Going into round six, we have a feature match with a German player who speaks largely German, a French player who is primarily aux fait with French, and myself, an Englishman who's possibly a little out of his league, as far as language goes. Philippe’s deck is the very innovative French team Les Average Joe’s build of Anti-Green Lanterns while Pia’s chosen the popular German choice of Squadron Supreme. Fifteen-year-old Pia has made quite a few waves at the tournament herself—she’s still in contention for Top 8 in round 6 at her very first Vs. System tournament.

Scheper started with Ape X, who fetched herself some Dual Sidearms while Philippe had Anti-Green Lantern and some Bad Press, which he played immediately, possibly fearing Flying Kick and Mega-Blast. After some quick beats, Philippe’s concealed beater went to the KO’d pile and it was on to turn two.

He replaced last turn’s AGL with two more, while Pia had Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird, Sonic Carapace. The Frenchman’s army attacked to stun Pia’s board, and crucially achieve a stun back on one attack so that one of them could stick around. Philippe then played No Man Escapes the Manhunters for value, and he was all about the beatdown even in a matchup such as this.

For turn three, Pia recruited both Joystick and Shape, but still languished with only three cards in her hand. Things were even worse for Oliva, though. He had just one more Anti-Green Lantern to add to his board, and was facing down a lot of beatdown.

Melissa Gold attacked with a power-up to the face, then Joystick went in with some help from Mega-Blast, looking to get a lot of endurance loss in. Unfortunately for Scheper, Oliva had The Ring Has Chosen to fetch Mikado and Mosha, though, and her set of attacks could only take Philippe to 34 endurance, while she herself was at 35 endurance prior to the swing back.

One of the Anti-Green Lanterns took down Shape, thanks to No Man Escapes the Manhunters, then the second stunned Melissa Gold for a wipe on each side of the board, which was clearly beneficial to Oliva.

The advantage appeared to be pressed on turn four when Felix Faust came into play, threatening to return three more characters when he was finished fighting himself. Pia, meanwhile, appeared to be having a less-than-perfect draw, having to underdrop Lady Lark into play.

Another copy of No Man Escapes the Manhunters allowed Philippe’s Anti-Green Lantern to beat Shape into a whole new shape, leaving only Lady Lark to be beaten up by Felix Faust. In the process, Philippe’s 4-drop became stunned, which allowed him to return three more massive army 1-drops into play. Pia could only shake her head as the extra 12 endurance loss from out of nowhere ended the game for her.

Philippe wins with his Anti-Matter beatdown deck. It turns out that black is the new black.