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The DC Modern Age field is diverse and exciting, but I think the focus this year will be on Infinite Crisis. While you have to make Day 2 in order to sit at the draft tables, this is the best set UDE has ever put out for drafting. With all four of the main teams being playable (and each of them also being splashable), this will be a draft like never seen before. There are no set archetypes, and if you get cut off from a team early, there is plenty of room to switch options without an immense handicap. This will be a true draft test, as skill surpasses luck when selecting the teams and cards needed for your draft deck.

FTN is hot. With Vidi Wijaya making the finals for his second straight PC in San Francisco and Kim Caton becoming the latest in a long line of FTN players to hit the Top 8, no team is on fire to FTN’s degree. While TDC remain its fiercest rivals—and San Francisco was no exception, with four TDC’ers in the Top 8—TDC just can’t seem to find the finals, with FTN stealing accolades repeatedly. How can anyone not predict FTN to hit the finals again with its track record? Half the members of the team (especially Milton Figueroa and Alex Tennet) are due, and the other half just won’t stop winning. Now we count down to see if Vidi can become the first double winner, if Kim can become the first woman to take the title, or if Mike Dalton can break his 2006 jinx and finally push through to the top of the podium!

With FTN placing the same percentage of its members as TDC in the Top 8 at San Francisco, they proved themselves as a perennial force to be reckoned with.

“. . . And we got Vidi in the finals!” Kim Caton says proudly, humbly ignoring her own Top 8 feat. She also feels that DCMA, though perhaps a bit short on options, is tougher than it was last year. “People have to plan for more than one type of deck to beat, although it’s not what I’d call an obviously diverse environment. I’m sure there will be a few surprises.”

Although Kim’s expectations for herself haven’t changed, FTN’s success has certainly made it tougher for the team to meet the skyrocketing expectations. “Personally, I feel like I’ve proven myself,” says Caton, “but as a team, it’s gotten to the point where anything that doesn’t involve a player in the finals is a letdown. When you’re on FTN, a lone $10K Top 8 doesn’t really stand up.” FTN constantly has to redefine itself, raising the bar with each PC. “We’re not going to kill ourselves if we end up falling short,” Caton continues. “We just don’t want to.”

In the meantime, success creates stability, and Kim tells me that there are no plans to add any new faces to the roster; the team is happy as is. “We are very solid as far as teamwork and cooperation, with minimal drama and a high level of loyalty,” explains Caton. “We stand by our performance thus far, and falling short once in awhile (if and when it does happen) will simply be shrugged off as we look ahead to the next PC.”

KIM’S PREDICTIONS TO MAKE DAY 3: “Chuck [Bell] and Milt [Figueroa] are due. Vidi is unstoppable. Some random TDC player and Tim Batow.

KIM’S FINAL WORDS: (On drafting Crisis) “I love it! It’s my favorite set to draft since DC Origins; a lot of depth—all the full teams have build possibilities. There are some primo cards, but I’ve never seen a set where so much can be done with so little if built and played properly. I know that I can’t really luck my way into a super deck, but I also know that my opponents really can’t, either.”

TEAM DONKEY CLUB

This is probably the first time that TDC enters a tournament with fewer members than it previously had, as Adam Prosak, Josh Wiitanen, and Brian Gates have left the team. Even though their departure takes six Top 8s, six Top 4s, three second places, and three wins away from TDC, it still leaves them in solid shape. Except for Gates’s Top 8 at PC Atlanta and Wiitanen’s $10K win in San Francisco, they haven’t had a huge impact on TDC in 2006. All four TDC players who made Top 8 in San Francisco are still with the team, as is the winner of the $10K at PC San Francisco, Nick Little. An even bigger loss for this event is Jason Hager, who will be missing this PC to attend a friend’s wedding—although he and his fellow West Virginian deckbuilding masterminds have still apparently come up with some tech to knock your socks off. Here’s a rundown of the remaining TDC members and their extremely impressive accolades:

While Michael Jacob and Doug Tice have established themselves as automatic picks to make Day 3, one player who has really re-emerged as a driving force is Gabe Walls. In 2004, he was one of the fiercest players in the game, with a $10K win and Top 8, and a Top 8 at the inaugural PC. He never fell off the map—he had repeated strong Day 2 performances—but he really came back into his own at San Francisco with a Top 8 performance that was reminiscent of a couple of years ago.

