As much as things change, still they stay the same. This is the first tournament in the new post-ban Golden Age, and this is my first feature match of the day. I was excited as I came to the table to see what decks Ryan Jones and Patrick Yapjoco would bring to the event. Both are members of the illustrious Team Realmorx and have spent countless hours testing together for events to bring the best tech to bear. It turns out that this time, that tech was Curve Sentinels and Teen Titans.
Sigh.
I came to the table just in time to see the players complaining about their bad hands.
Patrick: “You won.”
Ryan: “No, you won. This hand is terrible.”
Patrick: “You want to sign the slip now?”
This banter continued during the first two turns as both players failed to recruit any characters.
Turn 3
Finally, on turn 3, Ryan’s Sentinel Mark II bashed into Patrick’s Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, bringing the endurance totals to 47-46
Turn 4
Patrick recruited Red Star, who formed up behind Roy Harper. Ryan followed the Sentinel script, and recruiting Sentinel Mark V behind the Sentinel Mark II. Patrick considered how he wanted to attack this turn with a pained look on his face.
Patrick: “Man, I know you have Search and Destroy, you already told me during testing.”
Ryan: “That was my fake decklist. Maybe I don’t have it.”
Patrick: “Oh well, Red Star Attacks into the Mark II . . .”
Ryan paused for dramatic tension and then smiled and said, “Take 3.”
Next, a Savage Beatdown helped Roy take out the Mark V, forcing Ryan to lose a character and giving Patrick the early edge in the match.
Ryan 40 - Patrick 43
Turn 5
Patrick began to chant, “Come on, miss Nimrod! Boost a Mark V!” Ryan did not comply, and recruited what is arguably the best 5-drop ever printed.
Patrick, on the other hand, opted not to recruit the Garth ◊ Tempest in his hand (another contender for the best 5-drop in the game) and instead chose to enable Roy Harper by swarming out with a Hank Hall ◊ Hawk/Dawn Granger ◊ Dove combo and Tim Drake ◊ Robin, Young Detective.
Before Ryan could attack, Hawk and Dove exhausted to pump up Roy Harper, but before Tim Drake could bring Roy to a power sufficient to stop Nimrod, a Flame Trap From Ryan decimated Patrick’s team. At this point, Patrick could not help but regret his choice not to play Garth this turn.
Now Patrick considered how he could recover from this situation. He had access to two Savage Beatdowns, a Finishing Move, a Titans Tower, and two characters in hand (Roy Harper and Garth). Roy Harper activated to take the counter off of Nimrod, who performed a finishing move on Tim Drake before he became exhausted. I am not sure if this was the right play for Patrick. He could have stunned the Mark V and used a Finishing Move to reduce Ryan’s character count. Removing a counter from Nimrod and saving the Finishing Move for Bastion next turn could have been a reasonable option, but it seems to me that given the devastating Flame Trap this turn, Patrick needed to be more aggressive in removing Ryan’s characters.
The Mark V then attacked into Red Star, stunning both characters.
Ryan 36- Patrick 33
Turn 6
Jones did what Curve Sentinel decks do on turn 6 and recruited a Bastion. Patrick could only recruit the Garth that he failed to play last turn. Red Star attacked into Nimrod with a Savage Beatdown. Bastion reinforced Nimrod, bringing Jones to 28.
Patrick clearly wanted to be able to stun Bastion with one character and save the second character to Finishing Move the 6-drop. Patrick was forced to guess at how much power it would take to knock down the Sentinel leader. Roy Harper attacked into Bastion with a Beatdown and a Titans Tower boost (discarding Garth). Jones had no response, taking 8 while Patrick took 3. Patrick then considered attacking.
Patrick: Do you have Nasty Surprise? I don’t know what’s in your deck.
Ryan: You should know, we play every day.
Patrick opted for the safe play and finally used his Finishing Move to take down Bastion.
The Mark V attacked into Garth and was helped out by a No Man Escapes the Manhunters. This was an interesting tech card for Ryan to include in his deck. It is much better than Flying Kick in the Sentinel deck now that Overload has been banned, and it helps against a metagame containing the devastating Krona/Sinestro, Green Lantern of Korugar combo. Garth picked up a copy of himself to power-up twice in an attempt to survive, but a power-up on the Mark V brought both characters down.
Ryan 20 - Patrick 17
Turn 7
A pair of 5-drops was all that remained on the board after the massacres from the last two turns. Ryan Jones spent the turn considering whether or not his friend had a Betrayal to punish him for recruiting Magneto. He decided to play it safe and used a Reconstruction Program to pick up Bastion and re-recruit him. As it turns out, this was a bad read—Patrick did not have the Betrayal.
Patrick used Optitron, discarding Roy Harper, to get a copy of Cassie Sandsmark ◊ Wonder Girl. Bastion predictably attacked Garth, who, with a little help from Titans Tower (once again discarding Garth), threatened to trade with the 6-drop. Ryan used Bastion to power-up Nimrod twice before getting stunned. Garth retrieved a Red Star from the KO’d pile before getting stunned, dealing a total of 8 to Patrick and 6 to Ryan.
Nimrod attacked into Cassie, threatening to bring Patrick to 2. Ryan opted not to pop his two Genoshas in an attempt to find a way to deal the 2 extra damage because he was sitting on Apocalypse in hand and knew that he couldn’t lose if the game got to turn 8. He revealed this information to Patrick, who promptly conceded.
Ryan Jones wins.