PC Indy) I just wasn’t ready, finishing just above 50%. This time (the VS Universe team) discussed draft strategy before coming here.” |
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This was a critical match for both players. Each was sitting on four losses, and it was unclear if anyone with five losses could make it to the Top 8. |
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Before the game began, David admitted that he would dance around if he won a game with the deck he drafted, getting laughs out of the crowd. Vidianto won the die roll and chose to have the initiative on odd turns. |
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Matthew Tatar is a long-time TCG player from the Washington DC area. Coming into this tournament he was the second-ranked Limited Vs. System player in the world. He reckoned that he had probably moved up to number one after sweeping his first pod. Matthew quietly lurked near the top tables all day yesterday and had to feel pretty good about the prospect of a Top 8 appearance, coming into this round with an 11-2 record. |
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Jason Dawson made the Top 4 of the first Vs. System $10K Championship, and has since become a fixture at major events. Unfortunately for his ratings, law school is demanding more and more of his time. His progressing to Day 2 shows that he can still turn it on with the proper incentive. |
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If people were mapping out big things for Paul Sottosanti as an up-and-coming TCG player, then those people were using Eugene Harvey as the benchmark. Eugene has made the Top 8 at countless high level TCG events and is a former Magic US National Champion. |
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There were three players with 9-1 records at the end of Day 1. I couldn’t decide which of them to follow throughout the draft and decided to keep an eye on all three. |
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“I like to play the averages, 30 cards even. I always use the minimum number of cards possible to make sure I hit my drops—ten to twelve plot twists, and eighteen to twenty characters." |
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Dave said, “I can even tell you how to attack. Actually, I guess you could not attack—that would be good,” the ever-present grin on his face widening. |
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Alright sports fans, this is the moment you've all been waiting for. Well, the sabermetricians among you have probably been waiting for this, and the goofy statistics students, and maybe those of you who really like math, which basically refers to all those Titans players out there. |
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In the beginning, there were murmurs. “Fear the Magic players,” they said, as that game’s professionals descended upon the Vs. System world. The fear in the Vs. community was simple: that the community’s own might not shine through this obvious mercenary wall. |
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Matteo Paolucci is a pro player from Italy. He qualified for PC So Cal through his rating, but also won the Vienna $10K event. His opponent is Richard Vaughan, a pro player from Denver. He qualified through his Limited rating, and is well-known in certain online circles. |
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Robert Leander is one of the most recognized professional Vs. System players on the circuit. With several high finishes and victories in a wide array of premier level events, he was a favorite pick for a Top 8 finish this weekend. |
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Luke Chen is a 27 year-old data entry worker from Seattle who began the match by giving me grief for my Kai Budde–centric match coverage from Gen Con Indy, noting that Luke himself finished 25th in Indy and Kai didn't show up for this tournament. Bygones. |
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For Dave Spears, PC Anaheim is redemption. Namely, redemption for a performance in PC Indy that he had beat himself up over for too long. Dave went 3-4 at PC Indy, narrowly missing Day 2 and a shot at the money. |
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Eugene Harvey and Sammy Gilly both sat undefeated at 7-0, two of the last undefeated competitors at the PC. |
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I sat down to talk with Eric Wood after his feature match win against Rian Fike in round 8. A 23 year-old economics major at the University of Washington, Wood flew to Gen Con So Cal with friends Jason Dawson and Chris Price so all three could compete. |
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Rian Fike, a fan favorite from Florida, is well known for both his affinity for Purple and his Vs. System community involvement. He is not playing his signature Sentinels, but is instead running TNB Blitz. |
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Some of you may know him by his online persona “stubarnes.” Others may know him as That Sentinel Guy from various tourneys around the country. Still more may recognize the name from the various insightful articles he writes for metagame.com. But what about the man behind the Purple Mask? |
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Wess Victory is the reigning world champion of WWE Raw Deal and the winner of the Dragon*Con $10K. One of the most recognized professional Vs. System players on the circuit, Victory’s reputation is widely known. |
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Antonino De Rosa also qualified via PCQ and is one of the great big men in the world of collectible card playing. His jolly Italian presence always lightens the mood at a tournament with his laughter and self-deprecating humor. |
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Spider-Friends decks made an impressive showing this weekend. Several players used this kind of deck and did quite well with it. |
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PC Champ Brian Kibler found himself at 4-1 going into round 6, and was once again summoned to the feature match area to take on Stefano Pizzocheri of Italy. |
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Reynolds nailed her team-up immediately, flipping Common Enemy. Stephens matched the She-Hulk recruit with one of his own, prompting Stephens to quip “I think we might be playing the same decks.” |
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The deck concept isn’t original, but the execution is, and I was thrilled to see that Gray played the deck again in the So Cal PC. His revised version of the deck definitely deserves attention. |
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As a followup, the logic went, it would be good to do a feature article on whichever member of Team VsParadise was dominating the field late in this, the construction portion of PCLA. There’s one small problem. “Our best player is 4-2.” |
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Nick mulliganed, and while drawing, tried to guess back and forth with John as they tried to figure out who was playing what. Nick asked,” You wanna play a robot?” John replied, “Not really, you wanna play a robot?” Nick grinned and simply answered, “Maybe . . . ” |
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This matchup features one of the giants of U.S. Magic: the Gathering—Eugene Harvey. Eugene is a previous U.S. National Champion and has multiple Pro Tour and Grand Prix Top 8’s to his name. |
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Rian Fike played an aggressive burn-oriented build of The New Brotherhood at the Gen Con So Cal PC. Is he a traitor? A madman?! A DIRTY STINKING POSER?!?! |
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Wess Victory and Paul Sottosanti both stood at 3-0 going into this round. Wess has gotten this far with his Curve Sentinels deck, while Paul is sporting the team TOGIT X-Men deck. |
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Neil Reeves needs little introduction to TCG fans. He was famous before he started playing the Vs. System, but his Top 4 finish at Gen Con Indy made him a superstar across the TCG world. |
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These guys have been working together consistently, doing an estimated 200 drafts in preparation for the tournament. |
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Before the match began, there was a random deck check that left Brian claiming, “They don’t trust me! They think I’m shady.” |
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If you’re a Spider-Man fan, then you’ll probably like this deck—it’s crammed full of spidey goodness. |
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Eugene, along with his affiliates on Team TOGIT (a gaming store based in central NJ), designed what some are calling the most innovative deck of the tournament, an X-Men control deck. |
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Jeudon won a qualifier in France and came to the So Cal PC with a Fantastic Four deck in hopes of bettering his performance in the Indianapolis PC, where he finished 86th. Pippin is also a veteran of the Pro Circuit, having also finished in the 80’s at Indy. |
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Both of these players are known for their very vocal nature, so Brian and Osyp began this match by yelling at each other, the photographer, people watching in the stands, the judge, and this reporter. |
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Playing a game based in a world of images and text, Jamie Tachiyama is the Pro Circuit’s first legally blind participant. |
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Gen Con Indy Top 8 competitor Steve Horowitz started off the festivities by discussing how he could have defeated Brian Kibler in August if he had just made the right series of plays, throwing away an extra ten thousand dollars in the process. Rob tried to console him by pointing out how much of that ten thousand would have gone to taxes. |
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The day was young and it seemed like neither competitor was in the full swing of play yet—no amusing one-liners or quips, just a lot of staring at Roy Harper. |
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The Realmworx team took an early hit as PC Anaheim’s first round shone the spotlight on what could be the match of the day in the Feature Match area. |
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