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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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| Finals: Kristian Kockott vs. Dean Sohnle |
| Stan van der Velden |
| May 02, 2005 |
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 This is it, then. The two powerhouses from Canada and Germany forced their way through the French opposition playing the two consensus-best decks of the tournament. Dean is running a fairly standard Fantastic Four deck, and summed up Kristian’s deck perfectly when talking about the Sentinels mirror semis.
“He’s running Micro-Sentinels and Alexandre isn’t. Of course I want the Frenchman to win.”
Micro-Sentinels pulled it out for Kristian, though, and they met in the finals to see if the Micro-Sentinels could make enough of a difference to help the German get his first $10K win.
Dean won the die roll and chose the even initiative.
Game 1
Kristian started out well with a Boliver Trask fetching Hounds of Ahab, and Dean kicked off ideally as well, recruiting Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl and Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards. He then equipped Mr. Fantastic with Unstable Molecules and got another one with his ability. Sentinel Mark II showed up just in time to start negating Dean’s effects, but Kristian decided to let Mr. Fantastic do his thing. The end result was a copy of The Pogo Plane that found a home with the man who found it. A Personal Force Field gave Invisible Woman some more DEF to work with and Mr. Fantastic hid behind her. Kristian’s attack merely forced Invisible Woman to lose her counter, and they moved on to turn 4 with hardly any endurance lost.
A ride on The Pogo Plane got Dean his Antarctic Research Base, and he drew his first card when he recruited She-Thing and put an Advanced Hardware on it. Kristian just continued his curve with a Sentinel Mark V. Invisible Woman then bounced off a powered-up Boliver on the following attack, prompting Dean to attack poor Boliver again with his She-Thing. This time he did get stunned, and Kristian took his first endurance loss of the game. On his attack, his Hounds ate Invisible Woman with a little help from Savage Beatdown, and Mark stunned Mr. Fantastic, who got KO’d.
 The reason why became apparent on turn 5 as Dean recruited Mr. Fantastic, Stretch while Kristian added another Sentinel Mark V to his team, this time with boost. The two Mark Vs teamed up against Mr. Fantastic and stunned him, while Mark II wasn’t quite as succesful versus She-Thing because of Mr. Fantastic’s ability to move Personal Force Field around. The whole moving around thing also caused Kristian to take 6 from Advanced Hardware shootings, and when Invisible Woman attacked Trask to end the combat, the endurance totals were 26 each.
Dean rebuilt with a Frankie Raye and a small Mr. Fantastic to replace the infected one. His activation didn’t yield anything, but the Canadian still managed a Personal Force Field on the new Fantastic and a Flamethrower on Frankie before passing the build phase. Kristian recruited Bastion.
Mark V went after Frankie Raye, who threw flames at Kristian’s face before Dean attempted to save her with A Child Named Valeria. An Overload got rid of Frankie anyway and readied Mark V. Bastion stepped up to attack next, targeting She-Thing, but Dean had some effects first. He played a Cosmic Radiation, shooting Kristian with Advanced Hardware and getting another one with Fantastic. He then did it again, getting an Unstable Molecules for his efforts and another 3 damage. He couldn’t stop She-Thing getting stunned, though, and had to choose which character to keep after the Hounds and Mark V crushed Ant Man and Mr. Fantastic. The equipment hunter got to stay.
Kristian’s turn 7 was rather unexciting as all he could come up with was Nimrod. Dean once again had a flurry of plays as he turned over Pier 4 and double-equipped his remaining two characters drawing him into Signal Flare for Human Torch, Hotshot. His board now consisted of Invisible Woman with Personal Force Field and Advanced Hardware, Mr. Fantastic with Personal Force Field and War Wagon, and the Human Torch. Kristian was at 6.
All that didn’t matter, though, as Mark V took out the Invisible Girl to prevent reinforcement. Bastion then attacked Human Torch and got boosted with three Reconstruction Programs to force through more than enough endurance loss to offset Human Torch’s ability to put the German at -2.
Game 2
 Dean once again chose evens, and got in for two quick points with Invisible Woman before Kristian didn’t make a turn 3 play. Pier 4 and Antarctic Research Base allowed Dean to build a better, bigger Invisible Woman as he equipped her with The Pogo Plane and Advanced Hardware . . . but he didn’t have any characters either.
On turn 4, the Plane turned into a Baxter Building that got a Flamethrower. A Signal Flare finally got Dean his second character in Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards who once again proved he wasn’t that fantastic by milling two Cosmic Radiations and missing. Luckily, Dean is quite fantastic, and a Thinking Outside The Box gave him access to the Radiations over the next two turns. He cycled through an Unstable Molecules to find another Advanced Hardware, which he equipped on Mr. Fantastic before finishing his turn with a Flamethrower on Invisible Woman against Kristian’s still pristine board. Finally, Sentinel Mark V made an appearance to rescue the stumbling German, but A Child Named Valeria allowed Invisible Woman to take it down and a Cosmic Radiation allowed Mr. Fantastic to equipment hunt again as well as shoot Kristian for 5. That put the endurance total at 35 for Kristian and a perfect 50 for Dean.
