Admittedly, the title wasn’t nearly as alliterative this time around. Ahh well.

Donald Grant, who most locals know simply as “Grant,” is one of Toronto’s core players. He’s a great guy who has often lent inspiration for my own column, and has probably the best “ring sense” of any Vs. player I know.

To explain—in professional wrestling (the showy pretend stuff) one of the things an experienced veteran has is “ring sense” or “mat awareness.” They know where they are at all times, and can thus execute the ballet-like moves that are often so realistically dangerous. They know what is going on around them, and as such they stand above their coworkers and contemporaries as true artists.

That’s Donald Grant. Regardless of what cards he may be looking at, he’s gifted with an uncanny knowledge of everything that is transpiring on the table. In a format where leader effects, one-shot combat pumps, ongoing plot twists, locations, reservist counts, and more dynamic factors render the board a highly amorphous thing, that’s a talent that is not to be under appreciated.

“Oh good, two copies of The Wrecking Crew . . . decent Masters of Evil . . .” Grant was already profiling his pulls before the cards were completely unwrapped. He started sorting out the packet of cards for his second deck. “8-drop can leave”—he casually tossed aside Ultron, giving a small chuckle.

He continued making preliminary cuts, “Weeeell, guess I’m gonna have to say goodbye to Thunderbolts.” He counted out the T-Bolt pulls: ten total, so I was briefly confused. “Aaaaand five of them are Beetle!” Ahh. “I think we’ll leave Beetle Patrol out of this one.”

“Aw . . . two The Wrecking Crew and only one character to use it with.” He fingered a Call Down The Lightning. “Hmm . . . and I could Call Down with my one reservist!” He had more, but had cut them. “I do like having more plot twists than I know what to do with, though.” Like Dave Spears before him, Donald Grant wasn’t pleased with his first few minutes of deck construction.

“This is the second pack I’ve gotten where most of my playable characters are Masters of Evil. They always seem to be a bit sub-par for the format. This is the first time in Sealed that I haven’t rigged my deck to use Cobalt Man.” Again, he had pulled one but didn’t have the support to justify running it.

He maligned his lack of team-ups, considering using Supreme Sanction. “Man, this is my only team-up? That’ll go really well with my one, two, count ‘em, THREE Squadron Supreme characters.” He riffled his stack of cards some more, looking for team-ups: “Justice for All . . . Faces of Evil . . . screw you.” It was a playful statement and not at all seriously whiny. “These’ll go really well with my 87 Beetles.”

A deck was coming together, though. “This is the tough choice,” he said, showing me War of Attrition. “It would be a lot easier if I had more team-ups, but as it stands I am unsure.” He opted to use it after further deliberation.

“I could probably eenie-meenie-miney-moe this,” he said, looking at a fan of cards that included Crime Spree, Playroom, Legendary Battles, Seek Cover, and Insect Swarm. He discarded the Playroom and Battles. “Not enough Avengers . . . and who are we kidding . . .” he dropped the Insect Swarm. Grant finally decided on Crime Spree. “With The Wrecking Crews there are going to be times where it’s just going to be better to go off-curve, so that’ll work best.”

He decided on a few more characters, and despite trying to be as ethereal as possible to document the goings-on at an event, I had to comment. “Baron Zemo . . . what a lame super villain. ‘Hey, I fell in glue and adhered a bag to my face!’”

Grant’s quick rejoinder was one of my favorite lines of the day. “Oh come on! His evil superpower is being German!” Brilliance.

“This deck realistically isn’t that great, but I don’t really need it to be.” He was keeping his eyes on the 4-2 record he’d need to advance to the Top 24, and with a 3-0 record he was sort of correct. Still, the deck didn’t end up as poorly as he made it out to be.

1 Nathan Garrett ◊ Black Knight
1 Haywire
1 Falcon
2 Wasp
1 Moonglow
2 Scorpion, Fatal Sting
1 Marcus Daniels ◊ Blackout
1 Mr. Hyde, Engine of Destruction
1 Henrich Zemo ◊ Baron Zemo
1 Iron Man, Tony Stark
1 Scarlet Witch, Mistress of Chaos Magic
1 Ultron ◊ Crimson Cowl
1 Titania, Vengeful Vixen
1 The Wrecker
1 Executioner
1 Beetle ◊ Mach 4

2 The Wrecking Crew
1 Call Down The Lightning
1 Might Makes Right
1 Call to Arms
1 Stolen Power
1 United We Stand
1 Supreme Sanction
1 Sonic Disruption
1 Prismatic Shield
1 War of Attrition
1 Crime Spree

With a wealth of combat pumps and a solid curve, Grant managed to pull a very useable deck out of a poor pool. Many of his choices actually mirrored those prioritized by Michael Jacob elsewhere over the course of the day, and decisions like dual copies of The Wrecking Crew, Scorpion, Fatal Sting, and a shared penchant for similar 4-drops made them eerie doppelgangers despite the fact that neither noticed.

The deck itself would serve Grant well, giving him a 2-1 record for the second set of games and landing him safely in the Top 24. Definitely not so bad after all!