I want you to be good at Magic, just like me. While I understand you can never be as fantastic at this game as I am, this week is all about helping you to achieve those dreams, if they involve being tremendously awesome at Magic, but still nowhere as ridiculously broken as me. Each day, a lesson will be imparted in which you will learn to break things. I am your Aesop, so prick up your ears, pay strict attention, and you shall be delivered.
Today I will break the art of Negativity Preparation wide open, just like, well, no one, since I think I invented the term (but certainly not the sentiment), though I won’t be so egotistical… I’ll be worse. Let the ideas contained within be your guide to understanding…everything.
In response to Monday’s “Breaking and Entering,” Anusien wrote in the forums:
“So you think Ichorid is all hot in Legacy and Vintage…
What do you do if Zombie Infestation gets countered?
Or Engineered Plague: Horror?”
My immediate notion was that this is someone who plays either or both Vintage and Legacy on a regular basis. The guarded tone of the message led me to believe that Anusien takes both formats seriously, and most likely felt I was a) poking where I didn’t belong, or b) invading his or her space, which equals c) they both mean the same thing.
“So you think Ichorid is all hot in Legacy and Vintage…”
I’m not sure, actually, though I tend to think that it might be more competitive in Legacy than in Degenerate Land. Like most combo-ish decks that (mostly) ignore the opponent and do their own thing, given half a chance, Friggorid can punish those who come unprepared, or even keep a questionable hand. By “questionable,” I mean: an initial seven cards that are not numerous solutions or ways to search for solutions.
Sure, if my opponent opens with a turn 1 Tormod’s Crypt or Planar Void, the momentum appears to have more than swung his way (but I’d much rather see Crypt than Void). If he drops Leyline of the Void before the game even starts, again, I don’t gotta like it. But what am I supposed to do, concede? If the bad guy draws his opening hand and flashes a Crypt, should I say “you win gg wanna trade or spend some time in the restroom together?”
The similar question, “What do you do if Zombie Infestation gets countered?” can be answered precisely the same as any deck that seeks to resolve a spell. What do they do if one of their spells gets countered? Give up? Rush from the venue crying over milk that wasn’t even spilt because the opponent tapped two Islands and said “go away son, ya’ bother me?”
Nevertheless, it’s a valid question. What do you do when a crucial spell is rebuffed? You can slump, sigh, and decide right then that you were born under a bad sign because you aren’t smart enough to play more counters than the other guy…or you can say “okay,” and continue on with the game.
“Engineered Plague: Horror,” is another matter entirely, and after some thought, I realize that I’d much rather see someone side in four of these than either The Brothers Void or Crypt. Taking away Ichorid is one thing, but do you have another for “Ghoul?” How about “Zombie,” “Imp,” “Atog,” “Human Warrior,” or “Skeleton Troll?”
Further, let’s say you got all four into play and took out Ashen Ghoul and Zombies. Maybe you also drew all four Swords, which removed all my Psychatogs. Oh, and you cracked Crypt four times, which hit a brother hard. At this point, I’m liable to be down to Stinky, Putrid Imp and Golgari Grave-Troll as my win conditions. No, actually, you cast Eradicate on Grave-Troll, so all I have left are a couple Imps. Sorry, you just drew Cranial Extraction… Then Stroked me for the rest of my pathetic excuse for a library. gg.
1. Careful Study: no, and cast a Crypt.
2. Infestation: no, Plague: Horror.
3. ‘Tog: no, another Crypt.
4. Ghoul: okay, but Swords.
5. Infestation: okay, Crypt when you make tokens, ‘Keg them away, Erase Infestation.
6. Deep Analysis: sure, Plagiarize.
7. Flashback Analysis: Crypt in response.
8. Play Coliseum when I’m completely out of gas: you drew another Crypt anyway.
I guess if that happens I should probably concede. Or keep trying to resolve stuff until I either run out of stuff or take your win condition to the face. Still, I wonder how prevalent are the decks that answer everything; even if your sixty cards are chock fulla answers, don’t you still have to present a question or two?
I was only half-serious about the viability of Friggorid in Vintage. Hell, I know it would have a hard time in (real) Legacy, let alone the format of forty-minute turns. Yet, the other half of me is also half-serious. The deck is not completely helpless, and starting on turn 1 can ask a series of questions that demand an immediate (or shortly thereafter) answer at the risk of falling very far behind. How far is determined by many factors, but the answers better have “remove from the game” in the text box.