When I spoke to Gabe, he was busy preparing to host a third “testing camp” for TDC, with this one being the longest the team worked together to test for a single PC.

“Everyone is showing up at my house in Indy on Saturday (the 5th) and staying through the PC,” says Walls. “It really helps the guys like Neil, Nick, and myself who don’t have the time to put in on a daily basis.”

Gabe is fond of Infinite Crisis for drafting. He says, “The draft format is really good—really skill intensive, and a lot of different really good archetypes.” He feels that there is less luck and more skill in Vs. draft, and especially so with this set. Says Walls, “The fact that you have to play 75% of your cards really adds a lot of skill, because picks 5-10 are just as important as 1-5.” This, in turn, makes hate-drafting more difficult as you focus on building your decks. Notes Walls: “You’ve always had to take your 2-drop over someone else’s insane plot twist.”

In terms of losing three members, Gabe says that it hurts, but it is not something that will slow the team down: “Prosak and Josh [Wiitanen] are both fierce pros, so losing them hurts us a bit, but we are a tight-knit group. In San Francisco, Michael Jacob and I were both very disappointed with our finishes. The series of events that had to happen for those results were pretty insane. So needless to say, TDC is going for the big trophy. In fact, I am guaranteeing a win for TDC at this PC . . . and four in the Top 8. Vidi’s streak ends here!”

A bold statement, but certainly not impossible for a team with so many top players!

GABE’S PREDICTIONS TO MAKE DAY 3: “Vidi, Nick Little, Michael Jacob, Doug Tice, Neil Reeves. (Original, huh?)”

FINAL WORDS: (On the superstar caliber of TDC) “The West Virginians just keep getting better, and everyone else does too. When you have the best in the world on your team, only one person outside of TDC can even be considered a superstar, and that’s Vidi. Michael Dalton is the 16th best player in the world, behind Vidi and the fourteen TDC members. The more we play, the better we are going to get. These other teams already play so much more than us and still can’t put up similar results. I don’t really feel like it’s cockiness when we back it up; I just feel like it’s confidence, and deservedly so. The West Virginians are the best deckbuilders in the game. Neil Reeves and Doug Tice are the best drafters. And everyone just learns from each other. Those four guys from West Virginia will always test, and they will always come up with the best deck; they all love to game too much. There are too many superstars on our team for any one of us to be considered ‘on the map.’”

One of the three players I correctly predicted to make Top 8 at San Francisco was Tim Batow. He has taken Shane Wiggans’s lead and pushed TAWC into the spotlight. This PC is now TAWC’s chance to move from contenders into perennial all-stars. They’ll have to do it without Michael Barnes—who is taking his Metagame column a step forward and into coverage—and without Matt Meyer, who has those unimportant things to bother with like “work” and “real life.” With a Top 8 in the last two PCs, nobody can doubt the veracity of this statement: TAWC is the real deal! They’ve added two new players who are not officially members of TAWC, but are instead on “tryout” status: John Viola and Johnson Bailey (the latter of whom hit the Top 8 at Chicago last year). The only question left is, who is next? Will Batow or Wiggans reclaim their glory, or will Jeremy Blair live up to his potential and push into the limelight?

