Age is No Barrier to Success - 6:15 PM

Our first Top 8 in the two-pronged $10K tournament is in, and one of the finishers was born in the 90’s. In other news this reporter is very, very old.

Kevyn Lee, all of twelve years of age, went 6-2 in the DC Swiss, ensuring a spot in the single elimination rounds of a tournament that could see him playing for the financial futures of nineteen players. A Vegas native, Lee’s been playing Vs. System since its release and his success here is hardly a new development. On Friday, he lost in round ten to drop to 5-5 in the Pro Circuit, leaving him just short of Day 2 qualification.

In retrospect, maybe that’ll turn out to be a good thing.

Lee played a League of Assassins deck created by Andrew Yip. He’ll now fight for his tournament life for three rounds, with the DC portion victor advancing to Sunday play to play the winner of the 128-player Marvel field. Each half of the field will be paid half of the regular $10K purse, with the winner of Sunday’s ultimate final doubling his entire bracket’s payout.

Lee is assured of at least a $200 payout, with the money practically doubling with each win from here on out. I imagine this will supplement his income, which is derived from his allowance.

The Nitty-Gritty or the Brass Tacks? - 5:25 PM: It’s nail-biting time here at Gen Con So Cal. With one draft remaining, we’re starting to get a clearer picture of how the Top Eight might look as our Professionals take their first crack at Superman: Man of Steel. Our tournament leader, Ryan Jones, is a virtual lock (barring an earthquake or Extinction Level Event) with his fourteen wins through sixteen rounds. However, the rest of the Top Eight is still blurry enough to keep an eye on.

The best guess says that some players with five losses will make Top 8, so fifteen wins is the “sure thing” goal. Mark Slack and Vidianto Wijaya, an Indonesian national living in Los Angeles, both sit at thirteen wins, so a 2-1 would definitely get them into Sunday play, while a 1-2 might be enough to keep them around.

Coming in at twelve wins is a group of eight players, including: Eugene Harvey, to whom many New Jersey players practically conceded the tournament before it even began; Paul Sottosanti, who came in second at the Indianapolis 10k; Nick Little, who made Top Eight in PC Indy; and Antonino De Rosa. The jolly Italian has suffered a number of Top Eight near-misses in Magic, and is known by many as one of the greats of the gaming community, so a Top Eight here would be seen as a major event. This is compounded by the fact that Antonino started the tournament 0-2, which unfortunately has left his tiebreakers in shambles. Unlike many of the 12-4 players, he’ll almost certainly need to go 3-0 to achieve the Sunday dream.

There are eighteen players entering the final draft with eleven wins, but not all of them will have a realistic shot at Sunday play. The first tiebreaker is your opponent’s cumulative match wins over cumulative match losses, and with the 11-5s needing to go 3-0 just to have a shot, some of them won’t have the tiebreakers needed to compete with the 12- and 13-win players. This is because, as your record improves, your tiebreaks are bound to do the opposite, as the player you just defeated has taken an additional loss and been added to your tiebreaker totals.

Billy Postlethwait sits atop the eleven-win group right now, and along with Matthew Dunn and Dimitri Datseri, has strong enough tiebreakers to be in serious contention with a 3-0 draft. Among the better-known names lower down the eleven-win heap are Robert Leander, Luke Bartter, Gabe Walls, Osyp Lebedowicz, Anthony Justice, Steve Horowitz and Scott Smith, but any and all of those guys need some kind of miracle for more than just a good money finish and a lot of free time tomorrow.

Expect five players from pod one, two from pod two and one from pod three to make it to Sunday. That’s when the real action begins.

A New Move From Your Move - 4:00 PM

As TCG players go, there aren’t many who’ve been around longer than Rob Dougherty. A former military man, Dougherty’s post-armed forces career saw him open Your Move Games, a Boston store which ranks amongst the most famous collectible shops in the world.

With an extensive background in Magic, Dougherty looked forward to Vs. System’s new challenges. “The thing I like most about Vs. System is the fact that, when I lose, I can usually look back and find the moment where I screwed up. Even when I can’t I feel like I probably did something wrong.”

Unfortunately, today started out as one of those days for Dougherty. After going 7-3 on Day 1 with Cars, the aggressive Fantastic Four build, Rob had a horrible first draft, going 0-3. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Though it was unplanned, those desperate measures came through with flying colors. Rob’s predetermined draft strategy was to take plot twists and Sentinel Mark Vs highly. He got a pair of Sentinels early, then took John Proudstar ◊ Thunderbird, a powerful card with a massive weakness, and geared his draft towards drafting an aggressive deck.

Conventionally, in Web of Spider-Man, drafters have stuck to drafting either Spider-Friends or Sinister Syndicate. Furthermore, many have stressed the importance of the larger, more powerful 6 or 7 cost characters. Rob bucked the trend: The Mark V’s provided him with both a 4- and a 5-drop, with John Proudstar filling out the 4-slot. He drafted no 6-drops and no 7-drops, using Beetle and Lion’s Den to extend the game long enough to win.

