Some days, I thought it was just a matter of time. Other days, I thought it was never going to happen. Today is different. I gaze at my dresser and realize it wasn’t just a dream.
My dresser is the current home of a Pro Circuit Championship trophy. Ever since my last trip to the Sunday stage of a Pro Circuit (PC: Amsterdam 2006), I’ve realized that I’m one of the better players this game has to offer. Ever since then, I’ve craved the Pro Circuit title. The trophy. The $40,000. The Extended Art Beatdown. The oversized check from the X-Corporation. I wanted it all. Winning a PC had become a dream—no, an obsession of mine. I didn’t want to look back years from now and call myself the Dan Marino of Vs. System. He might have passing records, and be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he could never truly call himself a champion.
I wanted to be a champion.
The problem was, I didn’t know what it took to climb to the pinnacle of our game. The Pro Circuit would come and then pass with barely a money finish (if I was lucky). I would try a different strategy every time. I would surround myself with different people, but always the result was disappointing. In the four Pro Circuits following the birth of my quest, my highest finish was 58th. An entire year, and not even one time within shouting distance of my goal.
My quest continued. I tested with exclusively local people. I moved in with Dave Spears. I helped form a team of the greatest minds in Vs. System. I tested alone. I had the best deck in the format, and I played Dr. Ub’X and Ibis. Despite my best attempts, I wasn’t able to smell the sweet air of the feature match area on Sunday at the Pro Circuit unless I was watching. I was missing something.
I needed to have fun. I needed my friends.
The formation of Team MxyBack was long overdue. In reality, we’re not much of a team. We’re basically just a group of friends that use card games as an excuse to get together. I’m sure if there was a Tiddlywinks tournament, we would “test” for it as an excuse to get together. I have no idea how to play Tiddlywinks.
As I’ll be referring to these fine gentlemen throughout my report, I figured I’d introduce them now.
Team MxyBack
Niles Rowland
Niles (pronounced Knee-lays) is my hero. Not many people can pull off being compared to both Galan and Super Genius at the same time, but Niles does it without breaking much of a sweat. A little-known fact about Niles is that he is Samoan, and the only way you can reach his home island is by unicorn flight. In case you were wondering, I am not smart enough to invent something like that. Team contributions include excessive flatulence and my preferred Draft archetype at the PC.
Brian Gates
It’s a little-known fact that Brian has a pair of boxing gloves in his trunk. When I found out about this, I assumed he was simply a true master; if he ever lost a boxing match, his handsome face would be destroyed forever (much to the chagrin of every single female on the planet). Brian and I were the primary designers of the deck, and I honestly think that Brian made the deck what it was.
Tim Rivera
Depending on who you’ve heard of, Tim is easily the best player on the Pro Circuit you’ve never heard of. Tim doesn’t travel to $10K events, skips the occasional Pro Circuit for things like “getting married” (what kind of excuse is that, anyway?), and isn’t over-the-top obnoxious. What Tim does have is an excellent understanding of how to win games of Vs. and a constant desire to improve his game. Tim also has the thankless job of gathering cards for most of the team.
Robert Swarowski
The antagonist. Team handshakes. My Cold Stone Creamery brother. Full body skin. Kree did it. All of these are within the realm of the great Rob Swarowski, the self-proclaimed second funniest guy in a group with Niles.
Jerry Whaley
Honestly, Jerry looks like he would be better off fighting alongside Gimli in some Lord of the Rings movie. I’ll probably get a huge beating the next time I visit for that comment. Jerry was a gracious host for me and the rest of the team during the PC, even if his son called me Niles on more than one occasion. Jerry’s team contributions involve X-Men and Fantastic Four characters with a side of Fate Artifacts.
Alex Gellerman
in an homage to alexs writing style his bio is going to have no puncuation and good grammar alex is a socal native that is probably the best player in the history of the game and he is really good friends with josh wiitanen too
Phimus Pan
The Phimus Between Us. Phimus “Peter” Pan. Phimus Pan, Manhunter Duplicate. Get a haircut, Phimus! Actually, that last one isn’t a nickname—I just want Phimus to get a haircut. And test. You heard it here first: when Phimus actually decides to prepare for a Pro Circuit, don’t come crying to me when he knocks you out of the Top 8.
Anthony Avitollo
One of these days, Anthony and I are going to produce an album. The album will contain all sorts of Weird Al–like parodies, only with gaming references. Anthony has recently made the plunge into competitive Vs. System. In fact, I taught him how to play merely a week before he won a PCQ to qualify him for this Pro Circuit. Given the minimal preparation time he had for this Pro Circuit, I was rather impressed by his performance; he narrowly missed the Day 2 cut at 5-5.
Building a Pro Circuit Deck: Devil’s Due
Shortly after $10K Columbus, Brian Gates and I had a discussion about the Lost in Space deck that Tim Capes piloted to a Top 8 finish at that tournament. I told him that the engine would work much more efficiently with Devil’s Due than with Sinister Citadel. Once we put Doom characters in the deck, Brian and I added Master of Puppets which could make for a very explosive combo kill, especially in conjunction with Fiddler. Our first attempt looked something like this.
