There are only ten players with one or no losses at the end of the eighth round, and there is no way anyone could have predicted which ones have ended up on top. Sitting at 8-0 are Matt Oldaker (part of the West Virginian contingent of Team Donkey Club) and Stephen King, dubbed by Patrick Sullivan as “the best player never to make Top 8.” Matt is playing the multi-team Heralds stall deck being played by most of his team, and Stephen is running a Brotherhood reservist deck spiced up with The New Brotherhood. Close behind is an avalanche of Vs. stars that includes Dean Sohnle (Teen Titans), Joshua Wiitanen (Dr. Light control), Masami Ibamoto (X-Mental), Loren Nolen (X-Men / Heralds stall), and of course Vidi Wijaya (Doom Crisis). Also on one loss is Abacu Miranda (Crisis Doom), John Hammond (Migga City), and David Hosley (Doom Crisis). With Doom Crisis the only repeated deck at the top tables, it safe to say that Golden Age is as healthy as ever after the banning. Only time will tell if Dr. Doom and his cronies have the staying power to come out on top. 

German player Andre Muller brought some fascinating technology to this event—a deck designed by Markus Kolb. Kolb discovered a way to abuse what has baffled most other players—a Lust for Power Doom deck. Lust for Power has the significant drawback of only allowing you to KO Doom to play it (as well as never allowing you to draw characters in the future), so he needed to find some way to make sure he had enough ATK to be able to win in the later stages with all those plot twists. 

That’s where Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird, Heroine Unbound comes in. Coupled with Team Tactics and Deadly Conspiracy (which are, conveniently, plot twists), she is able to pile on upward of 50 ATK, backed up with a Blind Sided! Andre is cruising at 5-2 and seems to be well placed to make Day 2 with one of the most unconventional decks I’ve seen. 

Within five minutes of the start of the round, both Rob Dougherty and Dan Bridy had finished their respective matches. Courtesy of Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage, Dan was able to deal 42 damage on turn 2 and finish the job off on the following turn. Rob required a little more work, needing the help of Black Panther, King of Wakanda and a Flamethrower to push his opponent below 0 on turn 3. They do call him Quicksilver for a reason, you know. 

2:35 PM: Top Table Metagame 

So, what’s winning? During round 6, I took a stroll down the top five tables to find out. 

Table 1 – Stephen King (Brotherhood reservist) vs. Ryan Jones (Crisis of Infinite Doom)

Table 2 – Ethan Danbury (Crisis of Infinite Doom) vs. Abacu Miranda (Doom / Crisis)

Table 3 – Mathieu Brochu (Curve Sentinels) vs. Matt Oldaker (TDC Stall)

Table 4 – Dean Sohnle (Teen Titans) vs. Joe Bryan (Secret Society leader)

Table 5 – Rob Dougherty (HiVoltage / Quicksilver) vs. Kyle Krueger (Common Enemy) 

It is an interesting mix of old and new strategies, with the Crisis Doom deck the most prominent. But interestingly enough, every speed of deck is going well; the only decks not really featured are the combo decks that were so feared prior to the bannings. 

Galactus, Devourer of Worlds is the perfect finisher in a stall deck. Eric Hunter would argue that he has a more fitting place at the top of the curve in his High Voltage burn deck. As I was sorting through the decklists, I found Eric’s deck, which looked like a normal High Voltage deck except for the one copy of the purple eater of planets. So, I searched him out, trying to work out why he made such a curious addition. 

“High Voltage has a problem against Human Torch, The Invisible Man, so someone told me that a good strategy against it was to stop playing characters and cause the opponent to gain a lot of endurance until turn 9, where I’ll Enemy for Galactus and steal it all back!” he explained. So, is the strategy working? 

“I have drawn him three times . . . and I realized why it’s a bad idea. Most decks run either Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival or Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose so they can just get rid of Human Torch whenever they need to. I had the opportunity to maybe get there in one of my games, but time was called on turn 7, so it didn’t come up.”

Who knows, Eric, there’s still five rounds to get someone! 

10:42 AM: Crazy is as Crazy Does 

Kieren Otton is crazier than he looks. An owner of the Sydney Games Centre in Sydney, Australia, he is a fanatic for the Arkham Inmates. And when I say fanatic, I mean that in every sense of the word. Playing the game since its inception, the man from down under has played Arkham Inmates in every Constructed format event in which he has ever participated, even going so far as to play them in Silver Age (where Arkham doesn’t even have the majority of their cards)! So, when he decided to come to this Golden Age Pro Circuit, there wasn’t any question about what deck he was going to play. 

“Arkham is the answer!” he keeps telling me. “I won’t even play Mr. Freeze from Villains United because he doesn’t have the Arkham affiliation. The 6-drop is better anyway!” To most Vs. players, the fact that Kieren has started 2-0 is miraculous, but to Kieren, it’s merely a formality. He won his last match powering-up Mad Hatter, Jervis Tetch four(!) times to get a stunback on Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage and defeat young up-and-coming Californian player Benji Kim. In a format dominated by so-called “power cards,” Kieren is without fear. “Bring em on!” he exclaims, “It’s time to cool off.” While Kieren’s Mr. Freeze impression needs a little work, his passion for the game and its craziest affiliation doesn’t. 

9:53 AM: Mega Metagame

On the first day of a Pro Circuit, I usually walk around all the tables and count all the different archetypes being played. For this Pro Circuit, I ran out of fingers . . . and toes, and if I were an alien with a third arm and leg, I’d have run out of those, as well. I was completely astounded by the diverse metagame that many people had dismissed before today as one-dimensional. Curve, off-curve, and combo are all significantly represented with decks like Brotherhood reservist, Good Guys, Faces of Evil, Heralds stall, off-curve Dr. Light stall decks, and Rigged Elections. Not only that, but the news of curve decks’ demise has been greatly exaggerated; in the feature match area, there were four curve decks playing against four off-curve decks, and all the curve decks were victorious! I even saw three Dr. Dooms in play at once (courtesy of some rip in the space-time continuum). It truly is a glorious time to be playing Golden Age.