Tim Willoughby calls him the best Sentinels player in the world, and he's certainly had a heckuva a lot of success playing them. Hans Höh looks like a cross between an 80s German guitarist and that guy you see in the back of the cool cafes reading Bukowski. He's a quiet, thoughtful player, but not one who shies away. He's happy to talk about himself and about the game—especially about the game.
As to the question of him being the best, he told me, “I don't know about that. I might or might not be the best, but I probably am the person who has played it the most.” He plays the deck for its simplicity, not because he can't handle the harder, more cerebral decks, but because he's a perfectionist who doesn't like to make mistakes. “Curve Sentinels is obviously easier to play than combo decks like Teen Titans and Fantastic Fun, but Sentinels you can play flawlessly, and I like to play flawlessly. Playing a flawless game means that even if I lose, I don't get angry because I made mistakes.” In other words, he knows that if he's beaten by someone, that person—or his or her deck—beat him solidly, rather than winning because of Hans's errors.
On the flip side, playing a flawless game means that he does well against other players playing similar decks, which is part of the reason he's earned such a strong reputation as a Sentinels player. He's the first to admit he wins mirror matches on a regular basis, but he doesn't really pay attention to other people's decks.
One thing that makes Hans stand out as a player is that he seems to think out every possible scenario before making a move, be it formation, attack, plot twist, or reinforcement. As for where he gets this play style from, I initially pegged him as a Chess or Go player, but apparently not. “I play lots of other games—especially strategy board games and whatnot—but I don't like chess, because to be really good you have to learn the openings, every single opening, and I don't like that.”
So what does the future hold for Hans and his Sentinels? Next up is DC Modern Age, which means Sentinels are out, but looking past that and to various Golden Age $10Ks over the next little while, Hans is going to keep playing the robots as long as they're still viable in the format. “I'm not going to play the deck if it's not good any more. But right now it's still really good, and so I still play it. If the metagame shifts significantly, I'll play other decks.
The funny thing is that he almost didn't play Sentinels in NY. “We actually wanted to build another deck for the PC, one that was particularly good against Sentinels. We built one and tested a lot, and after a lot of time spent testing it, we dismissed it and went back to the robots.” And the robots haven't let him down today. He was 6-2 after round 8, losing only to Gamma Doom and a TNB deck that he almost beat. “Six of his seven resources were three
Genoshas and three TNBs, which did not help. I actually attacked him and brought him down to -6 endurance on turn 6 and stunned his whole board. I was at 9 endurance and in a good position. Then he burned me for 15 with
The Mutant Menace and
Surprise Attacks, leading to another turn, when he killed me.”
The good news for Hans is that he's doing a lot more of the killing than the being killed, and with the whole house screaming “HÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖH!” he may finally get some justice and bring the robots into the Top 8 at a PC.