“My deck should not lose to that deck, and yet I am not confident in this matchup,” said Spears as both players shuffled up for the match. Hager’s retort was simply that he’d only played the deck three or four times before sitting down for round 1, but that he’d received relatively simple matchups in his first three rounds and had had a pleasant learning experience thus far.

Both players mulliganed and then they were off. Spears missed his Boliver Trask drop because both his opening hand and his mulligan were miserable, while Hager used Henry King Jr.’s ability to take a quick lead in the endurance race. Hounds of Ahab on turn 2 for Spears fixed that issue by smashing over Brainwave, while Hager recruited Kristoff von Combo Maker. But how long would Spears’s lead last?

Sentinel Mark II came off the assembly line for Spears, and Hager played Valeria Richards, Daughter of Doom. He teamed up with Common Enemy, played another Common Enemy from his hand to draw a card, and then used Signal Flare to pull Boris from his deck. He put it directly into play. Spears attacked Boris with his Mark II, but Boris disappeared, fetching Cosmic Radiation in the process. Hounds of Ahab tried to attack Valeria, but she moved to the hidden area, so the frustrated robots finally settled on Brainwave as a nice target to smash. The Mark II whacked Kristoff, leaving the endurance totals at 47– 41 in Spears’s favor.

At the beginning of turn 4, Spears started flashing his hand and resource row at Hager, basically conceding that he had absolutely nothing to stop Jason from going off—provided he had the combo that turn.

“Guess I’ll have to play like I don’t know that that’s Savage Beatdown, Beatdown, Nasty Surprise in your row.”  

“Well it’s not Total Anarchy, Anarchy, Flame Trap, that’s for sure,” replied Spears.

Dr. Light, Master of Holograms bounced into play, Millennium teamed Fantastic Four and Emerald Enemies, and Light targeted Rama-Tut on the chain but did not pass, as Hager added Cosmic Radiation on top of it. About that time, Spears just shrugged and said, “Ya got me. I got nothin’ to stop you,” and conceded the match.

Hager 1 – Spears 0