Mark Slack is from that other group of Indiana players. While Gabe Walls and Nick Little earned a lot of attention after their Top 8 appearances at PC Indy, Indiana had its share of successful players before them, and Mark is continuing in their footsteps with his Top 8 appearance today. His play group includes Jason Green, Corey Dawson, and Jason Dawson – the man who put Big Brotherhood on the metagame map – and he relied on his boys to help him test his quarterfinal match-up against David Fielder’s unexpected Gotham Curve deck. While Fielder got a lot of mileage out of his Flame Traps in the Swiss rounds, it was unlikely that he would bag more than a Robin with it in the quarters. Slack was planning on playing his Teen Titans deck up the curve, avoiding playing Hawk and Dove at all costs.
Fielder is a Toronto-based player who prepared for this weekend with a group of locals including Donald A. Grant. Donald designed the Gatham Curve deck that Fielder was piloting this weekend and Fielder was eager to heap any and all praise at his friend’s feet. “He is the genius, and the better player. I am just a lucksack.”
Game One
Neither player had a play until turn 2. Fielder put out Barbara Gordon ◊ Oracle. Mark Slack played Tim Drake ◊ Robin, Young Detective and asked his opponent, “Can I borrow a piece of paper? I figure if you are going to be Bat-Signaling, Alfreding, and all that I probably want to write stuff down.”
Slack sent Tim Drake across at Oracle, and when Fielder flipped up Acrobatic Dodge, Mark was confused, “Who Dodges Oracle?”
Slack dropped Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal on the third turn while David Fielder played Alfred.
“Just Alfred?” asked a hopeful Slack but Fielder also had Tim Drake ◊ Robin, The Boy Wonder. He put Alfred in front of Oracle and left Robin off to the side.
“You’re sacrificing the old man, huh?”
“That’s what old men are for.”
Robin took down Alfred and Arsenal did the same to Oracle. Fielder recovered Alfred. David put out Cassandra Cain ◊ Batgirl, protecting Alfred, with Tim Drake flanking her up front. Terra showed up on Slack's side, with Arsenal protecting Tim Drake, and Terra hanging back to Robin’s side.
Cassandra Cain went after Terra, who threw a flipped-up USS Argus at Tim Drake. Fielder used Tim to Bat-Signal for Dick Grayson ◊ Nightwing before Terra stunned him. Alfred came back to David’s hand to find a Flame Trap and David discarded two cards and stunned Mark’s Robin with the plot twist.
Mark had Garth ◊ Tempest for turn 5 and hid him behind Arsenal with Terra also in the support row. Lady Shiva was David’s play, though her ability is not one of the stronger ones in David’s deck vs. Teen Titans.
Slack declared a team attack on Lady Shiva with Garth and Arsenal and he powered up his 5-drop and Fielder exhausted Terra in response for an Entangle. Teen Titans Go! readied Garth to go after Cassandra, and both players passed with all of Fielder’s character stunning. Slack paid 3 to pick up USS Argus from his bin.
Fielder, who had recovered Lady Shiva, played his Dick Grayson ◊ Nightwing and put it up front with the dragon lady. Slack flipped up his Argus and dug for a card. He played Red Star and domed Fielder for 5. He arranged Terra and Arsenal up front protecting Garth and Red Star respectively.
Lady Shiva proposed to go after one of Slack’s team. Arsenal swelled to 10 ATK and ate a resource to smoke Fielder’s guy. Fielder attacked Dick Grayson into Terra, who was stunned without incident. The score was 22 to 28 in Slack’s favor.
Slack was down a resource and stuck under the Argus. He played a boosted Tim Drake and activated Red Star. His board featured Tim Drake, Arsenal, and Terra up front. There was no one behind Tim but Arsenal and Terra were protecting Red Star and Garth.
David had the 7-drop Magneto, Master of Magnetism and tucked him behind Dick Grayson with Lady Shiva also up front. Tim, Roy, and Red Star teamed up to attack Lady Shiva and she fell under their assault. Terra and Garth came for Dick Grayson. Fielder had the double Acrobatic Dodge but a Savage Beating made them irrelevant. Slack flashed a Teen Titans Go! and Fielder extended the hand.
Mark Slack - 1 David Fielder - 0
David seemed frustrated by his experience since his overnight testing showed the Titans deck to be at a disadvantage. Slack just smiled and disagreed, which puzzled the Canadian player who was obviously boosting out Hawk and Dove in the test games.
Game Two
Fielder pushed down a hand of four plot twists and seemed unhappy about his next four. Slack on the other hand seemed pleased by the way things were shaping up. “I love it when he shakes his head like that.”
Fielder had no turn 1 play, while Slack flipped up Optitron and found a Tim Drake of the Titans variety. Both players had Tim Drakes for turn 2, but when Fielder’s turn 3 came, he had no play. Slack flipped up the USS Argus and looked deep into his deck to take advantage of Fielder’s stumble. He played Beast Boy and put him up front with Tim Drake. The two Tims traded and Beast Boy got a direct shot in.
Slack put Terra down for the fourth turn and announced, “I’m shocked” when Cassandra Cain came down on the other side of the board. Beast Boy announced an attack on Tim Drake. Fielder went for the Savage Beatdown into Overload play and stunned the green teen. Tim Drake and Terra came after Cassandra Cain and Fielder let that happen.
Lady Shiva showed up on the Canadian side of the table and David’s whole team rushed to the frontlines. Slack continued to ride his Argus, with Garth arriving right on time for turn 5. Beast Boy went in front of Garth and Terra hung back with the 5-drop.
