For the second feature match of the day, we look in on a game between Anthony Justice and Matt Oldaker. Both of these players are Vs. System mainstays who finished in the money in the recent PC New York. As I found out after we sat down, these excellent players share other traits: they're members of the same testing team and are playing the same deck. They're both playing . . . Gamma Doom. This sort of agonizing matchup means big, big frowns for this reporter.
Anthony won the coin flip and opted to go second. The first turn was (predictably) uneventful, with neither player recruiting a 1-drop. Justice started off turn 2 with Talia. At this point, I took a peek at Matt's hand. Along with some standard Doom plot twists, it contained
Assassin Initiate,
Ubu, and Sub-Mariner, Atlantean Monarch (from the new starter, for those of you who haven't heard of it before). This wasn't Doom after all, but rather a League/Doom variant. Interesting! Matt used
Mountain Stronghold to get Talia. Both used it. Anthony got
Mountain Stronghold and
Metropolis, discarding
Sensei. Matt got
Clocktower, discarding
Gamma Bomb.
Both players kicked off turn 3 by using their Talias]. Matt missed. Anthony, on the other hand, picked up a
Doomstadt, discarding
Latveria. Matt recruited an
Ubu and put Talia in back. Anthony flipped
Mountain Stronghold to get Ubu, discarding
Assassin Initiate, and did the same thing. Neither player had an attack. Anthony flipped an
Avalon Space Station, discarding Doom to get back Sensei. With no endurance loss on either side, it was on to turn 4.
Anthony began with
Merlyn, Deadly Archer. Matt recruited Dr. Doom. With his ability on the chain, he teamed up League and Doom with
Metropolis and used
Mystical Paralysis to exhaust Anthony's Merlyn. When Doom's ability resolved, he used it to turn Paralysis face down. Anthony passed his attack, and Matt attacked
Ubu into Talia. She was activated, netting a
Mountain Stronghold for Anthony at the price of
Hassim. Matt used
Reign of Terror to bounce the opposing
Ubu and missed on his Talia again. Anthony concluded the turn by discarding that
Ubu to get back the Dr. Doom he had discarded on the previous turn (50-46).
On turn 5, Matt started things off by missing with Talia yet again, revealing
Apocalypse and
Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria on their way to the bottom. He flipped a
Clocktower and used it to replace a face-down
Assassin Initiate, then recruited his Sub-Mariner. Sub-Mariner's ability exhausted Merlyn. Matt set up with Sub-Mariner in front of Talia and
Ubu in front of Dr. Doom. Anthony began his recruits with a Dr. Doom of his own, flipping
Metropolis in response to the chained ability. He turned nothing down, and then recruited a
Boris. His setup was
Boris in front of
Merlyn, Talia beside
Merlyn in the back, and Dr. Doom beside Talia.
Matt attacked Sub-Mariner into
Merlyn. The attack resolved without reinforcement. Matt's
Ubu then smashed into Talia, who was activated . . . and missed. Finally, Matt attacked his Dr. Doom into Anthony's
Boris. Anthony used Boris in response to fetch a copy of
The Demon's Head. Anthony readied his Doom but had no more attacks, instead flipping his own copy of
The Demon's Head. He exhausted his Doom to search up an
Avalon Space Station. Neither player used their Space Stations, and play moved to turn 6 (50-38).
Anthony began turn 6 by recruiting the previously seen
Sensei, putting it in front of
Merlyn. Dr. Doom was set up next to Merlyn in the back row. Matt recruited a
Sensei of his own, placing it in the front row next to his formation of characters, which was unchanged since the previous turn. At the beginning of the combat step, both players'
Senseis triggered. Matt used his
Clocktower to cycle an
Apocalypse in his resource row, and the players moved to combat.
Anthony team attacked
Sensei with Dr. Doom and
Merlyn. The attack resolved, and Dr. Doom and
Sensei were stunned. His next move was an attack of Sensei into Sub-Mariner, but Matt was having none of that. He used
Mystical Paralysis to exhaust Sensei, and Anthony flipped a Demon's Head to get
Lazarus Pit in response. Anthony, having no ready characters, passed his attack.
