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Gen Con Open at Gen Con 2019

Gen Con Open 2019

Dates
Series Organized Play
Location Indiana Convention Center, Indianapolis, IN
Format Constructed
Card pool Waves 1-3, Blaster VS Soundwave
Banned Swap Parts
Entrants Open to pre-registered Gen Con attendees; four preliminary events fed a 32-player final
Winner Kevin Allen, with 4-Wide Cars
Event page Gen Con Open @ Gen Con 2019

Standings

Place Player Deck
1 Kevin Allen 4-Wide Cars
2 Brad Wellman Battlemaster Cars
Top 4 Blaine Bublitz
Top 4 Scott Landis 3W Gen OP
Top 32 Joe Baiocchi 4-Wide Blue Pierce
Top 32 Jamie Madison

The Gen Con Open was the second of the two convention Opens on Wizards’ organized play circuit, held August 1 through 4, 2019 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. It ran the same structure as the Origins Open seven weeks earlier, and sent another sixteen players to the Energon Invitational in December.

How it ran

Entry cost $26 and was open to any pre-registered Gen Con attendee with a valid Organized Play account while seats lasted, with a booster pack for each preliminary event entered. Four preliminary events advanced the field to a 32-player final, players could buy into as many preliminaries as they liked, and a seat already won passed down to the next unqualified finisher rather than stacking.

Pastimes Inc. ran it, as it ran the whole season. The prize structure matched Origins: $10,000 across the Top 32, paying $1,500 down to $125, with the Top 16 taking an Invitational invitation and a three-day PAX Unplugged badge. One line differed. Where Origins had promised the Top 8 a pre-release box of War for Cybertron: Siege I, by August that set was on shelves, and the Gen Con announcement could only offer “not-yet-announced Transformers TCG Product.”

The card pool

This is what separates Gen Con from Origins. Wave 3: War for Cybertron Siege I had released on June 28, five weeks before play began, so Micromasters, Battle Masters and Secret Actions were legal here and had not existed at the Origins Open. Wave 4 was still three months away. The standalone Blaster VS Soundwave sets were legal alongside them, and played: SDotTCG filmed a Top 16 match between a Blaster deck and Ranged Optimus, and Blaster appears in no other set of the era. Wizards had also fielded rules questions on the set in its July 29 Rules Roundup, three days before the doors opened, and both editions appear in its published list of Constructed-permitted products.

Swap Parts remained the only banned card, retired from Constructed on April 19, 2019.

The result

Kevin Allen won with 4-Wide Cars built around Arcee. Brad Wellman took second on Battlemaster Cars, one of two copies of that deck in the top cut. Blaine Bublitz and Scott Landis of Vector Sigma filled out the Top 4.

The shape of the weekend was not subtle, and the coverage said so at the time: Wossy Plays titled its recap “Cars Crushed Gen Con.” A new Wave had arrived five weeks earlier and the format had resolved around speed.

Deeper in the standings, Joe Baiocchi of Wreck ‘n Rule made the Top 32 on 4-Wide Blue Pierce, as did Jamie Madison of Powered by Primus.

Coverage