Today is Friday. I’m sitting at my desk at work as I begin to write this article—this is the first chance I’ve had to slack off here in over a month. Instead of writing this article, I could be cleaning up my office, but that doesn’t sound very fun to me.
I’m glad to have this opportunity to share some of my Vs. System excitement with the Vs. System community. Tomorrow, I will be playing in a Choose Your Set Wisely tournament, and Sunday, I will be playing in my local City Championship tournament.
What is Choose Your Set Wisely? Well, first you pick any one Vs. System set, and build a deck consisting of cards from that set only. Then join the tournament to have fun battling against other players’ favorite teams from one set only. I’m really looking forward to playing in this event. My friend Jeff Hill and I have practiced a little for it, in fact.
The Marvel Team-Up set is a phenomenal release. I built a very aggressive and powerful Sinister Syndicate deck that I think my wife, Casey, will be playing in the event. Jeff has an Underworld / Spider-Friends deck that looks like a possible favorite to sweep the tournament. As for me, I cannot decide what deck I want to build and play.
I have been playing Vs. System almost since the game’s release. I have accumulated many cards, and have recently tackled the task of sorting (almost) all of them by set and then by team. Last night, I built a Marvel Origins–only Common Enemy deck. The feat took mere minutes, given that I knew most of the cards to put into the deck and I knew where to find them. I have not had the pleasure of having a sorted collection until now, and I must say it’s a treat!
Common Enemy was the first Vs. System deck I ever owned. Basically, I went to my store and asked to buy a deck. Donnie Noland, the owner of said store, told me that he had recently returned from the first Pro Circuit and that Common Enemy had taken home the title. Actually, I take that back—it wasn’t the first deck I ever owned. A few days prior to buying the Common Enemy deck, I had traded a bunch of cards from another game to a friend to acquire a Wild Vomit deck. He ripped me off by telling me that Sentinel Mark IVs were worth three dollars apiece, but we eventually settled up on that deal to maintain the friendship.
The next batch of cards I bought let me build a The Brave and the Bold deck. For close to a year, that B&B deck was one of my favorites. After those acquisitions, I began building my collection in the normal way—buying packs and boxes with the occasional booster draft adding some key cards as well.
The Common Enemy list that I threw together last night was only a few cards different from the first deck I ever played in a tournament. Oh, the nostalgia! The first Common Enemy deck I played had a few copies of Have a Blast!, one copy of Unmasked, and one copy of the oh-so-powerful Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd. Web of Spider-Man was hot off the presses at the time and the Surfer, luckily, was one of the first rares I opened in my first-ever booster packs.
So, what does this historical look into my decks of the past have to do with anything? This upcoming Choose Your Set Wisely event has not only brought up all of these nostalgic memories, but it has also given me a reason to revisit each of those decks that I haven’t had much reason to play in quite some time.
Also, even though there’s no listing for the event posted on Upper Deck Entertainment’s $10K page yet, UDE has announced that the format of the $10K at Gen Con Indy will be Bring Your Own Set. This weekend’s tournament will not only be a blast to play, it will also help me to begin preparation for the $10K. I’m sure there will be more articles written in preparation for that $10K as the event date draws nearer, but for the sake of initiating that discussion, I’ll say that Common Enemy will be one of the major contenders for which you will have to prepare.
Here is my list:
Characters
4 Boris, Personal Servant of Doom
4 She-Thing
2 Luke Cage, Hero for Hire
4 She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters
1 Darkoth, Major Desmund Pitt
4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
1 Invisible Woman, Sue Storm
1 Robot Destroyer, Army
1 Ghost Rider, New Fantastic Four
1 Thing, Heavy Hitter
1 Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
1 Hulk, New Fantastic Four
1 Thing, The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing
1 Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom
1 Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria
1 Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur
Plot Twists
4 Signal Flare
1 Faces of Doom
4 Common Enemy
3 Doomstadt
4 It’s Clobberin’ Time!
4 Savage Beatdown
2 Flying Kick
4 Reign of Terror
4 Mystical Paralysis
1 Flame Trap
I can’t wait to go home and rebuild Wild Vomit, B&B, Avengers reservist, Good Guys, Big Brotherhood, Knight Light, Squadron, Kree, Checkmate / VU, and whatever else comes to mind. Sure, I have only this evening to put them together, but I know where almost all the cards are and I know basically how to build them. I’m going to show up at my store with multiple decks from which to choose. I hope some of my friends who haven’t played Vs. System in a while will want to come join us for some fun using these decks of yesteryear.
And then Sunday, I’ll be playing even more Vs. System, and I couldn’t be more excited about that event. Nashville’s first City Championship will be over by the time you read this article. I will probably have crashed and burned, but I can predict the future now and tell you that I will have had a great time. I’m going to play a combo deck that my Donkey Club teammates and I deemed “too slow and too inconsistent” to pilot at Pro Circuit Sydney. I won’t say too much about it other than this:
- The deck is unique and is probably the best chance I have of getting my deck selected for UDE’s “get your likeness on a card” playoff event.
- I will have one or more characters with the Negative Zone team affiliation in my deck.
- I will have one or more characters with the Morlocks team affiliation in my deck.
- I have never played at least 75% of the cards in this deck in a Constructed tournament before.
I write all of this not just because I’ve had a slow day at work, but also to say how much fun Vs. System is. I hope you’re all enjoying the game and are as excited to play as I am. If the Marvel Team-Up set is any indication of what’s to come from future releases, then I think I will continue to enjoy this game for many years. Fun tournaments with unique challenges, such as Bring Your Own Set and UDE’s challenge to their players to win a City Championship with a unique deck, have really gotten me excited about Vs. System again.
To anyone who has missed reading my articles, I’m sorry I’ve been such a stranger. I’ll try to write more soon.
Doug Tice’s accomplishments: Sealed Pack $10K NY 2005 – Winner; Constructed $10K Charlotte 2005 – Finalist; Sealed Pack $10K LA 2006 – Winner; Constructed $10K Austin 2006 – Winner; Pro Circuit San Francisco 2006 – Quarterfinalist; Sealed Pack $10K NY 2006 – Semifinalist.