“I’ll be taking the… ahhdds,” said Doug Tice. “I had to really pause on that one to make sure I didn’t say ‘evens’ because the die roll and initiative are so important in this matchup, and I’ve been taking evens all weekend.”

There were approximately five or six players at the start of this tournament that oddsmakers would have figured should make the Top 8, and four of those made it as far as expected. Jason Hager defeated two of them (Tillman Bragg and Antonino De Rosa) in the quarters and the semifinals, while Doug Tice beat up on relatively unknown David Hosley and Brent Walker to make it through his side of the bracket. In order to take home his first $10K title, Hager now has to defeat the third of the ringers he’s faced in the Top 8, and he has to go through Dr. Light and his cronies to do it. Thankfully for Jason, he packed the ridiculous combo deck himself this weekend, giving Vs. System fans yet another Light Show mirror match final.

Tice kept his first set of four cards while Hager mulliganed. Valeria Richards, Daughter of Doom marked the first recruit of the game on Hager’s side of the board, and he added Boris, Personal Servant of Doom and Henry King Jr. on turn 2. Tice pretended he was recruiting Black Cat, Master Thief, but really had the currently underwhelming Hornet instead. The two players actually mustered some attacking on turn 2, but both knew it was simply a façade at this point in the game.

Tice lucked into The Ring Has Chosen off of his Millennium draw, letting him search out Black Cat and put her in the discard pile, and then immediately bring her into play with a fresh Dr. Light, Master of Holograms. Hager had his own Light, but the Cat was now locking him down for at least another turn.

“Wow, I got so lucky there,” admitted Tice. “Like, I might not have lost if I don’t draw that, but it certainly made my chances to win much better.”

“I’m getting used to second place . . . always the bridesmaid,” muttered Hager.

On turn 4, Hager used a Ring Has Chosen of his own to find Black Cat, discarding Kristoff von Doom, The Boy Who Would Be Doom and then putting Kristoff into play with Dr. Light. He then KO’d Valeria with Devil’s Due and recruited her again, ending his build step by recruiting Black Cat. Tice’s recruit step saw him add merely Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl to his squad with a chuckle before passing it back to Hager.

“How can I make it harder for you to go off?” was the thought from Hager as he pondered his options. He eventually attacked, using Devil’s Due to pump Kristoff and Boris, stunning Invisible Woman and sending Hornet to the KO pile.

Tice set up his loop after bringing Hornet back into play and burning Hager for “two times the largest number you can think of.” Hager’s response was, “I can think of higher . . . and I will.” And that’s exactly what happened—in spite of the fact that Doug hit most of his combo and was able to deal “infinite” damage, Hager was able to draw his whole deck and out-combo—one of the benefits of having the later initiative in this crazy matchup.

Hager 1 – Tice 0

Tice took odd initiative again and Hager again had a turn 1 Valeria, this time adding a turn 2 Boris to the squad. Tice was busy trumping Hager’s manpower with Kristoff and Dr. Light, but large men isn’t what you want in this match unless they are arbitrarily so. At this point, Doug paused to write something down on a piece of paper, before folding it up and setting it to the side. “What’s that?” Hager asked. “I wrote you a little note—I’ll show it to you when we’re done,” said Tice.

“It’s so weird, knowing every single card in your deck. That changes so much, knowing that you can’t do anything when I combo.” Hager did a lot of talking during this match, both to himself to help him work through his plays and also to Tice, just casually chatting. This matchup was actually about as non-interactive as you can get in terms of deck archetypes, but the players were very pleasant towards one another throughout the match, even though some of the turns actually took 20 minutes or more.

Turn 3’s build for Hager ended with exhausted Dr. Light and Valeria in the back row and Boris and Rama-Tut in the front. Tice tried to attack Boris with Kristoff, and for once, the servant stayed to fight his former master, picking up a counter via Devil’s Due. Sadly for Boris, even young Doom is capable of pimp-slapping his butler when he’s powered up, so Boris went and hid anyway, grabbing a Millennium in the process.

After Hager’s next draw, Jason showed the full loop to Tice and Doug admitted that his deck had crapped out on him, shaking Hager’s hands in congratulations.

Hager 2 – Tice 0

Jason Hager is the $10K Charlotte champion!