“Americans tend to ignore everyone except themselves.” – Scott Hunstad, former American and innocent bystander.

Being from Toronto, I’ve always understood the cultivation of the above belief that Mr. Hunstad worded so well. See, Toronto, at least according to Torontonians, is Canada’s biggest and brightest. The center of business, finance, culture . . . Toronto breeds a population that knows relatively little about Canada’s nether regions, because we have everything we need within arms reach. It breeds a cockiness that the rest of Canada despises, and so when you mention my hometown by name, the response is often a leer, a grimace, and the sound of spit hitting the pavement.

New Yorkers are kind of the same. In the city the never sleeps, you have Broadway, Wall Street, Yankee Stadium . . . the biggest and the brightest. New Yorkers know New York, and that’s all they need to know because they have it all. And so it goes with America and the world.

You can’t blame them really. The USA is the most powerful country on the planet, the richest nation on earth. Their pop culture affects us all and their politics are debated worldwide. With all this at their fingertips, we can accuse them easily of indifference towards the rest of us, but frankly, we can’t blame them for it. Put in their place, I think I’d be the same way.

There are obviously inherent advantages coming into a tournament like PC Amsterdam for those on either side of the ocean. If you’re American, you’ve had access to Vs. System since the day it first hit the shelves and you’re accustomed to playing against a deeper talent pool in PCQs and $10K events.

Europe only started receiving shipments of Marvel Origins after the USA had it on the shelves for six months. That’s half a year’s worth of learning curve that players based in America have at their disposal; hardly relevant for an older game, but for one as young as Vs. System, that’s going to make a difference. Vs. System is extraordinarily complex as TCGs go, with its greater rate of cards drawn combined with the extraordinary number of possible formations meaning that any game can take any one of millions of paths. Success in the game comes down to understanding which path to walk, and early on, mistakes will be made. Six months is a lifetime.

The importance comes to light when considering what one learns from winning or losing. Winning is fun. You feel fulfilled, you achieve your goals, and you learn absolutely nothing. Using Tetris as an example, if the game never got faster, you’d never get any better at it. You’d continue to wait 45 seconds for each piece to drop and eventually get bored. That is not why we play games. We play them for fun, sure, but we also compete for the thrill of the conquest, the achievement and application of knowledge. We get better at games by losing, be they Tetris or Vs. System, by making mistakes and learning from them. From failure comes success.

Translating my point into English, I could win a $10K against a field of monkeys, but I wouldn’t get any better. When one loses to a superior player, the loser should see what that player did to win and incorporate that lesson into his or her own game. You can’t learn from the uninformed. With the European field starting half a year late, there’s no way its component players could have the experience and comprehension of game mechanics that their American counterparts do.

One other point in the Americans’ favor is the much heralded and often chagrined American self confidence. Some would call this quality boorishness, arrogance, or ignorance, but self confidence is the truest description, and here’s why—if you believe you’re going to win, you’re more likely to do so. It’s basic psychology. Doubt leads to reason for doubt, and while no quality is universal amongst all American players (or any broad group, for that matter), this confidence, when worn truly and in plain sight, can lead to doubt in others. That may seem like a whole load of hogwash, but I’ve seen the effect a confident exterior can have. Its effectiveness is very real.

The Europeans are not without their advantages heading into Amsterdam, either. They have:

Tournament proximity
A willingness for experimentation
The unifying desire for an American downfall

Number three is very simple, and for those Americans reading this, don’t take it personally—the world rejoices in the face of American failings. I’m not talking major political arenas here, folks. This is, after all, still just a game. The United States is number one in baseball, number one in basketball, number one in football (US version), and golf, and swimming, and . . . the list goes on. Seeing the United States dominate in yet another game that the rest of us want to be good at has to be deflating for those of us on the outside. That means we revel in the possibility of failure for Americans in the competitive arena, regardless of whether the activity in question is physical or intellectual in nature.

The importance of tournament proximity is easy to underestimate. Mark Slack, he of the second place finish at PC LA, will be landing here at Schiphol Airport at 7 a.m. tomorrow. He’ll have taken off from the states at five o’clock Thursday afternoon, presumably after waking up early in the morning. After six and a half hours of flight time, during which he might get a few hours sleep, he’ll wander in on rubber legs at 7 a.m., splash some water on his face, get a little something to eat, and be ready to start by nine. Tomorrow, we’ll be playing twelve rounds of Constructed followed by nine rounds on Saturday—three Booster Drafts and three deck building periods. Put yourself in his shoes. How do you think he’ll be feeling at that point, thirty hours into his day?

“The jetlag here is worse than in Japan,” pointed out Metagame.com reporter Brian David-Marshall. Jetlag is always worse while travelling east because you’re losing time instead of gaining it. Additionally, at seven hours or so, the flight to Europe is just short enough to deprive the traveller of a night’s sleep. Yes, some gamers are accustomed to sleeplessness, choosing instead of slumber to play that 500th game through half-closed eyes, but not at peak effectiveness. That might be good enough back home against those twelve-year-old casual types, but playing at half-mast won’t cut it on the Pro Circuit. The well rested will eat you alive.

The comment on experimentation goes like this: For most Americans, winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. (This is a quote from Vince Lombardi, the first great American football coach.) In the Vs. System world, this means that the faster track is often taken and often embodied by the copying of netdecks. “Americans are lazy,” insists Alex Tennet, a man caught in the middle as an Englishman living in the United States. His explanation is that Americans are often happy to be told something is good, usually through Internet articles, and then run with it. Europeans, by contrast, are more likely to test out the possibilities and find things out for themselves.

Of course, I know that upon reading this last paragraph, half of the United States is tearing its hair out, Googling for my home address so they can teach me a lesson in American persistence and creativity, but proof can be found in the much wider variance of decks in Europeans $10K Top 8s.

So, how will all this play out this weekend? As Tennet pointed out, regardless of the game, Europeans historically don’t draft much, a fact that will have to change if the gap is to be bridged in PC play. It’s primarily European draft deficiencies that have inspired comments like these:

“If this were baseball, it’d be like we’re the New York Yankees playing against a Japanese team.” – Donald Nolan

“The Europeans are just weaker than the Americans.” – Antonino DeRosa

“I have a hard time seeing any non-Americans being successful here.” - Scott Hunstad, including himself in that group.

“He just stinks a little less.” Gabe Walls on Hans Hoeh, who he’s never played.

“This is our tournament.” – Dave Spears.

With the exception of Hunstad, who was born in the USA but moved to Australia eight years ago, each of these guys are Americans living in America. Whether this is cockiness or confidence will only be answered over the long haul.

As the community evolves and six months becomes a less consequential period in the Vs. System timeline, the fact that this feud is going to intensify is an inevitable truth. If nothing else, comments like those from Walls and Nolan will have to be recognized and retaliated against, and the only way to do so effectively is to show the Americans the error of their ways. Hans Hoeh is obviously an excellent player, with his past TCG experience playing heavily into his success in our community. Richard Edbury has a similar history and success and an extraordinary grasp of game theory. Brian Mulcahy has garnered respect from his European peers that is apparently warranted if you use tournament success as proof. These guys and their fellow continentals are going to carry the banner into Amsterdam. As to whether they can carry it out when all is said and done is the big question. Regardless, Europe’s eventually going to have to take steps to keep that American ego in check. The war begins now.