Even though the Constructed portion of the Pro Circuit will use the brand-new Marvel Modern Age (MMA) format, the last-chance qualifier tournaments for PC: Amsterdam used the Golden Age format. The tournaments were numerically dominated by Curve Sentinels, with nearly half of the field being represented by the purple robots, but they were whittled away until the final eight only included three mutant-killing machine decks.

Match 1: Dennis Raschke (Common Enemy) vs. Sascha Sasse (X-Men Beats)

Sascha was playing a fan-favorite X-Men Beatdown deck, with Professor X, Mental Master as his only Marvel Knights addition. With a full complement of combat plot twists, he set his sights on controlling the board until the good professor could clean up. One of the main engines of his deck used the combination of Combat Reflexes and Wolverine, James Howlett to absorb a great deal of damage in order to get him to the late game.

Dennis was playing Common Enemy, basically augmented with Valeria, Daughter of Doom only. This deck has fallen out of favor as of late, but with a great number of combo decks proliferating in the format, Dennis’s deck is a good metagame call.

The match went to three games, but the sheer size of Dennis’s drops in the third and deciding game meant that Sascha was unable to adequately stabilize his endurance total on turn 8. The telepathic master fell to the Herald of Galactus, otherwise known as Silver Surfer.

Match 2: Chris Price (New Brotherhood) vs. Giorgio Bortolussi (Curve Sentinels)

Chris was already qualified for this event, but he decided to exercise his play skills in the LCQ. He brought a burn-based New Brotherhood build to the table, replete with four copies of Surprise Attack and three copies of The Mutant Menace. Combined with four copies of Not So Fast for Overload protection, Chris’s deck was optimized for a quick kill before the 6-drop hits play.

Giorgio played what has become the most ubiquitous deck in the format, Curve Sentinels. Curve Sentinels traditionally has a tough time against the quicker mutants, especially when they’re backed up with direct-endurance loss. This match was no different, with multiple copies of The New Brotherhood being flipped each game. Giorgio was helpless under the rush of little mutants, and Chris walked away victorious.

Match 3: Bart Genders (Teen Titans) vs. Jason Dawson (Curve Sentinels)

This match pitted the two most powerful decks in the Golden Age format, with Bart coming to the table with the Pro Circuit–winning Teen Titans, and Jason piloting the more conservative Curve Sentinels. Neither player had made any particularly special additions to his decklist, and Hounds of Ahab was the only significant Marvel Knights card in either deck. The players split the first two games, but the third game came down to endurance totals. That game was well in hand for Bart, who stunned Jason’s entire team on turn 5 and won with more than a 15 endurance differential.

Match 4: Torsten Brutschin (Marvel Knights/Underworld) vs. Roy van den Oever (Curve Sentinels)

This was the most exciting match of the final eight, as it involved an almost completely Modern Age deck that highlighted the Marvel Knights/Underworld affiliations. With only two Golden Age cards (Savage Beatdown and Flying Kick) in his deck, Torsten could nearly play his entire deck in tomorrow’s event! With Marvel Knights characters filling out the low end of the curve, Torsten’s big Underworld threat was Mephisto, Soulstealer, a character that gets a huge advantage from cleaning out its owner’s and the opponent’s KO’d piles.

Roy, a local TCG player, played Curve Sentinels, but he was already qualified for the PC tomorrow. He was playing “Pimp My Bot,” the build that has become the standard version of Sentinels, featuring both Magneto, Master of Magnetism and Genosha.

The first game was well in hand for Torsten, as he was able to play Quick Kill on Roy’s 3- and 4-drop characters. He unfortunately made a mistake on turn 5 to hand that game to Roy, accidentally playing Crime and Punishment on a non-Marvel Knights Mephisto, which meant that he had to forgo his attacks for the remainder of the turn. Roy was able to take advantage of that mistake with Nimrod and Bastion on following turns, and the endurance loss was too great to overcome for the all-concealed deck.

The second and third games were much more pleasing for Torsten, with him hitting his curve all the way up to turn 6. A strategic use of Sucker Punch meant that Torsten was able to keep his board relatively stable, while Roy kept losing his team to Quick Kill. Mephisto and Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow, KGB Killer were able to deliver the final blow and send Torsten into his first professional TCG event!