Gabe is a big man playing Big Men, the stall deck playing various massive characters and stalling out until dropping the biggest, baddest characters imaginable. Jeremy Gray made third place at $10K London with the deck, and Gabe seems to think that it is the right choice for today.

With both players being 0-1 so far, he still has a point to prove, if only to the person that he is playing this deck for. You know who you are.

Turns 1 and 2 were pretty quick, without recruits, despite Gabe’s claims of having “drawn his combo.” On turn 3, Wolverine, Logan came out for Venske, while Medusa was the response of the Indianapolis player. One attack from Wolverine later, it was onto turn 4.

Rogue, Power Absorption came out on turn 4 for Gabe, while Jean Grey, Marvel Girl was the recruit for Erik. The German had no reasonable attacks with his small 4-drop, so it was onto turn 5.

Sunfire came out to play on turn 5 for Erik and hid behind Wolverine, Logan’s sizeable body. For Gabe it was Masked Marauder and two copies of Armed Escort, one on each of the non crime-lord characters.

Sunfire was activated with the 4-drop Jean Gray as the discard in the attempt to stun Medusa, but Walls had the Swift Escape to jump her back to his hand. A Misappropriation got rid of the equip, and then a team attack from Wolverine and Jean was enough to stun Masked Marauder. Cerebro was activated successfully, and a Pleasant Distraction stopped Walls’s attacks back.

Going into turn 6, the endurance was still 41-47 against Gabe, suggesting that the stall plan was working. He recruited Battering Ram on turn 6 to his opponent’s Emma Frost. With Rogue, Power Absorption on Gabe’s side of the field, there was a lot of drawing and discarding of cards going on, but not much attacking when Battering Ram activated.

Turn 7 saw a Cerebro for the German miss but reveal a rather concerning-looking Imperiex. The recruit was a Professor X, World’s Most Powerful Telepath for the German, while Mr Freeze was Gabe’s chosen big man. When the good Professor attempted to exhaust Rogue, there was a Swift Escape ready to stop the damage, but there wasn’t another to stop the team attack with Emma Frost and Wolverine on Mr Freeze. The set of attacks direct to the face took Gabe down to 21, while his opponent looked pretty safe on 41.

On turn 8, Gabe had the Apocalypse to ensure that his opponent would not get to the resources needed for Imperiex. “Welcome to my world,” he quipped. It turns out that Jean Grey, Phoenix Force is a pretty good character to foil this fellow, though, and when she activated, Gabe was forced to shake his head. Imperiex next turn elicited the handshake.

Erik Venske wins.