Tim Batow may not be the tallest player on the Circuit, but he’s certainly one of the biggest after his performance at San Francisco. He is looking forward to a chance to repeat his San Francisco fortunes, and it all starts with choosing the right deck. He didn’t tell me what that deck is, but he did talk about how the format looks. “Good Guys is clearly the best deck in the format, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice to take to Indy,” Batow explains. “You do have to play something that beats Good Guys, though, and it’s difficult to actually come up with something that beats Good Guys consistently. Magical Lobotomy and Multiverse Power Battery are great tech cards, but it’s difficult to fit them both in the same deck and still have a win condition. Power Battery does have the added usage of stopping "Sarge abuse" though, and Magical Lobotomy is great against the decks that have no natural defensive pump, as you always know an attack is going to be safe.

“With so few cards in a two-set format (with no starter!), it’s pretty easy to see the archetypes: Checkmate variants, Good Guys, Infestation/WWIII Army decks, Funeral for a Friend "Child Lock" decks, Fatality abuse, etc., etc.”

And then there’s the Secret Six—a team that Tim thinks is underrated, especially in terms of its value to other decks. “Not Secret Six Victorious,” clarifies Batow. “The win condition was specifically designed by UDE, thus it can never compete with abusive tournament decks. The best decks aren’t those that are ‘handed to you on a silver platter’ by its creators; the best decks always abuse the cards UDE gives us, because if UDE saw it in the first place, they wouldn’t [intentionally] make something abusive.

“But [endurance] gain is very good in Vs. System, and the Secret Six are the only team thus far that has had it as a theme. Also, free characters are very good for a multitude of effects—sometimes just for an extra dude in play (Roll Call, Funeral for a Friend); sometimes it’s to bounce (e.g., the array of Villains United effects). Fiddler can also provide a makeshift Slaughter Swamp when you have Straight to the Graves and can’t get your Swamp online. Of course, there’s also Mxy . . . him and Blinding Rage; [they] will end up being the most valuable cards out of the set.”

Tim also likes Crisis as a Draft set and is keen to take a seat at the Day 2 tables: “It’s really balanced. I know Alex Brown has sort of shunned off-curve in this format, [but] while you don’t have a massive amount of attack pumps like you did in X-Men, off-curve is still viable. You are completely reliant on the 3-drop Mr. Terrific to do so, though. [Kate Spencer] is also very nice, but she’s uncommon, so you can’t really rely on her. But she and Mike Holt are the guys that make me go off curve usually. Checkmate is probably the strongest team overall, though, which is odd because if you asked me after my first impression of the set, I would have said that they were the weakest. But Checkmate and JSA are both very strong.

“Draft always balances itself. A draft table should theoretically adapt like a pool of water; it should always level at equilibrium. So if, for example, New Gods were off-the-walls bonkers, and everyone took New Gods, then those drafting Superman, Revenge Squad, and Darkseid’s Elite would actually win out because they aren’t fighting with everyone else for good cards. Thus, a draft set can never be unbalanced unless there are bomb rares, but there aren’t really any bombs in VS. Sinestro, Green Lantern of Korugar was probably the closest we have ever seen, followed by reusable attack pumps like Oa and Mech Bay.

“It’s an unwritten rule that all draft formats are balanced. When you give eight people 24 packs and tell them to divide the packs up to the best of their capabilities, draft will always reach an equilibrium. Constructed formats may not, as you can always control the way your deck looks . . . but I wouldn’t say that DCR draft is any more/less skill intensive than other sets. It’s different, and probably more like previous Draft formats than X-Men was, but Shadowpact can still be the nuts, just like Hellfire Club was. You can still go off-curve crazy with Mike Holt and such; you can go for the solid deck with solid characters with Villains United, and try to burn them out Calculator style; there are a lot of routes you can take. A team might be stronger than another, but that doesn’t mean the format is unbalanced.”

TIM’S PREDICTIONS TO MAKE DAY 3: “I could list off people that aren’t going—’cause people like Jason Hager have a better chance than people actually going. I think Prosak is due for another Top 8 because he is really one of the best players in our fine game. I feel confident that someone from our team will Top 8 and would like John Hall to be the next one. I think Shane [Wiggans] is more likely to make a reappearance, though, as I’m just not as confident in John’s abilities in draft. Anthony Justice is another one of those great players who could very well Top 8, and then I think Mike Dalton will Top 8 based on his consistent performances. Finally, I have a feeling Vidi will do very well, but even though he is the best player in the game, statistically speaking, he shouldn’t Top 8 again . . . so how about Martin Weis? He is an up-and-comer that I used to know from my days playing Dragon Ball Z.”

