Welcome to the finals of $10K Indianapolis. Chuck Bell comes into this match playing GLEE, and he is the last hope of the 101 GLEE decks that entered the event yesterday. His opponent is Donald Noland. Donnie was the lone player in the Top 8 running a non-GLEE deck. He and his Qward Stall deck are the last hope to end the overwhelming tyranny of GLEE.

Donnie won the roll and chose to play on the odd initiatives. He started off his first turn by dropping the first Shadow Creatures of the match. Chuck kicked off his turn with G’Nort. The ninjas have a real dislike for dogs, though, and attacked in for the stun.

Turn 2 started with Chuck playing The Shark and Ol’ Picklehead, Salakk. Donnie made a couple more Shadows. After getting faced, Donnie used Qward to cause both G’Nort and The Shark to stun. Donnie chose to begin turn 3 by playing The Ring Has Chosen to go get another Shadow Creatures with which to bolster his ever-growing martial arts army. It ended up being his only play, though, as he ended his recruit step with 2 unused resource points. Chuck’s Willworld activation revealed a Roy Harper ◊ Speedy that went to the bottom of his deck. Dr. Light, Master of Holograms came down on his side, though, and he got back a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern to fetch a Helping Hand. Donnie decided not to attack and Chuck took advantage of this by sending the whole team in at Donnie’s head. Donnie then used Qward to stun Kyle Rayner and flipped up an Anti-Matter Cannon to replace Chuck’s meddlesome Willworld.

Chuck began his turn by playing Rot Lop Fan and using The Ring Has Chosen to go grab his Speedy. Little Roy went into the bin and then was brought back to life by Dr. Light. Donnie recruited a Kiman and formed his guys. Rot Lop Fan sent Kyle Rayner in to attack Kiman. Helping Hand came to Kiman’s rescue and forced Chuck to think. Before it resolved, Chuck used his Speedy to KO a Shadow Creatures, which in turn Qwarded Rot Lop Fan. Chuck had a Light Armor to get over the Helping Hand. Before that could resolve, Donnie used Kiman and a Qward activation to stun Kyle. Not willing to take no for an answer, Rot Lop Fan then sent Salakk into the hidden area after a Shadow Creature. Two Qward activations later, both characters stunned. For the final attack of the turn, Rot Lop Fan took out one of the remaining Shadow Creatures himself—if no one else can do it right, do it yourself. Donnie flipped a Sector 2814 before recovery and ended the turn down 28–36.

Donnie had the initiative for turn 5 and started off the party with a lone Qwardian Watchdog. Chuck followed by recruiting Remoni-Notra ◊ Star Sapphire and using Dr. Light to return Olapet to play. Once again, the ninjas went after G’Nort. That was all the attacking that Donnie wanted to do, and he passed the turn to Chuck. Chuck was a little more offensive minded, though, and used Rot Lop Fan to send Salakk into a Shadow Creatures. Qward made sure that Salakk stunned, but Remoni-Notra’s ability ended up KO’ing the poor ninja. Chuck’s next attack was to send Olapet and Rot Lop Fan into Kiman. This ended up stunning the Rot Lop Fan and KO’ing Donnie’s Kiman. The final attack of the turn was to send Remoni-Notra into the Watchdog. This left Donnie with a lone Shadow Creature after recovery and a steep hill to climb. He was down 17–22 going into Chuck’s initiative on turn 6.

Chuck played Major Disaster and Speedy to start off the sixth turn before using Dr. Light to return Kyle Rayner from his bin. Kyle fetched Chuck a Light Armor, which is a pretty nifty card to have when it’s your initiative. He then replaced his Dr. Light with a fresh one and used the new Dr. Light to return an Olapet. Donnie spent his turn 6 recruiting an Evil Star.

Chuck pondered for a few minutes about how best to attack to end the game this turn before finally settling on using Speedy to KO Donnie’s Shadow Creatures. The big attack in the turn was to send Rot Lop Fan, Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern, and Olapet into Evil Star with the help of a Shock Troops. After Chuck finished the rest of his attacks, Donnie scooped.

Chuck Bell 1 - Donald Noland 0

Donald started the game off by playing a turn 1 Shadow Creatures. Chuck matched his draw first game by playing a turn 1 G’Nort. Donnie had a Qward also, so after G’Nort attacked him, he could use it to stun the little doggie. On turn 2, Chuck used The Ring Has Chosen to get, as Donnie called him, Roy “Freakin’” Harper. He recruited Speedy and sent the turn to Donnie. Donnie kept up his growing army of Shadow Creatures by playing two more. G’Nort and Speedy attacked Donnie, and then Chuck activated Speedy to try to KO one of Donnie’s ninjas. Donnie was ready, though, and after Speedy had returned to the top of Chuck’s deck, he used Anti-Matter Cannon to replace Chuck’s Willworld and put Speedy into the resource row.

All Donnie had to recruit on his turn were two more Shadow Creatures, bringing the total up to four. Chuck thought for a while before recruiting Dr. Light, Master of Holograms and using him to get back a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern. That got him a Helping Hand, and the players were ready to move on to combat. Donald passed his attack and was the recipient of some facial beatings by Chuck’s whole team. Before recovery, though, Donnie used Qward to stun G’Nort and Kyle Rayner.

Chuck began turn 4 by boosting an Olapet to grab an Arisia. He opted to use the extra resource to play a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern to get yet another Helping Hand. Dr. Light then brought back Salakk, and Chuck passed to Donnie, who recruited a Kiman. Chuck started attacking by sending in Salakk at Donnie’s unprotected face. Olapet and Kyle Rayner quickly followed suit. Kyle’s attack, though, was foiled by Kiman, who used both of his abilities to stun him. Chuck passed, and before the turn ended, Donnie gave Salakk -3 DEF and replaced Chuck’s Birthing Chamber with Anti-Matter Cannon. Qward stunned Salakk, and they moved to turn 5.

Sadly, after such a brilliant game thus far, Donnie had nothing to do on turn 5 and merely passed the turn to Chuck. “Rough beats,” he lamented. Chuck, on the other hand, had plenty of gas and ended up recruiting The Shark, Arisia, and Tomar Tu before getting Kyle Rayner back with Dr. Light. The newly resuscitated Kyle ended up getting him a Light Armor. The swarm of tiny men looked like it would be too much for Donnie to handle. Donnie had a Rain of Acorns, though, and was able to exhaust Olapet, Kyle Rayner, Tomar Tu, and The Shark before Chuck could attack. All Chuck had left to do was send Salakk into Donnie. Kiman, however, foiled that plan. The turn ended with Donnie down 32–40.

Turn 6 started with Chuck playing The Ring Has Chosen to get a Guy Gardner, Strong Arm of the Corps. One second later, that same Guy Gardner found himself boosted on Chuck’s front row—not bad when you have eight other guys and the initiative. Donnie really had to dig on his turn to try to come up with something. He used his Anti-Matter Cannons to replace some of his locations in a desperate attempt to find something. All he came up with were two Shadow Creatures.

Chuck began by sending Guy into Kiman. Donnie used Kiman to give Olapet -3 DEF, and then used Qward to give Guy Gardner -1 DEF. Ultimately, Kiman stunned Guy. Donnie then used Lanterns in Love to bring Kiman back. Olapet bashed in to take care of him once again, and Donnie had some tricks up his sleeve. Donnie used two Men of Steel and two Helping Hands to get over the two Trial By Swords and the Light Armor Chuck played. Kiman survived. After Salakk went into Kiman, Donnie did some quick math and extended his hand.

Chuck Bell 2 - Donnie Noland 0

Chuck Bell is the $10K Indianapolis champion!