Michael Dalton
Championship-caliber card play is nothing new to Michael Dalton. The soft-spoken Jersey computer programmer plays it down, but he’s been here before. In 2003, he took home the Lord of the Rings World Championship, but come 2004, he wasn’t interested.
“The '04 championship was the same weekend as PC: Indy, and it wasn’t a tough decision. The prize support here is incredible, and I love the game. No-brainer.”
Dalton only finished in 100th, but he was hooked. Asked about what he likes about the Vs. System, he could only tell me that it wasn’t just the money, the high-level strategy, the intense math, or the tough tactics. It was the whole package. He doesn’t play LotR anymore.
Dalton hooked up with “Effin Team Names,” an Internet-based team that named itself that way out of frustration at having to think about such silliness. The team’s purpose was simple: win. It wasn’t about looking good or sounding cool. With teammates like Steve Horowitz, Alex Tennet, Kim Caton, Peter Sundholm, and Gabe Alonso, Dalton knows that he heads into any major tournament with the advantages inherent to a major brain trust.
“I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out,” he said as he hurriedly named his teammates.
These guys aren’t your garden-variety gamers. Knowing that they needed an advantage, they designed a program that would allow them to draft on the Internet. You can imagine the results of unlimited drafts at your leisure. If you can’t, take a look at the top of the standings.
Dalton came in confident that he was well prepared for the tournament. Playing Sinister Knights, he knew his deck backwards and forwards, and that familiarity paid off with a 10-2 start that left him tied for second heading into Day 2. At Saturday’s start though, things turned rocky.
“I had an absolutely terrible draft,” the 29-year old lamented. But it ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings. He played the draft out and managed a miraculous 2-1 record. “I still can’t believe it.”
He then had another problem: he’d never drafted with Superman before. Fortunately, his teammates had his back. “They told me to draft Superman/New Gods,” he said, pointing out the synergy involved with both teams’ plentiful utilization of cosmic counters. Apparently, it worked. He went 6-0 over the final two drafts.
Tomorrow, Dalton’s quarterfinal opponent is Adam Prosak, but he’s not thinking that far ahead just yet. A week ago, he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to continue with professional play. Now, he’s hooked, meaning the world will have to contend for a long time with someone who is obviously a superior gamer. They may even be dealing with a champion, because every indication says that he can win it all. Again.
Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright is one of three Europeans to make the Top 8 here in Amsterdam, sharing the honor with a Dutchman and a German. Hailing from Frimelx (or the “middle of nowhere,” as he put it), England, he was part of a small English contingent that came here expecting to do well. Stuart and John Ormerod were their front men as far as experience went, since they’re both experienced TCG players for whom the transition to Vs. System seemed only natural. Stuart pulled through where JohnO fell, though, performing well on both Booster Draft and Constructed days and ending up in his first Vs. System PC Top 8.
He ran an Underworld/Crime Lords hybrid on Day 1, cruising to a very promising 10-2 record before waking up at 7 a.m. today for the drafts. The first draft saw him return to the Underworld team, but he teamed them up with Marvel Knights and managed to squeeze out another two wins. He went 4-2 over the next six rounds, drafting nearly mono-Revenge Squad deck both times.
Stuart, a 22-year-old student, attributes most of his success to just testing the heck out of all the formats. He felt very confident in his Constructed choice and knew he could do well in the draft if he didn’t get screwed by the packs. Apparently he was right, as tomorrow he’ll wake up with the opportunity to play for the giant $40,000 first prize at stake in the Top 8 of Pro Circuit Amsterdam.
Adam Horvath
There are casual gamers, there are competitive gamers, and there are pros. Adam Horvath is definitely the latter. A member of Pro Circuit powerhouse Team TOGIT, Horvath has waited a long time for this day.
See, Horvath is one of those guys who has been to all manner of professional TCG tournaments, and he continually puts forth strong performances, finishing somewhere between ninth and twentieth. That said, the big money’s up top, and until now, he’s only had near misses to boast about. At least, he would if he were the type to boast.
Quiet, intelligent, confident—that’s Adam Horvath. His more jovial TOGIT teammates like to poke fun at his humorless exterior, but their ribbing betrays their true feelings. This is more than friendship. These guys are brothers who revel in one another’s successes as much as in their own. They go to war together.
“Gary Wise is the smartest man in the room,” he said, sucking up to his eventual biographer. You can’t really blame him. He was the one player I predicted would Top 8. It just felt like it was time.
A 24-year-old network administrator and professional game player, Horvath started the tournament with an 8-4 record in the Constructed portion of the Swiss, running Antonino DeRosa’s Honor Among Thieves build. “Antonio sent the deck to our mailing list, saying, ‘here’s my beatdown deck!’ Obviously, we all said it sucked. Obviously, it was actually awesome. Antonio’s amazing.”