Matt used Talia, netting a
Doomstadt (which he discarded). He attacked his submariner into
Merlyn. Anthony flipped a
Pit of Madness for the double stun and passed his attacks. Matt got back an
Apocalypse with his Space Station. Anthony got back an
Ubu with his own Station and used
Lazarus Pit to keep
Merlyn around. Both players KO'd a resource for their respective Senseis, and play moved to turn 7 (39-28).
Matt started things off by using his Space Station to get back the Sub-Mariner that was KO'd the last turn, discarding
Robot Destroyer. He re-recruited it, exhausting Sensei, and kept things in the same formation as last turn. Anthony used
Mountain Stronghold to get 7-drop Ra's Al Ghul ◊ Undying, discarding
Ubu. He set up Ra's in front of Doom and
Sensei beside Ra's in the front row.
At the start of the combat step, both players used their respective
Senseis. Matt's first attack was a team attack of his Ubu and
Sensei into Anthony's Ra's Al Ghul. Anthony chose not to use Ra's ability, leaving him in play. Matt's next attack was yet another team attack, sending Sub-Mariner and Dr. Doom into the opposing Doom. The Dooms traded and combat concluded. Matt used his Talia and missed, and Anthony used his
Lazarus Pit on the newly stunned Dr. Doom, KO'ing
Merlyn (29-17).
Anthony had the initiative on turn 8. At this point, I had seen
Apocalypse out of both players' decks, and both players' resource rows were full of face-up locations. This turn could prove to be an interesting one. Anthony recruited the predictable
Apocalypse. He set up his
Apocalypse behind his Ra's Al Ghul and left Sensei in the front beside Ra's. Matt used Talia before his recruit step, picking up nothing of interest, before recruiting an
Apocalypse of his own. Matt set up
Apocalypse in front of Dr. Doom,
Ubu in front of Sub-Mariner, and Talia to the side of
Sub-Mariner.
At this point, time was called. Play would continue for this turn and one additional turn. Anthony attacked his
Sensei into the opposing Talia. Matt passed, taking 12. Anthony's next attack was
Apocalypse on Sub-Mariner. This attack was illegal—Sub-mariner was protected by Ubu—but Matt just exhausted
Apocalypse with Paralysis anyway to save time. Anthony finally attacked Ra's into
Ubu to finish combat.
Ubu couldn't be reinforced because of the KO'd
Metropolis.
Matt attacked his Apocalypse into Anthony's
Sensei, who used
Pit of Madness to soften the blow. Combat concluded with both players at 5 endurance. Anthony lost the new resource he had gained from Sensei at the end of the combat step. At the beginning of the recovery step, Matt used a new
Lazarus Pit to keep Talia around. Anthony used a Pit of his own to keep
Sensei in play. So, at the end of this explosive turn, no characters were actually KO'd (5-5).
Matt had the initiative on turn 9. He re-recruited Sensei and followed it up with a
Boris. He thought for a while about his setup, eventually electing to set up
Boris in front of Sub-Mariner,
Apocalypse in front of Doom in the next row,
Ubu in front of the stunned Talia in the next row, and a lonely Sensei in the front row next to
Ubu. Before Anthony began his recruits, he used
Mystical Paralysis to exhaust Matt's
Apocalypse. Anthony recruited
Merlyn and a
Boris of his own. He immediately used
Boris to get a
Gamma Bomb, and recruited yet another
Boris. He used
Lazarus Pit's first ability on
Sensei, then KO'd it to recover him. He set up with
Boris in front of the exhausted Sensei on the right,
Apocalypse in front of
Merlyn in the middle, and Ra's Al Ghul in front of Dr. Doom on the left.
The combat Step began, and each player's
Apocalypse chained. Matt took down
Pit of Madness and
Mystical Paralysis, while Anthony opted to KO
Clocktower and
Lazarus Pit. In response, Matt used his Clocktower, yielding nothing, and used his
Lazarus Pit to prevent Talia from being KO'd. Matt declared an attack on
Boris, who was activated in response to pick up a Paralysis. At this point, Matt conceded the game to his friend—since both players had similar board positions and identical life totals, the winner would need to cause more stun damage to his opponent. Anthony's Ra's Al Ghul broke the symmetry of this board position, though; Ra's would gain Anthony 7 endurance any time he got stunned. As such, there was no way for Matt to attack to win.
Anthony wins!