FINAL WORDS: (On practicing Draft too much) “Once you get to a certain point, drafting isn’t as productive as it could be. After ten drafts or so, you get more used to pack runs (at least subliminally), taking signals, etc. It provides diminishing returns. Every [Sealed] game is just like every other, but with different cards; you have to expect to play against every common/uncommon in the format and realize synergies between those same commons/uncommons for your own decks. But once you’ve got that down, it’s so dynamic that practicing it more and more will have diminishing returns. It’s more worthwhile to practice Constructed; you’ll feel like a huge dope if you don’t make Day 2 and you spend a bunch of time practicing a Draft format. I did about thirteen X-Men drafts before the PC, and I went 7-2 in the draft portion. It’s not so much how much you do, it’s more about working out things theoretically, because there are rarely ‘if A, then B’ situations like in Constructed.”

San Francisco, practically a home PC for Edgeworld, wasn’t as kind as it could have been to TEW—though Quang Nguyen did grab a Top 4 in the $10K. But the team has regrouped and added a new member—Keith Watabayashi—and they’ve been busy bees trying to build the über-deck to break the format. Alas! Erick Reyes, Billy Zonos, Jim Adams, and Dustin Hansel won’t be playing at Indy, leaving it a four-man band, with Quang leading the way.

Patrick Yapjoco refers to the team as “not really major; we’re like single-A,” but its record speaks volumes about the strengths the team has. These guys can compete, and in any format. Patrick himself thinks of draft as a personal weakness, and yet he’s 19th in the world in Sealed Pack and won the Sealed $10K in Atlanta.

But to get to draft, first Edgeworld has to contend with DC Modern Age. Says Yapjoco, “We haven’t broken the format; we’re really waiting for PC: LA to try that. There are lots of Checkmate variants, Good Guys, Injustice Gang Army, Shadowpact . . . so there are lots of archetypes to play against.”

But the big news may well be the surprise decks that will undoubtedly show up—including a possible deck that one or more of the “major” teams are apparently mulling over. “I think a very fast burn deck that utilizes Villains United and the burn effects could surprise people,” says Yapjoco. “Maybe some JLI-4 beatdown with the Fate stuff. And I will reveal a deck that the ‘inner circle’ of pros is testing: it’s a WWIII deck with Surveillance Pawns, Zazzala, Fiddler, Secret Six Deadshot, Shadow-Thief, and Tattooed Man. It’s a very explosive deck.”

Oddly enough, it’s the draft that scares Patrick the most: “I’ve only drafted Crisis like three or four times total; I’m not looking forward to it. Those times were with the likes of Bulk, Niles, Ryan Jones, Vidi, etc. We’ve gotten a lot of people to come who want to draft, but I always sit out so I can test Constructed, so I would be the last person to ask about drafting Crisis. Ironically, I still see drafting as a weakness for me. Weird, huh? It should be fun, though!”

PATRICK’S PREDICTIONS TO MAKE DAY 3: “Well, let’s get the obvious three out of the way: Jacob, Vidi, Tice. Then I’ll go with Dalton and Nick Cuenca. Cuenca is on a roll of sorts with the $10K Top 8 and win.”

FINAL WORDS: (On sharing—or not sharing—tech) “I hate this ‘inner circle’ stuff; it should all be laid out there so that other ‘lesser’ teams can have a chance. We’ve actually cooperated with lesser teams to test so we can just have a chance—lesser meaning smaller, not inferior. We try to use our combined resources to find out info and tech and whatnot, and call each other or email each other. While I don’t necessarily think the big teams should share their tech, it would be nice. Hey, I was on a ‘big’ team once—Team Realmworx—a blue moon ago. And by that I mean we were all on the team of that time, and people wanted our tech. So now I’m on the other side and can see both sides of the coin. I think it’s cool for teams to have new decks for tournaments; it makes for great coverage and great discussion on the forums. And as a fan of the game, I look forward to seeing what new decks these teams have come up with, but as a competitor, it’s tough because you don’t want to ‘miss’ anything in testing . . . so you complain about people not sharing tech!”

