Gary Wise and Zvi Mowshowitz are two big names in the world of trading card games— big names who are still learning to play Vs. System. This is the first major Vs. System tournament that either player has played in. Gary has spent all of the last PCs on my side of the computer doing coverage. Zvi was a part of the initial design of Vs., but he has since moved on to other interests. As a New York local with a courtesy invite, Zvi was convinced by his friends to take the “free roll” and enter the PC.

 

Both players came into this round at disappointing 2-4 records. They quickly began some lighthearted banter.

 

Gary: “I think your sleeves are marked.”

 

Zvi: “Really? I didn't notice.”

 

Gary: “I should know. I gave them to you that way.”

 

Zvi: “Oh.”

 

Zvi was playing Gary's discarded Mutant Nation deck that focuses on the strength of Longshot and Lost City to power through big attackers. Gary was running an X-Stall deck that uses Jean Grey, Phoenix Force and Avalon Space Station to lock the game out. Since Zvi was also running several copies of Jean Grey to combo with Pyro, this was sure to be an interesting match.

 

Neither player had a turn-1 play.

 

After drawing for turn 2, Gary showed his hand of eight cards with 0 characters in it. Then, he activated Cerebro and saw two plot twists go by. Zvi played and activated Longshot (naming Wolverine and Quicksilver), but he missed, taking note of the cards put on the bottom of his deck. A Cerebro activation got Zvi a 5-drop Wolverine.

 

On turn 3, Gary Cerebro'd into Rogue, Power Absorption and X-Corporation.

 

Zvi: “X-Corp, huh? So, you're saying this is going to be a long game.”

 

Gary: “This is great. I get two features in a row where I don't get to do anything until turn 4.”

 

Zvi played Rogue, Anna Raven and used Longshot twice with Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, naming Quicksilver and Wolverine both times and hitting nothing.

 

On turn 4, Zvi missed again with Longshot, but he hit on the second use for the turn. Cerebro got him another 5-drop Wolverine. He used Mutant Nation, but even after all of this drawing and searching, he still couldn't find a turn-4 play. He set Rogue up in front of the exhausted Longshot.

 

Gary used Cerebro to get Jean Grey, Marvel Girl and Rogue, discarded a copy each of Flame Trap and Avalon Space Station, and played Jean Grey. Zvi had no attacks, and he let Jean Grey swing into Rogue. That was a mistake for Zvi, because he could have attacked with Rogue into Jean Grey to exhaust Jean Grey. His inexperience with his deck cost him 2 endurance. Zvi flipped Avalon Space Station to recover his previously discarded Jean Grey, Phoenix Force and Roy Harper Speedy (a card choice that he later complained about to Gary).  

 

Gary gained 4 endurance with X-Corp, undoing Rogue's damage from the previous turn and bringing the endurance totals to 50 - 44 in his favor.

 

Moving to turn 5, Gary's Cerebro turned up Professor X, World's Most Powerful Telepath and put a copy of Jean Grey into the KO'd pile. Gary recruited Sunfire and formed him up behind Jean Grey.

 

Zvi used Longshot again and hit Quicksilver, Speed Demon and Wolverine, Berserker Rage. He played Quicksilver, who was team attacked by Sunfire and Jean Grey. Gary's overwhelming force helped to protect against the possibility of Zvi having Lost City. The 5-drops stunned each other, leaving the endurance totals at 45 to 39 in Gary's favor. After another shot at X-Corp, Gary went up to 49 endurance.

 

On turn 6, Zvi counted his deck, calculated the odds, and called for Wolverine and Quicksilver with Longshot. Unfortunately, he turned over his last two copies of Lost City to the bottom of the deck (the others had been put there by previous uses of Longshot). On the second use of Longshot, he named Jean Grey and Wolverine. Now Zvi was getting close to stacking his entire deck, as his copious notes pointed out.

 

Without the hope of Lost City, Zvi had little chance of winning before the Jean Grey battle began. He probably made a mistake by not attempting to use Longshot to get Lost City. No other card was relevant to the rest of this match after turn 5, so Zvi's ability to draw a huge number of extra cards via his stacked deck and Longshot wouldn't amount to much.

Zvi moved to his recruit step with a sigh.

 

“I guess I'll replace Rogue.” He recruited Rogue, Powerhouse.

 

Gary responded with Rogue, Power Absorption and Puppet Master, setting up a strong combo to delay Zvi's attack. Quicksilver was exhausted twice before Zvi was able to declare an attack. Gary possibly made an error by putting Rogue as his only support row character next to Sunfire. If Jean Grey had been in the support row, she would have been able to reinforce. Rogue attacked Sunfire, taking advantage of the vulnerability. This attack KO'd Sunfire and dropped Gary to 38 endurance (which was raised to 42 after the use of X-Corp).

 

Zvi used Avalon Space Station for even more card advantage before the turn's end.

 

On turn 7, Gary dropped Professor X, World's Most Powerful Telepath, which was matched by Zvi's mighty Wolverine, Berserker Rage. Rogue copied the good professor's ability and exhausted Quicksilver, dealing 8 endurance loss to Zvi.

 

Zvi: “So, you take 8?”

 

Gary: “No, you take 8.”

 

Zvi: “What? That's not fair! I thought this game was balanced!”

 

Zvi did some more math and saw that with Gary's Jean Grey next turn, he could not possibly win. Gary would deal another 8 endurance loss with Professor X and then gain 4 endurance every turn while clearing the board with Jean Grey.

 

I spoke with Zvi after the match, and he admitted that his lack of knowledge about Gary's deck archetype may have cost him the match. He didn't know that X-Stall ran Puppet Master or that he could have saved Longshot and Xavier's School to eat up the exausts.

 

Zvi didn't like his chances of avoiding elimination from the tournament, but in his own words, he “came to play!”