Welcome to the Top 8! This quarterfinals match will pit Colin Rodriguez from Bakersfield, California, against the lone Anti-Matter player, Donald Noland. Let’s head right to the action as the players shuffle up for game 1.
The top 8 started a little less than well for Donnie. When rifling through his bag to find his deck for the deck check, he realized that he’d left it in his other bag. “Oh no, I have to head out to my car.” After running fast enough to get his own Bionic Man sound effects, Donnie emerged from the throng of people running through the TCG hall. “I’m officially out of breath,” Donnie panted. “Well I’ve got shuffle-itis,” Colin retorted.
“I’ve tested this matchup a bunch of times, and I don’t think I can win,” Donnie said, “It doesn’t run team-ups. It runs a bunch of other awful stuff, but it works.” The game started off in pretty standard fashion for both players, with Donnie going first and dropping a Shadow Creatures into play, which Colin matched with a Light Armor on Salakk. On turn 2, Colin led off with an explosion of creatures—G’Nort and Arisia. Donnie continued the ninja plan and recruited two more Creatures during his turn. The usual attacks followed, with Donnie doing nothing and ending his turn by flipping up a Sector 2814.
Turn 3 saw Donnie recruit another two Shadow Creatures, which totaled a monstrous five on turn 3. Colin matched this by boosting an Olapet to snag a G’Nort from his deck and then used his extra resource to play a Roy Harper ◊ Speedy. Donnie decided to go aggro and run his team into G’Nort to lessen the damage he would take back. Colin chose not to use Speedy this turn and move on to turn 4
Colin started off by throwing a Rot Lop Fan, pretty essential in the matchup, into his hidden area. Donnie recruited himself a Kiman. Rot Lop Fan was first up and, thanks to his own ability, was able to run in after one of Donnie’s Shadow Creatures. Colin then used his Speedy to KO one of Donnie’s Shadow Creatures. After Speedy had gone to the top of the deck, Donnie used an Anti-Matter Cannon to put Speedy into Colin’s resource row in place of his exhausted Birthing Chamber. A little unhappy with that, Colin sent his Olapet in to try and stun another of Donnie’s ninjas. A Men of Steel was used, though, to keep the little man alive. Colin followed that attack up by sending his Salakk in at another ninja. This time, Donnie used Kiman to both give Salaak -3 DEF and KO it. He continued his onslaught on the shadows by sending his Arisia in to stun another Shadow Creature. His final attack was an unsuccessful attempt by G’Nort to finish another Shadow Creature, which was foiled by another Men of Steel. Thanks to the steady stream of endurance from his Sector 2814, Donnie ended the turn a little behind, with a score of 36 - 34.
On turn 5, Donnie played out another Shadow Creatures and then used his now greater willpower to play The Ring Has Chosen, snagging a Malvolio to add to his team. “Am I going to kill you on turn 9 or 7? Hmm . . . I think it’s 7,” Donnie thought thought out loud, as he discarded Anti-Monitor to the Ring’s effect. Colin boosted out another Olapet to grab himself a replacement G’Nort for the one he lost last turn. He then played a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern, netting himself a Helping Hand. He rounded out his recruit for this turn by playing everyone’s favorite carnivore, The Shark.
Combat started off with Donnie sending the Lord of the Green Flame himself, Malvolio, into G’Nort. A Helping Hand from Colin, though, made sure that the larger Malvolio merely bounced off of him. Donnie then sent a crack team consisting of a pair of Shadow Creatures into Arisia. Another Helping Hands, though, foiled this attempt as well. He continued his onlaught by sending two more ninjas into Colin’s G’Nort. Kiman followed up by going in after Olapet. A Trial By Sword later, though, and Kiman ended up stunning as well.
This turn’s attacks didn’t end up going so well for Donnie, and Colin’s attacking one of his remaining Shadow Creatures with his Kyle Rayner only furthered this. Salakk and Rot Lop Fan teamed up to continue the smashing and went after Malvolio. Arisia and The Shark finished things off by killing the one of the remaining ninjas. After all was said and done, Donnie was left with a mere Shadow Creatures and a Malvolio. He was also down in the endurance race by a score of 28 - 18.
Colin kicked things off on turn 6 by recruiting a Dr. Light, Master of Holograms who promptly put an Olapet into play in his front row. He then played another G’Nort and ended his build. Donnie recruited the man so evil that even his clutches are evil, Evil Star.
Things were really looking bad for Donnie, as he was staring down at a sea of little men, and it wasn’t his initiative. Colin was thinking hard about how best to attack to try and erase the rest of Donnie’s 18 endurance this turn. When he finally finished formulating his plan, he sent Salakk; Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern; and Olapet into Mr. Evil (he never went to evil Medical School), Evil Star. Evil Star threw one of his henchmen, the Shadow Creatures, into Colin’s Arisia. This made it so that Colin had to play a Trial By Sword to force the stun. Colin decided that he didn’t have any more good attacks and passed to Donnie. Donnie took advantage of the break in Colin’s assault by sending Malvolio in at G’Nort. After the turn ended, Donnie was now behind by a score of 21 - 14.
