Updates Everywhere - 7:08PM
In Round 20, Anthony Shaheen squared off against Markus Kolb, with the winner probably earning a spot in tomorrow’s Top 8 action. The game was extremely tense and went into turn 8 with Shaheen at 24 and Kolb at 7, with Kolb having the initiative. By the time the recruit step was done, Shaheen had eleven characters on the board to Kolb’s six, but Markus’s men included a boosted Solomon Grundy, Fists of the Guardians, Evil Star, Goldface, and Superman, Returned. Kolb found the weak spot in Shaheen’s formation and picked it apart, winning the game with negative endurance, but well ahead of Shaheen’s total of -24. Kolb’s reaction as he left the table showed that he was ecstatic at the result.
- Also in round 20, David Hosley faced Adam Fears in an interesting archetype mirror match. When time was called, Fears had Katma Tui, Ganthet, Kilowog, and another willpower guy in play, while Hosley had Krona, Sinestro, Green Lantern of Korugar, a Katma of his own, and Black Hand in play. The players finished their final turn, and Fears won on endurance totals, 74-53, marking the first time since I’ve been doing coverage that a game ended with both players over 50 endurance.
- Brian Kibler reports that through round 10 of the $10K, Mark Slack had played four Robot mirror matches in a row. Do you know what kind of thought is required just to do the combat math with all those Robots in play? Insanity!
- Going into the last round, there were only four players guaranteed a Top 8 appearance, with about eight more slugging away at the competition for a chance to play the elimination rounds tomorrow.
News and Notes – 3:55PM
- Frenchman Florent Jeudon was in third place after Day 1, posting a 10-2 record in the Constructed portion of things here in Indy. Since that time, not only did the wheels come off, but the radiator blew, the engine caught fire, and God dropped a giant boulder on the metaphorical car. Jeudon 0-fer’d the Avengers Draft this morning and then went outside for a smoke and to collect his thoughts. He returned to the event just in time for pick 2 in pack 1. He was not allowed to sit down and start drafting, thus guaranteeing an 0-6 start to his day. Assuming that 12-9 is the cutoff for making money, Jeudon must now go 2-1 in his last Green Lantern Corps Draft just to get in on the cash.
I was sitting at the table watching Neil Reeves beat Nick Cuenca in a very tense match that Reeves eventually won through a turn 7 Two-Face, and the railing was absolutely packed with railbirds trying to keep an eye on the happenings. During the final turn, while everyone else was focused on the board, the annual parade of characters (people in full costume) here at Gen Con came quietly tromping by behind the collected crowd. The game was tense enough that not a single person noticed the elves, orcs, bounty hunters, Gandalf imitators, and random women in bustiers tromping along behind them except me (since I was facing the parade). Finally, I forced Tim Willoughby to turn around and look because I wanted to have proof that this had happened, and not only did Willoughby turn around, he actually joined the parade. We haven’t seen him since.
- After round 17, Anthony Justice was sporting a long face after having posted a 1-4 record thus far on Day 2. For a pick-me-up, I suggested he go tell Mark Slack (who he knocked out of the tournament in round 12 yesterday) his record on the day and watch Slack’s face burst into flames and frustration. Speaking of Slack, he and his robots started the $10K 1-3, but have since battled back to a .500 record.
- So, you’re Michael Krumb. In the first match in your Draft pod, you recruit Appa Ali Apsa on turn 8, and your opponent drops nothing of note. You’re obviously going to win, right? No sir! In fact, Krumb was only able to knock his opponent down to (gulp) 75 that turn, and Anti-Monitor mashed him on turn 9 for the win.
The Shape of Things – 3:45PM
The Draft rounds are proceeding very quickly today, and the list of possible Top 8 contenders is shrinking at the exact same rate. In recent PCs, all players with sixteen wins or more have made the Top 8, and usually a couple of players with fifteen squeezed in as well. With four rounds left to play, that means that all the players with 13 points or more are within striking distance of the PC Top 8, while anyone lower than that will basically need to run the table to have a shot. Here’s the list of strong contenders after round 17:
1 Leader, David | 14 | +70 | +835 | +181 |
2 Kolb, Markus | 14 | +64 | +903 | +174 |
3 Dougherty, Robert | 13 | +89 | +1075 | +550 |
4 Stich, Maik | 13 | +89 | +943 | +606 |
5 Jacob, Michael | 13 | +89 | +930 | +487 |
6 Dawson, Jason T. | 13 | +87 | +1055 | +661 |
7 Shaheen, Anthony | 13 | +87 | +939 | +745 |
8 Dalton, Michael | 13 | +73 | +797 | +447 |
9 Lao, Bulk | 13 | +60 | +673 | +259 |
10 Reeves, Neil | 13 | +53 | +874 | +317 |
11 Chaurette, Benoit | 13 | +36 | +687 | +204 |
Kid Gloves Filled with Rocks – 1:30PM
We mentioned the one meellion dollar Scholarship Circuit yesterday, but there are still some kids in the main event battling for a $40,000 top prize while beating up on players years older than them. Here’s a profile of three of the youngins still alive in t
oday’s tournament.
