I first met Matthew Tatar in Amsterdam at about one in the morning, playing a game called Fruit Bandits with various Englishmen. He had never played before, but he was quite good at it. He is also none too shabby at Vs. System. With back-to-back top-twenty finishes in the last two Pro Circuits, he is one of the most consistently strong performers around. He's looking to make it three in a row this weekend. Going into the final pod, he found himself at 13-5, somewhere between two and three wins away from a Top 8 slot, depending on tiebreakers. Sitting to the left of Michael Jacob, a $10K winner and designer of Force, there was everything to play for.

 

In the first pack, there was a tricky decision for Tatar. Known for having a slightly different evaluation of cards than many of his peers, for Tatar, the big decision was between Mind Over Matter and Penance Stare. If he could get a strong X-Statix deck, there would be potential for him to get a very strong finish in the draft. But Tatar had strong leanings toward the powerful burn plot twist and the way that it allows you to race aggressively. He went with the Stare, and in pack 2, he was rewarded with War Wagon, which neatly fit into his aggressive burning plan. There was an X-Statix Cafe in the pack as well, so either of his strategies could have worked at this point.

 

A third-pick Swan Dive allowed the stun/KO/burn plan to stay alive, but the X-Statix plan might have been better, as we saw both La Nuit and Phat in the packs.

 

The “choose your own adventure” style of drafting continued as Tatar got the excellent Spider-Man, the Spectacular Spider-Man. Had he been all about the wacky mutants, he would have a Missed Drop to play with.

 

Getting Punisher, Executioner and a second copy of Penance Stare meant that Tatar's choice of direction looked reasonable, as there was nothing there for an X-Statix direction. However, there was a ninth-pick Nerve Strike, so it wasn't clear how well things were going with Tatar's gambit. At the end of the pack, he had La Nuit, and X-Statix Cafe had done a full lap.

 

When Tatar opened X-Statix HQ, he let out a big sigh. His gambit had gone the wrong way. Rather than dwelling on his unfortunate situation, he simply took a copy of Midnight Sons and was happy with it. His curve gradually filled out with Marvel Knights and X-Statix characters. When he reached the end of the draft, he had quite an aggressive MK Midnight Sons deck that could use Quick Kill, Judge, Jury, and Executioner, and War Wagon to lock down opposing characters. Plus, it had Penance Stare to speed up the kill. While the final build may not have been as powerful as an X-Statix deck, Tatar remained quietly confident that it would be good enough to give him his third top twenty in a row—and hopefully a little bit more.