Micro-Sentinels showed up to help Kristian stabilize, getting rid of the Invisible Girl and all her toys on the next turn. He also reinforced his team with Nimrod. Dean simply Signal Flared for another Invisible Woman before playing Wyatt Wingfoot and double equipping him with a Flamethrower and Advanced Hardware. A whiffing Mr. Fantastic caused Dean to shoot Kristian with Wyatt and try his luck again. He slowly turned over the first three cards and finally saw the gray light when a Personal Force Field turned over as the fourth. He immediately equipped it to Mr. Fantastic and put him in his front row, protecting the unequipped Invisible Woman. Kristian then tried his luck with Nimrod, swinging him into Wyatt, but Dean had A Child Named Valeria and reinforced his Wyatt. That left Mark V to break through for a bit, and ended the turn for Kristian. Wingfoot shot him for 5 to move on to the next one.
A Mr. Fantastic activation in response to the draw showed that Dean would draw Human Torch this turn, and with Kristian’s life total at 20, that spelled game over if the Canadian had a Cosmic Radiation. He did, and Hot Shot and Wingfoot finished Kristian off.
Game 3
Kristian also chose the even initiative, and the deciding game of $10K Paris got underway with a mulligan for the German.
 Dean had Invisible Woman again, and Kristian had a play of his own this time, recruiting Boliver Trask. He fetched Sentinel Mark V, signaling he had the Hounds of Ahab which he indeed played on turn 2. Dean flipped his Research Base and played Advanced Hardware, looking for another 1-drop to avoid getting Hounds locked. He found it in Ant Man. Boliver still went after the Invisible Girl, but Dean’s power-up went unopposed and Boliver was the only character getting stunned.
Turn 3 featured just a Thing, Ben Grimm for Dean while Kristian played the obvious Sentinel Mark II. Thing went after it and a power-up made sure both characters got stunned . . . and boom! Micro-Sentinels put counters on all three of Dean’s creatures, killing two immediately and making Thing’s lifespan rather short. A Mark V continued the curve.
Dean went hunting for a creature, playing Unstable Molecules and sacrificing it before recruiting Advanced Hardware. A Mr. Fantastic - Reed Richards fit the bill perfectly, and although his activation got countered by Sentinel II, Dean still had enough gas to give him a Personal Force Field to play with. The first attack of the turn saw Mark V try to swoop down on Thing in the support row, but Dean stopped him. He Foiled the Micro-Sentinels, which caused some confusion as to whether or not the attack would still go through. Apparently a judge in Hannover had ruled Mark V would get to choose another target, but Marc Hernandez, the head judge here in Paris, told Kristian that as long as the attack was still legal it had to go through. A power-up stunned both, but the German clearly wasn’t very happy with the ruling and the result. The stun put Kristian at 27 to 43 for Dean.
Turn 5 got underway with Mark II countering Fantastic’s activation in response to Dean’s draw, but the Canadian simply replaced it and activated again, getting Unstable Molecules. He put another Molecules, a Signal Flare and a Pier 4 on the bottom. Thinking Outside The Box let Dean draw his second Molecules with his first, and got him the Signal Flare when he played that too. He had to pass the turn with a resource point unspent, though. Kristian’s turn was decidedly shorter again as he recruited another Sentinel V. It flew up to Mr. Fantastic and shot him, prompting Dean to sacrifice his Molecules to minimize the damage. Hounds then forced Dean to sac the Molecules on Invisible Woman too. The final attack featured the other Mark V battling a Thing who had Advanced Hardware equipped, and shot Kristian on his way out. Except—he wasn’t on his way out, as Valeria popped up to save the three drop. Another Micro-Sentinels showed up to make Dean’s life miserable as Invisible Woman died and both Mr. Fantastic and Thing were going to blow up next turn.
Fantastic still didn’t get to do his thing as Mark II continued to disrupt him. Dean drew the Pier 4 and Wyatt he put on the bottom of his deck last turn. Kristian upped the Mark V count to three on his turn 6, recruiting the last musketeer with boost. The Canadian was on the ropes now, as he was running out of options. The Pier 4  and Wyatt weren’t going to help much, and the other card in his hand was a Signal Flare that had to pull him out. His best option was to get another Fantastic and hope to hit an equipment. He didn’t, though, and that was pretty much it, leaving him cardless and outnumbered six to two on the battlefield. Hounds got to eat his Mr. Fantastic, and Thing was poised for destruction next turn due to the Micro Machines, so all Kristian had to do was declare his attacks to clinch his first $10K Championship title and the $2,500 that came with it.
Congratulations to Kristian Kockott, winner of $10K Paris!
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