“The deck usually needs to win by turn 6,” said Dougherty, adding, “or maybe turn 7 with initiative. I almost think it wants to be evens, I guess, but since every other player will want it, I’ll have to choose odds.”

The gambit worked. Rob won his first two rounds of the draft in extra time, and then ran over his finals opponent, winning on turn five. “He made a mistake, but this deck will take advantage of mistakes better than other decks” Now 10-6, the Bostonian has a good shot at making some good money.

Main Deck

Characters
1 Archangel, Angel of Death
1 Scorpion
3 John Proudstar ◊ Thunderbird
4 Sentinel Mark V
3 Rhino
1 Man-Wolf
1 Hammerhead
1 Silvermane
1 Sentinel Mark III
2 Beetle

Plot Twists
1 Hired Goons
1 Forced Allegiance
3 Crushing Blow
1 Crowd Control

Locations
1 Mojoverse
1 Madripoor
2 Lion’s Den

Equipment
1 Rapier
1 Jetpack

Unplayed Cards
Solo
Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
Chameleon
Jackal
Lizard
Shriek
Com Link
Time Platform
Siege Perilous
ESU Science Lab
Clone Saga
Unmasked

I’d hate to see Sr. - 2:45 PM

As if the $10K and PC weren’t enough for the Upper Deck company to handle this weekend, Gen Con is simultaneously hosting the first-ever Shonen Jump Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Championship Tournament, with a sea of three hundred bodies swarming over the tournament area.

While I was heading over to find some good blog stories, I was amazed to see how ethnically and culturally diverse the field was. Hair ranging from blond to brown to blue to white dotted the field on owners aged five to 55.

Maybe it’s the mass media attention the Yu-Gi-Oh! cartoon’s been getting, still ranking amongst the most popular children’s shows on television. The show appeals to young crowds in a way that integrates kids when society offers so many segregating influences, and when the kids find an activity they want to share in with their elders, there’s not much the elders can do. Larry Taylor, Jr. is a good example of this.

Larry would stand out in most crowds: He’s a 6’9” African-American in cornrows and about twenty-five times the size of the average Yu-Gi-Oh! player. His younger cousins got him playing the game, and he found himself really enjoying it.

“It’s a lot like war.” the pending college student told me. “There’s a lot of strategy and timing involved, and the smallest mistake can really come back to haunt you.” The man loves games and the opportunity to match tactics in any form. Yu-Gi-Oh! is just one way in which this trait manifests itself.

“I wasn’t going to come here today, but first prize is a laptop! I mean, I’m about to start school . . . I could really use a laptop.” His voice trailed off for a moment as his dreams of conquest and grandeur took over. “Of course,” he added, “anything can happen in this game, so you never know.” Ironically, he sort of provides the support for that statement.

Marvel-DC Crossover, TCG style - 1:30 PM

Now, obviously, the Pro Circuit is the big tournament of the weekend, but the LA $10K Championship may well be the coolest TCG tournament of all time. Check this out:

Players bring either an all-DC or all-Marvel deck, playing only against the same sets they’re using. When a winner is decided from each half of the bracket, the two winners will be pitted against one another on Sunday’s big stage. The half of the bracket that wins that showdown will have the entire prize payout for that half doubled.

So, in addition to big-time cash, we have a situation where everyone in the tournament will be on hand cheering for their representative. What are the ramifications?

You’re in the money in the Marvel bracket, and your friend is in the final against an obviously superior player to decide who will be representing Marvel. Who do you cheer for?

The real metagaming in this tournament went deeper than any in any game ever. In addition to knowing what decks were being played and what beats those decks, the true student of the game had to consider that most PC participants wouldn’t have the time to test Man of Steel archetypes, meaning they were much more likely to run Marvel decks. With payouts going down twenty places in both halves, that means that it’s a lot easier to make money in DC. It also means that the DC deck is twice as likely to be the weaker deck in the finals, so your chances of making money playing DC are good but your chances of making big money aren’t. Confused?

The final tally on the brackets: 45 played DC, 117 played Marvel. The DC players will play 8 rounds, the Marvel 10. That means a Marvel player with 7 wins may not finish in the money, while a DC player with 4 wins could well do so.

The biggest check tomorrow is going to the PC winner. The biggest cheers, however, could well belong to the $10K champ.  

Shattered Dreams, Dashed Expectations - 1:03 PM

A lot of the favorites coming into Day 2 aren’t doing as well as they’d hoped. Gabe Walls and Brian Kibler both predicted 3-0 finishes at their first draft pod despite knowing they’d face the daunting task of defeating one another, yet both lost in round 12 before they could make it to the sure-thing-feature-match showdown.

