This round we’ve got a match at the top tables. Matt Oldaker is having an unbelievable performance—he’s still undefeated going into round 13! He and opponent Ryan Jones are friends, so they were chatting a bit while they shuffled their decks. Matt was telling a story about how TDC had a little side bet going on: Whoever ate the most endurance with Galactus, The Maker would win a free dinner courtesy of the rest of the team. Gabe Walls wanted it pretty badly and thought he had it when he didn’t attack for the entire game and munched a whopping 25 endurance from his opponent’s total. (Gabe and Galactus have a few things in common, it would seem.) However, he was outdone by his teammate Jason Hager, who managed to team attack his opponent—who was at 60—with Galactus and three other characters. Jason then proceeded to play Press the Attack on Galactus, activated him for 30, played another Press, and activated Galactus for 15. Finally, he played a third Press and activated for 8, leaving his opponent at 7 endurance. The team attack on his opponent’s 7-drop was enough to take him down to 0 and get Jason a nice steak dinner.
After the story we got down to business.
Matt won the roll, took evens, and kept his opening hand. Ryan mulliganed and kicked things off with Luna Maximoff. Matt played “the other” 1-drop, Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend, revealing a Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth, which went to the top of his deck. Ryan was a little bit jealous and said something about wishing he had a Lockjaw, too.
Turn 2 began with Matt playing Franklin and passing. Ryan played his own Lockjaw, who apparently showed up a little late to the party. Still, turn 2 Lockjaw is better than no Lockjaw. Ryan revealed Crystal, Elementelle, which went on top of his deck. Both players attacked each other directly since there were no visible characters.
On turn 3 Ryan played Wolverine, Skrunucklehead in his visible area. Matt played Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth for free, discarding Invisible Woman, Flame On! to pay its cost and Supremor to draw two cards. He then played Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Soul Searcher (KO’ing his other Frankie in the process) to draw another card at the beginning of combat.
Ryan attacked Frankie with Wolverine, and he flipped and activated Blue Area of the Moon in an attempt to not stun. Matt moved her to the hidden area with Franklin after the attack became legal and then flipped Himalayan Enclave to give her +1 DEF. Frankie Raye escaped the stun, and Ryan sent the rest of his characters in. Matt then team attacked Wolverine with Franklin Richards and Lockjaw. Ryan chose to stun Franklin, and the players moved to the recovery phase.
Matt had the initiative on turn 4 and recruited Ethan Edwards. Ryan terraformed Himalayan Enclave and recruited Nahrees.
Ethan attacked Wolverine first. “9/7? That’s pretty big,” Ryan said. He played Extended Family to team-up Skrull and Inhumans and discarded a card to add a cosmic counter to Wolverine in an attempt to stun Ethan back. The attempt was successful; both characters became stunned. The rest of Matt’s team attacked Ryan directly.
Then it was Ryan’s turn. He played The Uni-Power on Nahrees and attacked Frankie Raye. “That’s what I was afraid of,” said Matt as he turned Frankie face down and marked the endurance loss. Ryan then attacked Matt directly with Lockjaw and bounced Luna to try to recover Wolverine, but Matt used The Kyln to keep him stunned and unable to recover.
On turn 5 Ryan recruited Paibok and passed. Matt thought for a minute before recruiting Karnak. “He is pretty beefy,” Ryan said. Matt then flipped and activated Arsenal of Doom and liked what he saw, so he left it on top of his deck. He then played Final Decree and replaced it to put the card he saw with the Arsenal into his row. As he put it down, I caught a peek and recognized that it was Blue Area of the Moon.
Ryan played Intergalactic Summit from his row, drawing a card. He then team attacked with Nahrees and Paibok directly. Matt was either unwilling or unable to move a character to the visible area and took the breakthrough. He then attacked Paibok with Karnak, played Power Struggle on his Karnak, and then played It’s Slobberin’ Time!. “That’s pretty good,” Ryan said as he adjusted his endurance total to 4. He then paid 2 to use Nahrees so that Karnak would not ready. Matt wasn’t too mad, though, as he still got to put a cosmic counter on him.
Turn 6 saw Matt play Super Genius from his resource row, drawing a card and discarding Crystal, Elementelle. He then played Clumsy Foulup; Mar-Vell ◊ Captain Marvel, Soldier of the Empire; and Ronan the Accuser, Starforce out of nowhere. Ryan was pretty surprised. “You have press in that deck?” he asked. “I didn’t expect that! I might have a response to that last guy, though.” Matt just chuckled a bit. Ryan then flipped The Substructure. Matt passed, and Ryan recruited Dinu, whom he immediately moved to his hidden area with the ability.
Matt sent Ronan to attack Wolverine, leaving the path clear for everyone else. The attack brought Ryan to -11. Ryan still had Nahrees and Dinu in his hidden area, and he thought for a while about whether he could deal Matt enough breakthrough to take him out. He activated the Substructure. Nahrees attacked Clumsy, bringing Matt to 6. Ryan then sent Dinu into Mar-Vell and played Interstellar Offensive for +5 ATK!
Matt: “I do believe that ties it up.”
Ryan: “Looks that way.”
This being the case, they went to turn 7, and Ryan started digging with the Substructure, seeing what his options would be for the last turn. He terraformed The Kyln, played Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc, and passed with Wolverine up front. Matt flipped The Great Refuge with 7 face-up resources but only found Mr. Fantastic, Illuminati, which he recruited. Too bad his Invisible Woman was in the KO’d pile already. He then played another copy of Franklin Richards—replacing his first one—to give his Clumsy Foulup +1 ATK / +1 DEF for the turn. Wolverine ran over Clumsy with some help from the Blue Area. The rest of the team then attacked Matt for 21 more, bringing him to -51!
“Alright let’s see what we can do,” Matt thought out loud as he planned his revenge.
Matt started his attacks by sending Ethan Edwards at Wolverine successfully. He then sent Mr. Fantastic at Firelord and activated Karnak, making Firelord’s DEF 0. Of course, it stunned, and it dealt Ryan a ton of breakthrough. Matt sent the rest of his characters at Ryan. When the dust settled, Ryan was at -55! What a game!
Oldaker -51, Jones -55
Matt Oldaker defeats Ryan Jones and remains undefeated! Matt is sitting pretty at 13-0 and looks to be unstoppable this weekend.