This round features two of the more colorful players on the Circuit. John Fiorillo is a Pro Circuit mainstay who has put up a number of solid finishes in the past. His opponent this round, Anand Khare, is used to being on the other side of the keyboard. Despite his being a writer (it’s widely thought that we are terrible at the game), he is known as a very solid player, and his 4-2 performance thus far won’t have too many people saying otherwise. The two players are good friends and this match won’t be one with any hard feelings.
John won the roll and chose evens. Anand drew his first hand, wasn’t pleased with it, and shipped it to the bottom of the deck. He was a little more pleased with his second draw, as it contained a Beast, Quick Thinker. John didn’t have a matching play, and the blue furball got to attack. John managed to get a Sage, Tessa into play and was going to be able to begin his card-drawing shenanigans. Anand dropped a much larger Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird, Sonic Carapace into play on his turn and let John make his attacks. After using Tessa’s ability, John decided to attack into Melissa Gold. Anand had a power-up, though, and the attack failed. Anand got to bash back for 8, and the turn ended.
Anand began his recruits on the next turn by bringing a Beetle, Armorsmith into play. The master engineer drummed up some help from an [Archangel, Angel] that he fetched from Anand’s deck. John had a Tarot as his recruit, and then passed the turn. John’s Tessa fell to Anand’s Beast, and his Tarot soon dropped to Melissa Gold. That left the path clear for Anand to go straight to the face with the rest of his team.
The next turn brought old faithful, Professor X, Headmaster, into play. Anand continued the off-curve madness that his Faces was able to deliver by boosting a Yellowjacket that fetched a Joystick. He added a Melter to his team. “What does that guy do?” John asked as he picked the card up. “He melts things,” was Anand’s sarcastic reply. By this point, he also had a Faces of Evil and Stormfront-1 in play. This meant that his giant army was not only teamed up, but they were also considerably bigger.
Things weren’t looking so hot for John as he began his attacks. Even if he managed to stun two characters with no losses of his own, he would still be facing down four very mad faces. His first attack was to send Professor X into Angel and Tarot into Beast. Anand reinforced both attacks and used his ready characters to play Time Breach for a Speed Demon. John did some searching of his own, using an Enemy of My Enemy to get a Jean Grey from his deck. At the end of the turn, Anand was up 44–30 with an impressive five characters on the board. Since the next turn was Anand’s initiative, it didn’t look like John would reach turn 6 to play his new Jean Grey.
Anand’s recruit next turn was rather complicated. He began by using Hard Sound Construct to put a Beetle, Armorsmith from his KO’d pile into play. He used the Beetle to get a Gargantua, which he promptly put into play. He then used his remaining points to put Speed Demon into play with a Blackbird Blue. Anand had an impressive eight characters in play that had an enormous combined bonus from his Blackbird and Faces of Evil.
John recruited an Emma Frost, Friend or Foe. Anand attacked into Emma Frost with his Angel and Melissa Gold. “That’s 10, right?” John asked. “Uhh . . . no,” Anand said as he reminded John of the Blackbird Blue. John proceeded to Duck and Cover twice (thanks to Emma) and Shrink an attacker to get above the stun. Anand had a second Faces in waiting, though, and managed to threaten the stun again. John had a few more tricks before he was done, playing two copies of Eye of the Storm to put him at 38 endurance with the hope of surviving the turn. Melissa Gold and Emma both stunned, and Anand was left to contemplate his next attack. This is one of the misconceptions about the Faces deck; many people think it’s a fast deck, but the attacks are so complicated that it takes a good amount of thinking to come to the right decision.
Anand’s next attack sent Speed Demon flying into Professor X. Anand chose to pay 1 endurance to keep his Speed Demon around, which consequently kept his Blackbird Blue around. After John did the math and came to the conclusion that Anand could still deal enough breakthrough to kill him, he conceded. The players spent a few minutes after the match trying to figure out if there was any way John could have survived. After reviewing the turn, they came to the conclusion that unless John had been able to brick-wall Anand twice, there was no way John could have prevented the outcome.
Anand wins the match! Looks like we’ll have to get someone else to cover the $10K tomorrow.