‘Ink Master’ Season 6 Spoilers: Who Was Eliminated In Episode 9? [RECAP]

Ready for another shake-up on “Ink Master”? After Big Ceeze’s shocking elimination last week, the Season 6 competition is down to 10 artists. But by the end of episode 9, only nine will remain in the running for the $100,000 grand prize and the acclaimed title of “Ink Master.” However, fans shouldn’t be worried about the tough judges. Things will get tense in the house as the contestants fight for the No. 1 spot.

“Ink Master” viewers can’t forget that Tyler defended Marisa’s spot in the house after Big Ceeze tried to throw her under the bus during the episode 8 elimination ceremony. Although Big Ceeze is now gone, Tyler still can’t forgive and forget.

“He can go f--- himself,” he says of the former contestant.

But while Marisa might be happy with Tyler defending her, the other contestants see their relationship for what it really is – a disaster waiting to happen.

The whole group is playing with fire during the episode 9 flash challenge – literally. Judges Dave Navarro, Chris Nunez and Oliver Peck reveal that this week the focus is on saturation. The artists must work in teams of two and use fire to create a “masterpiece” using six panels of wood. Since Craig won the elimination challenge last week, he has the opportunity to assign the skulls this week. He decides to strategically hand them out to “level the playing field.”

Duffy and Kruseman succeed in including saturation in the challenge and receive praise from the judges for their artwork. Tyler and Katy create an awesome skull, but nail more of a contrast rather than saturation. Matt and Erik bite off a little more than they can chew and it shows in their piece. Two of their six panels are incomplete, putting them at the bottom of the challenge. Meanwhile, Craig and Chris thought think that they have the challenge in the bag … until the judges tell them the saturation in it is “weak.” Finally, Dave and Marisa, the underdogs in the competition, manage to impress the judges with the level of saturation they were able to include.

The judges ultimately decide that Marisa and Dave are the winners of the flash challenge, granting them the power to assign tattoos during the elimination challenge. With Dave being a part of Chris’ alliance, it looks like Craig’s plan to shake things up backfired. Now Chris has the power, and he convinces Dave and Marisa to target Craig and Matt out of retaliation for throwing them in the pit last week.

So, what is the elimination tattoo? The “Ink Master” artists must tattoo the God of the Sea, Neptune, in six hours. Guest judge and tattoo artist Justin Weatherholtz joins Navarro, Nunez and Peck to judge the contestants on their saturation.

Dave and Marisa strategically dole out the canvases, giving Matt a difficult client who doesn’t have a lot of experience with getting inked. The longest she’s ever sat is an hour, and she refuses to budge on getting the tattoo on her ribs. On top of that, she tells Matt that she doesn’t want the tattoo to feature Neptune’s signature trident.

Craig also has a difficult human canvas, but he manages to get his client to move the tattoo from her back to her shoulder. The only issue is that she’s only ever sat for 30 minutes and now has to sit through a six hour tattoo.

Elsewhere, Duffy is struggling because she’s away from her daughter on her first birthday. And Tyler is upset that his girl, Marisa, and friend, Dave, gave him a black and grey tattoo when he specializes in color.

Unfortunately it looks like everyone dropped the ball on the elimination challenge. The judges rip EVERYONE apart. Although Dave’s tattoo has good saturation, the design is too “cut and paste.” Craig’s piece is like a grey blob, and the judges threaten that it’s a “home goer” unless someone else created something worse. The angle Matt put Neptune on in his design makes it look as if the God is going to the bathroom. Katy gets criticized because the water looks disjointed. Duffy’s Neptune hand looks “like a bag of utters.” Kruseman’s face on his tattoo looks like the “Cowardly Lion” and the hands look like sausage fingers.

The judges finally praise Chris for a tattoo with movement and saturation, but then Tyler’s piece gets ripped apart for being “weird.” Things don’t get any better for Erik, who the judges feel delivered an “unfinished” tattoo.

Last but not least is Marisa. Dave Navarro tells her that Neptune looks more like the Statue of Liberty rather than the God of the Sea. But the big issue is that she missed the mark on the saturation challenge.

The top two tattoos of the day come down to Chris and Erik. Although Navarro votes for Erik, the other three judges throw their support behind Chris, making him the winner of episode 9. As for the worst tattoos of the day? The human canvas jury determines that Craig had the worst tattoo for the day, but the judges also nominate Marisa, Duffy, Tyler and Matt.

Craig’s design was solid, however the execution was poor. Meanwhile the opposite can be said for Matt, who has great saturation, but a bad design choice. That leaves Duffy, Tyler and Marisa. Duffy cries about it being a hard week with her baby turning one years old, and the judges give her a pass and tell her to get her head in the game.

Then it comes to Tyler. He starts going off about how he doesn’t “put s---“ on people when he’s at home and that he doesn’t do black and grey. “I would have never came onto this,” he says.

His attitude completely turns off Nunez, who decides right then and there that his vote is to eliminate Tyler. Peck, on the other hand, sees potential in Tyler and tells him that with an attitude change he can continue on. Marisa whispers to her beau to agree to change his attitude and apologize. When Tyler does, Peck decides to send Marisa packing … and the other judges agree. After defending Tyler, Marisa becomes the latest contestant to be knocked out of the running for “Ink Master.”