Michael Jacob:
Michael Jacob is no stranger to Sunday. He’s now tied Vidi Wijaya’s amazing streak of three PC Top 8 finishes in a row, and it’s his fourth trip to the big stage overall. He also holds the record for $10K wins with a grand total of four. Clearly, Michael is at the top of his game and also at the pinnacle of the Pro Circuit.
Mr. Jacob hails from Farmington Hills, Michigan and works at RIW Hobbies, one of Michigan’s premier game stores. In essence, he gets paid to play games, and gets paid a lot more to play games well.
Michael and TDC teammate Kyle Dembinski were the primary designers of the latest tournament-wrecking Donkey Club deck. TDC’s new stall deck put all but one of its players into Day 2 and took down four of the Top 8 spots. “We thought coming in that it was a 7-3 or 8-2 deck,” recalls Michael. He took the deck to an 8-2 record.
While he favored hidden decks in this Draft environment—either Franklin Richards–based or Inhumans based—Michael ended up in Kree for his final two drafts, putting together a 6-3 Day 2 record.
Michael faces a mirror match against Jason Hager in the first round, so his chances are 50/50, but then again, there’s no shame in losing to a teammate in the Top 8 of a Pro Circuit. Win or lose, Michael is definitely headed to Sydney to continue his streak and dethrone Vidi as the best player this game has ever seen.
Matt Oldaker:
Given the drubbing that last year’s 10-0 player Aaron Weil took at the Draft tables, Matt Oldaker had history working against him. But he more than proved himself worthy, becoming the first player ever to start a Pro Circuit with thirteen wins in a row, and then coasted into a Top 8 berth.
Matt hails from Huntington, West Virginia and helped to tune the TDC stall deck. When asked how confident he was in his deck, he responded, “Uh . . . I 10-0’d with it.” Fair enough.
Matt, like Michael Jacob, prefers to play the hidden guys in Draft, but after 3-0’ing the first pod with Inhumans concealed, he built a Skrull / Kree deck for pod two and an Inhumans / Heralds mash-up for pod three.
He’s playing Ryan Jones, who’s playing FTN’s Crisis / Doom deck. He didn’t play against FTN’s version yesterday, but he did face several other similar Crisis on Infinite Earths decks and had no problem taking them down. He’s not worried about making it into an all–Donkey Club finals.
Jason Hager:
Jason Hager really needs no introduction. Creator and collaborator on numerous “Janky” sensations, he has really turned up the heat by bringing back an old favorite in TDC Stall 2.0 or “Crazy Go Nuts University.” This will be Hager’s third PC Top 8, and he’s enjoying every minute of it. As far as matchups go, he had this to say:
“Political Pressure is going to be huge for us. And Merlyn too, he’s going to have quite an impact. In the Crisis matchup, Black Cat, Master Thief is going to be key to locking them down for a few turns.”
When asked how it felt to have TDC once again totally dominate the Top 8 and finally solidify the fact that they are the best team in Vs., he could only offer a sly smile. Thankfully, Michael Jacob jumped in to speak for his reticent companion:
“I thought we were already the best . . . except Vidi of course.”
Anthony Justice:
Anthony Justice has done it again with a second Top 8 in a row. Apparently all those online drafts have paid off. TDC has unquestionably dominated the last three Pro Circuits but has yet to bring home the “Big Prize.”
“Yeah, I think we’d al feel a lot better if we had the big trophy.”
Some thoughts from Anthony about tomorrow’s matchups:
“I think we’re going to do well. We’re going to do a lot of testing tonight and our deck has a lot of tools, so I’m really not that worried. With four of us in the Top 8, I think the odds are stacked heavily in our favor.”
Jonas Scali:
Jonas Scali hails from Germany and works in civil service. He goes to school part time but plays Vs. System full time. Jonas is a relative newcomer to the Pro Circuit scene, although many say that he is arguably the best Lord of the Rings player in all of Europe. He has been playing Vs. for less than a year and has moneyed significantly at PC: Atlanta and PC: Indy, but this is his first PC Top 8. He plays on Team Zissou, whose members also include Mario Boley, Thorsten Schelian, Manuel Peeler, and Richard Uloster. When pressed about his success, Jonas is quick to give all the credit to his teammates.
Jonas feels his chances tomorrow are “fair,” although he isn’t quite sure what’s in the Devil’s Due deck since he didn’t play against it on Day 1. Jonas said that they had been working on their deck since Heralds was released and that it really was a “team effort.” He also wanted to point out that although Team Zissou’s deck is very similar to the TDC deck, it’s proper name is “Zissou-Control.”
“The deck is complicated, but I am very confident in it.”
Adam Prosak:
There is no-one in the world who likes playing Vs. more than Adam Prosak. The man from Phoenix, Arizona is always smiling while playing the game—and he’s also pretty good at it. Before this Top 8, he made the final day at Pro Circuit Amsterdam and the elimination rounds of eight $10Ks (with two wins). But the thing he likes doing most is playing The Big Deck format, a format of his own devising that forces players to play only one copy of any card, as well as a 100-card deck.
Adam is part of a relatively new team called Team Mxyback, who came up with an innovative Doom/Devil’s Due control deck that abuses interactions between Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth and The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero to gain massive amounts of card advantage whilst piling on counters on Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius.
Adam is paired against Loren Nolen’s X-Heralds stall deck tomorrow, and had this to say about his chances: “I helped Loren tweak it, so I think I have a good shot. Even though I didn’t play against the TDC stall deck, I think our team never lost to it during the rounds.”
Ryan Jones:
Ryan Jones can feel it. Two years ago he became the second Pro Circuit champion in this very hall, and the stars have aligned once again, giving him a chance to repeat that feat. Part of the FTN squad, Ryan lately has been taking a back seat to friend and Vs. superstar Vidi Wijaya. But he’s back, and he’s hungry.
Ryan is a veteran of the final day, with three $10K Top 8s and two other final days at Pro Circuits. He played FTN’s Crisis Doom deck to a solid 8-2 finish on Day 1.
“If I had the choice again, I might have played the The New Brotherhood deck (played by Stephen King), but really I’m pretty happy with the choice I made.”
Loren Nolen:
Loren Nolen was a giddy as a schoolgirl reaching the finals of this Pro Circuit. A resident of Dayton, Ohio, he works mostly alone—most of the players in his area are pretty casual—which is how he arrived at the X-Men Heralds deck he played in the Golden Age portion. He’s not that confident in the deck, saying, “Its like the TDC Stall deck, except a whole lot worse.” His 8-2 record on Day 1 suggests that he’s being too modest.
Loren was able to pull out a 6-3 record on Draft day, and though he is a veteran of the game, tomorrow will mark his best finish at a Pro Circuit to date. He placed in the 40s in PC Indy 2005, and has four $10K top eight finishes, including a win in Detroit.
Loren Nolen is a name you should remember—he’s a player with a good future, and who knows? He might be our next PC Champion.