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When I grow up I want to be just like Kyle Dembinski, even though he is 26 years younger than I am. Kyle started his card-flipping career when he was very little. Now that Pro Circuit Sydney is history, he has grown into Vs. System’s biggest champion.

Kyle Dembinski is a winner, in every sense of the word. He is easily one of the best people I have ever met. Way back in the early days of 2004, when our beloved game was just a tiny baby, Kyle began to build a reputation as one of the most generous and friendly players in the world. He got better and better with every tournament, but his unbounded kindness never wavered. He is proof that nice guys really can finish first.

When we were still crawling as a community, Vs. System built bridges. We met online and in person. We talked day and night about our new cardboard obsession. We plotted and schemed over different ways to play. We planned and pooled our resources so that we could all get together at the tournaments. We were scattered all over the globe but we had a common bond. We made friends and we had fun, with people we had never met before. Kyle was one of the most caring catalysts we had. He helped anyone and everyone that he could.

He was smarter than all of us and he was a former Heroclix World Champion, but he never discriminated due to competitive skill. No matter where you were or what your level was, Kyle Dembinski was always ready to help out – and there were many that needed a boost. He was so quiet about it that no one even realized how much he was doing to build the community. I personally know well over a dozen people who Kyle has supported in one way or another through the first three years of competitive Vs. System events, and I am one of them. We were all cheering our eyeballs out last weekend when he won the PC.

That clipping is from the Kansas City Star on July 4, 2006. When you are pure goodness like Kyle is, you will get noticed. With his deep compassion and world-class intelligence he will be remembered for a lifetime. Vs. System brings us all together, and gives us some pretty amazing memories when it is done with us. Let’s share some good times that featured Kyle Dembinski - in honor of his ultimate triumph.

We will start with the man who has known him the longest. This is from Dave Dembinski, Kyle’s dad:

A few years ago we were sitting around the dinner table talking. Kyle was 15 at the time. We were reminiscing about the days when Karin and I were dating in college. We never had much money, but pinball only cost a quarter so we went there a lot. We got REALLY good at one game called "Aladdin’s Castle" and eventually we could play all night for 25 cents.

Kyle just listened and said nothing.

A few months later, on our wedding anniversary, a delivery truck arrived and unloaded a pinball machine. It was "Aladdin’s Castle" - the very same model we used to play in college! Kyle somehow found it on the internet and bought it for us as a present.

He really is an amazing kid. We are the most proud of all at the results from Sydney.

Kyle has never reserved his compassion. His sense of family was extended by Vs. System, and the benefits reached some rather unlikely places. Joe “Savage Tofu” Corbett was one of the major recipients. Joe is a trip. He is perhaps the polar opposite of Kyle Dembinski. Kyle is very quiet and Joe is very loud. Kyle is calm, controlled, and calculating. Joe is an explosion of wackiness waiting to happen. Usually it doesn’t wait.

When it came to building a community of Vs. System competitors, Kyle didn’t wait to find the most skilled players. He embraced anyone who wanted to ride along. Joe Corbett is glad he did:

I first met Kyle at a PCQ in Des Moines. I knew his name because he was #1 on the ratings chart for Kansas. I introduced myself. Since I live in Topeka, and we didn’t have many competitive players, we stayed in touch. Vs. System gave us plenty of opportunity to get better acquainted.

Kyle was even more dedicated than I was and that is saying a lot. We began traveling to everything together. It didn't matter if it was a PCQ, a $10K, or a Pro Circuit, we literally went to every event we possibly could. It was one of the best times of my life and I will never forget it.

For me, Kyle was the worst person in the world to practice against. He would spend an hour playtesting and be completely confident about what he needed to do. So, after 3 games he wouldn't need to practice anymore! It takes me at least 10 to 20 games to get a clue.

I only beat Kyle a handful of times during all our days of testing. The only time I ever beat him in a tournament was at the Infinite Crisis Sneak Peak in Springfield, Missouri. I still can't believe I won.

98% of the time when I played Kyle I lost. Even though I playtested with Kyle quite a bit, I never quite knew how he was able to beat me so frequently. After Kyle graduated from high school and got a 35 of 36 on the ACTs, I figured it out. I realized that Kyle is a genius!

