I met Olav Rokne this morning. The first thing he said to me was, “I’m Olav Rokne. I’m Tim Willoughby’s friend, but I’m not very good!” He said it in this chipper, gentlemanly way that was quite remarkable.

Well, turns out that he was wrong about one thing: he is Olav Rokne, he is Tim Willoughby’s friend, but as for the “not very good?” Well, he’s undefeated and tearing up his opponents left, right, and center with Evil Medical School. This is a newcomer that’s worth watching.

Rokne is from Calgary, but he travels profusely. He plays regularly with the likes of Ian Vincent, Rich Edbury, Dean Sohnle, Earl Prusak, and Chris Evans, and was in fact introduced to the game by Chris.

“Chris Evans introduced me to the game when, by random chance, I landed in Indianapolis for Gen Con at the same time he did. We split a cab, and he showed me Vs. He handed me an extended art Wolverine. About six months later, I was getting really irritated with another certain card game, and Earl was like, ‘Yeah! I’ve gotten into Vs.’ So I played it a little bit and checked it out.

“I went to England for some family business, and while I was there, $10K London was going on. So I met up with Ian [Vincent]—I’d visited him previously, we’re decent pals—and I gave him a shout and he invited me to come out to the $10K. Tim and I knew each other; we’d gone to a few museums and things together. He had the week off, so we did some things together. The whole Vs. gang over there is great. John came over to test decks one evening, and he and Dean [Sohnle] and I did a bunch of testing in preparation for the $10K. The whole group over there has these weird gaming skills. Did you know Dean Sohnle was the Mech Warrior world champion of 2002?” Indeed, I did not.

“Earl sent me with a deck to $10K London, and due to unfortunate matchups, I went 6-4. I was playing Fat Bat but went against Doom four times, so that was bad.”

Playing EMS, I knew he must’ve had some tech up his sleeve, so I verbally cudgeled him for it. “Actually, I’m trying to build something new and wacky and innovative. I’m testing a Stilt-Man deck right now, but Earl showed me the back of his hand and slapped me around a bit.”

“‘Okay! I won’t play Rama-Tut! I won’t play the Cosmic Power deck!’ He gave me a carbon copy of his deck, because his collection is that insane. So we spent a few hours training me with that. It’s working out for me pretty well.” Rokne is incredibly modest—in today’s nine round tournament, he is now 6-0.

“I’m not holding out hopes for Top 8, though, because I’m really not very good.” He smiled, and just briefly, I saw a glint in his eye suggesting that maybe a little bit of him realized he was.

Olav Rokne, a self-described “Team Britney Spears Fan Member in Exile,” is definitely a player to watch out for. With a sharp wit, an utterly brilliant mind, and a no-nonsense attitude mixed with a heart of gold, he’s a great bet to take the entire event and many to come.