Adam Prosak is a five-time $10K Top 8 competitor and has played in a Top 8 on the Pro Circuit. In contrast, Taver Chong has never played in a Top 8. He picked up the game around the time of DC Origins, and played in only one other $10K event, going 2-4 at Long Beach. Both players sat down with Teen Titans decks, meaning that they were in for a long, tough mirror match.

Adam opened up the game with Roy Harper ◊ Speedy, and followed it up with a non-boosted Hank Hall ◊ Hawk on turn two. Taver didn’t play a 1-drop or a 2-drop, making his first play on turn 3 with Beast Boy.

Adam didn’t have anything to play on turn 3 to match Beast Boy, and moved Hank Hall ◊ Hawk and Roy Harper ◊ Speedy to the back row, setting them up to reinforce on the impending attack from the little green kid.

The players sat silently, staring one another down over a board that just became a home to Red Star, on Adam’s side, and Terra, on Taver’s side.

“I have USS Argus somewhere,” Taver said. He flipped USS Argus over and used it to shoot Hank Hall, replacing the Argus in his resource row with Mystic Chain. Adam announced a team attack after Hank was stunned, sending Red Star and Speedy into Terra.

“I’ll Tamaran,” Taver stated calmly. He flipped over the top card of his deck and let out an audible sigh as he flipped over Press the Attack, a crucial card in this mirror match.

Adam lost Red Star to Finishing Move from Taver, and Taver lost Terra to Finishing Move from Adam, cleaning the board up nicely and setting the endurance totals only one point apart at 43-42 in Adam’s favor.

Adam played Ka-Boom! on the Tamaran Taver had flipped up before the combat phase ended, and the two players went to turn five getting ready to reset their fourth resource. Taver had a second copy of Terra to play, which made Adam very unhappy, since he could only respond with a boosted Tim Drake ◊ Robin, Young Detective.

Taver was quickly taking control of the matchup as he stunned Hank Hall and Speedy made a Heroic Sacrifice to save Tim Drake. Adam stayed a turn behind the curve on the following turn, and started to look discouraged as he played his fifth resource and placed Terra in his front row. Taver had the drop he needed with Garth ◊ Tempest and seemed supremely confident on his side of the table, despite being ahead on endurance only 42 to 38 six turns into the game.

Adam had the initiative and placed all three of his characters in the front row. Taver placed his guys in an L formation, with Garth ◊ Tempest up front. Adam thought to get an advantage by team attacking Garth, and could only sigh when Taver turned up a second copy of Tamaran and powered-up Garth ◊ Tempest.

There really wasn’t much Adam could do, as he was playing behind the curve the entire game.

Game Two

The two players talked about it as they shuffled up for game two, and joked about head judge Matt Tabak sending one of his judges, Ken Watkins, on a run to Starbucks in retaliation for talking back to him. Never talk back to the Tabak when you’re wearing a judge shirt.

“I’ll take odds,” Adam said, then tossed Dawn Granger ◊ Dove, Garth ◊ Tempest, Finishing Move, and Ka-Boom! to the bottom of his deck. Taver tossed Roy, Garth ◊ Tempest, Home Surgery and Press the Attack down. Neither player seemed happy with their hands for this mirror match.

Adam’s hand didn’t seem to improve much as he ended up with two copies of Koriand’r ◊ Starfire in his next hand. It was improved with Optitron, though, so he would play it out as best he could.

Taver’s second hand featured Hank Hall ◊ Hawk and a copy of Koriand’r ◊ Starfire, but it didn’t have anything as good as Optitron to help him curve out. On turn 2, he played Hank Hall ◊ Hawk without his better half, and Adam still didn’t have a 2-drop. He had drawn Pantha, though, so he used one resource point to recruit Pantha and one to go get Garth ◊ Tempest for turn 5.

“I’m going to Ka-Boom!Optitron now,” Taver said. It didn’t really matter as Adam had a second copy to play. He flipped it up, then used one resource point to get Roy Harper ◊ Speedy and the second one to play him. Taver’s hand had Beast Boy in it, meaning he might have wanted to wait a turn before playing Ka-Boom!, but he had Twin Firearms for Hank. Adam attacked and stunned Hank with Pantha, then calmly played Finishing Move with Speedy.

