Round 2 brought together Florent Jeudon and Russ Pippin. Jeudon won a qualifier in France and came to the So Cal PC with a Fantastic Four deck in hopes of bettering his performance in the Indianapolis PC, where he finished 86th. Pippin is also a veteran of the Pro Circuit, having also finished in the 80’s at Indy. He has made the Top 8 of two $10K tournaments, and he brought his Spider-Friends deck to So Cal aiming at a money finish.

Jeudon won the roll for initiative, and the first turn went relatively quickly, with both players missing their first drop. Pippin took initiative on turn 2 and recruited Black Cat, Master Thief. Turn 3 brought Thing, Ben Grimm out for Jeudon, while Pippin recruited Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

The action picked up on turn 4. Pippin had the initiative and recruited Puma, keeping all his characters in the front row. He took another look at Jeudon’s Total Anarchy, while Jeudon brought out Invisible Woman, Sue Storm and considered the best formation, finally settling on putting Invisible Woman in the front row while Thing hunkered down in support. Spider-Man and Black Cat launched a team attack at Invisible Woman to stun her, giving Puma his shot at Thing. Jeudon activated Yancy Street, keeping Invisible Woman during the recovery phase and sending Thing to the KO’d pile.

The initiative swung back to Jeudon on turn 5, and he recruited Mr. Fantastic, Stretch and set him up in style in the Fantasticar. Pippin responded with Daredevil. Jeudon again gave a great deal of thought to his formation step, moving Mr. Fantastic and his sweet ride to the support row and Invisible Woman out front. Pippin spent some time settling on his formation as well, ending with Puma and Daredevil in the front row and Spider-Man and Black Cat backing them up in the support row. Invisible Woman then took a swing at Spiderman, prompting Pippin to reinforce with Black Cat. Jeudon paused to consider the board, then attacked Black Cat with Mr. Fantastic, tying the game at 39 endurance for each player.

Pippin recruited Scarlet Spider on turn 6, giving him some good potential for board presence. Jeudon brought out Hulk, and while Pippin moved Puma, Daredevil, and Scarlet Spider all to the front row, Jeudon again gave his formation a lot of consideration. He finally settled on Mr. Fantastic and Hulk in the support row, keeping Invisible Woman out in front. Daredevil and Puma teamed up to take on Hulk, as Puma took the fall on the return attack. Scarlet Spider knocked out Invisible Woman, and since Mr. Fantastic wasn’t about to take that lying down, he took a shot at Daredevil, who was pumped in response. Jeudon considered his resources, flipped up a Savage Beatdown, and passed, ending the turn with 29 endurance to Pippin’s 21.

Thing, The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing came out for Jeudon on turn 7, while Pippin recruited Ezekiel. Mr. Fantastic stayed in the support row, with Hulk and Thing bulking it up out front. Pippin again kept all his characters lined up in the front row, although he seemed to keep rethinking the order he wanted them in. Jeudon really put a lot of thought into this combat phase—he spent about half a minute checking his resources and comparing each side of the board. Reaching a decision, he attacked Scarlet Spider with Mr. Fantastic, stunning him and bringing Pippin’s endurance down to 16. After a bit more thought, a powered-up Thing smashed down Ezekiel. Pippin checked and rechecked his resources, thinking fast while checking his hand. He had to take the stun and the accompanying 10 endurance breakthrough. With only 6 endurance remaining, Hulk took out Scarlet Spider for the win.

While both players seemed to put a lot of thought into what they placed in their resource rows, when they played their plot twists, and which characters they attacked with, Pippin bemoaned his bad luck in hitting the right drops, which he clearly felt lost him the game. Jeudon felt confident about his Fantastic Four deck, tweaked somewhat from the Indianapolis PC, and Pippin hoped to face more Teen Titans and Common Enemy decks, since that was what his deck was designed to defeat.