Editor: Staff. Wednesday 9th March 2005.
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Editor: Staff. Wednesday 9th March 2005.
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 “ Activate --> Getting Things Happening Locally ” Man, when it comes to writing Vs Paradise articles I'm about as rusty as a waterlogged Sentinel Mark I. I haven't written a Slipping on Spandex (match reports from the Melbourne 10K not counting) since November last year. Also, much like my metallic metaphoric muse when Sentinel Mark III turned up, I felt a bit obsolete when I read Alex Brown's recent high-quality articles on Teen Titans. Alex has chided me in the past for under-selling my contributions, but the fact is I'm unlikely to give anybody the kind of strategic insight and inspiration that someone of his experience, skill and considerable writing talent can. That's not to say that I don't occasionally have something worthwhile to say about this game, but I know where I fit into the scheme of things. I'm the casual guy. I play Vs because I love the game and I love the characters represented in it. I write about Vs because the only thing better than playing and enjoying this game is to share that love and enthusiasm with others. If I was God-King of the world, everyone would be forced to play eight hours of Vs everyday and LOVE it. Since I'm still waiting for my omnipotence to kick in, I can only do my best to help keep the front page content of Vs Paradise ticking over with new articles (it's been slow lately, so I'm not the only writer who's been slacking) and try hard to improve Vs's beachhead in my home town of Canberra. As a matter of fact, the latter has a bit to do with my slackness with the former. I realised late last year that if I wanted to have more people to play and enjoy Vs with in Canberra , I'd need to shoulder a bit more responsibility for getting things happening. With the local gaming store, Logical Choice, seemingly not having the resources to do a lot with the game, mainly because of their strong commitments to so many other games, it appeared that I might need to expand my search for a venue for superhero gaming. In speaking to the manager of the shop, it was put to me that Canberra gamers only had a certain amount of money to spend on games and most weren't looking to take up a whole new game. He suggested that Vs might appeal to a new, different market than “hardcore” gamers. I took that suggestion away and thought on it. Coincidentally, soon after that I overheard some people talking about a new comic store that had opened up in the Canberra suburb of Woden called House of Heroes. The next day I visited the shop and found it much to my liking. I even took up a standing order for my comic book needs (yes, “needs”). The proprietor, Blake Davis, had heard about Vs and was keen to give it a go in his shop. Logical Choice ran two low-key Vs events in the following months, which attracted seven and five players respectively. The second event was particularly disappointing for them, as it was a FREE Man of Steel sealed deck tournament, which they thought might have attracted more participants. Regardless of other considerations, these tournaments gave local Vs players the valuable opportunity to meet and greet each other. A community of sorts began to form. Between the two above events, Pasquale “Pez” Laria and I also organised a Vs demo day at House of Heroes. Six or seven players turned up and good games were enjoyed. These three events had provided a good base, we thought, which we could build on. The next major development was Pez setting up a Yahoo group for local players at the end of November, which helped us keep in touch and communicate with each other. For a good while it was just him and I on the list, but it has grown since then. If you have no better way to keep your playing group in touch with each other and informed about what's going on, then you should really consider setting on a group like this. In the last few months it has proved invaluable. December and January were typically slow for launching new things, especially as I had a few things on myself. One of those things was the Metagame.com coverage for the Mel bourne 10K. While enjoyable in its own way, the coverage was a hell of a lot of work and did deplete my energy reserves for a while. The next cab off the Vs rank for Canberra came when Australia 's UDE big-wig Chris Zantides contacted me to see if I would run the Marvel Knights at the start of February. Canberra missed out on a Man of Steel Sneak Peek, which I found really disappointing. While this meant I wouldn't be able to play in the Sneak Peek (which is my favourite kind of tournament), I accepted immediately because I knew a lot of people locally were keen for a tournament like this. I was confident from the outset that we could get at least a dozen players for it, despite some scoffs of disbelief from some quarters. Even Pez was “cautiously pessimistic”. A pretty dismal local turnout for a PCQ held at CANCON might have seemed to herald doom, but I knew the reasons behind that result and was still confident for the up coming tournament. The Sneak Peek was held at Logical Choice and we got a pleasing 18 players. This included 13 locals and five guys from Sydney . The number of players was particularly surprising for Logical Choice, because they didn't recognise a majority of the names on the list. I don't want to sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet here, because I'm not claiming that I'm some kind of tournament organising genius. At any rate, Enchante achieved much more impressive results at the Auckland event. That was amazing. Truthfully, it wasn't even hard to get the turnout we did at the Sneak Peek in Canberra . The great communication tool that is the Internet and e-mail (particularly the Yahoo group and Vs Paradise) helped ensure everyone who wanted to know about this event did, while an excellent poster made up by my wife, Erin, helped attract a couple of others. The buzz surrounding the Marvel Knights set also helped and I hope my own excitement added to that among the local players. Finally, I offered a number of incentives to encourage people to either have their first look at the game or to bring along a friend, including extra booster prizes for junior players, new players and players who introduced someone new. While I don't think greed was a big motivator for anyone, one player alone introduced three or four new players. There was also three players aged under 10 and all of them won at least two games, putting them well ahead of some of the other participants. Paul Ross travelled down with the Sydney contingent and acted as my Head Judge. Being an excellent fellow at any rate, Paul helped to ensure that the tournament ran smoothly and in a professional manner. He was also great with the younger players, despite his claims to the contrary. I think the Sneak Peek was a great success and everyone seemed to have a good time. A lot of the new players were hooked, while the more experienced Sydney crowd not surprisingly took away a good hunk of the prize pool. The Canberra players are all a great group of guys (no gals yet) and I'd like to give them a bit of a plug. Tommo , along with his son Cody, got a mention in one of my earlier articles, but he deserves every mention he gets. He has introduced Vs to a lot of friends and was the recruitment-star I mentioned above for the MK event. Tommo , to quote The Tick, has “a heart as big as the moon … as warm as bathwater”, and Cody's a cool little dude too. 
