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Hans Joachim Höh

It has reached the point now where I can, with fair amounts of confidence, not feature Hans Höh during the Swiss rounds of a $10K these days, as it almost seems a given that he will be in the Top 8. He’s like a robot from the future that’s programmed to play Vs.—a robot hiding under the most impressive coiffure in Vs System. Could Hans be like Sampson? Is his hair the source of all his powers?

For this weekend, he elected to go with Squadron Supreme, as he has at the last few premiere level events where he’s seen similar success. There are a few small changes here, like the inclusion of Whizzer and Flamethrower, but essentially the deck is the same one that placed two Germans in the Top 8 of PC Los Angeles. In fact, when Hans handed in his decklist, it was a printout from the LA coverage, with his name and UDE number written on top and a few quick changes marked out. It must be nice to be consistent.

Squadron Supreme

Characters

4 Ape X

4 Joystick

4 Shape

4 Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird, Sonic Carapace

1 Foxfire

4 Lady Lark

4 Golden Archer

4 Albert Gaines ◊ Nuke

1 Whizzer

Plot Twists

Equipment

2 Jetpack

Fabian Held

Fabian regularly acts as a judge at large UDE events, and the Yu-Gi-Oh! Pharaoh Tour was running concurrently with the $10K at the same tournament site. Somehow or other, Fabian managed to secure sufficient time off to play Vs. for the weekend, and he has every reason to be happy. The Top 8 is always a great place to be, and it is made all the sweeter, given that the estimates at the end of Day 1 of the $10K put the Yu-Gi-Oh! event (which had over 1000 players) as having an estimated end time of 4 am!

The Common Enemy build Held has for the Top 8 is, following LA, fairly straightforward. While Medusa, Inhuman or Human Torch, Hothead might have been tech there, here they have become par for the course. One inclusion that is nice to see. though. is Purple Man. With increasingly high numbers of reservist characters showing up in Top 8s everywhere now (in both Avengers and Squadron Supreme decks), his ability is more than welcome. Any day where you steal your opponent’s Wonder Man has to be a good day. With System Failure and Flame Trap along with the standard ‘Doom Suite’ of tricks, Fabian’s deck seems well set up for the Top 8.

Common Enemy

Characters

4 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom

4 She-Thing

2 Human Torch, Johnny Storm

2 She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters

2 Medusa, Inhuman

1 Purple Man

4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius

1 Invisible Woman, Sue Storm

1 Robot Destroyer

1 Thing, Heavy Hitter

1 Human Torch, Hothead

2 Hulk, New Fantastic Four

1 Dr Doom, Victor Von Doom

1 Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom

1 Thing, The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing

Plot Twists

3 It’s Clobberin’ Time

Phillip Korber

The second Squadron Supreme deck in the Top 8 clearly owes quite a lot to the work that has come from the German experience at the Pro Circuit. Rocket Central doesn’t exactly feel like tech in the traditional sense, but is worthy of note, simply as it’s one of the key differences between the lists in this Top 8. An interesting point to ponder for Squadron Supreme players is that the empty hand strategy is clearly strong, but many of the cards in the deck can function without a completely empty grip. Where should the line be drawn between the power of getting down to zero cards in hand and the consistency of being able to perform when one’s draw is patchier? Philip appears to have gone with a little more raw power here, and it will be interesting to see how his gamble works out.

Squadron Supreme

Characters

4 Ape X

4 Joystick

4 Shape

4 Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird, Sonic Carapace

1 Foxfire

4 Lady Lark

4 Golden Archer

4 Albert Gaines ◊ Nuke

Plot Twists

Locations

Equipment

Thomas Scheer

It would be easy to glance over the list below and deem it to be another Common Enemy build. Indeed, this is almost certainly what I did doing my frantic decklist sorting on Day 1. I was very much in error, though. Scheer’s interesting build owes just as much to the Cosmic Radiation/Team Tactics decks of old as it does to Common Enemy. With readying effects and Team Tactics, his Doom deck can engineer “one big turn” where one attacker’s ATK value gets functionally doubled. The interesting element is that the deck works out much like a Doom list that doesn’t have to wait until the late game to secure its win. In this way, Doom can punish bad draws much more efficiently. With Darkoth, Major Desmund Pitt being able to turn things up to eleven as early as turn four, Doom’s Cosmic Tactics can run the nifty trick of Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius, Reign of Terror, then attack for the win with some lucky draws.

