Ko Okada was one of the Japanese players who made the trip all the way to the United States to compete this weekend. Hailing from Chiba, Japan, he was running Squadron Supreme, which at this point seemed to be the deck of the day. His opponent, Alex Gellerman, was also running Squadron, so the match had the potential to be very interesting, as it could show the differences in their play styles.

Okada opted to open the game after winning the flip, and he did so with Ape X, searching out Dual Sidearms. “Monkey with guns” is the most common play I’ve seen all day, and this match proved no exception. Gellerman had no gun-monkey of his own, but instead recruited Joystick, who was quickly bombarded with “eep-eeps” and gunfire.

Gellerman had nothing to recruit on turn 2, and he was quickly outmatched by Okada, who dropped a Joystick of his own and also recruited Quagmire. Gellerman was forced to play Surprise Attack, and then he played Answer the Call with no effect, in order to beef up Joystick. She swung on Quagmire to stun him, but Ape X set out for vengeance and again blew her away—Joystick was probably getting tired of monkeys. Okada’s Joystick then bashed Gellerman directly. Okada had been forced to lose some board presence in the form of Quagmire, who was KO’d, but not recruiting anything and losing the Call was painful for Gellerman. He was either more desperate than he looked, or he had a set 5-drop in his resource row.

Luckily, Okada was in the same position a turn later, as he was completely unable to recruit anything on turn 3. Gellerman recruited Lady Lark, put her behind Joystick, and passed. Okada played Other-Earth and sent his Joystick into Gellerman’s, prompting Gellerman to power-up and give Joystick 4 ATK/2 DEF. With the endurance totals standing at 43 each and Gellerman suddenly in control of the game, Okada pressed.

Ape X charged at Joystick, who quickly turned tail and ran, knowing what was coming. “I’m sick of monkeys!” she yelled, quickly turning to confront her fuzzy assailant. She landed a sharp kick to Ape X’s snout just as the simian plugged her for the third time, and both characters were stunned. Monkeys make Joystick sad.

The third explosion of fur and Joystick bits left Lady Lark open to direct attack, and it left the endurance totals at 35 to 40 in Gellerman’s favor. Okada lost Joystick, and Gellerman was set to have a strong turn 4, backed by control of the initiative.

Both players recruited Golden Archer, and Gellerman had his copy attack Ape X. Okada walked right into the trap laid for him. He reinforced with Golden Archer, and Gellerman flipped Other-Earth. Lady Lark then smashed into Golden Archer, buffed by a pair of Airskimmers that reduced Gellerman’s hand to the magic 0. Joystick, now free of monkey problems, then attacked directly to reduce Okada to 11 endurance. The inability to recruit a character on turn 3 had cost Okada dearly.

He tried to recover next turn and brought Whizzer to the board. But as predicted, Gellerman recruited Albert Gaines ◊ Nuke from his resource row: “It was the first resource I set.” An Airskimmer gave Whizzer a bit more firepower when Okada sent him to take down Nuke, but it was still a trade in stuns that he couldn’t really afford. Although it was the best decision he could make, it left him at 6 endurance. Golden Archer attacked into Joystick, and with three cards remaining in hand, Okada started chaining.

First he activated Panacea Potion on Whizzer. He then chained Answer the Call, and finally chained Other-Earth to finish emptying his hand. Other-Earth resolved, Answer the Call got him another Golden Archer, which he used as a power-up, and the Panacea Potion resolved. Gellerman activated his own Golden Archer in response and burned Okada for 6 endurance. Despite his clever chaining, that third turn was just too much for Okada to recover from.

“If he’d hit his 3, that would have been over,” said Gellerman. “I drew on turn 3, and the first card off the deck was Shape. I was like, ‘Oh my GOD!’” Still, poor luck had struck both players, and in the end it was Gellerman who emerged from the mirror match victorious!