Chris Coleman
Age: 15
Location: Roanoke, VA
Current Record: 10-6
Constructed Deck: Green Lantern Rush
Interesting Facts: Works for StarCityGames.com during his free time
“Little” Kory Walters
Age: 14
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Current Record: 10-6
Constructed Deck: GL/EE, with tech for little GL/EE like Helping Hands and big booties
Interesting Facts: Plays at the same card store as Gabe Walls and Nick Little and gets to play against them all the time.
Doug Werry
Age: 13
Location: Simi Valley, CA
Current Record: 9-7
Constructed Deck: GL/EE
Interesting Facts: Also played at PC LA, says he turns 14 next month.
None of them are in contention for the Top 8 anymore, but all of them stand a good chance at finishing in the money, provided they do well in the remaining five rounds.
What a Rush – 11:55AM
Drafting Avengers is a new and exciting prospect for Vs. System players everywhere, and it will be the Sealed Pack format of choice for some time, as Pro Circuit Los Angeles will run Avengers for all three drafts. We decided to check in with some of the top players and a few R&D members to see what early strategies are emerging from the new set.
Masters of Evil/Thunderbolts Rush
Neil Reeves and Nick Little both drafted decks that contained between two and four copies of Faces of Evil and many, many small men. Reeves played precisely zero men with a recruit cost greater than 3, while Little chose to run one 4-drop—a lone Heinrich Zemo ◊ Baron Zemo to make his attacks even more devastating than they already were.
To give you an idea of just how devastating this strategy can be when it works right, in round 15 Little had all four Faces of Evil turned up from his resource row to go along with sundry “dooders” (as he calls them), and his opponent could do little more than hold his head in his hands while taking an absolute ton of damage straight to the face each turn. Reeves posted a 3-0 in that draft, while Little missed out on finding a team-up in round 14 and could only go 2-1.
The Squadron Empty Hand Strategy
If you want to draft the Squadron, get reservists. That allows you to make your drops while playing your plot twists out of your hand so that it eventually ends up empty. It works particularly well with the Avengers because they have a huge number of good reservists and are good at facilitating an off-curve strategy. You want to play off-curve early because that also helps you empty your hand.
Important plot twists are Eldritch Power, Behavior Modification Device, and Might Makes Right, and you should probably take those over things like Supply Line and Panacea Potion.
Here are the records for the players we profiled for the first draft: Rob Dougherty: 2-1,
Neil Reeves: 3-0.
But it’s ROBOTS – 10:42AM
While the players were milling around after their round 13 matches, I ran across Mark Slack, who after losing out on Day 2 to Anthony Justice yesterday had sworn there was no way he’d play the same format again in the $10K today. Oddly enough though, Dair Grant and I saw Mark walking from the $10K play area with a deck in his hand.
Dair: “Are you playing?”
Mark: “Yeah.”
Dair: “I thought that format was too painful for you to revisit.”
Mark: “It was. But today I’m playing ROBOTS.”
Dair: “But there are 160 people. It’s eleven rounds.”
Mark: “But it’s ROBOTS. No thought will be required for the whole day.”
Dair: “Alright, but you can’t complain today.”
Mark: “Obviously.” *points to his deck* “I’m playing Robots.”
Dair: “Uh hunh . . . ”
Slack: *walks away*
Dair: “I swear to God . . . four rounds from now he’s going to walk up to me, throw his book bag down, and start ranting about how he hasn’t been able to draw a Birthing Chamber to save his life today.”
Speaking of Robots, Andrew Veen had a similar idea in that robots are easy and require little thought and even less writing to construct your decklist. Andrew’s deck contains an astounding 41 of the robotic vermin and very little else. He did note one minor problem that he encountered while procuring the cards for the deck. “I realized Superman Robots would be good a couple of weeks ago, but the site I ordered from has software that only allows you to order 4 of a card at a time, and after each order the price kept going up because their supply went down. I eventually got all I needed, but the final amount spent was a bit of a kick in the teeth.”