While I made sure to mention how hot FTN is at the moment, there is no team that is truly hotter than Team AttaQC. Coming out of the recent $10K in Boston with five of the six teammates in the money within the Top 24 (and two of them in the Top 8), it was business as usual for the team who also placed two in the Top 8 in Hamilton earlier this summer. This French Canadian powerhouse stemming from Quebec has placed its members consistently in Day 2 over the last few PCs save San Francisco, where the team stayed home due to various job-related and scholastic obligations. But they’re back with a vengeance and challenging Day 3 to cap off a summer that forced people to take notice of them.

Although the team as a whole is on fire, it is Paul Bernard who is leading the pack, with a Top 8 in Hamilton and a Top 4 in Boston. Both he and former top Lord of the Rings player Max Bouchard are due for some serious hardware, with Guillaume Potvin and Benoit Chaurette nipping at their heels. They’ve been preparing for this PC for quite a while now—long enough to gauge the enemy and prepare to pounce! Says Bernard, “We haven’t broken the format, but we have a good idea of the decks being played. We decided to say no to the Fate Artifacts and Ahmed Samsarra. Every deck seems to run one or the other or both, so we said forget it to both of them and have tried to build a deck without either of them.”

One thing that excites the team is the chance to exploit curve decks without being forced into off-curve. “It’s the first time in a while that there really isn’t swarm as a main deck,” explains Bernard. “In Atlanta there were X-Faces and Morlocks, and even Squadron had swarm aspects to it.”

But what really excites the team is its recent success. They look at Indy as their chance to break out and prove themselves. “We would really like to break into the spotlight,” says Bernard. “We’re looking to do better than Atlanta, where some of us made Day 2. Here we want to all make Day 2, and do really well in Day 2.” And with Crisis as the Day 2 draft, they’re nothing if not prepared. “Crisis Draft is excellent,” says Bernard. “It’s a really good set with lots of splash cards—(the dreaded) Ahmed for example. This makes drafting more interesting, with more options.”

PAUL’S PREDICTIONS TO MAKE DAY 3: “Vidi, Michael Jacob, Dalton, Cuenca, Doug Tice.”

TEAM YOUR MOVE GAMES/KINGS GAMES

If there is one team that has something to prove, it’s the YMG/KG group. PC after PC we see their names on the leader board, and PC after PC when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, they fall just short. They don’t hit the $10K circuit that much, but they do have four PC Top 8s amongst them—from Craig Edwards’s remarkable run to the finals using Rigged Elections at PC Indy 2004 to Rob Dougherty’s Top 4 performance last year. But this season has been shallow for the team—or at least it was until Nick Cuenca ripped a name for himself with two straight $10K Top 8s, including the win in Boston. With Cuenca leading a pack of hungry Vs. System wolves such as Edwards, Dougherty, and perennial money-man Alex Shvartsman, it is time for the YMG/KG crew to grab a PC trophy!

Most of the Bugz didn’t make San Francisco, and those that did were disappointed with their performances. To be honest, this team has a ton of raw potential but needs some intense work. Enter Loren Nolen, who—along with several teammates—missed San Francisco due to scholastic obligations. The team is returning for Indy—right around the corner from many of their homes—with a vengeance, and Nolen and Alec Ruden, who have both won $10Ks, are hungry. Opponents beware!