[ Tommo Smith (right) squares off against young Jake McCook. Other games that can be seen are Peter Trueman versus Todd Piper on the next table up and then Scott Ward (obscured) versus Justin Newbury.] 
[Head Judge Paul “MPM” Ross keeps Luke “Like” Bartter (AKA Like Bartek) honest as he plays Canberra Vs powerhouse Cody “Crusher” Smith.] Pez gets a lot of mentions in my articles too, but that's because he's one of my best friends and my usual partner in crime when it comes to all things Vs in Canberra . Together we're the founding members of Team CanQue (which is much better than Pez's first suggestion, which was Team P.L.U.M.P.), and we've since added another recruit. Pez says I over-think things and I can't really deny that, so a lot of what gets done with regards to Vs in Canberra in the future will be thanks to him. 
[Pasquale “Pez” Laria takes on Sean Carroll, who, along with me, proves that hair does not grow aplenty in Queanbeyan. Must be something in the water.] Sean Carroll is a veteran gamer, but a Vs newbie. Like Pez, he thinks Spider-Man is exclusively where it's at. As a fellow Queanbeyan-ite (hey, I made up another word), Sean has also played a couple of games of Vs on my kitchen table. He's the newest recruit of Team CanQue and a fine fellow. Pete McCook is a friend of Tommo and Cody and has played in just about everything Vs in Canberra . His son Jake also played in the Sneak Peek and another one of his boys, Josh, wants to play next time. Pete proves that sometimes it's just easier to sire Vs players than to recruit them. Peter Trueman is another guy who plays lots of different games. He seems to like Vs quite a bit, though, and I can't seem to beat him in a game to save my life. He likes playing with varied decks and also recruited his son, Judah, for the Sneak Peek. Judah was sitting close to the top tables for most of the tournament and was given a Players' Player prize at the end of the day. Todd and Justin are mates of mine and came along for a look at Vs. Todd might just be hooked, having sold a good number of Magic rares to buy Marvel boosters. He's already said he's keen to sign up for the next tournament and Justin hopes to play again too and get his first win on the board. Scott Ward is yet another mate of Tommo's (popular dude), who has been playing Star Wars and (I think) Star Trek card games for a while. Scott is a boots and all kind of guy and is already on the search for a play set of Savage Beatdowns following his first taste of tournament Vs. Last but definitely not least are the Wong Brothers, Gabriel and Raphael. Magic players who unsuccessfully tried to resist the temptation that is a second money-hungry card game, these guys showed that skills from one game can be translated into the other. They were the highest placed of the Canberra players and finished ahead of some of the much more experienced Sydney players. Raphael, however, has boasting rights over his brother having finished one place ahead of Gabz. 
[Gabriel “Gabz” Wong (left) playing against the day's youngest competitor, Judah Trueman, while Pete McCook plays Gabz's brother Raphael. Random Sydney Scrubs can be seen populating the top tables.] Most of these guys are more casually geared Vs players, but that's no slight on their enthusiasm. It's just that you're much more likely to come up against a Dark Phoenix or Pez's crazy (although effective) Spider-Man tech when playing the likes of us. The next step is to get Hobby League running at House of Heroes and to build on the achievements so far. Logical Choice is also hoping to run some more events and we will try to support that too. We'll be trying to teach Vs to as many people as are willing to learn … even if we can't force them to play for eight hours a day. I don't know if any of what we're doing can be replicated in other towns or cities where a Vs community is still in the fledgling stages and looking to grow, but I hope it provides food for thought. Anyway … absolutely every last one of the last 2000 or so words has been a complete sham. Not to say any of it is untrue, but the whole purpose of this article was to give me an excuse to share this photo with you. 
[Vs Paradise co-owner Scott Hunstad contemplates what he thinks “first pick” would be when playing with the new Marvel Knights cards!]
*Bamf*
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