Adam’s Day 2 started better, with his X-Statix deck sweeping through his first pod. He then went 2-1 with a Superman/Revenge Squad deck before team Superman flew him to a 3-0 final pod and Sunday glory. “My strategy was pretty much to stick to Superman and New Gods and Revenge Squad. Basically, no Darkseid’s Elite.” With an 8-1 draft record, it apparently worked.
Now, Horvath will play the New Jersey mirror match against Dustin Pidgeon, but he doesn’t seem fazed by Sunday play. After all, be it poker, Vs. System, or some other TCG, Horvath approaches each day with strength and confidence. After all, Top 8 or casual game, it’s just another day in the life of a professional gamer.
Kristian Kockott
This quietly spoken Berliner made waves on Day 1 by being the only player to have one loss or better in the difficult Marvel Modern Age format. But where did he come from? One of the rare Europeans that have played the game since Marvel Origins, Kristian is a long time TCG player, that has had some experience on the professional level. He had a small windfall by finishing just in the money with a 73rd place finish at Pro Circuit Los Angeles, but this weekend will be a more satisfying payday.
Though he regularly plays at his local store, Fantasy and Future, he says that his Marvel Modern Age deck was entirely his own creation. Utilizing the powerful Marvel Knights Underworld engine, he was able to bury eleven opponents during day one. This included countryman and two-time $10K Champion, Hans Joachim Hoeh, who he has played for the THIRD time in Pro Circuit events. His skills were found a little more lacking on draft day, posting a 4-5 record, but they sufficient enough to allow him to enter the finals in the fourth seed.
He didn’t want to estimate his chances for tomorrow, and was just as tight lipped about what he’d do with $40K if he’d won. He was very fond of Vs. System , explaining that the mechanics and the balance of the game meant that the best player won very often. With his English a little broken, it was hard to make out what he was implying. I think maybe he was trying to say he had mad skills, but it is very possible that I lost something in the translation.
Jeroen Remie
Jeroen Remie is a 26-year-old student from Dongen, a little town near Eindhoven. Eindhoven is a hotbed for Dutch TCG talent, housing the likes of Frank Karsten, Jelger Wiegersma, and Victor van den Broek. They’re fellow gamers, occasional teammates, and good friends of Jeroen. Through them and his own raw talent, he has undergone a transformation over the last couple of years from a bubbling player who qualified for the big show occasionally to a powerhouse on the TCG scene who makes Top 8’s left and right. With this newest accomplishment, he can add his first Vs. System Sunday to his resume, but don’t expect this to be his last. He is the real thing.
His playing skill isn’t all that separates him from the pack, though. He’s universally considered to be one of the nicest guy you can find sitting across you in any game, TCG or otherwise. He’s also the only European who openly admits he’d like to be an American. His other hobbies are other TCGs, poker, and basketball, which reinforce the whole American thing even more. As soon as he really gets into baseball, America will definitely have another reason to say they’re just better at Vs. than Europeans. They’d have just stolen one of Europe’s greatest.
His testing for this PC was fairly limited in the Booster Draft format and it really showed, as Jeroen 6-3’d the Constructed portion with a straight Marvel Knights deck, and then 3-0’d the Marvel Knights portion of the draft. After all, he knew the cards in the Marvel Knights draft format from preparing for Constructed! He teamed up his trusty Knights with Underworld in that first draft, but after that, he began to stumble. He scraped out a 2-1 record in the next draft with a Superman/Revenge squad combination, but his last draft went wrong. He only managed one win, but that win was just enough to get him into the Top 8. Tune in tomorrow to find out how he’ll do and see if his experience in other TCGs will pull him through in his first Vs. System Top 8.
Dustin Pidgeon
One only needs to see Dustin Pidgeon with his girlfriend, Patty, to recognize that this kid knows how to play the game. Not Vs. System, mind you, though his Sunday placing suggests he’s not bad at that game either, but the bigger game. Cool and calm, he holds her closely then pushes her away, shows a little love then leaves her wanting more. This is a student of human behavior who seems to be getting straight As.
How else can you describe a guy whose girlfriend spent three days hanging around the tournament site despite being in a party city like Amsterdam. “This was a lot more fun than a PCQ,” she remarked, “but I really need to get some sleep.” She’ll have to get to bed soon, because she needs to be here early tomorrow—her guy’s in the Top 8.
A student and Internet entrepreneur, Pidgeon operates out of New York’s King’s Games (home to team KGB) despite his New Jersey address. At 21 years of age, the Rutgers attendee came into the tournament feeling ill prepared, but fortune apparently smiled on him.
Pidgeon played a [Midnight Sons] deck designed by teammates Alex Shvartsman and Dan Chulsky on Friday, despite his lack of affinity for the deck.