“Let’s see if this helps me recover,” Taver joked over the table. He had Beast Boy now that the competitors were back to three resources, but Adam had drawn Hank Hall ◊ Hawk in the meantime and now played him with boost. His board of Hank, Dove, Pantha and Speedy stared across the table at a lonely and depressed looking Beast Boy.

“Attack Pantha,” Taver announced. Adam reinforced and took his one damage, then swiftly moved to the recovery step. Adam was in a hurry to get Terra on the table, and Terra quickly stunned Beast Boy. The endurance totals were crawling, with Adam slightly ahead at 46-44. Finishing Move meant the real end of Beast Boy, and when Taver only had Tim Drake and Speedy to play, it looked like Adam was taking over the game.

The two players were getting ready to place their fifth resource, and this time Adam was the one with Garth ◊ Tempest in his hand. Taver had his USS Argus on the table to do a little digging, but Argus only brought him two copies of Roy Harper to help out his character army. Roy isn’t very good when you only have Tim Drake on the table.

Adam had Garth ◊ Tempest and formed up in a box, with Garth and Terra up front, Speedy behind Garth and Hank behind Terra. Taver didn’t have many Titans on the table, but he was able to use Teen Titans Go! twice, and that allowed Roy to stun Hank Hall and Terra—which put him in a position where he had to make some tough decisions.

“We’ll just team attack Garth now,” he decided. He had been wondering if maybe he shouldn’t go ahead and use Roy one more time. Adam’s board was decimated by the two copies of Teen Titans Go! and the game looked like it was turning around for him. Adam had a Finishing Move to make sure that Tim Drake wouldn’t be around to help Roy Harper anymore.

“Crap,” Taver exclaimed as Adam got back Koriand’r ◊ Starfire from his discard pile with Garth. He had the six resources to play her, while Taver was only playing his fourth one, having used two of them to stun Adam’s board last turn. It looked like the short-term survival plan was going to mean long-term death, but it can be tough to look toward the long term when you’re way behind in board position.

Garth swung at and stunned the Terra that Taver had played, which left Taver with a stunned board and left Adam with his board intact. Taver could do no better on the following turn than playing Donna Troy, and when Adam played Beast Boy and Terra Taver knew it was over.

“I’m done,” he resigned. He scooped up his cards and the two players moved forward to game three.

Game Three

“I think that I want odd initiatives,” Taver mused.

“It still seems like a good plan,” Adam responded.

Both players seemed happy with their opening hands for game three, and Taver showed why he was happy when he played Optitron and got Garth ◊ Tempest. Adam responded with Speedy and stuck one in the dome of Taver.

“Dick Grayson,” Taver announced, and then played Tim Drake.

“Wrong Robin,” one of the spectators commented. Tim looked at Speedy, then pounded him in the face to wrap up turn two.

The players were flying through their decks, searching for cards and making wisecracks across the table. “Let’s see how many Finishing Moves we have this game,” Taver remarked. Adam pointed out he was playing four copies of it, and Taver isn’t, so Adam should draw more of them.

Taver had a turn 3 Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, and Adam played Hank Hall ◊ Hawk and Dawn Granger ◊ Dove, setting them into the front row to protect Speedy.

“Wait, who did you hit with Finishing Move?” Taver asked. Adam had just flipped one of the important cards into his graveyard to Tamaran, sending Taver into a brief happy dance. He now had one less copy of the card to deal with.

“Mmmmmm,” Taver mused. “This is interesting.” He was having formation problems because Adam had just played Terra, and Taver knew he could have some problems coming at him from the stunning machine.

There was no impending stun from Terra, though, as Adam declared a team attack with Dove and Terra, sending them at Red Star together. Taver exhausted his team to pump up Roy Harper and then used Heroic Sacrifice to save Red Star from the attack. Adam had only one stunned character on the table, but Taver had to make the choice between keeping Roy Harper and keeping Tim Drake. He finally settled on sending Roy Harper to his discard pile and keeping Tim Drake.

