I guess I’ve doomed myself to covering a German each round, but they just seem so good at this game that the top tables are festering with them. Kristian is fresh off a Top 4 at Pro Circuit: Amsterdam and looking to add another notch to his trophy belt. Christophe is a little less accomplished.

“I have too little practice. And I’m very unlucky! I’m always screwed!,” he laughed.

We’ll see how well he fares in this matchup, pitting his Brotherhood deck against Kristian’s Sentinels.

Christophe opened with Thornn and Lorelei, flipping The New Brotherhood. Meanwhile, Kristian was taking it a bit easier with a turn 2 Boliver Trask for, you guessed it, a Mark—a Mark II in this case. Thornn ran over Boliver, empowered by Savage Land, and Lorelei got in for a bit extra, putting Kristian at 39. Surprise Attack took him down to 34 before he even got to attack on turn 3. Christophe had no drop on turn 3, though, so it seemed like Kristian could stabilize with ease. Mark II went to beat up Lorelei and got powered up to put him at 3 ATK/4 DEF versus the 3 ATK supermodel. Boliver then stunned Thornn and Christophe KO’d his Lorelei.

Ironically, both of Christophe’s turn 4 draws were 3-drops, and he looked at me as if to say “See, see. I always get unlucky.” Sabretooth, Feral Rage at least gave him some extra punch against Kristian’s growing army of Marks. Thornn smashed Trask, backed up by Savage Land, but a reinforcement by Mark II reduced Thorn’s 7 ATK to just 1 stun damage. Sabretooth then swung into Mark V and got powered up, stunning the Mark. Kristian then showed that he too endorsed the new Micro-Sentinels tech, using it to kill Thornn and turn Sabretooth into a time bomb. Nimrod made things even tougher for the Frenchman, who recruited Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr. Robots are made of iron, and magnets attract metal, so you can guess what happened to Nimrod and Magneto. A Genosha gave Christophe a lot of extra options, but he liked none of them and passed, merely removing Nimrod’s get-out-of-repair-bay-free counter. Mark and Mark then team attacked Sabretooth, just stunning one Mark. Christophe had a tough choice during his recovery phase, deciding between Magneto and Sabretooth. He went with Magneto and recruited another Sabretooth on his turn, accompanied by Phantazia. Kristian had the trademark Bastion and didn’t need a lot of time to set up, leaving Bastion and Nimrod behind Mark V and Mark II, respectively.

“I’ve got brain aches,” lamented Christophe after finding out Sabretooth does, in fact, not fly and couldn’t get past the Mark V he just exhausted. He made do with Magneto on Bastion, using Savage Land to give him enough ATK. A Cover Fire from Kristian foiled his plans, though, and Christophe had to flip another Savage Land to allow his Magneto to stun Bastion. Unfortunately, another Cover Fire made his location sacrifice seem really bad—and the end result, a stunned Magneto and a smiling Bastion, didn’t make it look any better. Sabretooth pounced on Mark II to make up for the lost ground but a Nasty Surprise was waiting for Christophe there too. Not So Fast! helped control the damage a bit, and Sabretooth did get to do what he came for, although Nimrod reinforced little Mark. The resulting counterattack put Kristian ahead for the first time in the game, leading 21–20 in his favor.
Kristian then dealt the death blow with a 7-drop Magneto - Master of Magnetism and not one but two Genoshas, giving him enough resources to easily overpower Christophe, who had lost two of his resources already and could only muster a Sauron.

This is getting tiresome. Another one for Germany.

Kristian Kockott wins!