Doug Tice has been playing like a man possessed. First, he became the only man to win multiple Sealed Pack $10K events with his win at $10K Los Angeles. Then he came here to Atlanta a week after that stellar performance and took down the honors at the inaugural Willoughby Team Challenge. Top that all off with an 8-2 record in the Constructed portion of the Pro Circuit yesterday, and it seems like the man can do no wrong. Then he got to his Draft table. This was a very difficult table featuring some incredible players, including Alex Tennet and teammates Karl Horn and Gabe Walls. Doug was in the unfortunate position of being seated directly between Karl to his left and Alex to his right. Being teammates, Doug and Karl each know how the other likes to draft. They also don't want to do anything to screw each other over.

Doug went into this draft knowing that his teammate wanted the JLI / Injustice Gang deck that is incredibly powerful yet under-drafted, in this format. He also had a pretty good idea that Tennet would be trying to draft Secret Society. This left Doug with few options if he wanted to avoid blowing Karl out. He decided that he had a good seat to try to draft the ally deck, since its cards aren't really used in either the JLI / IG or Secret Society decks. Unfortunately, his packs wouldn't be as accommodating as he would have liked.

His first pack was a little underpowered in the plot twist department, so Doug went immediately to look at the characters. He pulled Scarecrow, Psycho Psychologist, Kimiyo Hoshi ◊ Dr. Light, and Booster Gold to the front of the pack. Knowing his desire to avoid the JLI / IG deck, I wasn't too surprised when he chose the Booster Gold first pick. His next pack contained a number of powerful cards, including Sue Dibny, Trial by Fire, and Ultra-Humanite. As good as the monkey may be (and for some reason, all cards with monkeys are very good), Doug chose to stick with the blue card and added the Trial to his drafted stack. He then picked up a quality body in Crimson Fox. His next pack yielded a number of good cards, including another Trial by Fire, which Doug quickly snatched up. It was apparent from the cards he was drafting and passing that Karl was going to have a stellar deck after all was said and done. For the most part, the rest of his first pack was nothing more than drafting quality bodies, as he added Sinestro, Corrupted by the Ring, Captain Boomerang, "Digger", Wonder Woman, Princess Diana, and Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas to his deck. After the first pack, his deck seemed to lack focus. The predicament he was in was beginning to show in his deck, as he continued to pass quality cards to his teammate. Hopefully, the next pack would give him the same benefit Karl had received in pack one.

Pack two started out incredibly strong with a Slaughter Swamp, Death Trap, and Scarecrow, Fearmonger as his first three picks. Other than those power cards, his packs weren't that strong, making his decisions rather easy, if the strength of his picks didn't make the decisions easy enough. At this point the packs began to deteriorate. There were good cards in the packs, but not really for this situation. Doug had begun the draft looking to make the worst of his bad situation by drafting the ally deck, but the cards for it hadn't been opened. He was stuck drafting a deck that couldn't exist with the card pool. When he ultimately switched, his deck had already been affected by his previous picks.

Switching teams is difficult to do mid-draft in Vs. System. You only have 12 cards that don't make your deck, and it's rare to get more than ten quality picks in a pack. This meant that because of his switch, which he had no choice about, Doug's draft was going to be impaired. He wasn't solid SS, so many of the SS cards that are easy additions to the deck wouldn't be as effective in his. He wasn't JLI, so the off-curve cards weren't going to work well for him. In essence, he was stuck drafting a combination of these decks. This wasn't looking too good for Tico. He did get a few quality picks in the later stages of the pack. He added a The Plunder Plan and a Quadromobile to his draft, which would be effective if he could find a way to get the cards into his KO'd pile. After taking a look at his deck after the second pack, it actually didn't look that bad. He had a very good curve so far, only needing a few more characters to round it out. He did have a few powerhouse plot twists in Death Trap, The Plunder Plan, and two Trial by Fire. If he could pick up a few quality cards in the next pack, he wouldn't be too badly off.

The third pack managed to come through for him. He opened another excellent plot twist in Counterstrike, which went a long way toward improving the overall quality of his deck. He picked up his second Charaxes, Killer Moth, which almost filled his curve out. He also managed to get a Martian Manhunter, J'onn J'onzz third pick. That's late for such an incredible character. Unfortunately, other than those stellar cards, all Doug could muster was the remainder of his curve. His deck ended up underpowered compared to the average in the format, and it will be difficult for him to navigate this deck to a winning record.

After he finished drafting, Doug sat down with me for a chat about his deck. "I knew I was in a bad seat," Doug said with a sigh. "I didn't want to just screw Karl." His deck has a very good curve, but his teams are very poorly represented. "I'm pretty solidly three teams with a UN Building to team-up." Unfortunately, he doesn't have a way to ensure that he gets his team-up, or even all of his teams. His deck has a perfect curve, though, and he may be able to take a game away from an opponent who stumbles based on this.

"Maybe my opponents will miss some drops for me," he joked. Overall, I think that his loyalty to his teammate, as refreshing as it may have been, cost his deck greatly. Because of his seat, the deck that ended up in Karl's hands could have very well been his. However, he chose to stick to his strategy even in the face of this. If his packs had been a little more accommodating, it may have worked. As the card pool was, though, it will be hard for him to manage anything better that 1-2.