Scott Smith assured me he’d go 3-0, an opinion bolstered by team mate Scott Hunstad’s admitting he was likely to go just 2-1 due to Smith’s presence at the table. Yesterday, Smith had to win his final round to qualify for the draft portion, his specialty, but after doing so his mood only slightly lightened. It was when Hunstad followed with a sixth win of his own that Smith got really excited, with his gut reaction being a celebratory closed fist to a very hard wall. According to his teammates, the knuckles in question haven’t been complained about, so you’d have to think there weren’t any breaks.

The following are things these eyes have seen:

Antonio DeRosa was so happy to win a match that he forgot how to speak English. The man spoke to me in Italian. The only Italian I know is pasta names.

His teammate, Steve Sadin, won his round 13 match with Play Time, a card that’s considered unplayable by many of his competitors:

“The math in Vs. is very difficult . . . there are so many variables, its tough to determine which trick to play around. Cards like Play Time can often force through 6 to 8 more damage in the later turns of the game often because your opponent won’t be accounting for its possibility. I just won a match by moving his 3-drop and punching through for 15 damage.”

Sadin is in the second year of university at the New School despite having just turned sixteen years old, and yet has not developed the cocky exterior seen in many young, successful game players. “Whenever you lose in Vs., it feels like you’ve really done something wrong, though it isn’t always apparent what that thing is.” Sixteen years old. If I were trying to earn my way to the Pro Circuit, I’d be listening to this guy.

Dave Spears drafted what he termed “The best deck I ever drafted” and promptly went 0-3 with it. He then stole some thunder by saying, “I’m definitely going to be known for my ‘limited’ skills after this.”

Former Magic players Paul Sottosanti and Eugene Harvey live in Seattle and New Jersey respectively. A year ago, they lived in the same house in Pittsburgh. Now, they’re two seats apart for the second draft pod at the top of the standings. Things have come full circle.

All Dressed Up and the Place To Go - 11:45 AM

There wouldn’t be much point to web-casting from Gen Con without including some of the Gen Con flavor. For those of you who aren’t in the know, Gen Con is a gathering of gamers filling every height, weight, gender, ethnic, and costumed demographic you can dream of.

Photographer Craig Gibson and I walked around the main exhibition hall in search of characters ranging from weird to sexy to fantastical. Our first encounter was with Julia, who I’m sure has a last name but will forever be emblazoned on my brain as Julia, as if she rivalled Sting or Prince or Madonna in stature. Julia was dressed in small patches of fur barely covering the important parts, with great expanses of flesh in between, so when she started our photo session by asking if we wanted her to take her skirt off, it was surprising to me that she thought there could be more than one answer to the question. Turns out there was more costume underneath.

As Craig and I made our way around the great hall, he noted that the status quo was that the later the day got, the more costumes we’d see, but then all manner of Samurai Vampire and Psychotic Kitties started rearing their purposely ugly heads. The best costume hands down, though, had to go to the three guys dressed in full Ghostbuster attire, who apparently spent two years working on the costumes.

The room is full of all manner of games using cards and boards and figurines and miniaturized battlefields. One figurine fanatic had spent two and a half hours setting up some 500 inch and a half–tall warriors in one of the most complex battle scenes of modern times.

This place is festive. There are kids playing in an inflatable castle, LARPs doing their thing . . . everyone’s having fun . . . and for them, there’s no $40,000 check to take home on Sunday. Be it Julia, the Kitten, the vampires, or the Ghostbusters, they don’t know what they’re missing.

Prankster and Table 7 - 10:18 AM

While most of the early PC focus has to be on table 1, table 7’s shaping up to be a real hum-dinger. PC Indianapolis Champion Brian Kibler, Top 8-finishing team mate Gabe Walls, Team TOGIT’s Adam Horvath, and LCQ survivor Jeremy Thomas are going to lock horns, with the four of them predicting a combined 10-2 record for this draft.

Brian Hacker, R&D extraordinaire, felt Walls’s deck was so good that it warranted closer attention. The reason? Prankster. The 1-cost character allows you to manipulate your opponent’s draws, with the initial call for 6 (the consensus most important character cost in the format) revealing what your opponents are about to draw once they’ve rearranged their decks, and a second activation before that draw leaving them with the chaff.

Going into pack three, Walls was in desperate need of 5-cost characters, so despite Prankster’s strength, he chose Cir-El ◊ Supergirl when he opened both. Two picks later, he was faced with the same decision and again he took the fat. Fortunately, both Pranksters came back the second time around. Walls isn’t exactly the least excitable guy, but Neil Reeves, a draft master, confirmed Prankster’s value to be that of a third pick or so. Gabe’s deck should be fun to watch, especially if and when he meets up with Brian Kibler, who predicted a 3-0 run after the draft concluded. The cards and talk should fly.