Both of these players should already be qualified for the elimination rounds, but the reason why we are covering them is because they both feature fascinating draft decks. Loren Nolan ended up with a Constructed-quality Manhunters deck on one side of the table, while Hager is playing a very spicy Emerald Enemies/Prison Planet/double Empire of Tears deck.

Hager recruited Qwardians and Hector Hammond on turns 1 and 2, while Nolan threw down Manhunter Infiltrator. Hager flipped up Prison Planet, and Nolan shook his head, saying, “I can’t beat that!” Manhunter Soldier manned the fort for Nolan on turn 3, and Hager brought forward Elasti-Man. Hager then completely whiffed on his turn 4 drop— Xallarap was stuck in his hand with no Anti-Matter friends to let him into play—while Nolan went big and used Manhunter Soldier twice to put two Engineers into play on his side of the board. Fire Support from Nolan stoned Elasti-Man’s attack, getting a stun on Hager’s man plus nothing else, but Qwardians picked up the slack courtesy of Cosmic Conflict. Hager then KO’d his two stunned men to flip up Empire of Tears before taking 7 to the face from Nolan’s men, making the endurance totals 31–27 in favor of Hager.

Nolan went large for turn 5 by recruiting Solomon Grundy, using an Engineer to move Manhunter Excavator up from his resource row, and then activating Sleeper Agent, giving him six men on turn 5 against Hager’s under-impressive army of weenies. Xallarap and Tattooed Man finally joined up as part of Hager’s squad, but that still only gave Jason three drastically under-curve men against Nolan’s six. Nolan attacked Tattooed Man with Manhunter Excavator, and things happened. First, Hager flipped up In Remembrance; then used his Empire of Tears on the Man; then flipped up a second Empire of Tears, KO’ing some resources; and then activated the new one, making the Man 10 ATK/8 DEF. Nolan still had plenty of gas to deal with the pumps, though, and burned two Manhunter Transpheres on them. Grundy smashed over a now shrunken Hector Hammond, leaving Hager to take 10 and dropping him to 14—just low enough for Nolan to face him with the rest of his men for the win.

The field in this $10K still has yet to defeat Loren Nolan this weekend.

Nolan 1 – Hager 0