The Control players may be the authority, but there are a great number who take perverse pleasure (or maybe they’re trying to keep them honest) in questioning that authority. This is true in virtually every format, and regardless of the exact shade of Blue per the average decklist.
For every Control player who asks “What do you do if X is countered?” I reply with “What do you do if it isn’t?” It seems to me that you, Mr. Blue, should be a little more concerned, for if you can’t answer X, then what do you do when I present you with Y and Z? Then again, perhaps you do answer X; ready for Y, Z and alphabet soup including three more instances of X? I’m certain I have more questions than you have answers, so away we go…
Maybe I’ll get lucky, which brings me to a sticking point:
The way I read it, every Magic player is awesome when they win, and the most unfortunate sap when they lose. You’ve heard the stories, read the reports, and perhaps contributed to both. Tough luck pal, bad beat dude, etc – you could not have possibly been outplayed.
I’m getting worse at Magic every day. I can see it when I hold three dudes and two removal spells in my hand and stare and stare and stare and have no clue what to do. After considerable time, I see myself making a play that is most likely the worst under any conditions, let alone the current game state. I suspect the play to be putrid almost immediately, and then actually go through with it, knowing full well that somehow, this seems like the least terrible play I could make.
When you play against me, you don’t need Mindslaver; I’m it. Save your mana, I’ll beat me much better than you would, and with oh so much more flair!
I can’t be the only one who makes a series of plays so ridiculous that any attempt at justification should result in an immediate two-year ban for threatening to knock Magic back to the days of “Force of Nature 4 life!” These are just the plays that I’m conscious of. I’m good enough to know I’m terrible enough to not notice the others.
Flores was rumored, at one point, to have made an average of one mistake per turn. Well, I’m here to tell you that my mistakes themselves average one mistake per turn.
Thus, if you are unfortunate enough to face me and come out with an ell, this is the one time where you may whine about luck – my good and your bad. However, in most other matches you screwed up and aren’t good enough to realize where. Or your opponent is simply better and you were outplayed.
Of course, the reason you lost is that you played against a lucksack muckafurguson who topdecked like a champ. Coincidentally, this is the only way Magic players ever lose a poker pot as well: he was against my-stone-cold-nuts-to-one on the riv, but he mized.
Okay, that point is now unstuck. Suck it up and move on… Wait, don’t. You could always blame it on Kamigawa, just like Milli Vanilli said, and the block of legendary chance. Since those guys are still in Standard…
Your ire can extend way beyond the block that (apparently) no one likes and only has about four “good” legends. I imagine it is luck when your lucky opponent (lucksack!) luckily draws his Proper Name, Pretentious Title With Or Without Adjective legend, while your legends are busy impersonating cards 57-60 at the bottom of your library. After berating your lucksack opponent, why not consider the source:
Rosewater.
He is to blame for bad directions to the PTQ, deck checks, the aroma of one hundred adolescents in closed quarters, every manascrew, mulligan to five, and peeled land when you needed anything else, and, well, lucksack opponents in general. And of course, the complete lack of Force of Will when I cast turn 1 Zombie Infestation.
Or don’t blame anyone, especially the guy who thinks he has more questions than you have answers. I’d rather be the one asking, even if there are times when the answer is “no, nope, nah, stop pestering me, child, counter that and go sit in time out.” Vintage is the home of the best control spells of all time, and Legacy isn’t too far behind, so that is a distinct possibility.
This may or may not mean that if one seeks to question authority, one would be advised to stick Gandhi in the same cell as MLK, Jr., so they can draft the best possible Letter From a Birmingham Jail. The idea those fellas advanced was that tenacity in responding to “no, no, no!” with “are you sure, are you sure, are you sure?” was much better than “um, okay, guess I’ll scoop and go home.” Apparently, they never played Vintage.
What does one do when confronted with adversity, such as multiple instances of the phrase “oh no you just didn’t – counter that nonsense!” Well, there’s the old “tuck my tail and run” idea, which is extraordinarily simple and very effective, at least in the context of tucking your tail and running.
Another option, although underutilized in tournament play as of this writing, is “I’ll sue you!” Sometimes, it’s good to be a victim, and anyone whose target spell was countered should receive reparations for both physical harm and mental anguish. If Wizards didn’t want you to sue permission-laden opponents, they wouldn’t employ judges at every sanctioned event, now would they? They even have uniforms! Always remember: the judges, like the police, are there to help, and you should get in a car with them if they ask, especially if they offer candy…or a gavel…or handcuffs.
