Depending on your interest in card games, you might or might not know these two players. Although they are new to this game—in fact, Santin has only been playing Vs. System for five days and barely knows the format, let alone all of the plot twists—they have a lot of experience and success with card games. Raffaele and Andrea are surely two of Italy’s biggest hopes to conquer the Vs. System game.

Santin’s Curve Sentinels deck forced him to take a mulligan and start with a turn 2 Sentinel Mark II. Lo Moro’s Teen Titans deck could only muster a turn 2 Pantha followed by a turn 3 Beast Boy. Andrea took the third turn to send Beast Boy away, first stunning it and then playing a Finishing Move.

Lo Moro hit the curve again with a turn 4 Terra, but he didn’t seem too happy about being outnumbered by Santin’s army of Sentinel Mark II, Sentinel Mark III and Sentinel Mark V.

Finally, Raffaele sent Pantha into Sentinel Mark III. Santin showed him Nasty Surprise and he fired back with Overload. Terra attacked Sentinel Mark V, stunning both of them. Pantha tried to take the remaining Sentinel out, but a power-up saved Santin’s robot.

Again, Lo Moro was down to Terra as his single character. On turn 5, he watched Santin play Nimrod, and dropped Garth ◊ Tempest, bracing himself for an incoming horde of Sentinels.

Nimrod aimed for Terra, and Raffaele leaned back to consider his options. He tried to use Terra before letting it stun, but Santin nullified Terra’s ability. With only Sentinel Mark V prepared, Santin was forced to let Lo Moro have his combat step.

Slowly, Raffaele considered how best to attack with Garth. “I bet you have another Nasty Surprise!” he said.

Raffaele was so afraid of it that he decided not to attack, recovering Terra instead. Santin ended the turn with Finishing Move to make sure Terra went away. Lo Moro returned it with Garth.

Lo Moro dropped Connor Kent ◊ Superboy, Tactile Telekinetic, and Boliver Trask brought out another Sentinel Mark V with boost. Again, the Teen Titans player sat back and considered his options. He was behind on endurance, 29 to 38, and outnumbered five to two, as far as characters go.

Connor Kent ◊ Superboy went after Nimrod. Santin protected it with Cover Fire. Lo Moro hit Boliver Trask with Garth and gave Andrea the chance to hit back. Nimrod tried to take down Connor Kent ◊ Superboy, but Tamaran made sure he couldn’t.

Sentinel Mark V, the one played with boost, was left to face Garth. A Reconstruction Program gave Andrea two extra copies to power-up. Down on endurance at 23 to 37, Raffaele Lo Moro grimaced when time was called. Santin had the initiative and dropped two extra Sentinels. He now had seven characters in play. Lo Moro needed to come up with some sort of miracle. He fished out Koriand’r ◊ Starfire and played it.

“I can’t believe I forgot to adjust my formation. I just dropped the characters and told you to go ahead,” Andrea said with a grimace.

Still, he came up with a plan. He sent Nimrod to attack Garth. Lo Moro thought about it and decided to let both characters stun. That still left him behind by 18 endurance. Santin sent three Sentinels into Koriand’r ◊ Starfire.

Lo Moro had no solution for that. When the dust settled, he had a single non-stunned character and was behind by 20 endurance points. There was little he could do, and so he conceded.

Match Win: Andrea Santin