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The Sentry™
Card# MTU-017
While his stats aren’t much bigger than those of the average 7-drop, Sentry’s “Pay ATK” power can drastically hinder an opponent’s attacking options in the late game.
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| Round 8: Alexandre Grabowski vs. Brice Tournie |
| Stan van der Velden |
| May 01, 2005 |
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 The first feature match in which both competitors were French today featured two Sentinels decks duking it out at 6-1. These two Paris natives had managed to weather the foreign storm, and now found themselves in an excellent position to make Top 8, with a 7-2 record considered to be the threshold to make it to the elimination rounds.
Alexandre showed his colors on turn 1, playing the infamous Boliver Trask to fetch Hounds of Ahab, only to be matched by another Hounds from Brice. They traded some damage and the race was on to see who would miss their drops, which is usually the one thing that can make these mirror matches less of a slugfight. Turn 3 went alright with Sentinel, Mark II for both. Alexandre had the initiative, though, and ran his Mark into evil Mark only to do the by now less-than-surprising Overload and Nasty Surprise trick. That allowed his Hounds to eat Alexandre’s Sentinel, and give him a bit of an advantage. Brice came right back with Sentinel, Mark V and a flipped Prime Sentinels to discourage any plot twist shenanigans, although two of them were already used last turn. Alexandre, on the other hand, missed his Mark drop and had to settle for another Mark II, which unfortunately didn’t make the game any more interesting. Mark V took down a Mark II and that was about it for that turn.
Next turn, next showdown. Nimrod for Alexandre and just a boosted Mark V for Brice. Advantage Alexandre! The Frenchman looked to press the advantage, attacking Boliver with his Mark II, but a Burn Rubber minimized the damage. Nimrod still got to take out the unboosted Mark V, though, but that would be all the excitement we would see this combat. With the roles reversed, the boosted Mark V punched the littler Mark to pieces, and evened the score to 34 endurance apiece.
 This brought us to turn 6 where, according to custom, Brice played his Bastion. Alexandre stumbled again, and he had to go with a Boliver of his own, getting a Mark V and boosting it. This made the situation look like this—Alexandre had two Sentinel Mark IIs and a Boliver Trask in the support row, with Nimrod and a boosted Sentinel Mark V in front, and a Hounds hidden. Brice had a Bastion and an unboosted Mark V in the support row, and a boosted Mark V in the front, accompanied by his own Hounds. For those of you trying to figure out what’s going on, I admire your patience. Meanwhile, action seemed to be heating up in a bad way for le monsieur sans Bastion. Reconstruction Program definitely favors the player with the Bastion in play. This turned out to be painfully true for Alexandre, who lost all his little men in the process of going down to a mere 14, while Brice was still at a very healthy 34.
Turn 7 brought us *drumroll* two Magneto, Master of Magnetisms. Alexandre’s Magneto went after Bastion and managed to stun him without any problem. Then Mark V with boost, Nimrod, and Hounds of Ahab tag teamed Brice’s Magneto and, after a lot of head shaking and mumbling by Brice, succeeded. Brice’s Mark V then tried to take down Alexandre’s, but a Reconstruction Program worked well enough even without Bastion. Double Genosha pulled Alexandre way ahead. It allowed him to win the Mark V fight and change a 34–14 deficit into a 14–9 lead.
The Genoshas really showed their worth when Brice could only manage another Hounds and two more pitiful Mark IIs. Alexandre had Bastion and seventeen cards in hand. The end was pretty ugly, when a team attack with Brice’s whole squad—five characters—didn’t even manage to bring down Nimrod. Needless to say, that was the game right there.
Alexandre Grabowski wins! |
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