Alex Ruck, from New Jersey, represents Team Oblivion. At age 17, he’s a student that works at Six Flags, and is the proud owner of a 5-1 record here today, but he has no idea what he is up against.

Readers who were with us for the live coverage of the US National Championships are familiar with Vincent Tundo, the innovative New York duelist who rocked Nats with his Life Equalizer / Blasting the Ruins deck. Now, after a short stint with a Self-Destruct Button deck, he is back with a brand new build that is packing some new surprises.

“I want your sleeves,” remarked Tuno, eyeing Ruck’s pink card sleeves. “They’d look so good on this mat.”  He had a blank white one, and, apparently, shared an affinity for the color pink like Carlos Santiago and Paul Levitin.

Tundo won the opening roll, and set a spell or trap to start the duel. Ruck fired back with Confiscation, revealing Royal Magical Library, Spell Reproduction, A Feather of the Phoenix, and two more spells: “Oh no, not this deck!” He discarded Royal Magical Library, played Graceful Charity, bumped back his discarded Magical Merchant with his discarded Night Assailant, and set a card to each zone. He ended, Tundo passed, and Ruck flip summoned Magical Merchant. He got Heavy Storm with its effect, set a monster, and attacked with Merchant for 200.

In his end phase, Tundo flipped Pigeonholing Books of Spell and used its effect to stack the top of his deck. He set a card on his turn and passed again. Ruck flip summoned Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, drew a card, summoned Tsukuyomi, flipped down his Merchant, got Premature Burial, and used it to bring up Zaborg the Thunder Monarch that Merchant had discarded. He swung with everything, set a spell or trap, and bounced Tsukuyomi to end his turn.

Tundo drew and scooped. “I’ve got a bunch of garbage in my hand” he announced, flopping two Convulsion of Nature, Giant Trunade, Pigeonholing Books of Spell, A Feather of the Phoenix . . . nothing that could help him.

“That Con really screwed you over,” remarked Ruck.

“I was holding back,” he answered.

“I don’t really see how that deck works. It’s the Reversal Quiz deck, right?”

“Noooo . . .” said Tundo. He revealed his side deck, which had Reversal Quiz in it. It indicated that he wasn’t main decking the card.

He opened the second duel with Royal Magical Library, and activated Magical Mallet. Here comes that Tundo lovin’! He played Upstart Goblin, activated Archfiend’s Oath, and took a card with Royal Magical Library. He then activated Pigeonholing Books of Spell, used Archfiend’s Oath to take Level Limit – Area B, and activated it. Toon World gave his Library a third token; he drew a card, and ended.

Smashing Ground destroyed the Library, and Ruck attacked with Sangan. He set one spell or trap and passed. Tundo drew for his turn, activated Pigeonholing Books of Spell, used Oath to grab Graceful Charity, and activated it to pitch Blasting the Ruins and Reload. He summoned another Royal Magical Library and played Array of Revealing Light, but Book of Moon turned his Library face down to cut off the Tundo-tricks for at least one turn. Array resolved and Tundo thought about what he’d declare: he chose Fairy, and passed.

Ruck summoned Breaker the Magical Warrior, set a spell or trap, and used Breaker’s token to destroy Archfiend’s Oath. He ended his turn, Tundo flip summoned Royal Magical Library; it went to defense for Level Limit – Area B, and he bounced his field with Giant Trunade. He played Magical Mallet, gave his Library a second token, and took his new hand of four cards. “Are you kidding me?” he asked, looking at his hand. He’d reveal later that he’d drawn into three Toon Table of Contents.

He activated Toon Table of Contents, searched his deck for Toon World, took a card with Library, and shook his head. He activated Premature Burial, brought back the first Library, and would be drawing double from here on out!

He played Toon World, activated A Feather of the Phoenix (pitching Toon Table of Contents) to bring back Giant Trunade, and drew for one Library. The other was at two tokens. He activated Trunade, drew for Library, activated Toon World, activated Spell Reproduction tossing Premature Burial, and brought back Archfiend’s Oath to his hand. It was his last card.

He activated it, drew for Library, and activated the card he drew. Pigeonholing! He used it to stack his deck and ensure that he’d make the call with Archfiend’s Oath! He called Convulsion of Nature, took it from the top of his deck, and played Convulsion.

“Truuunaaade . . .” He peaked at the card as he flipped his deck. The bottom card was Trunade! He drew it with a Library, activated Trunade, and then dropped Archfiend’s Oath. Convulsion let him see his top card, so he called Array of Revealing Light with the Oath, and Ruck had had enough: he conceded the duel and the match moved to game 3!

“Wow . . .” said Tundo. “I didn’t think I was going to win that one, actually.”

Ruck set to side decking, while Tundo discussed his deck openly. He didn’t seem to mind that he was giving away info. Ruck set a card to each zone to open, and play passed to Tundo.

Tundo activated a pair of Upstart Goblin to begin his entry in the duel. He then played Terraforming, searching out Array of Revealing Light: he was thinning the deck of cards he didn’t want to draw. He set a card, activated Card Destruction, and summoned Royal Magical Library. He’d fed Ruck Confiscation, but he also lost his Library to Torrential Tribute: Ruck lost Magical Merchant in the process, but the pressure was on Tundo. With three cards in hand he needed to pull this out big.

He activated Convulsion of Nature and then played Graceful Charity. He was digging for Premature Burial or Royal Magical Library, and he had one copy of each. He couldn’t find it, and passed. Confiscation revealed Spell Reproduction and Trunade next turn. Ruck set two cards to his back row and passed. His only monsters were two Cyber Dragons. Tundo passed back, Ruck set a monster, Tundo passed, Ruck tributed his set Tsukuyomi for Cyber Dragon, and attacked.

Tundo played Trunade, but Solemn Judgment stopped it. That was killer: Ruck had inadvertently cut off Tundo’s ability to activate Life Equalizer, and it appeared as if he had no way of winning at this point.

He activated Archfiend’s Oath anyways, took Pigeonholing Books of Spell, and passed. Ruck summoned Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, attacked with both monsters, and Tundo was up. It was 2000 to 4500, and Tundo needed to pull out a win, or a big blocker, this turn. He set a spell or trap, activated Reload, and hoped. Ruck was one turn away from victory.

Tundo took three cards, and drew into Royal Magical Library! He summoned it, but Book of Moon turned it face down! Tundo flipped Archfiend’s Oath, took another Oath, and used it to get Life Equalizer. He played Toon Table of Contents, searched through the remaining copies in his deck, and used Magical Mallet. He used Mallet once more after that, this time for two cards. He got A Feather of the Phoenix and Life Equalizer — the dead Equalizer just kept coming back to haunt him. He pitched both, looked at his graveyard and scooped. There was nothing he could do.

I couldn’t understand why he’d really continued playing. Spell Reproduction and A Feather of the Phoenix five times on Upstart Goblin to boost his opponent into range of the Equalizer? It seemed outlandish, and it was. Tundo revealed what he was digging for: this version of the deck ran two copies of Blasting the Ruins, and if he could’ve gotten to both he would have scored the win. An interesting variation from the build he ran at Nationals.

Alex Ruck scores a huge win over Vincent Tundo, practically knocking Tundo out of the tournament without pre-existing knowledge of the deck he was facing. An impressive accomplishment.