Luke Chen is a Seattle native who qualified for the Pro Circuit via a PCQ. His opponent is none other than the German Juggernaut, Kai Budde. Kai is the winningest TCG player of all time, with net winnings well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Budde is playing Wild Vomit, while Chen is playing New Brotherhood.

Game 1

Budde got off to a good start with a first turn Longshot, but missed on his first two activations (naming Wild Sentinels and Sentinel Mark IV, of course). Chen recruited a turn 2 Pyro, plus an Avalanche and Mastermind, Jason Wyngarde for his turn 3. Kai’s attack ravaged Chen’s board, leaving him with only Pyro to Budde’s three Wild Sentinels and a Longshot. Sabretooth, Feral Rage was the new recruit from Chen, discarding a second Sabretooth, while Budde could only cast a much smaller Sentinel Mark IV. Chen attacked the Mark IV with Pyro, flipping over Savage Land and The New Brotherhood. Budde powered the Sentinel up three times, but Chen revealed a second Savage Land and again pumped Pyro. Reconstruction Program returned the three Mark IV’s to Kai’s hand though, as he used all three to power-up once more, making sure Pyro’s attack did no good. Sabretooth whacked a Wild Sentinel, and then was stunned himself on the counterattack, yielding endurance totals of Chen 36, Kai 35.

Another Mark IV plus a Wild marked Kai’s turn 5 recruits, while Chen put Blob into play. A Mark IV traded with Blob, while a second traded with Sabretooth, clearing Chen’s board for the rest of Kai’s army. Endurance Chen 22, Kai 27. Chen recruited Lorelei, Toad, and Avalanche on turn 6 to go along with his Sabretooth, but Kai trumped that with a Mark IV, two Wild Sentinels, and another Mark IV via Underground Sentinel Base. Toad attacked a Mark IV with the help of Savage Beatdown and Savage Land. This cleared the way for Sabretooth to pick on Longshot, then Lorelei attacked a Wild Sentinel, but that left Kai with too many beaters to allow Luke to live another turn.

Kai Budde 1, Luke Chen 0

Game 2

Chen chose to have the initiative on the odd turns again and summoned Destiny on turn 1, which stunned Longshot with a little help from The New Brotherhood. A Wild Sentinel traded with a fresh Mastermind from Chen. Budde pumped his Sentinel, thinking it would not be stunned, but forgot that TNB works for Brotherhood characters regardless of whether or not they are attacking. “Gah, I am so bad at this game. Silly mistakes.”

Avalanche joined Chen’s team, while Kai recruited some more Wilds for turn 3. Chen revealed two more TNBs as he attacked Destiny into a Wild and Avalanche into a Longshot, though he did confess that his friend had lost just like this in an earlier round. “I need dudes!” he cried.

Chen recruited Blob on turn 4 to an audible groan from Kai. A team attack stunned the giant blocker, but Kai was well behind in the endurance race (33–23 in favor of Chen), and things didn’t get any better for him when Chen recruited Magneto on turn 5. Kai recruited two new Mark IV’s and a Wild on his turn. Magneto exhausted a Wild and then attacked a different Wild in Kai’s back row. Two Genoshas brought Chen’s TNBs back online, but Kai had a Cover Fire to help limit some of the damage. Blob traded with another Mark IV, and then two Mark IVs teamed up to stun Magneto, making the life totals Chen 26, Kai 3.

Chen had thirteen cards in hand going into his next build phase, but only had three resources left on the table. Kai recruited a Mark IV and a Wild, and put another Mark IV into play via the Base, while Chen recruited Mastermind, Destiny, and Pyro. A Mark IV traded with Magneto, but things got ugly when Kai played Combat Protocols for New Brotherhood, giving his team significantly more punch. He needed it though, as the endurance disparity was huge. Chen revealed his fourth TNB, but it was not enough as Kai was able to push through additional damage and drop Chen’s life to a lower negative total than his own. Kai pulled the game out from 3 life.

Kai Budde 2, Luke Chen 0