As Loren Nolen tells me, there will definitely be Bugz presence in Indy: “About six or seven of us, in fact. I won’t lie—only three or so of us actually playtest for the format regularly. It’s probably been the hardest Modern format to crack yet. I only finalized a deck that I’m happy with like a week ago—which doesn’t leave much time to learn the matchups.” However, Loren is consoled by the thought that other teams are going through the same issues. He says, “I hear that a lot of the major teams aren’t too happy with what they’re playing; there just isn’t a deck that beats everything.”

In the end, Loren claims that it all comes down to Good Guys in one way or another: “Everyone knows that if you can’t beat Good Guys, then don’t come to Indy. Most people who can’t find a way around Fate Artifacts and Good Guys will probably end up playing Good Guys themselves, and it’s certainly not a bad deck. I know that at least one or two big teams have been considering running it themselves. It’s just a hard deck to beat; you have to tech a lot of slots, and it kills your other matchups.”

And so, armed with a deck that he and Adam Prosak constructed, and that only a couple of his teammates—including Alec Ruden—have actually decided to adopt, Loren is stepping strongly toward PC triumph!

LOREN’S PREDICTIONS TO MAKE DAY 3: “Vidi, Adam Prosak, [Michael] Jacob, Niles Rowland and . . . Rian ‘stubarnes’ Fike can be my fifth. That will make his day. If Stu’s ever gonna Top 8 a PC, this is probably his best shot!”

FINAL WORDS: (On drafting Crisis) “You just have to be good at reading the packs you’re being passed and picking the best available theme. It’s hard to hate draft in VS, especially before the 11th pick, because you play so many of the cards you draft. I myself know what I’m looking for. There are two decks I ideally want to always play, and if a power card for either one is there, then I’m fine first-picking it pack one. Otherwise, I’ll take a powerful generic card, or if that isn’t there, then a card of lesser importance for one of the themes I like. Usually I don’t like that strategy as much, but for Crisis I think it’s important to know what you’re drafting very early.”

VS. SYSTEM AROUND THE WORLD

AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND – Indy-struck!

Alas! I haven’t been in contact with Scott Hunstad this time around, so I don’t know if he and his jolly band of VS masterminds will be at GenCon Indy. It’s less likely to see the Australians and New Zealanders at a PC that’s not on the West Coast, though Hunstad finished in the Top 25 at San Francisco; Shaun Hayward finished in the money as well; and Luke Bartter made the Top 8 at the $10K. If they do show up, it will be interesting to see just what deck they pull out of their magic hats—but I can guarantee that any of them will be a solid shot at Day 3 if they show.

GREAT BRITAIN – The Empire Strikes Back!

With Ian Vincent coming out of nowhere to devastate the field at PC San Francisco and take the crown back to England for the first time, he has proven that the English are a threat. If Vincent shows up, he can be labeled an auto-contender.

Duncan Tang should be making the trip as well, and it may be the last one for the Scot. He’s always a Day 2 contender, and it would be very interesting to see him make Day 3, potentially hugging his opponent into defeat!

CANADA – Leave It to the Beavers!

With Team AttaQC tearing through the Northeast, we can’t forget Canadian powerhouse Dean Sohnle, who always seems to be at the top of the leader board come Day 2. He tests with Ian Vincent and Olav Rokne, almost a mini-team powerhouse in itself. If Olav shows up as well, that makes a triple-threat to watch out for.

Toronto’s contingent should once again be led by David Fielder, and he’s due for a big day. He’s almost always in the money, but I can feel another Day 3 coming soon for him. He hasn’t made the Top 8 in a PC since PC LA 2004, and he needs to prove it wasn’t a fluke.

With Quebec covered through Team AttaQC, the prairies represented by Sohnle and Co., and Toronto capped by David Fielder, there’s a new team brewing from Canada’s capital city, Ottawa: the A-Team, essentially a trio of Vs. players that tend to tear through PCQs across Eastern Canada. They’re led by Ryan Alurie—best known for his Raw Deal past—and also include Matthew Golden and Hamilton $10K Top 4 competitor Michael Brierly. They’ve shown that they can win—frequently—on the PCQ stage and that they can perform on the $10K stage; now it’s time to show they can compete with the best at the PC . . .