Doom’s Cosmic Tactics

Characters

3 Robot Sentry

4 Valeria Richards

4 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom

2 Ant Man, Scott Lang

1 Thing, Heavy Hitter

2 Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl

1 Wonder Woman, Avatar of Truth

1 Robot Destroyer

2 Tibetan Monks

4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius

1 Darkoth, Major Desmund Pitt

1 Dallas Riordan, Mayoral Aide

Plot Twists

Marcel Praet

Avengers are the only team to ever have gone undefeated on day one of the Pro Circuit. Since Michael Jacob’s original success with the deck, and Karl Bown’s stripped down version’s success at $10K Gen Con UK, the deck has stabilized with the addition of System Failure to help in rough matchups. Powerful, relatively straightforward to play, and fairly cheap to build, the Avengers are quite the package. Praet’s build goes a little heavier on combat pumps than might be considered typical, which is a possible reaction to the huge amounts of Squadron Supreme around in Germany. When it comes down to a race, he might be slightly better set up than most.

Characters

4 Black Panther

4 Rick Jones

4 Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow, Super Spy

4 Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger

3 Beast, Furry Blue Scientist

4 Dane Whitman ◊ Black Knight

2 Hercules

4 Wonder Man

4 Carol Danvers ◊ Warbird

4 Hawkeye, Clinton Barton

4 She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell

Plot Twists

3 Call Down the Lightning

Locations

3 Avengers’ Mansion

Vasilis Giannoglou

Vasilis Giannoglou is batting 1.000 for Greece at this $10K, as the only Greek player at the start of Day 1 as well as the only one in the Top 8. His Avengers build is straightforward and powerful, and includes the interesting Monica Rambeau, as well as the Savager Beatdown of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. While I’m personally not a huge fan of the card, it can make opponent’s combat math a little scary, simply due to the fact that even one remaining card in hand could push any of Giannoglou’s characters well over the top.

Characters

4 Black Panther

4 Rick Jones

4 Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow, Super Spy

4 Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger

4 Beast, Furry Blue Scientist

4 Dane Whitman ◊ Black Knight

3 Hercules

4 Wonder Man

3 Carol Danvers ◊ Warbird

4 Hawkeye, Clinton Barton

4 She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell

1 Monica Rambeau, Lady of Light

Plot Twists

4 Heroes in Reserve

4 Call Down the Lightning

4 Flying Kick

2 Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

Locations

3 Avengers’ Mansion

Raphael Pitchal

‘Both Guns Blazing’ was a creation of Sam Roads that really broke out at $10K Gen Con UK this year, where Sam made the Top 4 while baffling his opponents with the vast array of teams and tricks at his disposal. Billy Postlethwait took this deck to LA with reasonable success, and now we find it has made a home for itself in the Top 8 in Germany as well. The deck runs somewhat akin to New School in the amount of search effects that it runs to smooth its draw, but then uses Cosmic Radiation to brutal effect in order to make the most of the abilities of Dr. Light, Arthur Light and Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, Sharpshooter to shoot everyone on the opposing side of the board down. With Garth to get back those Radiations, it can quickly prove that all you need in your deck is Alfred Pennyworth from the Gotham Knights in order to go all Batman on someone’s ass.

Characters

4 Alfred Pennyworth

4 Micro-Chip

4 Dagger, Child of Light

2 Mikado and Mosha

2 Dr Light, Master of Holograms

2 Mr Fantastic, Reed Richards

2 Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl

1 Garth ◊ Tempest, Atlantean Sorcerer

1 Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, Sharpshooter

1 Lacuna

1 Shimmer