Characters
4 Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth
4 Fiddler
2 Scandal
4 The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
1 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
1 Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival
3 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
4 Valeria Von Doom
1 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose
1 Adam Strange
2 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
1 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
1 Mikado and Mosha
1 Haywire, Suicidal Lover
Plot Twists
4 Devil’s Due
4 Master of Puppets
4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 Straight to the Grave
3 The Ring Has Chosen
2 Reign of Terror
Locations
3 Slaughter Swamp
1 Soul World
1 Doomstadt, Castle Doom
Obviously dated before the bannings, this had the additional problem of clogging the resource row. By turn 4 or 5, you wanted lots of Master of Puppets, a Devil’s Due, and a Slaughter Swamp. As it turns out, there isn’t much room to recover from a bad draw. In addition, this deck was definitely two turns too slow. Other decklists posted before the bannings had the ability to win on turn 3. Easily.
Thankfully, the bannings came to our rescue. While our deck did have some cards that were now banned, it was able to take a different direction. Without Fiddler, the Master of Puppets plan was no longer viable. Given that the basic engine was still strong and intact, we decided to build around that.
Characters
1 Haywire, Suicidal Lover
4 Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth
2 Mikado and Mosha
2 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
1 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
1 Roy Harper ◊ Speedy
1 Lilith
4 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
2 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose
1 Black Cat, Master Thief
1 Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival
2 Doom-Bot, Army
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
2 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
1 Mephisto, Soulstealer
1 Blackheart, Son of Mephisto
4 The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero
Plot Twists
4 Straight to the Grave
4 Enemy of My Enemy
2 The Ring Has Chosen
1 Armies of Doom
4 Devil’s Due
4 Reign of Terror
1 Mutant of the Year
1 Political Pressure
Locations
2 Slaughter Swamp
1 Soul World
1 Avalon Space Station
1 Doomstadt
This version of the deck realized that Golden Age games no longer ended on turn 3, yet decks were capable of being explosive. The Doom-Bot mini-theme would still allow the deck to be explosive as well as provide a second Doom character to turn on the Diabolic Genius’s game text. Despite some games that made Jerry Whaley very happy (attacking twice with a 15 ATK character on turn 4), the Doom-Bot package was ultimately too fragile. Because the Doom-Bots were 3-drops, many frequently played cards (Deadshot, Floyd Lawton; Reign of Terror; Terra, Tara Markov) were capable of rendering them useless.
The other thing I realized was that I wanted to play Haywire, Suicidal Lover and Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose every game. These characters were as important to the deck as Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth and The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero! Instead of being singleton cards that I would search for when I needed the effect they provided, I wanted to draw them naturally as often as possible. On top of this, drawing extra Haywires was almost always a good thing; simply replacing Haywires gave you another counter on Doom in addition to half a card when returning The Phantom Stranger. I don’t remember who found the card, but I remember there being a small debate on whether or not Secret Sanctuary would allow you to return Haywire for no cost. With the full compliment of Haywires and Poison Ivys in the deck, I knew I wanted a copy of Secret Sanctuary, too.
At about this point in our preparations, Michael Barnes basically wrote a Breaking Ground article about the deck concept. This article was fairly disastrous for us in a few different ways. First, the esteemed Mr. Barnes is himself a professional player, and I doubt he would write about the deck that he was going to play at the next Pro Circuit—especially in a column known for its offbeat decks. This meant either that the deck was poor, or that Mike had something he felt was better. Second, the article alerted people to the engine, perhaps sparking a few other teams to work on a Pro Circuit–ready version. Particularly troubling was the fact that he also put Secret Sanctuary in his version, a card that was powerful in conjunction with Haywire but not on the radar of most people.
As our team did not have any other decks that we were willing to play, I kept working on it. This was a good thing, since not everyone knew about the Breaking Ground column and nobody (Mike included!) knew that our team was planning to play a deck based on Devil’s Due. This led to some interesting conversations. Actually, just two, both involving Metagame.com reporter Anand Khare.
The first one was about two weeks before the Pro Circuit itself via AOL Instant Messenger:
Anand: Just thought I’d give you a heads up, we heard about the deck you guys are playing.
Me: Oh really?
Anand: It’s a Devil’s Due deck featuring such hits as Ultron ◊ Ultron 11, Army; Rann; and Surrounded.
Me: Do you get all of your leaks from Metagame.com? (I link Anand to the article)
Anand: Oh . . . uh . . . awkward.
The second conversation is a quote from Tommy Ashton on the Sunday of the Pro Circuit as I’m waiting for the Top 8 to begin.
Tommy: “Man . . . If only Anand would’ve kept doing his Week in Review column, then we would’ve had Adam’s deck! Must be nice to play with more than four resources.”
In any event, the deck underwent a few other cosmetic changes. My teammates and I took the following deck into battle.
Characters
4 Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth
1 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
1 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
1 Roy Harper ◊ Speedy
4 Haywire, Suicidal Lover
4 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose
2 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
1 Mikado and Mosha
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
2 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
1 Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival
1 Robot Destroyer
1 Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff
1 Mephisto, Soulstealer
1 Asmodeus
4 The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero
Plot Twists
4 Devil’s Due
4 Reign of Terror
4 Straight to the Grave
4 Enemy of My Enemy
3 The Ring Has Chosen
1 Flame Trap
1 Mutant of the Year
1 Political Pressure
Locations
2 Slaughter Swamp
1 Avalon Space Station
1 Soul World
1 Secret Sanctuary
Some people on the team decided to play a Black Cat, Master Thief and cut the second copy of Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius, but other than that everyone played the same deck.
Join me next week when I talk about the Pro Circuit experience itself and how I fared with the deck.
Adam Prosak