Shaun Hayward
Shaun was playing in his second ever Vs. System Constructed tournament at the Brisbane $10K. This fact alone made topping Day 1 of the event quite an impressive feat. The 20-year-old Finance and Property student from Auckland, New Zealand, begun playing Vs. System just before Superman, Man of Steel, but he has been playing TCGs at a high level for almost 10 years.

His deck at the tournament was a consistent finisher in his local tournament scene, but usually did better in Sealed than Constructed. “I tend to choose the wrong decks in Constructed, so I opted for the safe bet here,” Shaun said, referring to his Curve Sentinels deck. He went for Magneto, Master of Magnetism over Juggernaut in his build and made a few other late changes—chief among which was the inclusion of one copy of Combat Reflexes.

It had appeared to casual observers that Shaun was just short a fourth Savage Beatdown, but he said he had been combing the venue prior to the tournament trying to find a second copy for his deck. This was primarily because it helped him establish an early Hounds of Ahab lock because of its 3 cost, but it couldn’t be hit by Not So Fast either.

Shaun was carrying the hopes of the whole New Zealand Vs. community, which was keen to have a champion of their own after Australian Alex Brown won the Auckland $10K.


Anthony “Migga” Macali
Migga, a 20-year-old IT student from Melbourne, picked up Vs. System at the very beginning. He started playing TCGs with Yu-Gi-Oh!, based on his affection for the cartoon, but Vs. quickly caught his eye when released. “The strategy and skill level, not to mention the awesome prize support, was very appealing to me,” he said.

Anthony was one of the more consistent members of the Melbourne scene and won the last two sealed PCQs there. Despite this, “Migga” said he generally preferred Constructed and had been playing Teen Titans (his deck at this tournament) since DC Origins was released. “They are versatile and have lots of tricks.” He also enjoyed the fact that they are a very skill-testing team, which he believed helped to keep his game sharp.

Migga’s deck used Foiled and Betrayal for the expected Curve Sentinels turn out, but those cards also proved very successful against decks like Common Enemy and Evil Medical School on Day 1, while Koriand’r ◊ Starfire would sometimes catch his opponent’s out. Roy Harper ◊ Speedy was also included as a bullet for combo decks like Fantastic Fun.


Adrian Capilitan
Adrian “Boris” Capilitan, a 22-year-old postal worker (he said he planned to study “next year”) from Sydney, had enjoyed a great streak of good luck on Day 1, which he credited to his “lucky” cap. However, that shouldn’t diminish his huge effort in piloting his beloved Common Enemy deck through a sea of supposedly poor Curve Sentinel matchups.

Adrian began playing Vs. System with Marvel Origins and had remained rabidly loyal to his Common Enemy deck throughout. He was a boisterous and excitable player throughout Day 1, and could be regularly heard kissing his cards and praying for good rips. He was swept up in the enthusiasm for Vs. System that had sprung up in Sydney over the past year, giving away the “other game” he played. No more “missing land,” he said.

Adrian had purposely tried to trick out his deck to take on Sentinels. He included one Latverian Embassy to restrict his opponents’ access to pumps and especially Reconstruction Program. He also included Finishing Move for the mirror match, which he actually played on Day 1. Adrian is famous for playing Boris “infi” times during each match, which further reinforced the lucky tag.


Sze Kiun Kong
The Melbourne-based, 21-year-old Commerce student, opted for Curve Sentinels for this $10K. Sze played Magic for ten years and continues to do so, but had been tempted to try out Vs. System because “the prize support, the mechanics and the flavor were a lot of fun too,” he said. “Vs. also benefited from being a very balanced game.”

Sze admitted that his build was a straight “net deck” taken from a recent overseas $10K. He said his was the most consistent build, based on his testing, with Magneto, Master of Magnetism instead of the recent strategy of using Juggernaut. This also provided him the power that Genosha offered.


James “Kongy” Kong
Kongy’s name had featured in the Top 8 list of every one of the four $10K tournaments held in Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps more impressive was that he had achieved this in the three Constructed events with three different decks—Fantastic Four, X-Stall and Teen Titans. The 21-year-old computer science student and self-proclaimed “miser” actually had not played a TCG before Vs. System. He played Hero Clix before his friend, Rob Davis, got him into the heroic card game.

“I like comics. It’s all about Marvel,” he declared. So why, then, would he play DC’s Teen Titans at the Brisbane $10K? “The choice was between Curve Sentinels and Titans and I hate the CS mirror. I have trouble knowing when to pump, and I also hate the whole Beatdown-Nasty Surprise-Overload combo.”

He nearly switched to Big Brotherhood based on teammate Luke Bartter’s enthusiasm for the deck (inspired by Bill Hodack), but he was finally swayed by Alex Brown’s Titan’s arguments. “Bring on Avengers,” he said.


Early Nguyen
Early, a 24-year-old Business/Law student and local player from Brisbane, played Curve Sentinels here—the same deck that put him into the Melbourne $10K Top 8 just a few weeks after he picked up Vs. System. He said he loved the deck because it was consistent and had enough room to accommodate metagame cards for any given tournament.

Early played Magic for ten years, but said he believed Vs. to be a better, more dynamic game. He also owned more than 3000 comics, so he naturally enjoyed this game.

He made the unconventional move of adding Apocalypse to his deck, while also using the more experimental Juggernaut “tech”. Early was slightly amazed at his record on Day 1, as he had worked until 2 am that morning and had only four hours of sleep. After that, he went to work for a 7 pm to 2:30 am shift.


Paul Vanderwerk
The 31-year-old co-owner of the VsParadise website (www.vsparadise.com) had enjoyed some recent success, having made the Top 8 at the Auckland $10K. Recently married, Paul had just gone through a difficult negotiation process to attend a number of high-level Vs. tournaments.

Playing Curve Sentinels, with Juggernaut and Flying Kick, as well as Apocalypse, Paul also opted not to play the standard defensive pumps for more ATK boosts and KO-effects. “This made up for my heartache at Amsterdam, where I scrubbed out like a newb after starting out 4-0 on Day 1.”