Round 4 saw three competitors at the top four tables competing with The Brave and The Bold decks. Here were the matchups.

Table 1: Emmanuel Divens vs. Job Figueroa

Emannuel Divens was playing Common Enemy, but with a twist. His 5-drop was Mr. Fantastic, Stretch, and he was running copies of Fantasticar and Personal Force Field. Job Figueroa was playing The Brave and The Bold. Despite a complete board-wipe from Job’s side of the field on turn 5, Divens managed to keep Mr. Fantastic on the board for the entire game, and the advantage generated by a pair of Fantasticars and a Personal Force Field were too much for Figueroa to handle. Divens took the game on turn 9 after time was called.

Table 2: Ed Colleran vs. William Postlethwait

Postlethwait played X-Stall, and was paired off against Colleran’s Mono-Doom deck. Despite taking an early lead and controlling Colleran through the mid-game, Postlethwait lost his shaky hold on the game when he missed dropping Jean Grey, Phoenix Force on turn 8. From there it was a downward slide, as Colleran did what Doom decks do best, churning out high-drop character after high-drop character and taking the win.

Table 3: Rob Leander vs. Irving Diaz

This was one of the more interesting Titans mirror matches in recent memory. Leander ran a variant of his standard build, but Diaz’s Titan deck had more in common with Alexander Sacal’s build from the Mexico City $10K than the accepted Leander-born standard. Curve filling was a big trend in Orlando, and Diaz’s deck was packed with low-drops and Twin Sidearms. Unfortunately, what could have been a spectacular match was a bit one-sided. Leander didn’t draw into a recruitable character until turn 3 and used USS Argus on turn 4 to hit all four of his copies of Teen Titans Go! He held them up so that those behind him could see them, and the match was a snowball from that point. Diaz cleaned house as Leander struggled to maintain what advantages he could, but in the end Leander scooped after time was called.

Table 4: Michael Barnes vs. Milton J. Figueroa

Another mirror match took place next to the Titans mirror match, but this one saw The Brave and The Bolds square off. Figueroa narrowly eked out Barnes for the win in a relatively even match that went to time.

Round 4 saw some large rewards for players with innovative decks. Common Enemy hasn’t sat at table 1 for quite a while, and Irving Diaz proved the viability of the Sacal build of Teen Titans. In a game that is so quickly developing at all times, new ideas are gold, and testing tempers raw steel into the honed blades that are tournament-winning decks.