To be honest I feel a little lame posting this after the great MAA review that Wiiman has just put up but I'll post it anyway.

We have just secured our first ever premiere Vs event here in Maidstone, something I'm rather stoked about. Now that considering that we have been only running events for three months I think this is pretty goddamn good. However considering we are averaging 12+ to all our monthly events it wouldn't be too hard to beat the turn out for the London Elite Series which managed just 5 entrants. Yep thats right, the capital of good ol' UK managed just 5 people, and one of them travelled down from Dundee in Scotland!

The only thing I'm not happy about is the format, Silver Age, which I absolutely hate. I'm a big fan of Golden and also would like to see DC Golden and Marvel Golden events but to be quite honest if I never had to take part in a SA or MA tourney I'd be happy.

Anyways on to what I was looking to discuss. A couple of the guys who have pre-regged from outsid eof our local playgroup were asking as to whether they could expect to see much QuickFate down our way, to which I replied no as there is everyone is playing a load of old jank where we are. For example, here are the known decks of the guys locally.

Cameron Macgregor: Shadowpact Curve
Cameron is having to modify his build a little for this tournament as we have only been playing GA events up till now. He is hampered in this endeavour by the fact that although happy to play Marvel cards, he is a comic purist and wont combine Marvel and DC in the same deck, with this applying to Plot Twists as well.

James Warrener: Injustice Gang Burn
Over recent weeks James has been cleaning most players clocks with this incredibly consistent build. With few changes required to meet SA deck requirements (he loses Pleasant Distraction from the build) this could be a serious contender, if not the favourite to place highest out of the Maidstone players.

David Moakes: Punisher Guns Blazing or CHK/JSA or Hellfire
Dave has three decks built up at the moment that would require very little work to make the transition from GA to SA. He has, however yet to really have settled with any particular deck and may yet sit down with me and knock something new up before the event.

Jack Rutter: XNRG or Good Guys
Jack recently won a tournament using his Goodguys deck but has been tinkering around with an X-men build based on the Blog entry by T-Man over recent weeks. Likely to play one of the two and also likely to finish well up in the placings if he continues to emulate his success at Yugioh whilst playing Vs.

Rob Mills: ?
All of the decks played by Rob to date have been old classics of Golden Age modified with a few recent cards (X-Stall, Spidey Evade, MSM Sinister Syndicate/MOR X-men. Not sure what Silver Age cards he has at his disposal so I can't hazard a guess as to what he'll be playing. Playing something new and unfamiliar may hinder his chances.

Vince Newman: Brotherhood Reservist
Vince ran this at our last monthly event, borrowing a few cards to round out the deck. With the purchase of a box of MXM the deck should now be completed and we can expect a decent finish from him.

Brendan Whiting: ?
Brendan is much in the same boat as Rob. His decks to date have all been from pre-Silver Age sets (Doom Control, Chicken Supreme and Arkham Control). The format has got him real worried as he has virtually no card pool to work from. I expect him to be purchasing a bit from me over the next couple of weeks in preparation for the event. Like Rob, an unfamiliar deck may hinder his chances.

Holly Humphrey: BPRD Hellboy Lone Wolf
Holly is still struggling to come to grasps with the game. She more than makes up for this in enthusiasm though. Her only outing with this deck previously saw her make a hatful of mistakes on the way to a 1-2 record. With two weeks to practise though, who knows. I would expect her to finish in the bottom half.

Jordan Newman: Something from MXM
Jordan will be running something that his dad Vince knocks up from the cards acquired in his recent MXM box purchase. Jordan hasn't fared too well in his two Vs events so far, but write hiim off at your peril. Many adults have done so when facing him at Yugi, only to have there arses handed to them in a sling. Despite his young age a regular top 8 Yugi competitor with 3 tournament wins to his name (We normally get around 28 to our Yugi events)

Andrew Palmer: Heralds Curve
This is the deck that we have seen Andy piloting for quite a while but he does have probably the largest pool of SA legal cards to work with amongst the local players, due to the purchase of 6-7 booster boxes worth of SA legit cards. Therefore he might yet surprise us, but then again he might decide on sticking to what he knows best, especially considering his GD Invitational win last week. Predicted top half finish.

Gareth Roberts: Good Guys
Not sure whether Gareth will make it to the event, as our normal tournaments are on a Monday night, whereas this is on a Sunday. This will be Gareths 2nd event with his first coming up this Monday, so it remains to be seen how he will get on.

Harry Streeter: ?
I can't praise this lad enough. Despite never really faring that well in either Yugi or Vs events Harry turns up week after week, always upbeat. I always feel really good for him when he does secure a top half finish, so i wish him every fortune in the Elite Series tournament. However the likelihood is a bottom half finish, which will still leave him smiling away. Probably playing a deck built forhim by Vince, again MXM most likely.

Sue Rutter: ?
Jacks Mum. At present Sue has a FF Equip Golden Age deck built up. If she does attend the Elite Series I'm guessing she'll probably be running whichever deck Jack doesn't use out of GoodGuys, Morlock Evade or XNRG. Still coming to terms with the game so prediction= bottom half finish.

Nathan Greenwood: ?
Not sure as to whether Nathan will be in attendance with the event being on a Sunday, but he will probably need to borrow a deck from either myself of Jack if he does.

Ben Waghorn: JLA Curve
Bens two previous tournaments, both GA, saw him running Sentinels to a good finish and Goodguys to a not so good finish. I reckon on him finishing somewhere in the middle order.

Me (Graham Beadle): Something DC and Wacky or Marvel with Cable
To be honest it is unlikely that I'll get to play as I'll probably have to judge. My wife is the TO but cant judge because of looking after our kids. The guys I had lined up to judge are playing WOW in a Nationals Qualifier so I'm kindof ruled out. If I do somehow wrangle it so I can play I'll be running something weird and wonderful from the DC sets or a Cable, Domino Abuse Burn deck, loosely based around the one posted by Rian Fiike.

So thats a quick synopsis of our local meta. Hopefully we'll see a number of players from outside of our group, but hopefully no quickfate.