Both of these extremely talented players came into the round sitting at 6-5. The winner will have the opportunity to play in the second day and make a large sum of money, while the loser will watch from the sidelines. Adam Horvath is a professional TCG player from Hillsborough, NJ, best known for his win at PC Amsterdam. Vidi Widjaya made the Top 8 at PC SoCal and has been a consistent $10K performer since the game’s inception. Horvath is playing off-curve GLEE, while Vidi is playing the innovative Realmworx Shadow Creatures deck.

Vidi won the option and took odds. Both players kept their first four, and Vidi started off with a Shadow Creatures. Horvath had a Willworld flipped on turn 1, revealing and then discarding Arisia. Horvath (also known as “The Southern Dandy”) then recruited an Arisia out of his hand. Both players exchanged a point of endurance loss. Turn 2 featured Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern from Horvath, fetching a Breaking Ground. Vidi responded with a second Shadow Creatures and Qwardian Watchdog. Horvath was unable to attack into the Watchdog, and Vidi elected not to make any attacks.

Turn 3 was a rough one for Vidi, as he was forced to use The Ring Has Chosen to fetch a Shadow Creatures and enable his Birthing Chamber, which didn’t yield another playable character. Horvath played Dr. Light, Master of Holograms, fetching a G’Nort discarded to an earlier Willworld activation. Vidi was again unable to attack Horvath’s board, while Horvath also passed. Horvath stepped the aggression up a bit on his fourth turn, revealing and discarding Tomar Tu to Willworld, then boosted up Olapet, fetching The Shark. Horvath then used The Ring Has Chosen to recruit an impressive looking Roy Harper ◊ Speedy, threatening to remove chunks of Vidi’s board. Horvath topped it all off by using Dr. Light to get back Tomar Tu. Vidi’s half of the turn was much faster: just Kiman. Horvath used No Man Escapes the Manhunters on Kiman to pull him into the visible area, then team attacked with Kyle, Tomar Tu, and The Shark after teaming up. While this appeared to be more than necessary, it was a calculated attempt to play around Qward, which could have wrecked Horvath’s board. Vidi simply used Kiman on Tomar-Tu, stunned him using Kiman’s ability, then stunned The Shark in the team attack. Speedy shot the dog, and Horvath was free to attack Vidi directly with the remainder of his team. Vidi again had no attacks, but he did flip Qward, using his Shadow Creatures to Stun Arisia and G’Nort. Horvath recovered G’Nort.

On turn 5, Vidi used one of his three Shadow Creatures to Qward G’Nort, then KO’d the exhausted one to an Emerald Dawn, searching out an Element Man. Horvath responded with Speedy and Hector Hammond, along with Kyle Rayner and Henry King Jr. ◊ Brainwave, with Dr. Light fetching Tomar Tu. Vidi tried to force Adam to activate his Speedy by attacking him with Kiman, but Horvath instead had Speedy pump himself and played Shock Troops, forcing a devastating double stun. Vidi then tried to stun Hector Hammond with Element Man, but Adam had Prison Planet and another copy of Shock Troops, causing another backbreaking double stun. With Vidi’s endurance extremely low after the two double stuns, Horvath’s ensuing attack to the face (augmented by Prison Planet) along with Brainwave activated through Olapet, was enough for Horvath to secure a day two birth.

Adam Horvath wins.