I’m not kidding, and he was usually nice enough not to flaunt his skills. Every once in a while he would give me a false ray of hope that I could win… and then at the height of my comeback he would crush me like the bug I am. Luckily, he didn’t toy with me like that very often. He ran circles around the rest of us and there was nothing we could do about it.

Kyle is one of those few people that you meet in your life that is just better than you at almost everything.

There was an ongoing joke after every Pro Circuit we attended together. Kyle would do really well and everyone else would bomb out. Then at dinner he would say to us, “O.K. Guys, this one is on Mom!” Then he would pay for everything with her credit card.

For us scrubs, it meant everything in the world.

Eventually Kyle joined The Donkey Club and started practicing with some of the best Vs. System players in the world. When they arrived in Australia for Pro Circuit Sydney, the burros were braying and ready to expand their deckbuilding repertoire rather drastically. The team that brought us such elaborate strategies as Ivy League and Donkey Stall showed up ready for some speedy straight beats with Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage. It produced their first champion, and the long wait was over in a flash.

I was shocked when I saw which team was playing that deck. They had built a reputation for brain challenging concoctions that exploited late game win conditions, and now they were winning on turn three. The Donkey Club took the full Fate suit and tailored it to perfection. It became the simplest decklist to ever win a Pro Circuit, thanks to Kyle Dembinski’s good karma. Our latest PC Champion actually reminds me a little bit of the Quicksilver card that he played to a $50,000 pay day. Listen up.

The triumph of the son of Dave and Karin Dembinski displays a few parallels to the Son of M storyline that Marvel Comics released in the final days of 2006. Quicksilver is the offspring of one of the most powerful mutants in mythological history and he was directly responsible for one of the most world-changing comic legends ever. Kyle’s parents are both physicians, and he cut the competition wide open in Oceania. Pietro Maximoff befriended the entire Inhuman race and made them part of his clan, while Kyle did the same for all us Vs. System scrubs. Quicksilver had a few obstacles along the way, and it took our benevolent champion three years to claim the crown. In the end, both of them survived to bring their glorious abilities back to the people.

Quicksilver had tried to share the wealth. He convinced his sister Scarlet Witch to end the constant conflict and create a world of peace and love for everyone. It went horribly wrong. She had erased each person’s memory in order to force them to get along. When the big villains started to remember their past, they got very angry. Magneto killed Quicksilver for his role in the scheme, but Wanda brought her brother back. In a fit of rage, she also took away almost all the mutant powers in the universe. Quicksilver lost his speed.

Pietro was devastated. He suffered a serious case of depression. His wife Crystal took him back home to The Great Refuge, but even Inhuman hospitality couldn’t raise his spirits. He wanted his powers back.

The Terrigen Mists held the key, or at least so he thought. He took a bath in the powerful liquid and it changed him big-time. Quicksilver got hold of a can of the stuff and returned to Genosha to share. He planned to give all his mutant friends a whiff so that their abilities could finally return. The potion worked for a while, but then it went berserk. The intensity of its extreme side-effects actually took the life of one of Vs. System’s most notorious characters. Unus was murdered by his own powers. He became so untouchable that the oxygen in the air could not enter his lungs.

Quicksilver went swimming in the Terrigen Mists until he could mutate those around him with a touch. He ran ahead in time fast enough to see the world aflame in tragedy, but decided to stay around and grab random people to give them the gift of mutant power - in spite of the dismal situation. Kyle Dembinski has been exposed to The Donkey Club long enough to win a Pro Circuit, but he will always be one of us. The community of Vs. System is that much better for it and we will never forget his kindness as we move on into the future.

The future is now when it comes to this game. The Hellboy Essential Collection is in our hands and carrying us straight up to the heavens with cardboard pleasure. I am so excited by the opportunity to tell you about my experiences toying with the Thule Society that I will now tease you with some of the most beautiful art that mankind has ever seen. I’ll be back next week to find out if you ever came down.

Rian Fike is also known as stubarnes and he feels blessed to have been so close to Kyle Dembinski’s rise to the top. He hopes that we will be able to clone people in time to make a few copies. If you know another nice guy who finished first, send their story to: rianfike@hattch.com