His turn 5 brought Garth ◊ Tempest to the table, and when Adam played and flipped USS Argus, Taver said, “Oh, you don’t have a Garth.” However, Adam was slow-rolling, since his hand contained two copies of the amazing 5-drop. Before combat, he used Terra’s ability to stun Tim Drake, and placed his guys in a box formation; with Hawk and Dove in front, Garth behind Dove, and Terra, now exhausted, behind Hank.

“Discard Pantha,” Taver said as he flipped up Latverian Embassy. Adam only had Heroic Sacrifice face up in his resource row, but if he was hiding multiple copies of Teen Titans Go! down there he was going to have problems now.

Taver team attacked Hank Hall, and then flipped up one copy of Teen Titans Go! He sent his team back across the table to hit Terra, and then used Garth to get back a Teen Titans Go! from his graveyard. The powerful plot twist reared its ugly head as Adam’s entire four-character board was stunned by multiple team attacks from the same two characters.

The players went to turn 6, with Red Star and Garth in front of Taver and just Garth in front of Adam. His character advantage, which had been intact the entire game, was destroyed in one flurry of Teen Titans Go!

Adam was able to rebuild swiftly though, playing Roy Harper and replaying Hank Hall with boost on turn 6. Taver wanted to play Terra to start tearing apart that side of the board again, but Adam wanted to make sure Garth was gone before then.

“I’ll get Roy while I still can,” Taver decided. With Terra still on the chain, Adam exhausted his team to activate Roy Harper’s ability, used Roy to stun Red Star, played Press the Attack and then used Roy to stun Garth on Taver’s side.

When Terra finally hit play, she wanted to quickly stun Roy Harper, but Adam had other ideas. He replayed Press the Attack to ready Garth, making sure he would get to attack into Terra.

The wonder of the Teen Titans mirror match is how much initiative matters. Adam had used his, with two copies of Press the Attack, to completely recover from the losses he had taken under Teen Titans Go! during the previous turn.

Taver got the initiative back and went to play Terra again. Adam cringed, muttered things not fit to print, and exhausted his entire team to use Roy Harper again. The 10 ATK was enough to stun Garth, so Taver was left with a choice. He was down to only 10 endurance, and Adam still had 22 left, and he needed to decide if he wanted something from his discard pile.

“I’m going to get Teen Titans Go!,” Taver announced, dropping his endurance total to 7.

Adam had a Terra of his own, and he played her and immediately used her to stun the Roy Harper on Taver’s side. The players recovered and went on to turn 8, but you couldn’t tell by looking at the table. Taver had only five resources on his side, and Adam only had four.

“Can I do something in the draw phase?” Taver asked head judge Matt Tabak.

“Do you mean after we draw?” Adam asked, since the players already had cards in their hands.

“I want to stun your Roy Harper now,” Taver said.

“You get priority in the draw phase,” Tabak clarified, “so get him in there.”

Taver thought a little and finally asked the judge what his endurance total was. “Only 4,” he said, sounding depressed. Adam was still at 15, and it looked as if the game was going to end this turn. Taver had Terra on the chain, waiting to stun Roy, so Roy responded by stunning her back. Before the draw phase had ended, the board was littered with stunned Terras and Roy Harpers.

Taver’s board was Hank Hall and some stunned characters. Adam’s was a stunned Roy, and then Garth and Terra. He added Tim Drake to it, and Taver added Beast Boy and Roy Harper to his.

“Tim Drake and Speedy will attack Hank,” Adam announced. Taver wasn’t happy, but he had to let it be legal. Adam paid 3 endurance to get back Press the Attack, but it was more of a ruse than anything. Taver made the decision to hit something with his Roy Harper, but Adam placed Savage Beatdown on top of his Speedy and the game was over.

“I’m done,” Taver sighed. Adam exchanged high-fives with his friends and got ready for the next round.

Adam Prosak wins, 2-1.