Turn 7 saw the mercenary Two-Face, Split Personality join Donnie’s efforts. Colin spent his time Willworlding to try to find a good answer to Two-Face. All he could recruit, though was a Tomar Tu. He also used Dr. Light, Master of Holograms to make a life-size duplicate of G’Nort. After agonizing for a minute about how best to form his near infinite men, Colin was ready for Donnie to attack.
Donnie used Two-Face to exhaust all of Colin’s odd characters. He then ran Evil Star right into Tomar Tu. After that thrashing was through, Malvolio went after The Shark. Two-Face finished things off by running in at Kyle Rayner. Thanks to Two-Face, Split Personality, Colin took a massive amount of breakthrough because he couldn’t reinforce. Ultimately, the endurance loss was too great for Colin to handle, and Donnie won game 1.
Donnie Nowland 1 - Colin Rodriguez 0
“I think I’m going to take odds, sorry to ruin your fun,” Colin decided. “No way, you want to boost a Guy Gardner on 5 . . . or 6 . . . whatever,” Donnie joked. “You’re right, I would like to boost a Guy on 5,” Colin laughed.
Colin started off by throwing a bad hand back. Donnie’s hand was unacceptable as well, but he had Two-Face, Split Personality and used it to keep a couple of Shadow Creatures. Turn 1 started off with Donnie matching Colin’s play of G’Nort with a Qwardian Watchdog. When Colin chose not to attack, Donnie flipped up a Qward and used his big dog to stun Colin’s slightly smaller dog.
Turn 2 found Donnie starting his ninja army again by playing the two Shadow Creatures he kept from his first hand. Colin played out a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern and put the Light Armor he searched for right on him. Donnie chose to send his two ninjas in at Colin’s G’Nort, who ended up stunning. Colin decided it wasn’t worth it to lose his G’Nort and left Kyle at home for this turn.
On turn 3, Colin decided that the best play was to boost out an Olapet to snag himself an Arisia, which dropped right into play. Donnie doubled his ninja strike team with two more Shadow Creatures. Kyle Rayner started off the smashing by running into Donnie’s Qwardian Watchdog. Donnie’s Helping Hand let him stun the Lantern, though, without getting stunned himself. Arisia and Olapet decided to finish things off and stun the dog. Olapet stunned, and then Donnie used Qward to finish off Arisia and G’Nort. Colin ended up only having one character after recovery, and was down in the race 43 - 46.
Things were looking bad for Colin as Donnie continued to build his forces with a Malvolio. Colin managed to get a few more guys on the board this turn, with Hector Hammond and Tomar Tu. Donnie used his Malvolio to take out Colin’s Tomar Tu. Donnie then chose to sit on his huge number of guys and Qward and passed his turn. Colin couldn’t bash back through the huge Malvolio and was forced to pass the turn. Donnie kept the decimation going by using Qward to stun both of Colin’s remaining guys. This put Donnie up 35 - 46.
Colin was way behind at this point, unfortunately, with only Hector Hammond in play. He managed to recruit the best board-builder in the format, Dr. Light, Master of Holograms. He also recruited a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern and snagged a Light Armor. Dr. Light got to work building a new team for Colin, putting an Arisia into his front row. Colin lined his guys up and then sent it to Donnie. Not content with merely having a large ninja army, Donnie had to go for a huge ninja army; he recruited two more Shadow Creatures.
Hector Hammond was first up in the smashing and went after Malvolio with the help of a Trial By Sword. Donnie used four of his Shadow Creatures to Qward the super-futuristic mind down to an easily stunnable 4 DEF. With nothing else to do, Colin passed to Donnie. Malvolio was the first up with an attack at Dr. Light, who was exhausted from a long day of recovering Colin’s team. Donnie used Qward to punch through an extra damage. Before recovery, Donnie used Qward again to make sure Arisia would stun. Colin was in dire straits here, able to keep only a Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern and a Dr. Light, Master of Holograms. He was also down in endurance by a mile, with the score at 29 - 46.
Donnie took a while to decide what his optimal play was for turn 5. He had a massive army and wasn’t sure what character would be best. Ultimately, he decided to recruit the powerful Element Man. He moved Element Man to the visible area and then sent it to Colin. Colin was really playing catch-up now, and recruited The Shark, Salakk, and Major Disaster in an attempt to get some semblance of a team into play. Add that to getting Hector Hammond back from his KO’d pile with Dr. Light, and he actually ended up with a pretty good team.
Donnie got to start off the bashing by sending Malvolio into The Shark. Colin reinforced and let Donnie continue. Donnie was more than happy to oblige and sent Element Man in to take care of Dr. Light. Colin once again reinforced. When Colin was forced to pass his attack and Donnie used his Qward to stun Colin’s entire team, Colin decided to scoop.
Donald Noland wins, 2-0.