Jeremy Pinter had two huge tests in the opening rounds of $10K Detroit—he had to take his Curve Sentinels deck up against the always threatening Teen Titans . . . twice! And who were the players piloting the Titans decks in rounds 1 and 2? Top 8 mainstay Adam Prosak and PC: LA winner Ryan Jones! Jeremy was able to sit down with me to discuss his early victories and his overall strategy with Curve Sentinels against Teen Titans in the hands of a skilled opponent.

GT: Jeremy, I think it’s safe to say that the quality of your opponents for the first two rounds has been higher than that of anyone else at the entire event. You played against Teen Titans twice, wielded by two of the best Titans players on the planet. How did you manage to win both? What was the key?

JP: Well, they both missed drops each game. Also, I’m playing four Micro-Sentinels. I convinced myself they would be even better than something like Total Anarchy against Titans, and they were both playing Titans. I knew that as soon as I sat down.

GT: What has been the key as far as cards or strategy for you? What allowed you to hand two great players their first losses of the tournament?

JP: (bemused) Luck.

GT: (taken aback) Really?

JP: (laughs)

GT: Was it just the way the cards were falling?

JP: To a point. Against Adam, I was able to get an Overload off that stunned one of his guys at a key point. I was never able to Hound him fully, but I did stun out his board once. Being able to do that was enough for me to take the win. One thing to note—I’m playing Acrobatic Dodge instead of Cover Fire. When you have Hounds, for the most part, the +3 DEF you get will be superior to the +2 DEF you’ll probably get from Cover Fire.

GT: Is this a change you’ve made recently?

JP: It’s not something I’ve done. I came to that conclusion myself, but I also checked decklists from Paris, and they just posted the decklists from Australia today . . . and they all have four Acrobatic Dodge, too. So—

GT: So doing some research paid off for you?

JP: Yes. Adam came after me with Garth at one point and I was able to Acrobatic Dodge in a situation where Cover Fire wouldn’t have done it. It stalled his attack. That was a key in that match. With Ryan, he had to blow up a lot of his own resources to put pressure on me and he wasn’t able to play optimal plays late in the game because of that. And Sentinels is just . . . so redundant—if you skip a turn, you don’t care. You just throw another couple of guys up there. So the key for me was the consistency of the deck . . . and luck.

GT: One last question. There was a key turn against Ryan Jones where you attacked into his turn 3 board of Dawn and Hank with a Sentinel Mark II, then played Nasty Surprise on Dawn and followed with an Overload. But he had Not So Fast. Then you played a second Overload, and he had Not So Fast again. It looked like he got the best of that exchange, but as it turned out, it may have handicapped him. What do you think?

JP: He threw away way too many cards. I really think . . . like, he threw away Heroic Sacrifice, which would have saved him in an attack later. I don’t mean to say he’s a bad player at all, but my intention that turn was to stun both characters if possible. I only got to stun one, but as it turned out, it really didn’t matter!

GT: For the many people out there playing Vs. who need to know how to beat Teen Titans with Curve Sentinels, what advice can you give and what cards do you want to see?

JP: Well, Nimrod on turn 5. The repair counter is huge. And in the match with Adam, my Sentinel Mark II countered about four activations of Terra. He couldn’t get rid of his Argus and he couldn’t draw cards for real. He had to pick just one of the top four, and it caught up to him. Basically, the key to both wins was limiting their cards.

GT: Thanks for your time and good luck the rest of the day.

JP: Thank you. And “hi!” to Candy!

After the completion of this interview, Jeremy sat down for Round 3 against multiple Top 8 competitor Vidanto Wijaya, who was also playing Teen Titans . . . and won again. Three straight wins against top tier decks piloted by top tier players—Jeremy Pinter is out to make a mark at this $10K event!



        Jeremy Pinter proudly displaying what may
        well be two of the toughest victories in the
            history of competative Vs. System!