This Top 8 match featured young phenom Brandon Ruiz and Arizona-based preacher Scot Anderson in a classic battle of Teen Titans versus Curve Sentinels. With Flame Trap featured in Scot’s deck, this writer expects the purple robots to advance to the semifinals.

Game One

Scot won the choice for initiative and elected to take the evens. Brandon mulliganed his opening hand, while Scot kept. Brandon kicked things off with Roy Harper ◊ Speedy, while Scot passed with no play.

Turn 2 saw nothing again from Scot, while Brandon recruited Hank Hall ◊ Hawk. On turn 3, Brandon flipped and activated USS Argus, then recruited Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, losing his 1-drop. Scot finally recruited a character, a standard Sentinel Mark II. Brandon sent Roy into the robot, and Scot powered-up under the impression that this would save his character. Unfortunately for Scot, this was not the case, and both characters were stunned. Brandon then followed this up with a strong Finishing Move, leaving Scot with no characters.

Scot began to recover the next turn with a Sentinel Mark V, while Brandon offered up Terra. Brandon then set up with Roy behind Hank Hall and Terra alongside Roy. Scot made the safe attack, sending the Mark V into Hawk. Brandon elected not to reinforce, instead using Hank to pump Roy. The attack was sent to Brandon, who had a Teen Titans Go! and another copy of Finishing Move, along with another copy of Terra in his hand. If Brandon was willing to use his Go, he could have team attacked the Mark V, likely forcing a double stun, and then could have used the Go to ready his remaining character to enable the Finishing Move. Brandon elected instead to just send Terra into the Mark V with a power-up, trying to save his Go. Unfortunately, Scott had a power-up of his own, and Brandon had no further plays, stunning Terra and losing Hawk during recovery.

Turn 5 featured another Argus activation from Brandon, who then recruited Garth ◊ Tempest. Scot answered with an imposing Nimrod. Brandon started off the action with a team attack of everyone on Nimrod, followed by Teen Titans Go!. While still in the attack, Brandon pumped Roy to 8 ATK with his other characters, then attempted to use him to shoot down the Sentinel Mark V. Scott allowed this, and the Mark V was stunned. Then, Brandon used Garth to return his Go and played the Go again, pumping Roy twice in an attempt to shoot down Nimrod. This also succeeded, resulting in Nimrod losing his repair counter and then becoming stunned as the team attack resolved. Scot kept Nimrod around after recovery, and play went to turn 6.

Scot recruited a devastating Bastion. With two of his resources KO’d the previous turn, Brandon could only muster a boosted Dawn Granger ◊ Dove, fetching her partner, Hank Hall ◊ Hawk. Before the players entered combat, Brandon tried to use a flurry of Press the Attacks to stun Nimrod before combat with Roy, but Scot had two copies of Reconstruction Program to keep Nimrod alive. Scot entered combat with Brandon’s entire team exhausted and lead off with a backbreaking Flame Trap, followed by unopposed attacks on Terra and Garth. Brandon kept around Garth, leaving him with only a Garth and Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal entering turn 7.

Brandon attempted to salvage what was left of the game with a boosted Tim Drake ◊ Robin, Young Detective. This would likely not be enough if Scot had Magneto, Master of Magnetism, but he was unable to find it, even after breaking Genosha once he had laid his seventh resource. He had to be content with a Reconstruction Program, which he used to fetch his two recruits for the turn—a Mark V and a Mark II. With the help of two copies of Teen Titans Go!, Brandon was able to stun Scot’s board, in spite of Bastion. In a shocking turn of events, it looked as though Brandon had forced his way back into the game. However, turn 8 yielded Magneto for Scot, while Brandon was only able to pump Roy with Garth and then replace the Garth with a fresh one from his hand. The players didn’t even bother going through the motions of combat.

Scot 1-0

Game Two

Brandon took the even initiative for the second game and once again mulliganed, while Scot again kept his opening four. Both players passed the first turn, and the only action of turn 2 was Brandon flipping Optitron and discarding Dove to fetch Red Star. Play picked up on turn 3, with a Sentinel Mark II from Scot and a Beast Boy from Brandon. Scot attacked, and both characters were stunned.

Turn 4 featured Red Star from Brandon, while Scot recruited a Sentinel Mark V. Brandon sent his Beast Boy into the Mark II, which increased to 5 ATK/5 DEF with the attack. Scot had no responses, and his Mark II went down. Brandon then attacked the Mark V with Red Star and powered up with another copy of Red Star out of his hand. This seemed like a mistake from Brandon—he basically traded a power up to save 4 endurance, which didn’t seem worthwhile given the game state. Furthermore, had Scot powered up his Mark V with a Mark V out of his hand, Brandon could have then stunned the Mark V with his power-up, accomplishing the same thing while drawing a power-up out of his opponent’s hand. Regardless, Scot had no responses and the Mark V was stunned, but Scot did have a Micro-Sentinels that he flipped during recovery, adding counters to both Red Star and Beast Boy.

Scot missed his Nimrod on turn 5, instead settling for a boosted Mark V. Brandon had Garth. Scot started out with a curious attack, simply sending his boosted Mark V into Garth. Neither player had any effects, and both were stunned. Scot paid for attacking out of order in the next attack, when he sent the non-boosted Mark V into Red Star. Brandon was able to Finishing Move the boosted Mark V, and both characters were stunned. Scot then took 6 points of endurance loss via a direct attack from Beast Boy. Scot had another copy of Micro-Sentinels during recovery, this time adding a counter to Garth. Red Star and Beast Boy both were KO’d, one via the recovery and one via Micro-Sentinels.

On the sixth turn, Brandon flipped USS Argus, then used Optitron to fetch Tim Drake ◊ Robin, Young Detective and boosted him into play. Scot continued to push his advantage with Bastion. Before combat began, Scot used a Flame Trap to take out Tim. Brandon then sent Garth into Bastion and played a Savage Beatdown. Neither Brandon nor Scot had any further attacks, but Scot did have a third copy of Micro-Sentinels, KO’ing Garth at the start of the next turn.

Scot put the nail in the coffin on turn 7 with Magneto, Master of Magnetism. Brandon could only muster a boosted Dove and a Roy Harper. Brandon was barely able to survive the turn with the help of Heroic Sacrifice, but he lost everyone except Roy in combat. Brandon’s turn 8 play—a boosted Tim Drake—paled in comparison to Scot’s Apocalypse, and Brandon extended the hand.

Scot Anderson wins 2-0 and advances to the semifinals.