Alex Brown
uly233@hotmail.com
Having failed spectacularly at all other competitive pursuits,
Alex has brought his wounded ego to the Vs Universe. Seeking fame and fortune,
and willing to be pilloried to obtain either, Alex sees himself currently
as something of an unboosted Professor Hugo in a world full of Wolverines.
Giving himself six weeks before the September 10K to become competent at
Vs, Alex promises to report on all of his trials and tribulations in an
attempt to get better.Follow Alex as he seeks to improve from ignominious
scrub to PC competitor! Get ready to ramble!
So we left off with me having scraped through to Day 2 with
the minimum possible record. I went to sleep that night immensely relieved. Immensely relieved. I slept like a brick.
PC Indy 2005 was one crazy ride. My name is Alex Brown. Some
people call me Uly. Some people call me Uly on the Forums. Some people call me the Gangsta of Love. This is my story.
Scott was definitely one of the better players in the top
Eight, so hitting him early was rough, but these were not the rounds you expected to see goobers pushing cardboard.
After making top eight I didn't really care who won the whole
thing. Seriously. The Australian players in the top Eight had all made a split, as we had spent many months drafting against one another, and knew that any
one of us could have won the draft given the right amount of luck with packs and seating.
I could not have been happier with this deck. When we sat
down for the final deck construction, I realized it could go either way, and I had failed to capitalize on a very strong pool the rounds before.
In the end it was the teamups that sealed it. Apart from
having double Black Magic and double Centurious, the Hypnotic Charms and Morbius dissuaded me from trying to force a silly Crime Lords build or even X-Statix.
Ok, I hope you guys are in for the long haul. This is my
Auckland 10K report, and geez is it long. I can sympathise with anyone who gets bored throughout and can’t finish it.
Verve Sentinels - March 27, 2005
The announcement declaring the creation of the Modern Age
format, and its slated arrival for PC Amsterdam, has redirected my focus on Vs Constructed.
Today I want to write about that damnedest of topics, Luck . When you find yourself
having become as prolific as I have, you discover that for all of the toil you occasionally retrieve a gem from amongst the rubble.
The Curve Sentinels are everywhere. At 10K after 10K , the
Curve Sentinels are filling Top Eights, and although many commentators didn't think the deck had what it took to post a big finish, the archetype recently
took down consecutive 10k's in Bologna , and then Orlando .
Well, in years to come, people will talk about top 8's and
10K's and PC's and the like, and one name will probably garner more surprise than most. That name is Ben Kreis.
Teen Titans Review - February 07, 2005
In discussions regarding the best sixty cards in Vs today, the Teen Titans
have become dominant. Simultaneously, the archetype is considered among the most challenging, even if consistently rewarding, decks in tournament Vs.
Over time I have become renowned for my need to organize
my thoughts into lists that resemble, often inaccurately, a top "5" or top "10" on the given subject. I say inaccurately because the
top "5" often extends much further than merely five.
In preparing for PC: LA, the Australian contingent spent
a lot of time on the limited formats. Focused around the Sydney Games Centre, the Limited scene in Sydney draws from a pool of about fifteen competent players,
all who seem to want to draft ad nauseum.
Cartharsis - December 11, 2004
For players like me, the Pro Circuit is the zenith on the
gaming horizon. While a perhaps surprising amount of bad players are invited to the PC, there can be no doubt that the best Vs System players in the world
are there as well.
Physical preparation is almost non-existent in the world
of the competitive gamer. There is probably even some (ok, a lot of) truth in assertions that gamers become so because of the lack of physical exertion
in their craft. Simply put, the physical aspect of tournament Vs is criminally misunderstood.
One for the Money - September 20, 2004
The first high-level event to be run under the one-game match
format has just passed. As a player at that tournament, and one of those privileged enough to play both the best-of-one and best-of-three formats on the day,
I feel I am in a position to make comment.
Recently, and dare I say radically, Upper Deck Entertainment
(UDE), through its Organized Play arm, decided to implement a one-game match
policy at the $10K event to be held in Sydney on September 11th.
Talking Time - September 03, 2004
Eventually I plan on writing a much longer effort on the
important differences between playing Vs and playing Vs in a competitive,
UDE-sanctioned environment.
I originally planned to bring you a completely different kind of column this week, but I woke up this morning with a burning need
to write about my initial impressions of some of the cards in the DC Origins starter set.
Good Games - August 02, 2004
In the last week or so, my brothers (Jeremy and Patrick for
the record) and I have played well over a hundred games of Vs with the various starters.
I started playing Vs almost two weeks ago. Already
an obsessive Magic: The Gathering fan, I was aware of Vs from its outset and was intrigued.
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