Written by I’m going to start off they same way I did last year by saying, “I love my wife!” Once again Gen Con fell on our anniversary - and she still let me go! Also, like last year, I’m going to break down my Gen Con trip day-by-day!
I got up at 4AM, drove an hour to pick up a friend, then continued on another hour to get four more friends, and finished with a ten hour stretch from Minneapolis to Indianapolis! We were able to fit all six of us in a HUGE SUV, which was nice because we didn’t have to coordinate vehicles like previous years. We had already got our badges ahead of time, so when we arrived we just took a quick tour of the convention center before heading back to our room to play some Vs.
Thursday
To get to the con we had to walk past the new Lucas Oil Stadium. This was the only thing between our hotel and the Con.
Thursday was game day. But I should clarify that I don’t mean Vs! We spent most of Thursday walking around demoing board games at the Con. We always try out all the new Fantasy Flight stuff.
This year they had a new Gears of War Board game that we bought, and a sneak peak of a new cooperative Star Wars card game that was absolutely a blast to play. I’m already on the hook and the game isn’t even released yet!
Friday
Friday was Vs. Worlds! We had an excellent turnout for both events.
Constructed
Our morning started bright and early with our constructed “Bring Your Own Set” (BYOS) event at 8 AM. We have these two tables. Notice that at 8 in the morning, we have almost the whole hall to ourselves. That will drastically change in an hour!
A wide variety of sets were present. Of the 18 entrants, we had 8 unique sets. Here’s the set breakdown:
MUN – 5
DCR – 3
MOR – 3
DJL – 2
MXM – 2
MAV – 1
MVL – 1
MMK – 1
Obviously MUN was the set of choice, but of the MUN decks, three different team builds were represented; including a completely unique design that I’ll talk about later. Out of all 18 decks in the tournament; 14 different builds were represented. The only duplicates being TNB, Secret Avengers, Hulk, and Good Guys. In what I’m sure is a completely unrelated coincidence, the top four decks were TNB, Secret Avengers, Hulk, and Good Guys!
In the back, 3rd and 4th place Ariel and Arthur chat and watch the finals while guarding their loot! In the front, Christian appears amazed at how fast Patrick can move his hand!
To see all the decklists for this event, head to this thread:
http://s11.zetaboards.com/vssystem/topic/7427930/1/?x=10
I did a deck feature reminicent of the old Pro Circuit coverage! Check out this tournament’s featured deck: Captain Curr-unch:
https://newbreview.com/vssystem/?p=2765
We also handed out door prizes during the event. 2 playmats were handed out at each event; and everyone got random EA’s!
But the real swag went to the winners. In addition to the swag everyone else got; our top 4 got MVL packs, a MUL Juggernaut, and a chance at the Trophy and Mega-Weekend Playmat! This year’s finals came down to Patrick Yapjoco (Majestic on the boards), and last year’s defending champ Christian Kriesel. Patrick and his Secret Avengers ended up on top!
Sealed
At 4PM (I left plenty of room for lunch between the events this year; unlike last year!) we re-gathered for sealed. We actually had quite a different crowd for this event. We still had 18 people, but quite a few of them were different from the 18 that showed up in the morning. It would have been 17, but I jumped in myself to make it an even number for pairings. (Nobody wants a bye round when they’re just playing a dead game for fun!). My own sealed deck ended up being pretty decent despite poor packs (I had the option of splashing four teams to get access to really good pumps, or choosing two solid teams and having a much more limited plot/location/equip package. I chose the latter, because while it wasn’t as flashy, it was much more consistent. I ended up going 3-2 and missing the cut, but I didn’t care. I’ve always been a 5-4 or 4-3 or 3-2 type person at card games (good enough, but never, ever, great)!
(notice my good friend Paul snuck in the middle finger in this pic!)
We don’t have decklists for this event, because it was sealed; but we do have a video of the final match on youtube. Check out the link:
Nick Little was unable to defend his crown from last year. That’s right, both of last year’s defending champs finished second this year; and Nick was not happy about it! 
Don’t worry Nick. You can get it back next year!
And apparantly the new champion (John Zellar) was also upset!
Notice that in the above picture you can see Lex Luthor Jr. from the boards standing in the background on the right! Following is a picture of Mike (Lex) playing a game with my friend Rob. I had actually started this pick-up game with Mike, then had to run off to set up the finals match! This Brave and the Bold deck was the deck Rob was going to play in my constructed tournament, but he decided not to because it interfered withhis DBZ tournament (it turned out later he could have easily done both!).
Saturday
Saturday was my day to enjoy the Exhibit Hall. I spent hours weaving up and down the isles looking at EVERY booth. If you’ve never been, Gen Con is HUGE. This vid is just the card players hall:
A quick scan of the card hall.
And here are some pedestrians I ran into in the hallways:
We also stopped by the Coolstuffinc.com booth to see Jason. Though unfortunately he was so busy at his Magic-buying station I could only grab this pic of him (pink shirt).
I also dropped off 100+ Vs. starters with an ad for vssystem.org and our “Bring Back Vs. System” Facebook page. Coolstuff handed them out for free to customers who bought other things. We got advertising and they got to reward their customers with free things! Is it a coincidence that “Bring Back Vs. System” hit 1000 Likes on the last day of Gen Con? I think not!
The con ended tragically when my brains got eaten…
Whenever people crack packs that have cards they don’t need, they end up in this graveyard where people stack them into towers. At the end of the con people throw money at the towers to destroy them. This money goes to charity!
Also, we tried to be the ultimate nerds by getting Yugioh tokens made of us!
But these guys decided to be nerdier!
Finally, on our way home. We got blown out by this duck who made us wait at a red light while he crossed in the crosswalk!
Props:
- Slap Bracelets – They made a comeback at Gen Con!
- IGN’s Top 100 Comic Book Villains – Entertained us for like 5 hours of the car ride!
- Vs. Players – Still showing up in force!
- Fantasy Flight Games – Continuing to impress us year after year.
- The aforementioned duck.
Slops:
- Slap Bracelets – We got abusive with them after about oh-five minutes.
- Battlestar CCG – They had cheap sets available, but not the required starter!
- Will Call – The line wrapped around the building. Never use Will Call at Gen Con!
- UDE – We beat them to 1,000 Likes on Facebook and they still don’t take us seriously!
I can’t think of anything better to end on
The ad is a masterpiece! Great work!