Aaron Weil was the only 8–0 player thus far today. Coming out of nowhere to startle a large number of veteran players, his reign of dominance rivals Adam Bernstein’s win at PC NY for sheer surprise factor. He’s this event’s “guy you’ve never heard of who can totally kick your butt.” He was running Avengers reservist.

David Frayer was using a teched-out build of Fantastic Fun, packing tricks like Team Tactics and Marvel’s First Family. He was well versed in the deck’s strategy, and his innovative design took it to heights never before seen.

The match was set after a round 9 re-pairing: The originally scheduled match was Josh Wiitanen vs. Aaron Weil, but the round structure was changed at the last second.

“As I have no idea what you’re playing, I will go first,” stated Frayer.

“You don’t know what I’m playing? Man, Josh went around and talked to twelve people to find out what I was playing. He could’ve just asked.”

“What are you playing, then?”

“Avengers. They’re so crappy. Their cards are just stupid.” Weil grinned.

Frayer recruited Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl and attacked directly on turn 1, blowing past Rick Jones. Weil recruited Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow, Super Spy. Frayer gave Invisible Girl an Advanced Hardware after flipping up Antarctic Research Base, and Weil smacked Invisible Girl around. It was 45 to 48.

Turn 3 opened with Frayer burning for 3 with Advanced Hardware, then recruiting another Invisible Girl. He flipped Salvage, brought up the Advanced Hardware from the KO’d pile, and gave it to the new Invisible Girl. Weil recruited Black Panther and  revealed three reservists, and Panther became a 7 ATK/6 DEF beast. Invisible Girl swung on Natasha Romanoff, but Weil used System Failure to bounce her from the attack. Black Widow smashed her out of the way, and Black Panther attacked directly.

Next turn, Weil recruited Hawkeye, Clinton Barton, and Frayer recruited Human Torch, Hotshot. Rick Jones cleared out Invisible Girl, who pulled the trigger on her Hardware to blast for 3 endurance. The totals were 35 to 36. Black Panther then pounced on Human Torch, who activated in turn to burn Weil. Avengers Mansion flipped and made Panther a 10 ATK attacker, and Call Down the Lightning bumped him up to 13. Attacks from Widow and Hawkeye brought Frayer down to 12 endurance, and since he could only recover Human Torch, Hotshot, it looked as if he would be hard pressed to squeeze a win out of this match.

Mr. Fantastic, Stretch hit the board, and Frayer gave Hotshot a Personal Force Field. Stretch hopped into The Pogo Plane, and Frayer ran some numbers, writing them out on the notepad he came prepared with.

Weil had some time to chat, and saw fit to take advantage of that fact. “No one’s running this in this deck,” he remarked to me, indicating his System Failure. “Not in this deck, at least.”

Frayer finally decided to activate the Pogo Plane, and Stretch promptly crashed it into another Antarctic Research Base. He then flipped Marvel’s First Family, taking back Advanced Hardware with its “If you control Mr. Fantastic . . .” effect. He gave the Advanced Hardware to Stretch and passed, leaving both characters adjacent in the back row.

Weil recruited She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell and used her to protect Hawkeye in an “L” formation. Hotshot attacked Black Widow, and Hawkeye reinforced. Mr. Fantastic attacked She-Hulk, Frayer activated Cosmic Radiation, and both his characters readied. He activated each to burn: Hotshot with his effect and Stretch with Advanced Hardware. Another Cosmic Radiation let them each activate again, bringing Weil down to 13 endurance to Frayer’s 8. A third Cosmic Radiation readied them again, and after some deliberation they burned Weil down to 5. He used She-Hulk’s effect to make her invulnerable, and both Stretch and She-Hulk were stunned. Frayer lost 5 endurance and went to 3. A team attack then laid Hotshot low, scoring 4 endurance loss and bringing Frayer to -1. That was all she wrote for Frayer.

He revealed a Team Tactics from his hand, showing it to Weil. “Rick Jones saved your butt.”

“Yeah, he’s the best.”

Aaron Weil moves on with an undefeated 9–0 record!