Pendulum Swing towards Lane: 1
Lane cards in hand: 7
Felix cards in hand: 5
Lane drew two cards and watched yet another Subject Position open on his board. He activated The Lonely Repairman’s effect, retrieving Fatal Stagehand from the Waste. But, that wasn’t the next card he played.
Cannibal Course - Resource
Swing: 0
Effect: Discard cards from your hand to the Waste. Gain 1 Swing for every card discarded.
Lane took five cards from his hand, picking carefully. He gently let go of, Fatal Stagehand, Canyon Ogre Scout, Renewed Emperor, Electrified Trapdoor and Memory Fairy, Ardem to put them into the Waste and his Swing rose up to 6.
“What is he cooking?” Harvey asked. Tai didn’t know, but he couldn’t deny he was curious too. He noticed, with some embarrassment, that he’d started leaning forward in his seat too, watching the game with surprising intent.
Lead the Charge - Resource
Swing: 1
Effect: Summon your ruler to a Subject Position, ignoring its Swing cost. This counts as summoning them into the game as if they’re a new subject.
“He reset the card’s effect!” Harvey said.
Lane activated The Lonely Repairman’s effect to retrieve the Fatal Stagehand from the Waste again. Its Swing cost had been reduced to nothing in one turn.
Lane played the card next.
Fatal Stagehand - Power: 1000
Swing: 2 → 0
EffectL Reduce this card’s original attack by half after making an attack.
He then revealed the face-down card on the board to be Dream Invader.
Dream Invader - Power: 100
Swing: 1 → 0
Effect: This card can be played face-down in the resource zone and summoned on your opponent’s turn to block an attack. If it survives or is summoned normally, move it to a subject position.
“Three new monsters and he’s still got 5 Swing,” Tai whispered.
Felix was squirming in his chair. “That’s not exactly going to get over all of my bugs. And you’ve exposed your ruler. Subjects can’t block attacks directed at subjects. All I need to do is declare one attack next turn and you lose.”
Lane only responded by playing another card.
Squire under Pisces - Power: 400
Swing: 2
Effect: If this card is on the field with at least two other cards with “Squire Under” in their names, you can send this card to the Waste to summon “Knight Under Pisces” from your deck or hand. “Knight Under Pisces” costs 1 Swing.
ClockWork Prototype - Power: 300
Swing: 1
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Effect: This card can be played as a resource to increase the Power of another subject with “ClockWork” in its name by 300 Power continuously.
Five subjects on the board. Lane pulled The Lonely Repairman off the board and added it to his hand. Then he went went to his deck. From it, he summoned his new ruler for free.
Ruler: Proud Inventor - Power: 1500
Swing: 8
Effect: This card can be played as a subject. If this card is played as a Ruler, shuffle all of the cards in Subject Positions back into the deck and replace them with subjects of one Swing cost higher than their original cost. Do not pay their Swing costs. Shuffle the deck.
Lane pulled the four cards off of their spots and replaced them.
Canyon Ogre Bard - Power: 700 → 800
Swing: 3
Effect: This card gains 100 Power for each “Canyon Ogre” subject in the Waste.
Garrison Warrior - Power: 400
Swing: 2
Effect: This card gains 400 Power on the opponent’s turn if it doesn’t make an attack. This card’s Power returns to its original Power at the start of your turn.
Clockwork Ursine - Power: 900
Swing: 3
Effect: None
Famished Djinn - Power: 500
Swing: 2
Effect: This card gains 200 power if it destroys another subject in battle.
Lane replayed his original ruler from his hand to the last open subject position.
Ruler: The Lonely Repairmen - Power: 100
Swing: 1
Effect: This card can be played as a subject. Once per turn, a subject can be returned from the Waste to the hand. If a card is returned to the hand this way, its Swing is reduced by one.
Lane selected the Renewed Emperor to return from the Waste and added the card to his hand.
It was his turn to start attacking.
Canyon Ogre Bard - 800 attacked Honeyed Insectoid Supervisor - 600 destroying the monster and dropping the attack buff on the rest of Felix’s Honeyed Insectoids.
Famished Djinn - 500 attacked Honeyed Insectoid Secretary - 400 destroying the subject and raising Djinn’s Power to 700.
Clockwork Ursine - 900 attacked Honeyed Insectoid Salarybee - 400 destroying the second to last of Felix’s subjects.
Garrison Warrior - 400 attacked Honeyed Insectoid Salarybee - 400 and both subjects were destroyed.
Felix’s entire board had been wiped and only the Controller remained.
Proud Inventor - 1500 attacked Felix’s ruler, Honeyed Insectoid Controller - 800. Felix drew one of his prize cards.
In the position opened up by Garrison Warrior’s destruction, Lane played a card to end his turn.
Clockwork Android - 600
Swing: 2
Effect: None
Pendulum Swing towards Felix: 1
Lane cards in hand: 1
Felix cards in hand: 6
Felix drew the two cards just to see what came up. He wasn’t surprised. With all of the duplicates in his deck, there was no miracle draw that could rescue the state of his game now. He’d failed to crush his opponent before Proud Inventor entered the game and now he was way, way too behind to win. He could attack with Controller and summon another monster, but they’d both be blown away once Lane attacked again.
Ursine, Bard and Inventor could all attack Controller once Lane removed whatever Felix put in their way. In the last moments of consideration, Felix tried to identify when he’d lost and decided there were two moments.
The first was when he let his Supervisor get destroyed by carelessly ordering it to attack when safer options would’ve exposed Lane’ trap. The second was when he was so scared by that experience, he’d ordered a combined attack with Controller against the Repairman ruler. If he’d forced Lane to draw another prize card then, his next turn would’ve won him the game.
Felix could only be mad with himself and he was. He grabbed his deck and flipped it over as if to expose its underbelly, the signal for surrender. Lane looked more surprised than anybody. Harvey hollered a singular cheer from her game table. Felix was so fixated on gathering up his defeated cards, that he didn’t see his opponent extending a handshake. Felix tried to remember the last time someone had done that in one of his matches.
“Well played,” Felix said.
Lane nodded. “G-” he swallowed, trying again to speak. “Good game,” he managed to whisper. Felix couldn’t argue that.