Toby Wachter looked over the feature match options for this round with glee. “Some good ones here! Let’s see . . . one of you cover Tice and Bragg, that’s huge . . . and Walls and Blair should be fun. Whichever one of you enjoys editing a bunch of gamer trash talk can cover that one.”
Michael Barnes and I exchanged skeptical glances. “Uh, well Jeremy is my teammate. I should cover Tice and Bragg I suppose,” asserted Mike quickly. I rolled my eyes. The real reason was unimportant. We both knew he had just staked “Dibs” on the match he wanted (inspired by the one he wanted to avoid), and as David Leader likes to remind everyone, in a manner reminiscent of the pre-teens he works with in Atlanta: “Dibs is supreme. Dibs rules all. You cannot trump Dibs.”
Walking into the feature match area with a laptop, I received a cheeky grin from Walls and some references to my status as a spectator rather than player. Blair self-deprecatingly told me, “You can report this one as the Battle of the Bulge.” Both players were characteristically chatty as they shuffled up, before Walls threw a die onto the table and rolled a high number. “That’s the initiative roll? Or are you just giving me the die?” asked Blair. “It’s the roll, of course,” replied Walls, as if the question was the silliest thing he had ever heard. Blair grumbled and rolled low in response, and Walls selected the even initiatives.
Blair’s opening hand resulted in some thinking, as he peeled Zatanna, Magical Manipulator; two copies of Mystical Binding, and a Team-Up. He opted to keep, while Walls chose to mulligan. The first turn saw Walls drop Jacob Lee in the hidden area, while Blair simply laid a resource and passed.
End of turn 1: Gabe Walls 50 endurance, Jeremy Blair 48 endurance.
Walls laid his resource next turn and contemplated his options. “Kinda hard,” he offered, half-apologetically. “Yeah, the 2-drop struggle is always hard,” replied Blair, with more than a hint of sarcasm.
Eventually, Walls decided to flip Dr. Fate’s Tower, and his tough decision revealed itself when he discarded the excellent Knightmare Scenario to its triggered effect, fetching Amulet of Nabu. He played Black Thorn in the hidden area and dropped the Amulet on her. Blair whiffed once again, and Walls flipped Checkmate Armory and attacked straight to the face for 7.
End of turn 2: Gabe Walls 50, Jeremy Blair 41.
Turn 3 saw Blair play the 3-drop he had kept his hand for: Zatanna. Walls then chose to exhaust his Checkmate Armory and pay a resource point to search his deck for Helm of Nabu. He equipped this to Jacob Lee and drew two cards, discarding Dr. Fate’s Tower and (after a long pause and a sigh of “I can’t believe I’m about to do this”) a copy of Huntress, Reluctant Queen.
He then played Nightshade, Eve Eden in the visible area, exhausting the Tower to transfer the Amulet from Black Thorn to Nightshade. He then exhausted Black Thorn to use her backup power, readying his Armory. A Laser Watch was equipped to Jacob Lee, and Walls exhausted his Armory again to draw a card.
Blair, bereft of Walls’s many options, simply sent his Zatanna into Nightshade, who was now a 4 ATK / 3 DEF base. Walls paid 3 endurance to increase his 1-drop’s ATK by 1 in an attempt to get the stunback. Blair dropped a Burning Gaze into his KO’d pile, and Walls paid another 6 endurance to add +2 ATK. Blair played Collecting Souls from his resource row and paid 3 endurance to draw a card with Zatanna. Walls paid yet another 3 endurance to get the required +1 ATK. Blair indicated this was sufficient, and both characters stunned. Walls took advantage of the empty board and attacked back with Jacob Lee.
End of turn 3: Gabe Walls 36, Jeremy Blair 30.
Walls had no character for turn 4, but plenty of ways to use his resource points. He activated his Armory and paid 1 of them to find another Laser Watch. He then exhausted Fate’s Tower to transfer Helm of Nabu to Nightshade. The Laser Watch was equipped to Jacob Lee, but Walls had no location to exhaust this time. He played Death from Above, paying 1 resource point to use its ongoing effect and give Jacob Lee +2 ATK. Blair played Dr. Occult and formed up with both his characters in the support row.
Gabe mulled aloud the possibilities for him winning this turn, drawing a surprised look from Jeremy and a verbal drawing of attention to the still-high endurance totals. Gabe reassured him that it probably wouldn’t happen and might have to “wait till next turn.” He began his turn by declaring an attack with Jacob Lee into Dr. Occult, his 7 ATK 1-drop already equal to the 7 DEF of the 4-drop. Blair showed a power-up to force Walls to play Target Acquired. Blair then played Divination, paying 3 endurance in addition to the card’s cost to draw a card with Zatanna. He then selected Abjuration from his viewed cards. As Jeremy’s endurance total had slipped below 25, his Dr. Occult now had +2 ATK / +2 DEF, and Walls was forced to burn another Target Acquired. Jeremy played his newly-gleaned Abjuration for the cost of 5 endurance and opted not to use Zatanna again, conscious of his waning endurance total. Walls had nothing left, and his attack bounced.
Gabe then attacked with Black Thorn into Zatanna. The 2-drop now had 7 ATK thanks to the Laser Watch, Checkmate Armory, and Death from Above, so Blair reinforced Zatanna with Dr. Occult, and both characters stunned. Walls eyed Blair’s Dr. Occult and the current endurance totals, doing some quick mental arithmetic before passing with no attack from Nightshade.
End of turn 4: Gabe Walls 33, Jeremy Blair 16.
Jeremy opened turn 5 with Black Alice, while Gabe had a relatively simple recruit step for once: Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, Knight and an exhaustion of his Tower to transfer the Helm and Amulet to him. He formed up with his 13 ATK Roy in front of Nightshade and passed.
Jeremy checked his cards to make sure he had all the information he would need, and then declared an attack with Black Alice into Roy Harper. He played Magical Conduit and declared a payment of 6 endurance, then used Zatanna to draw a card. Gabe announced that he had effects to put on the chain on top of Magical Conduit. A complex series of events was to follow.
First, Roy Harper was exhausted and a resource KO’d to target Black Alice for stun. Jeremy chained The Phantom Stranger, Fallen Angel to give his Alice +2 ATK / +2 DEF, making her an 11 ATK. He then played another copy to boost her to a 13 ATK, and after this had resolved, paid half his current life to give her +3 ATK / +3 DEF. Gabe declared that he wished to chain on top of this before Alice received her bonus. He flipped Secret Checkmate HQ to give his character +2 ATK and exhausted the HQ and his Armory to give Roy a further +1 ATK. Blair showed a power-up for his character, but Walls proved it irrelevant by flipping Fate Has Spoken and losing 5 endurance to ready Arsenal, before exhausting and using him again to shoot Black Alice anew.
With no further ways to increase his character’s power, and his unresolved Magical Conduit useless on the bottom of the chain, Jeremy offered Gabe the handshake.
Gabe Walls wins!