Alex Tennet is an English native, though you wouldn't know it, as he's been playing with Team FTN at US tournaments in recent times. Back for the $10K here, he sat on a 2-0 record as a headhunted player coming into the round, and hoped to maintain an unblemished record for a while yet, despite playing a deck which was on FTN's list as “one we definitely won't be playing in PC LA.” His opponent, Edoardo Della Via, who made the Top 8 in Munich with his League of Assassins deck, is one of the breakout team of Italian players that made the trip over to the UK for the $10K.
The game started with The Shark from Della Via, who held back without a face-up resource to let him 'go Jaws' on anyone. Tennet's turn two Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird, Sonic Carapace proved to be a juicy target though, and with the initiative, a No Fear! allowed the 1-drop to trade with the colossal Thunderbolt. Alex had Speed Demon, Second-Chance Speedster on turn 3, to his opponent's Dr Light, Master of Holograms.
“I know that deck well,” Tennet muttered, with a wry smile. Little did he know how soon he would be proven wrong.
Speed Demon attacked into the doctor, and after a powerup, took a trade, before Songbird went into The Shark. Prison Planet forced another trade and it was on to turn four. With the initiative, Della Via's Dr Light got to work to bring back The Shark, and was joined by an extended art Heinrich Zemo ◊ Baron Zemo. For Tennet it was all about Dallas Riordan ◊ Vantage. The Shark took her down with the help of his leader, and once Stolen Power finished off the 4-drop, there were no reasonable attacks for Tennet.
Turn five, with the initiative, was the first real chance for the FTN Thunderbolts deck to deal some real damage. The formation-spoiling Blizzard, and powerful leader Helmut Zemo ◊ Citizen V, formed up and were ready to do some damage. With Prison Planet in play, there would be no reinforcement for the Italian, so if Alex had a combo, it would likely be hitting for a lot of endurance loss.
Edoardo responded with Paul Ebersol ◊ Fixer, Problem Solver and Mystic Summons for Scorpion, Fatal Sting. It looked like Tennet's attacks wouldn't be too cheatily big on turn five, when he ran into Scorpion with Speed Demon, and readied to simply stun Scorpion with no stun back. Helmut and Speed Demon then took down Della Via's two one drops, before Blizzard exhausted Heinrich Zemo to effectively end the turn. As long as Prison Planet was out to allow Alex to do fair amounts of breakthrough all the time, it looked as though he wouldn't even necessarily need a big Team Tactics-fuelled set of pumps to win.
On turn six, Edoardo chose to go with Klaw, Ulysses Klaw and used Scorpion's abilility for his final resource point. Dr Light brought The Shark back into play for another turn and Della Via was done. As Alex looked at his hand for his turn six recruit, but his only words were “Oh, dear.” Charcoal wasn't an on-curve recruit, but while ready as a defender, he had enough ATK to be considered as such.
After The Shark declared his intent to chomp on a front row Helmut Zemo, Alex used a Win-Lose Deal to draw each player a couple of cards. With some help from the same No Fear from turn two (so handily turned face down by Melissa Gold), Edoardo took down the Baron in some style, forcing a reinforcement to come from Charcoal. A second No Fear meant that Scorpion's fatal sting would be active, to take down the now exhausted five drop. As the only unstunned Zemo on the board, Heinrich went for Blizzard, meaning another reinforcement from Tennet, and clearing the way for Klaw to stun the final one of Tennet's characters. When Klaw finished off Speed Demon, Tennet was left with just Blizzard in play. The endurance totals were 16-15 in Edoardo's favour, and it looked likely that the following turn would be the final one of the game
With the initiative, it was entirely possible that Tennet could still 'go off' with Team Tactics on turn seven, and he went to the tank to work out how. Thunderbolts math is not necessarily the easiest, especially when your opponent has enough characters on the board to realistically attack back for quite a bit. Before playing a resource, Tennet played Marvel’s Most Wanted in order to find himself a Deadly Conspiracy. It was quickly clear that he didn't have a big Melissa Gold to play, who would definitely be able to attack for the most if going for one big combo, but he did have her smaller version, Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird, Sonic Carapace and Beetle ◊ Mach 3. With everyone up on the front row, Tennet was being aggressive for this final turn.
For Della Via, the recruit was a rather underwhelming Beetle, Armorsmith, who in turn found Shocker, a potentially handy character. With two resource points, the fresh 2-drop took down Blizzard with a little shock, before any kind of big freeze could be applied. Dr Light, Master of Holograms brought back Melissa Gold ◊ Screaming Mimi and used his final resource point to burn Alex for the number of characters he controlled—a mighty seven.
Alex flipped a couple of Null Time Zones, naming first System Failure and then Nasty Surprise. Clearly, Alex would rather be safe than sorry. Against a deck like Della Via’s (which was something new to him), Alex's options were not as clear for Null Time Zone as he might have liked, highlighting one of the strengths of being a little bit rogue in today's Golden Age metagame.
Beetle ◊ Mach 3 attacked into Screaming Mimi and Alex played his first Deadly Conspiracy. A Savage Beatdown made his five drop that little bit bigger. A Team Tactics exhausting Melissa Gold made that a little more, and a second Team Tactics took the total power of Beetle up to a lethal 46.
“I guess I go to minus 28,” remarked Edoardo, who all of a sudden had a lot of work to do.
He started his endeavors with an attack by Scorpion on the offending Beetle ◊ Mach 3 with some help from Savage Beatdown, to take Alex to -1. 27 to go. Klaw attacked Melissa Gold, who had a power-up. It was all ultimately irrelevant though, as the Italian simply didn't have the pumps necessary to meet back enough damage.
Alex Tennet wins the match, taking him to 3-0 and ensuring that he remained a threatening opponent in the Headhunter competition. Hans Hoh was also at 3-0 at this point playing (shock and horror!) a non-Sentinels deck. Who would be ahead at the end? Stay tuned to find out.