Matt Boccio can definitely be considered the first Vs. System “name” pro player. He made his reputation by winning the very first $10K Championship ever held, playing a Big Brotherhood deck which dictated the metagame for the first few months of PCQs. He did an about-face for this tournament, switching to the Fantastic Four strategy that dominated the Chicago $10K last weekend.  

Indeed, there are no Brotherhood characters in the Top 8 today. The big joke at dinner yesterday was that there are more copies of Frankie Raye being played today than Sabretooth, Feral Rage!

Boccio’s opponent, Craig Edwards, is proudly running a copy of Frankie Raye in his deck. It is one of several 1-drop FF characters he is playing in order to help team up guys in his FF/Arkham Inmates/Gotham Knights combo deck. Edwards is taking advantage of the powerful Alfred and Cosmic Radiation combo. He is able to repeatedly ready his characters on turn 4 or 5 by spending 1 resource point per Alfred. Cosmic Radiation readies Alfred, which in turn can go fetch the next Cosmic Radiation.

Edwards is a member of team Your Move Games. One of the most celebrated teams across multiple trading card games, YMG was deeply involved with Vs. from the very beginning and had many players qualified for this tournament. YMG playtested with Kings Games. It was Kings Games player Felix Dykhne who first came up with the Alfred/Cosmic Radiation combo. He and several others on the team played the deck with Advanced Hardware because that only required two teams and offered more consistent draws. Some YMG members championed the idea of winning with Rigged Elections instead – since you win the game right away once there are 25 counters on it there is no need to worry about an opponent being able to out-damage you the way they might with the other combo. No one was more vehemently in favor of this strategy than Edwards, who won two PCQ tournaments to guarantee himself a continuous place on the Pro Circuit. Edwards went 5-2 with his deck on Day 1 and backed it up with an impressive 6-0 record in draft.

He now faces his best possible matchup against Boccio’s FF deck. He is favored to win by about 80 percent, but would be almost equally at a disadvantage in Top 4, where he has to face a winner of Gabe Walls versus Neil Reeves Common Enemy mirror match.


Game 1

Boccio had initiative on the odd turns, but there are no 1-drops in his FF deck, so he was content to play a resource. Edwards dropped a GCPD Officer and sent it in for 1 point of damage. The attack was more of a joke since his deck is incapable of winning via damage anyway.

On the second turn Edwards placed his Cop behind an Invisible Girl and reinforced her after flipping over a team-up, against the She-Thing played by Boccio. On turn 3, Boccio played one of his best creatures in the matchup—Thing, Ben Grimm. Its ability to chuck the equipment it’s holding at an opponent’s character can actually come to matter in this matchup. Edwards used his Cop to Bat-Signal for Alfred, and hid the butler behind an Invisible Woman. He used the counter to cancel She-Thing’s attack and then took 5 points of damage when Thing came over at the Woman.

During his next turn, Edwards used Alfred to fetch Rigged Elections and played out the 2-drop Mr. Fantastic and Harley Quinn. With both of his signature FF characters in play, he now had access to playing A Child Named Valeria. Boccio played Wolverine, New Fantastic Four and set all his guys in the front row.

Edwards did, in fact, play Child and use his two FF characters to stun She-Thing. Boccio attacked Harley Quinn with Thing. Edwards reinforced and took no damage this attack, but this allowed Boccio to take advantage of Wolverine’s ability and attack Harley again, making Edwards take 12 points of damage. Endurance totals now stood at 47 to 32 in favor of Boccio.

On turn 5 Boccio used Signal Flare to fetch a She-Hulk. This way he was able to play two characters on this turn—not an easy feat for an FF deck, and a much better play than summoning a 5-drop in this matchup, especially since he did not draw any equipment cards so far.

Edwards began the turn by having Alfred fetch a copy of World’s Finest. He then played out Alfred, Query and Echo, and Frankie Raye for a total of seven characters on the board. Boccio had his five characters all in the front row, and took several minutes to figure out his attack. Here is how Edwards was set up:

Boccio started out by having She-Hulk attack Mr. Fantastic. Edwards flipped over A Child Named Valeria and took 1 point. When She Thing attacked through Invisible Woman, he took 2 more points of damage. He reinforced when Thing attacked to take nothing from that, and took 4 points from a powered-up Luke Cage. Boccio’s final attack was Wolverine on Invisible Woman. Edwards flipped over World’s Finest and reinforced with Harley Quinn.

Alfred fetched a Fizzle at the beginning of Edwards’s next set-up and he went off. He used his six characters to put counters on Rigged Elections he just flipped over. He then repeatedly used Alfred to fetch Cosmic Radiations. Boccio had only one Have a Blast!, and when Edwards used a Fizzle to counter it, he packed up his cards.

Boccio 0, Edwards 1

Game 2

Edwards got Alfred going immediately in the second game and activated him on turn 3 to fetch Marvel Team-Up. He re-played it behind an Invisible Girl and had a GCPD Officer on the side. He used The Invisible Girl’s ability to cancel an attack from Luke Cage and took a loss of 5 endurance points from Thing, Ben Grimm.

Alfred fetched a Fizzle on the fourth turn. Edwards then flipped a Marvel Team-Up for FF and Gotham Knights and then activated Signal Flare to fetch Mr. Fantastic. He then recruited both Mr. Fantastic and Query and Echo. Boccio brought his own character count to three with Wolverine. Edwards flipped over A Child Named Valeria and then used Mr. Fantastic to attack into Luke Cage.

“I’m actually going to get some use out of this card,” commented Boccio as he played an Acrobatic Dodge from his hand. Boccio was then able to attack and force through just a pittance of endurance points, bringing Edwards down to 38.

On turn 5 Boccio activated Signal Flare to find a 5-drop Mr. Fantastic. He played Stretch and gave it Fantasticar. In response to that, Edwards played A Child Named Valeria. Boccio gave a car to Thing, too, and passed priority.

Edwards flipped Rigged Elections and went for the combo. He put twenty counters on Rigged Elections and when he played the last Cosmic Radiation from his hand, Boccio asked how many cards he was holding. Edwards showed him four cards—two Fizzles and two characters he could discard to them.

Final Result: Edwards defeats Boccio, 2-0