Those who didn’t quite make the cut yesterday, as well as others who weren’t able to play at the Pro Circuit at all, will have a chance to redeem themselves today in the first Team Sealed Pack $10K! Some of the notable teams to play:

Team AttaQC – Maximilien Bouchard, Benoit Chaurette, Mathieu Brochu

I Heart Jager – Carl Perlas, Michael Gemme, TJ Holman

Fake Team – Yoel Izsak, Tommy Ashton, Dean Sohnle

We Didn’t Do It! – Anthony Shaheen, Nicolas Cuenca, David Santos

Rather Be – Joshua Wiitanen, Chris Jilot, Alex Smith

A.T.M.F.T.W – Nick Little, Karl Horn, Dair Grant

F-AWC – Michael Dalton, Shane Wiggans, Peter Sundholm

Kings Games – Alex Shvartsman, Freddie Crespo Jr., Mike Olivson

Eric Hunter made a splash at the last Pro Circuit in San Francisco, narrowly missing out on a Top 8 finish. This time around, he didn’t do so well, missing the cutoff for Day 2 in the last round of Day 1. But he decided to make the most of his time at Gen Con by signing up for the Team $10K tournament. Many of his Your Move Games teammates had already formed other teams, so Eric improvised and joined forces with two Japanese players who missed Day 2 as well—Ko Okada and Akihiro Shimizu. Even though Eric speaks a little Japanese, much of their communication comes through head nodding and grand gestures. But the polite Japanese call his speaking skills “excellent.”

They had a rocky start in the event, losing their first two matches. But they have rallied to 2-2, mostly due to the insane Fate Artifact deck that has left Eric undefeated so far. Regardless of the language barrier, it was clear that all the players were having a good time; speaking isn’t required when you both speak “gamer.”  

Who says pros can’t have fun? Two-time $10K champion Adam Prosak loves to play Vs. System. In fact, as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, he went to the trouble of creating his own format to play against his friends and fellow Pro Circuit competitors—the Big Deck format. The rules are pretty simple:

After hearing about this format, I was determined to make my own Big Deck. Now, I usually don’t bring cards to the PC, so I decided to see what I could scavenge from the side event area. After finding a pile of discarded draft cards, I sifted through it and came up with my own Big Deck. Now I’m off to challenge Adam; I’ll post a match report of our game later today!

In every Pro Circuit, I try to keep you up to up to date with the best Draft archetypes so that you can beat up your friends at your local store. So, here are the players who went undefeated in the opening pod of Day 2 of Pro Circuit Indy

Name	Draft Table	Archetype
Batow, Tim	1	JSA ID
Colleran, Ed	2	JSA / Villains
Calabrese, Anthony	3	JSA / Shadowpact
Carey, Joseph	3	JSA / Villains
Boccio, Matt	4	JSA / Villains
Politowski, Steven	5	JSA / Shadowpact
Spiering, Tyler	6	Shadowpact / Villains
Wienburg, Ben	7	Checkmate / JSA
Gilly, Sammy	8	Checkmate / Villains
Ashton, Tommy	9	Villains United
King, Stephen	10	Checkmate / Villains
Deitz, Philip	11	JSA / Checkmate
Postlethwait, William	12	JSA
Rislove, Ben	13	Villains United
Desai, Justin	14	JSA/Villains
Eisenhard, Cory	15	Shadowpact / Villains
Shi, Di	16	Checkmate
Gibbs, Sam	17	JSA / Shadowpact

As you can see, the Justice Society seems to be dominating the top tables due to their under-drafted but extremely solid low-drop characters. Most of the winning decks have a Mister Terrific or two, as well as a strong ally base, mostly on the back of Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero. The team that seems to be having the most trouble is Shadowpact, as many of their key cards appear infrequently. The key Shadowpact cards like Abjuration and Magical Conduit are uncommon and highly prized by many pro players. As it becomes more apparent that JSA has been under-drafted, we may see a change in the wind for the other affiliations.

11:22 AM - Fly on the Wall

I’ve been walking to the match area to get little snippets of games to report back to you. Infinite Crisis Draft has many cool interactions that lead to situations that would never occur in Constructed. Here are a few gems:

“I’ll play Mordru, naming King Snake.”

“Boost Superman, Earth 2. I’ll put two counters on Huntress, Cheshire, and my two OMAC Robots.”

“Activate my June Moon; now you get control of her. Exhaust my guy to Systematic Torture your Ahmed.”

I’ll try to get more of these to you as the day progresses.

9:23 AM - Infinite Draft

It’s Day 2 at Pro Circuit Indianapolis, and the lucky 132 players who had six or more wins yesterday will now attempt to best each other in the Draft arena. The format is the tricky Infinite Crisis Booster Draft. Players will draft three times and play nine rounds to determine who will make the final day.

Pro Circuit San Francisco finalist and all-round PC superstar Vidi Wijaya is well placed with an 8-2 record, but many eyes are on Team Alternate Win Condition mascot Tim Batow to repeat his PC: San Francisco performance and add another Sunday appearance to his belt. Tim Batow played his aggressive version of Good Guys to a near perfect record yesterday. The Donkey Club brought the innovative Shadowpact Blackbriar Thorn Magic deck, and Anthony Justice and Neil Reeves posted impressive 9-1 and 8-2 records respectively. Fellow teammate Michael Jacob took the road more traveled with his Villains / Checkmate deck, and many of his contemporaries are predicting that this will be his tournament.