As the players shuffled up and waited on the electronic scoring device to become active, one of David’s friends came to the railing to announce that he was the luckiest man on the face of the Earth and had received the first bye of the weekend.

“You got the bye! That’s one of the only wins I could come up with,” Nick lamented. “I don’t really like this format. You wanna flip Canadian quarters? Flipping Canadian quarters sucks. I mean, there’s a bird on one side and . . . I don’t know, hockey or something on the other. No one knows who wins!”

Both players commented on how much they enjoyed Golden Age. Little was less than pleased with the day ahead of him.

“I would mulligan in life right now if I could.”

David won the roll and chose to go second. Nick started off the action with a turn 1 G’Nort, which was promptly matched by a little doggie of his own from David. They smacked each other around and then made their way to turn 2.

Turn 2 got underway with The Shark and an oh-so-tech Roy Harper ◊ Speedy from David. Nick followed with an Olapet. Speedy launched some arrows towards Nick’s G’Nort, and that was all she wrote for one of the best 1-drops in the format. This also left the road clear for David to flip up a Prison Planet and bash in with his Shark.

Nick lead off turn 3 by playing nothing more than another G’Nort accompanied by a drawn-out sigh. David played an Olapet, boosted, to get an Arisia. Nick’s Olapet went straight into David’s G’Nort, whose counterpart quickly ran a beating into David’s Shark. When he realized that the computers still had yet to come up, Nick shot a haughty look to the judges. “I have to keep lives on paper this match. That’s so below me.”

David got fired up with his second The Ring Has Chosen of the match. Apparently, the ring had chosen Dr. Light, Master of Holograms. However, no ring is free. Hector Hammond went to David’s KO’d pile for a brief visit before Dr. Light called him into service. Nick played perhaps the mightiest of all mages, Myrwhydden.

David’s Olapet flew into Nick’s G’Nort, as had become a common theme in this match. Nick then flipped up a Prison Planet of his own. The Shark took a bite out of Nick’s Olapet. This left Nick to send his Myrwhydden into David’s Hector Hammond. In the recovery, David chose to keep the super-futuristic mind in his employ and sent Olapet and The Shark to his bin. The players were now tied at 34 endurance.

On turn 5, Nick drew his card and immediately went into the tank. After a good amount of deliberation, he came to a decision about his play. “I bet you a hundred dollars you can’t guess my drop for this turn,” he teased David. He then slowly flipped a Sleeper Agent into his front row, prompting a “What the!” from David, the judges, the spectators, and many of the random other people at Gen Con . . . you get the idea. He then played a Roy Harper ◊ Speedy and recruited two more Sleeper Agents to do his bidding for him. After this surprising turn of events, David was also forced into the tank. Ultimately, he decided on the much more conventional play of playing The Ring Has Chosen to go grab an Olapet. The floating 8-ball boosted to go grab a G’Nort for David, while his Dr. Light snagged a Speedy out of his bin. All in all, not a bad turn.

Nick led things off by sending his first Sleeper Agent into David’s G’Nort. The little doggie was sadly no match for the Agent. Agent numero dos went into Arisia. David tried to {Lanterns in Love] in response, but Nick was waiting with an Emerald Twilight. Myrwhydden finished things off with a smashing into Hector Hammond. Nick passed to David, who passed in turn, thinking that his Hammond would stun Myrwhydden back. However, G’Nort can never be factored out, and it appeared that Myrwhydden had survived.

After realizing that there were no good attacks for him, David was ready to pass to the next turn. This left David with merely a Hector Hammond and a Dr. Light, while Nick had three Sleeper Agents, Speedy, and a Myrwhydden at his beck and call. He also had the lead, with endurance totals at 15-30 in his favor.

Turn 6 saw David use his Dr. Light to get The Shark out of his KO’d pile. He then played his fourth, that is the full amount, The Ring Has Chosen to grab a Guy Gardner, Strong Arm of the Corps, who was promptly boosted. All Nick had was a Rot Lop Fan. David sent Guy into Nick’s Speedy, prompting him to use it to KO David’s Shark. Guy then found a more worthy opponent in Nick’s Sleeper Agent. They were only the Shock Troops, though, and managed to stun Gardener back. David then used Hector Hammond to bash into Nick’s Myrwhydden with a little help from a No Man Escapes the Manhunters and the mightiest of mages fell. However, after some quick math, David soon realized he was going to take lethal endurance loss on Nick’s attack and extended the hand.