Fielder proposed to send Tim Drake and Cassandra into Beast Boy.
Slack slumped, “Double Overload, huh?”
Slack smacked Tim with Terra – getting rid of his Argus – and Fielder sent his two remaining characters at Beast Boy, flipping up the prophesied Overload. Lady Shiva came for Garth and they both stunned. When Cassandra came for Terra, Slack flipped up Titans Tower and used it, leaving both players with face-down teams going into recovery. Both saved their 5-drops.
Slack used Optitron to find Tim Drake ◊ Robin, The Boy Wonder, played him with boost, and threw down Pantha for good measure. Fielder had Dick Grayson ◊ Nightwing and put both his characters up front. Slack announced a team attack, but Fielder Entangled Garth. Slack sent Tim Drake and Pantha anyway and flipped Savage Beatdown, but Fielder had the Fizzle. Lady Shiva went after Pantha but a Heroic Sacrifice sent her elsewhere.
Turn 7 was an Alfonse and Gaston of misplays by both players. 7-drop Magneto descended to the board on and nestled in the support row behind Lady Shiva with Nightwing also up front. Slack went shopping with Optitron for Koriand’r ◊ Starfire and put her in front of Robin. Garth was protecting Pantha. If Fielder realized that he had made a grievous error by leaving Magneto in the support row, he certainly did not show it on his face. There were six Titans characters in Slack's KO'd pile and a Titans Tower on the board should Slack want to… you know…deal with Magneto.
Fielder sent Dick Grayson after Garth and Slack pitched Raven to Titans Tower to assure mutual destruction. Slack picked up a Tim Drake from his KO’d pile before Garth went down. Magneto wanted to come across at Starfire and it was allowed. When Slack picked up the Tim Drake he went down to 6 characters in his KO'd pile and could no longer use Starfire to take down Magneto.
Slack was beside himself at his inexplicable mistake and he just began picking up his cards and shuffling for game three, “How dumb was that? That is going to be the second time that Starfire costs me money.”
He turned to his friends who were watching the match in horror, “Don’t tell Jason Green about that. He can read about it online.”
Game 3
Slack stared hard at his four cards before deciding to push them to the bottom. Fielder did not need as much time. Fielder played Oracle on the second turn and revealed Catwoman.
Slack was astounded, “Catwoman?”
It was Fielder‘s turn to be astounded, “You had my decklist!”
Tim Drake ◊ Robin, The Boy Wonder came down and smacked around the commissioner’s daughter. Slack had Arsenal on turn 3 and Fielder had to draw a card with Oracle to find his own Tim Drake. The score was 47 to 42 favoring Slack.
Fielder played his resource and looked at his hand. Slack leaned forward on the edge of his seat hoping against hope and when he saw Fielder’s turn 4 play Mark was ecstatic. “Whoo-hoo! Catwoman!”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” shrugged Fielder. “She fills a slot.”
Slack played Terra and used her on the young detective. Fielder Bat-Signaled in response for Nightwing. Catwoman came for Roy Harper and when Slack tried to Tamaran, Fielder unmasked Unmasked to counter the power-up.
Garth showed up for his regular turn 5 appointment as did Lady Shiva. A first proposal of team attack was sent back when Terra was Entangled. Slack used Terra on Tim Drake in response. Everyone else suggested that they pile on Lady Shiva. She stunned and a Teen Titans Go! meant that Catwoman would fall as well.
Turn 6 saw Fielder flip down Unmasked and play Dick Grayson. The score was 42 to 27 favoring the player from Indy. Dick and Lady Shiva stood up front. Slack had Red Star and some left over resource points to use him.
Fielder kicked off the attack step with a Flame Trap to take out Robin. Dick Grayson came after Garth and Slack pumped and used Arsenal in response to smoke Lady Shiva. He also picked up a Teen Titans Go!. The score was 32 to 17 in Slack’s favor.
Slack had no turn 7 play although he did use Garth to get back Teen Titans Go!. Fielder did not have a traditional 7-drop but boosted out Azrael. Slack announced a team attack and used Teen Titans Go!. Fielder had the Fizzle but Slack had another Teen Titans Go! and Lady Shiva fell in a hail of bullets from Roy Harper. A couple of team attacks later and he had taken Fielder down to zero even without any breakthrough endurance loss.
Mark Slack defeated David Fielder 2-1
Slack let out a deep sigh of relief that his turn two misplay did not cost him the match. He turned to a friend along the rail and laughed, “You can tell Jason Green about that Koriand’r mistake now. If I had lost, I wanted to be hour away before he heard about it.”
Slack turned to his opponent and congratulated him on his success. “Your deck is really cool. Sorry you never drew an Alfred.” (Which was not entirely true. Fielder pitched two Alfreds to a Flame Trap in the final game.)
Fielder seemed confused by the loss and looked at his deck as if it had betrayed him. “This is usually such a good match-up for me.’
Slack explained how he adjusted his deck’s strategy to account for the Flame Traps. “Our version goes up the curve pretty well. We don’t play Hawk and Dove unless we have to – I don’t think I played either one in our match at all.”
Fielder nodded and wished him luck in his impending match-up against the winner of the Sottosanti/DeRosa match. Slack had lost to Harvey playing an identical build in the Swiss rounds but felt that with some foreknowledge of how to play against the deck, last night’s play testing sessions, and just a little bit of luck, he would be able to advance to the finals.