GERMANY – Panzermenschen!

With Kristian Kockott, Markus Kolb, and their crew still incommunicado, Team Zissou has picked up the VS slack and stepped in as the German crew to beat at the PC level. Mario Boley, Thorsten Schelian, and Jonas Skali showed up to San Francisco, and Jonas made the Top 25—yet another high Day 2 performance. They’re heating up with higher and higher results each PC, creating a German resurgence of a sort. They’re definitely the top German contenders for a Top 8 at the moment.

As for the rest of them, if Reinhard Blech, Florian Hess, Maik Stich, Andre Müller, Alexander Jersch, Kockott, or Kolb show up, they will all be in contention.

JAPAN – The Sun is Rising!

Several Japanese players have made their mark in the Vs. System world. Masami Ibamoto and Shouta Yasooka followed up strong Japanese $10K performances with money finishes in Atlanta, with Akihiro Shimizu just missing the money and Naoto Ikeda making Top 8 at the Atlanta $10K.

Ibamoto was back with another money finish at San Francisco and looks to be the top Japanese seed on the PC. Shimizu also made his mark, this time hitting the Top 4 of the $10K.

It’s clear that the Japanese have started to come into their own, with two to three strong performances per PC and $10K players in Japan who repeatedly make the Top 8. I’ve no doubt that there will be a Japanese contingent at Indy and that there will be at least one or two up near the top table come Day 2 (and at least one Japanese player looking to strengthen a team to Day 2 in the Team $10K).

THE FREE AGENTS & OTHER ASSORTED PLAYERS & MINI-TEAMS

The biggest news in the “free agent market” is the departure of Adam Prosak, Josh Wiitanen, and Brian Gates, who likely test together and have become a sort of Las Vegas mini-team of their own. They’re all contenders and should be the obvious choices as the top non-team seeds to make Day 3.

We shall hopefully see the return of Graham Van Leeuwen and Team Online, and perhaps an even stronger money finish from the Sp3drm4n.

Even without Bulk Lao, the mini-team consisting of David Frayer, Daniella Grijalva, Niles Rowland, and Jerry Whaley is a perennial money finisher, and each of their names will likely hover somewhere between 90th place and 1st place at the end of Day 2.

Team TOGIT are still contenders, though it’s always unclear how many of them will show up. But with Anand Khare, Eugene Harvey, Adam Horvath, and Osyp Lebedowicz, any one of them is a threat to make and take the finals.

Team Decktech seems to have all but disintegrated, but you can never discount Jason Dawson, Justin Desai, TJ Holman, and the rest of the (former?) Decktech crew.

And, of course, the usual suspects such as Matthew Tatar, underrated Tommy Ashton, Joey Carey, Donnie Noland, Chase Keaten, Dair Grant, Corey Eisenhard, and unheralded William Postlethwait are all solid bets to be up near the top come the end of Day 2. These are the players who seem to have the 10th, 20th, or 30th place finish at just about every PC, and when you add up their totals, they’ve probably made close to the same amount of money through consistency as most of the “big” team members have.

And now, the moment everyone has been waiting for: my picks and dark horses for Top 8!

Top 8: Tim Batow, Paul Bernard, Kim Caton, Nick Little, Alex Tennet, Doug Tice, Vidi Wijaya, Patrick Yapjoco

Dark Horse Picks: Nick Cuenca, Michael Dalton, Milton Figueroa, Michael Jacob, Quang Nguyen, Dean Sohnle, Gabe Walls, Shane Wiggans

Questions? Comments? Send ’em along and I’ll try to get them answered in the column! Email me at Kergillian (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Also known by his screen name Kergillian, Ben Kalman has been involved in the Vs. community since day one. He started the first major online community, the Vs. Listserv, through Yahoo! Groups, and it now boasts well over 1,850 members! For more on the Yahoo! group, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Marvel_DC_TCG.