This is it, crunch time! The winner gets a chance to play tomorrow, while the loser gets to sit on the sidelines. The German, Kristian Kockott, arrived early to dodge the strangely dreaded “scorekeeping” work, and he brought along a true posse. They leaned over the railing and made some jokes (probably . . . my German is a bit rusty) about Brian’s absence.

Brian Gates, from Las Vegas, arrived shortly after and took control of the scorekeeping pad like a veteran of the feature match area of PC Amsterdam.

Kockott had a turn 2 Professor Emil Hamilton, Garrulous Genius, while Gates appeared to be another fan of Deep Six, opening with Shaligo. On turn 3, he showed his second team by playing Big Bear, Forever People, while the German played Linda Danvers ◊ Supergirl, Matrix.

Carefully they entered turn 4, with Kockott playing the crafty Superman, Clark Kent and spending a good couple of minutes coming up with his formation. Brian answered with Izaya ◊ Highfather.

Then finally, they got into a real fight. Superman destroyed Shaligo, Big Bear stomped Emil Hamilton, and Izaya ◊ Highfather hobbled over to hit Superman, aided by some Super Strength.

Kockott tried to use Narrow Escape to save his Superman but couldn’t because the character was already exhausted. He could play it on Superman, but since he couldn’t exhaust it, he wouldn’t get anything out it apart from the embarrassment. When the question was settled, we got back to the game.

Superman got stunned, and for the first time in the game, they lost a character at the end of the turn. On turn 5, Brian played Devilance, and Kristian answered with Cir-El ◊ Supergirl.

Izaya ◊ Highfather traded with Superman, and Gates’s two remaining characters ganged up on Cir-El ◊ Supergirl. Kockott decided not to trade Linda Danvers ◊ Supergirl for Big Bear and skipped his attack step.

Kockott’s turn 6 drop was Kara Zor-El ◊ Supergirl, Last Daughter of Krypton, and Gates had Big Barda, Barda Free. Kristian’s team was basically three different Supergirls at this point. Cir-El and Linda Danvers teamed up on Big Barda, and Kara Zor-El brought down Devilance. That ended the turn with Kristian at 20 and Brian at 16.

Gates opened turn 7 with General Zod, Ruler of Pokolistan, and Kristian replied with Gog. Two very cool names, as far as I’m concerned, although one of them is a general which obviously helps. I had time to consider the names because Kristian Kockott had to—naturally—take several minutes to figure out his formation on such a crucial “defensive” (he doesn’t have the initiative) turn.

All of his characters had flight and range, so it was really just a case of hiding some people and setting up for reinforcement—sounds a lot simpler than it is. By the time he was done, Brian Gates was ready to start working on a attack plan.

After such a long day, they were clearly having trouble figuring things out quickly. There was a lot on the line, and no one wanted to make a crucial mistake in the last possible round of the Pro Circuit.

Suddenly, General Zod went after Gog. They both got powered up, and Kockott played Kryptonite to even things out. They both got stunned, dropping Kristian to 13 and Gates to 9.

Brian Gates surveyed the table for a good couple of minutes and figured there was no way to win the damage race. Losing General Zod had clearly hurt his plans. He sighed and extended his hand. Kristian Kockott had just reached the Top 8 of the first European PC!