I know that this is the third time I’ve covered Joe today, but he just keeps on winning. These players are at table 1; both of them were in the first pod for the draft and only have one loss in the tournament.

Ken won the roll and took the odd initiatives. Both players kept their openers. Ken had no first turn play, while Joe had Duela Dent ◊ Harlequin. On turn 2, Joe added Crimson Avenger to his team. Ken recruited Element Lad and passed. Elementary combat ensued, and the players quickly moved on. Ken had Shrinking Violet ◊ Leviathan, Salu Digby and equipped his Element Lad with a Titans Communicator before passing. Joe recruited XS, Jenni Ognats and set up with his characters flanking Duela in the support row. Ken sent Violet into XS, removing the cosmic counter for +2 ATK / +2 DEF. Joe flipped 31st Century Metropolis to reinforce. Next, Ken sent Element Lad into Crimson Avenger. A power-up halted stunback. In recovery, the Avenger was KO’d. Ken led, 42-40.

Joe had The Herald for turn 4, while Ken almost whiffed completely—he had nothing but a T-Jet, Tamaranian Fighter on Shrinking Violet. In combat, Joe sent The Herald into Shrinking Violet, and the 3-drop was stunned. XS similarly stunned Element Lad, and Duela had the opportunity to attack directly. Element Lad went away in recovery. Joe had certainly pulled ahead, the score now 40-35.

Ken recruited Live Wire behind Shrinking Violet on turn 5, while Joe had Ultra Boy. Joe set up with Ultra Boy protecting Duela and XS protecting The Herald, then passed. Ken thought for a bit—there didn’t seem to be many good attacks available—before deciding to send Live Wire into The Herald. Joe reinforced. Shrinking Violet went after Ultra Boy with Busted Knee, and Joe removed his counter to give him invulnerability. Ken passed, and Joe opted to move directly to recovery. The Herald went to the KO’d pile, and Joe took 2 from Busted Knee when he recovered Ultra Boy. The score was now 33-32 in Joe’s favor.

On turn 6, Joe recruited Mordru, The Merciless from his resource row. He passed to Ken, who recruited Andromeda. Ken left Violet in front of Live Wire, then passed it back. In combat, Joe played For Khundia! on XS and sent the 3-drop into Shrinking Violet. Ken reinforced. Next, Joe sent Ultra Boy after Live Wire. He removed the cosmic counter from XS to give the 5-drop +2 ATK. Both characters stunned. Mordru attacked Andromeda, and Ken again had nothing to do about that. The 6-drop was stunned. Duela attacked directly with Clash of the Titans for +3 ATK. Joe removed Duela’s counter to ready XS and then attacked with XS again. In recovery, Ken was left with only Andromeda. The score was an intimidating 26-3 in Joe’s favor

For turn 7, Ken under-dropped with Cassie Sandsmark ◊ Wonder Girl, Ares’s Chosen and Vic Stone ◊ Cyborg 2.0, Titans Tomorrow East. Joe recruited Spark, and seeing that Joe had three cosmic counters on his characters, Ken conceded.