Michael Barnes is a member of Team Alternate Win Condition and writes a deckbuilding column for Metagame.com. Jason Dawson is a frequent competitor at the top tables of Pro Circuit play.
Jason came to the table lamenting some loose play in his previous match. “Mistakes, mistakes . . .” he said. “You know how you get a good draw and you start to play sloppy because you can’t lose? Then you play loose for a couple turns, and you lose control and you start to go, ‘Oh . . . I could lose!’?” He pulled it out, but it was close.
Michael got out the trusty 6-sided die and rolled a 3. Jason rolled a 5 and chose odd initiatives. He then made the uncommon play of revealing Two-Face, Split Personality on the mulligan, stacking two cards back on top of his deck and two on the bottom, with Two-Face taking the dive. Michael simply mulliganed.
On turn 1, Jason led off the action with Harley Quinn, which stunned Mike. “There are cards I was expecting to see,” he said. “That was not one of them.” Mike dropped Ted Kord ◊ Blue Beetle. Jason declined to attack, and Mike searched out an Amulet of Nabu with Ted.
Mike played the popular Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage on turn 2 and activated Ted Kord to find the Helm of Nabu, then stacked all three Fate Artifacts one by one onto Quicksilver. Dawson shook his head sadly and played Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose, lining her up behind Harley.
Mike flipped up Soul World to get the Luna Maximoff he had discarded to Ted Kord earlier, then played Flying Kick on Quicksilver, who leaped into Poison Ivy. Harley Quinn activated to reinforce Ivy, and then Ivy turned her into a Lost City. Quicksilver readied himself and attacked for another 10, leaving Jason at 38 and Mike at 46.
Jason drew his cards on turn 3 and looked rather unimpressed with his hand. He eventually elected to play Mad Hatter and steal Ted Kord—whom Mike activated in response for another Helm, discarding a Mikado and Mosha and looking perturbed. “That’s the card I wanted last turn!” he growled at the 1-drop that would have meant an extra 7 endurance loss the turn before.
Mike returned a discarded Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster at the start of his build phase. He played a resource and replayed the Helm of Nabu, drawing and discarding three cards. He found The Great Refuge that he terraformed into his row and flipped. The Refuge found him Human Torch, Sparky, who then landed in play. Play then moved to another exciting on-initiative attack step for Jason.
Mike: “I will defer to you to attack.”
Jason: “I will decline to attack.”
Mike attacked with Human Torch into Mad Hatter. Jason flipped up Avalon Space Station and discarded Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff to get two Harley Quinns. Jason powered-up twice with the Quinns to stun the Torch back. Mike then played The Royal Guard on Quicksilver, who attacked Poison Ivy for 9 and then Jason for 9. Things began to look grim for Jason—who was down 43 endurance to 19—but he broke out the recovery phase Betrayal to get the board closer to even.
“This is gonna sound crazy,” said Mike as he sent his fully loaded Quicksilver off to the KO’d pile, leaving Human Torch in play.
Mike elected not to play a resource on turn 4 in order to keep the entire row face up. He played another Quicksilver and equipped him with Advanced Hardware. Jason played the immovable Blob, Fred Dukes. The spectacular on-initiative attack steps continued as Mike decided not to utilize his. The Blob attacked Quicksilver, who lit up Jason twice with some high-quality hardware. Then Poison Ivy moved into Human Torch with a Lost City and a power-up, leaving Mike at 25 and Jason all the way down to 10. Mike recovered Quicksilver.
Jason had the initiative on turn 5 and quickly activated Space Station for Scarlet Witch. Wanda came down, and Mike responded by burning Jason twice with Quicksilver, leaving him at 4. Mike played a resource and a Black Panther, King of Wakanda but failed to find a suitable equipment card in his deck, instead equipping the Panther with a Flamethrower from his hand. Jason’s Blob attacked Quicksilver, leaving Mike at 20. Scarlet Witch then attacked Black Panther, who activated to burn Jason for 5 and—due to Flamethrower’s wording—avoided burning Mike for 5 in exchange. That attack left Mike at 9 and Jason at -1 with his Poison Ivy ready to attack and two cards in hand.
Jason looked at the board for a moment, shook his head, and said “I’m going to lose this game.” He cursed the Apocalypse in his hand that prevented him from using the Space Station to get enough power-ups to kill Mike. Instead he was left with only two total power-ups, leaving Mike at exactly 0 endurance and Jason at -1.
Mike Barnes wins and secures himself a Day 2 berth at 6-1. Jason falls to 5-2.