These two Donkey Club teammates have agreed to play a best-of-one match to determine the winner, due to the nearly identical nature of their decks. Both chose to play their team’s version of “Killing Joke,” the Justice League of Arkham discard deck. There is only a one-card difference between their builds, with Gabe having an extra The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero and Doug a Phantom Zone. Doug is running hot this year, with two recent $10K victories, while Gabe has been heartbreakingly close to making a few PC Top 8s to go with his first one at the inaugural Pro Circuit.

Gabe won the die roll and chose the odd initiative. Both players discussed which one they would have preferred; it turns out that Doug would have wanted evens anyway.

Gabe lead with a Hope, and Doug, despite have twelve 1-drops, could only pass the turn. Doug had more action on the second turn, playing a Straight to the Grave from his resource row to fetch a Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster. He returned him to hand, played a Beetle, Armorsmith, and discarded the little imp to search for a Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose. Walls did the exact same play on his turn, but had to play the Straight to the Grave from hand. After some Beetle on Beetle attacking, they proceeded to the third turn. 

Gabe returned Mxyzptlk to his hand on the third turn, played Enemy of My Enemy, discarding Poison Ivy, and searched for a copy of The Phantom Stranger, which Gabe called “the most important card in this matchup.” He then recruited a Dr. Light, Master of Holograms, used his power to revive Ivy, and then KO’d his Beetle to Ivy to fetch a Phantom Zone, which then proceeded to send Doug’s Mr. Mxyzptlk to another dimension. (Perhaps he was able to say his same backwards.).

Doug’s recruit step was less profitable, as he searched for the good doctor with Enemy of My Enemy (discarding his own Ivy) and recruited him, but was unable to get her into play, as Gabe flipped up a Slaughter Swamp and discarded Phantom Stranger to return her to Doug’s hand in response. After some relatively ineffective attacks, both players proceeded to the fourth initiative.

Doug was finally able to have a significantly productive turn, using an Enemy to find a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern and recruiting him. Kyle found Doug a Breaking Ground, and then he used his last 2 resource points to play Poison Ivy. Kyle was then exhausted to replace Gabe’s Phantom Zone, which was used to remove the only two cards in Doug’s KO pile. After drawing a card using a Birthing Chamber, Kyle, his work done, was sent to the KO’d pile by Poison Ivy’s power to fetch a Slaughter Swamp for Doug. Doug then tried to make a hologram of Kyle, but Gabe would have none of that, returning him to hand with his Slaughter Swamp.

Gabe, after thinking a few minutes, muttered, “We did it!” indicating that he’d worked out the intricate turn that the Killing Joke deck always faces on turn 4. Gabe returned the Troublesome Trickster and attempted to use his Doctor Light to bring back a Beetle. Doug was having none of that, and returned the Beetle to Gabe’s hand. Gabe, in response, played a Hard Sound Construct for Beetle and used the Beetle to search for an Archangel, Angel, who in turn, searched for X-Corp: Amsterdam. Gabe then revealed an X-Corp from his row, which searched for the lynchpin Justice League of Arkham. He flipped it up, making Doug discard a card. Beetle was then KO’d to Gabe’s Ivy to search for another X-Corp and, through it, another team-up, which was then used to make Doug discard again. Gabe boosted up a Yellowjacket, searched for Hope, and then played Deadshot, Floyd Lawton. After turning down and flipping a team-up with the Hope he played on the first turn, Gabe then recruited yet another Hope. Deadshot took aim at Doug’s Dr. Light, and again, after some rather ineffectual combats, the game proceeded to the fifth turn, with Gabe firmly in front even though the endurance totals were both at 40.

With Doug having only five cards going into Gabe’s fifth recruit step, things looked grim. Doug remarked that there had been only two extremely minor errors in the game so far, one for each player. Gabe flipped the X-Corp he searched for last turn to search for his third Justice League of Arkham and flipped it. When he targeted his Beetle with a Dr. Light, Doug still had the guts to make him put it in his hand with Slaughter Swamp.

“There are about five players in this tournament who would do that right.” —Gabe Walls

Doug was more or less done at this point, and Gabe recurred Hope and searched for the final team-up with X-Corp: Amsterdam (via Poison Ivy). With the last card in his hand, Doug played a defiant Justice League of Arkham, saying, “Get ya!” Doug, left with no cards to play, passed his recruit, and soon after, conceded the game (and match) to the man from Indiana.

Gabe Walls wins!