chronically employed

-during the top 8 of the TCG masters division, chilean player fernando cifuentes was running a gimmick deck that consisted exclusively of four iron thorns ex and a whole ton of control-focused trainer cards in a strategy that either completely shuts down opponents or shits the bed entirely

-through skillful play and some good luck, fernando made it through 2 days in a tournament with over 1100 players to get to the quarterfinals

-fernando lost 2-0 to ian robb, who was running regidrago vstar (widely considered one of the best decks in the current format)

-in an overexuberant victory celebration, ian did what can only be described as a jacking-off gesture, on a stream with tens of thousands of viewers run by a company with very firm player conduct expectations

-the judges determined that this warranted a penalty of game loss, but for some reason, rather than applying it to ian’s next game in the semifinals, they applied it to the one he had just won in the top 8

-(it should be noted that the prize money for making top 8 is $15k while top 4 is $20k, so this jerking gesture cost ian robb $5,000)

-nearly an hour after fernando came to terms with his loss and the end of an impressive run, he was told that he was to get back on stream because he’s now playing in the semifinals due to winning by default

-the player he was up against in the semifinals was playing a deck (miraidon) that happens to get shut down hard by iron thorns’s gimmick, so fernando wins the semifinals

-said player, jesse parker, had notably had an undefeated run throughout the whole tournament up to this point, and likely would have continued that streak had his intended semifinal opponent not gotten a game loss penalty for miming a lewd act on stream

-meanwhile, the other semifinal winner is japan’s seinosuke shiokawa, running a deck (roaring moon) that players had largely written off as underwhelming months ago

-the grand finals are on the following day, so saturday evening was abuzz with a lot of people baffled by the absurdity of the situation

-come sunday afternoon, the grand finals are set to begin, with fernando cifuentes running iron thorns and seinosuke shiokawa running roaring moon

-it should be noted here that the roaring moon deck doesn’t rely very much on abilities, so iron thorns’s gimmick has very little effect - this is basically an even matchup

-fernando wins the first game of the set, and seinosuke wins the second

-the third and final game of the set is a bonafide cheek-clencher, with both players reaching a state where a single KO will win the game, but fernando manages to clinch it at the last minute

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and of course, the irreplaceable

Neil,