Graham is a 14-year-old player from North Carolina, one of the youngest competitors in today’s field. Considering his age, Graham is a spectacular player and writer, with a series of strategy columns on Metagame.com and a better grasp of the game than many players twice his age. Graham’s Vs. System skills made him a great choice to ask a few questions about today’s tournament.
Please spell your last name.
Van space L-E-E—two e’s—U-W-E-N.
What are your previous accomplishments?
I finished 50th at Pro Circuit: Atlanta and 5th at $10K Charlotte this year.
What are you playing today?
I’m playing a Crisis on Infinite Earths-based Doom deck.
Who did you test with?
I tested with my team, No Quarter Given. Phil Deitz, Dave Hosley, Chris Cothren, and Joe Minton are here today, and I did some online testing with Adam and Amir Bandeali.
What’s your record?
I’m 3-1. I’ve beaten a Shadowpact deck, a Villains/X-Statix team-up, and a Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage-based aggro deck. I lost one match to TAWC’s Quicksilver build.
Are there any cards that have been particularly good for you today?
Since Crisis on Infinite Earths gets around loyalty, I get to play Garth ◊ Tempest, Atlantean Sorcerer, who is amazing. Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff is also very, very good, and Human Torch, The Invisible Man has allowed me to get to the later turns against the aggro decks I’ve played against. Plus, Political Pressure is still amazing, even after the bannings.
What did you expect the format to be like after the bannings?
I expected quite a bit of Teen Titans and a lot of jank. I figured that High Voltage would get hated out of the format—there were too many people gunning for it. The format is too wide open right now for any one deck besides Titans to be a majority of the field.
Do you think you guessed right?
From what I’ve seen, yeah. As it turns out, there are less Titans here than I figured there would be. The format seems to be pretty wide open. Also, curve and stall seems to be coming back. I’ve seen a lot of X-Stall and Heralds stall variants floating around.
Do you think the bannings were a good idea?
Absolutely. UDE needed to ban something to balance the format. From what I’ve seen, they did a good job—there’s nothing that currently jumps out as ridiculous.
What do you think of Golden Age right now?
I think it’s a good format. Voltage is gone, which is a good thing. Also, the format seems to be moving back toward curve decks, which I think is terrific. I’m glad that UDE is willing to print cards that help various strategies and that they’re adventurous enough to make search cards that take away from the luck in the game and reward skill.