Alternatively, one could observe the adversity, in whatever form it has taken (in this case, an evil Blue mage who was picked on in high school), and concoct a sinister plan that encompasses vengeance personified, and more importantly, a match win and good tiebreakers so you can draw the last two rounds.
“What do you do when I counter your spell?” can be addressed in any of the above ways (and some I failed to mention because they involve sex), but the answer that shows the most promise is not turning away from the boulder and going home (tuck my tail), or going around the barrier (I’d like you to meet my attorney), but the setting-in-motion of the aforementioned sinister plan: standing face to face with that obstacle and head-butting right through that sumbitch.
You may or may not incur a headache as the result of banging your dome against a solid wall of concrete permission, but if you take enough Prozac Bayer, you quite possibly will enjoy the eventual rewards of renewed character, inner peace, emotional strength and stability, not to mention two to three inches guaranteed.
If Anusian and I ever bump uglies at a tournament, he with his permission and I with my request for spell resolution, I know what path I will take. He may answer each of my questions, or he may simply offer his own solutions, but at the end of the match, regardless of the outcome, there will one result that I am certain of:
I will have a headache.
John Friggin’ Rizzo
…
I have given everything I can, and yet, I find it in myself to give even more. Hence, a postscript:
I hope you enjoyed this rare glimpse (yet five glimpses, go figure) into a mind of utter madness genius and tremendous wretchedness and loneliness Magic skill. I know you learned much and will take these lessons to heart and apply them diligently. Thanks to Star City’s devotion to educating the less-than-good-at-Magic (um, you), you were able to discover many secrets that have heretofore been hidden from the public eye, which is, like, why “furtive glances” and “clandestine meetings” were invented.
For instance, you learned how to take a mere shell of an Extended deck, and replace three cards to break a format that has been in existence since the first booster was cracked. I offer apologies to Vintage players who have spent untold thousands of dollars to build and perfect their favorite decks. If you would have asked me first, you wouldn’t be stuck with awful cards (the P10) that are now completely irrelevant to any metagame on the planet.
Additionally, elementary deckbuilding skills were front and center for an entire day, which allowed you to peer into the abyss of a truly broken mind: Mine. This will serve you well when you examine my next format-destroying creation. I realize you will not be able to improve upon it, but perhaps some of the subtlety won’t be lost, and you’ll be able to feign understanding.
Not to be outdone, as if that could happen, you were shown how to evaluate a new set, even before it’s actual release date, in order to get a jump on the competition. From this newly acquired skill set, you will be able to break formats wide-open before they even exist, which will likely lead to Prerelease Day bannings. This will allow you to trade for the “best” cards on the cheap and pawn them on e-Bay before anyone is the wiser.
While the above nuggets of pure, unadulterated love would ordinarily be enough for one man to advance unto others, I went above and beyond when I deciphered the ancient art of foretelling the ultimate in chaos: the fifty-fifty. May you never find yourself caught in a conundrum without a coin. If you follow my advice that will never happen.
Secret Factoid available only to Premium members: “heads” comes up 52.6% of the time!
And then, when you thought your mind was about to burst from the sheer volume of fresh technology, I unleashed a sure-fire method of beating permission. This alone will permit (lol) you to completely dominate any player with the audacity to use Islands. Well, at least until Blue cards are banned due to being completely unplayable.
I realize my arrogance humility pisses you right the hell off brings tears to your eyes, and makes you want to punch me it very well should. As for myself, I’m so good at Magic my brain should be dissected and studied man enough to talk down to you all when I am able to barely tolerate any of you who are not good at Magic like me take wisdom from others, and you all were incessantly annoying kind enough to Idolize me! impart your own tidbits; misinformation lessons which I will ignore immediately carry for the rest of my life. There were three wastes of my time crucial articles that you, the unwashed and funky masses the students, taught The Master! the master:
1) When Craig suggests 800-1000 words per Daily, give him 3,000 to piss him off. [Always a pleasure, John. – Craig]
2) I really am good at Magic.
3) The following may or may not be my new closing:
Wuv,
Muffin
By the way, if you are not aware that I am not really a tremendous and conceited prick but very friendly, humble, and perhaps a little shy in real life, consider this both an admission of such and an apology for misleading and/or antagonizing you.
To the camp, it was a fierce and loyal protector. To the sentry’s youngest daughter, it would always be her “Wuv Muffin.”
-Should have been the flavor text on me
Have a nice day.
You bastards.