“I didn’t like it,” he said, admitting though that he hadn’t played it much. It was a good start, but he needed a better-than-good finish if he was going to parlay himself into the 22 round. He got it.
Dustin drafted mono-Marvel Knights to start the day Saturday, smashing the table to pieces. Then, he hit a roadblock, managing a meager 1-2 record with Superman/Revenge Squad. That left him three wins short of a Top 8 chance. In the final draft of the day, he drafted Superman/Revenge Squad. Three rounds and a heap of tension later, his name was announced as part of the Top 8.
Paired against Adam Horvath tomorrow, Pidgeon may appear to be the underdog, but he doesn’t seem intimidated. With a Top 8 finish, a thriving business, and an adoring girlfriend, he seems to be on top of the world. The only trick is staying there.
Scott Hunstad
Scott Hunstad is well known in the Vs. community as the co-owner of the fan site, VSparadise.com. As an avid gamer since very young, he always take the opportunity to learn and play new games. This doesn’t mean he isn’t fiercely competitive, as he has played as a TCG professional on several occasions prior this weekend. As part of the original Australian assault on Pro Circuit Los Angeles, he fell agonizingly short of the money, placing just out of the money in 76th place. A smaller elite crew of Australian Vs players made the trip this time, which included co-owner of VSparadise.com, Paul van der Werk, Luke Bartter and Danesh Jogia. The team has already performed extremely well thus far, with Bartter and Jogia finishing 23rd and 25th place respectively. It is now up to this thirty year old American expatriate to increase the amount of loot that is heading Down Under.
Scott regularly plays at the local game store Sydney Games Centre (sydneygamescentre.com), where the majority of the Sydney arm of Team VSParadise tests on a regular basis. The Marvel Modern Age deck he chose to play was a creation of two of the core members of this group, Luke Bartter and Alex Brown. They tested as if they were futuristic robots that were sent from the future for this task, and came up with what on the face of it seems a very straight forward Mono Marvel Knights build. But simplicity is next to godliness, as is evidenced by Scott’s heavenly 10-2 record on day one. He seemed like he was in a good position to make the top 8, considering that he thought of himself as a draft specialist. But surprises can happen to us all, and his 5-4 record meant that he needed to have one of two matches break his way to play on Sunday. But luckily for him and his adoring Australian fans, they did, and he’s now got to get up early to play yet another day of Vs., this time for a lot of moolah.
Having played Vs. since its inception, he found his favorite aspects of the game lie in its constantly changing nature. “In other TCGs, formats seem to stay stagnant for a long time. In Vs, however, I feel that there is a greater variety of possible paths.” Scott also remarks that he like the fact that he usually can blame himself for his losses, rather than the vagaries of luck. Well he can’t blame himself for much this weekend, and he’ll hope that his skills will hold up in his fight for $40K on Sunday. What will he do with the money? “Pay some of the mortgage, I guess.” Real life will resume on Monday, but until then, its Crime Fighting Time!
Adam Prosak
A twenty three year old English major from Arizona, Adam Prosak has been one of Vs. System’s shooting stars in the infancy of the Professional Circuit. Making a top 8 at his first $10K in San Diego, he showed it was no fluke by rattling off two more finals appearances in $10K Las Vegas and the recent $10K Los Angeles. These accomplishments will pale in comparison to his weekend in Amsterdam, where he went 9-3 in the Marvel Modern Age format playing a Crime Lords and Underworld deck of his own concoction. A solid draft day of 6-3 allowed him to slip into the final eight in 8th place, making this tournament worth greater than all of his previous money finished to date!
In his hometown of Avondale, he usually plays at Gamers Zone Collectables, and though there is no formal team, he has a few friends that play the game and help him playtest. “I just made all the decks, and they play them against me. Its pretty hard when you are the only one going to an event!” Adam has had a significant amount of Professional TCG experience, but really never has had a big windfall until now. The Vs. System has opened up new opportunities, and he explains why, “If you don’t mess up, you should win most of the time. One of the great things about this game is that you can usually track your win or loss to one crucial play. I like having control of my destiny.” This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t believe in a little fate, as he regaled me in a story about the fact that he was going to play a Sinister Syndicate deck that splashed Hounds of Ahab. But he couldn’t get the cards he needed for the deck, so he had to go with his backup deck. “I guess I’m glad I could find those cards!”
Adam rates his chances in tommorrow’s final as fifty fifty. “I don’t want to guess what will happen.” I guess superstition also comes hand in hand with gamers, but what ever he’s done so far in Vs., he should probably keep doing it. But he has very grounded goals if he wins the whole shebang. “I’ll probably put it to my master’s degree.” A very educated choice, Adam.