Eighteen year-old Ben Angel is about to make the jump to higher education at Shepherd College. His performance this weekend will land him a fair chunk of change to help make a dent in his expenses. A friend of his quarterfinal opponent Gabe Walls, he was advised by Walls to include Flame Trap in his deck at the last minute. Now he’s armed with the perfect weapon against Walls’s Sentinels.

Gabe Walls sat down to the table with an air of resignation. Currently one of the Top-ranked Magic players, Walls dismantled his opposition thanks to the power of Longshot and extreme redundancy. Playing anyone else in the Top 8 he’d assume he would win the whole thing, but with Angel across from him, he assumed his chances were nil.

Walls mulliganed his first hand but still didn’t have the crucial Longshot. He led off with Wild Sentinel and then two more on the second turn, while Angel made no characters. Walls found no gas on his third turn, however, and after a fourth Wild Sentinel was shut down entirely by She-Hulk.

Still Angel couldn’t capitalize on Walls’s weak start. He passed his fourth turn without recruiting, and Walls made a mighty Mark IV. Angel Overloaded it with the help of Savage Beatdown. Walls upped the ante with another Mark IV and two more Wilds, one off the Underground Sentinel Base. Angel’s Signal Flare got him Thing, Heavy Hitter, and he put it into play. Another Overload kept him in the game, and after one Mark IV took out She-Hulk, the rest of Walls’s team acquired Combat Protocols and tagged Thing.

Angel shrugged and made no recruit on turn six. Walls’s Reconstruction Program got a Mark IV and a Wild Sentinel into play, and then the Base provided another. Thing swung in and Angel flipped It’s Clobberin’ Time, but Cover Fire blunted the attack. A big team attack took down Thing, but Walls miscalculated and assigned too many attackers. Angel was left at 1.

“Oops. Bit of a mistake.” – Gabe Walls

It didn’t matter, as Angel had no outs.


Walls 1 – Angel 0


Both players mulliganed again in the second game, and again Walls led with three Wild Sentinels. Angel took the 7 and on his third turn watched as Walls busted out Longshot and two more Wilds. Again he had no play. Walls brought out two more Wilds and put the life totals to 50-36.

Turn four turned all that around. Angel busted out his fourth land and Flame Trapped Walls’s board. Then Doom hit play and turned it back down. Walls looked disgusted. He played a Mark IV and let the games begin. Doom swung in. Walls powered up twice. Angel tried to save with Doomstadt, but Walls flipped Reconstruction Program and powered up still more.

They recovered. Angel brought out Boris. Walls made a Mark IV and a Wild Sentinel. Flame Trap shut Walls down again and Doom held the fort. Then Angel Signal Flared into the 6-drop Doom. Walls tried to find an Underground Sentinel Base with Longshot but missed. He played yet another Mark IV and a Wild, trying to keep it close. Big Doom would have none of it.

On the seventh turn Walls finally hit his Underground Sentinel Base. He used it and had four Mark IV’s up front with a Wild Sentinel, then four Wilds and Longshot in back. Angel played his seventh resource and put down Submariner in front of Doom.

“Hard turn, hard turn.” - Gabe Walls

Finally he chose to team attack with three Mark IV’s. Angel showed him a pair of Overloads to stun all three. The rest of his team ganged up on Sub-Mariner and managed to turn him face-down, but Doom was still able to squash Longshot. It was 25-15 for Angel. Walls was forced to put all his guys up front, and Angel tutored up the Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing, taking the second game.


Walls 1 – Angel 1


Again Walls couldn’t mulligan into his Longshot, and this time Angel wasn’t idle. She-Thing and then Darkoth hit the table while Walls played a pedestrian one Wild Sentinel per turn. Turn four came and Doctor Doom crashed the party, briefly flipping Common Enemy for a free card. Walls made a Mark IV that got busy with the Doctor.

Turn five brought with an Underground Sentinel Base for Walls. Suddenly he had three Mark IV’s up front and three Wild Sentinels in the back. Angel had no recruit and put his She-Thing in front of Darkoth, and doom off to the side in the back row. One of the Mark IV’s made a swing at Darkoth, but Savage Beatdown and Overload calmed that noise. The second attack succeeded, but then Doom’s Mystical Paralysis exhausted the last big gun. She-Thing evaded a team-up from the little Sentinels thanks to Acrobatic Dodge, and swung back hard on a Mark IV with three copies of It’s Clobberin’ Time. Cover Fire handed that problem nicely.

Even with the 6-drop Doom handy, Angel’s position was precarious. Walls brought out two more Wilds and a Mark IV with the help of his Base. Doctor Doom picked a fight with a Mark IV, and Angel noted the life loss from the ensuing mutual stun, he went to flip up his Doomstadt. Judges agreed that he had already passed on his chance to play effects, and that mental slip cost him. Now the other Mark IV’s could have a field day on his life total, rather than forcing him to squander them on a team-attack that would cause no breakthrough and give Angel another turn. As it was, the match went to Walls.


Gabe Walls defeats Ben Angel 2-1