{Chris’ Note: While I am on my yearly court-mandated sabbatical, young Billy Horowitz has graciously agreed to write my column for me. As soon as The Man says it’s okay, I’ll be back. Oh, and, by the way, remember, you heard it first from me that Gwen Stefani is pregnant.}
Hi! My name’s Billy Horowitz, and I’m eleven, and I’ve been playing Magic for six years. Sometimes, I get to play with my brother Tommy and Chris, but mostly they just punch me and tell me to shut up. A few days ago, my brother gave me four copies of this really cool guy called Grozoth who’s really huge. He’s a 9/9! He’s bigger than Craw Wurm! I like him a lot. I saw him in this box that Tommy had, and I asked him about them, and Tommy said they were really cheap and crummy, and I could have them if I’d leave him alone. I get a lot of free cards that way.
Like I said, I’ve been playing for six years, and I’m eleven now, so I don’t need a lot of help figuring out what cards do. I think the Transmute thing is really neat and cool ’cause I can just pay some mana and discard my Transmute card and get other cards. Usually, I do that with smaller guys like Dimir House Guard who lets me go get my Scourge of Numai. It can even get Mortivore, which is really cool because I know there’s at least one creature card in my graveyard when I do that.
Grozoth is really expensive, though. It costs nine mana. That’s its converted mana cost which is just the whole amount you pay to cast it. There’s not a whole lot of other Magic cards that cost nine mana. The ones that I have are Kuro, Pitlord, Plague Wind, Nullstone Gargoyle, and The Unspeakable. At first, I was going to just play a mono-Blue deck, but, golly gee, I almost never got to cast the Grozoth or The Unspeakable or anything. Nine is a lot of mana!
Then, I remembered the Zombifies and Vigor Mortis cards that I had. Those are so cool! They really help with getting big creatures into play when you couldn’t normally cast them. Like, you can Transmute the Grozoth on turn three, or you can even cast Compulsive Research and you can discard him to that, and, then, on your next turn: Zombify!
Of course, that made me a little sad because I had to play Blue and Black, and that means having to use some expensive lands. I know there’s no way Mom’s gonna give me enough money for Watery Graves, that’s for sure, and Tommy won’t let me borrow his, and Chris doesn’t have any. I have a couple of Underground Rivers and four Waterveil Caverns, though. I could maybe even use a couple Dimir Aqueducts.
At first, I was playing with just four Zombifies, but then some mean guy cast Cranial Extraction on me. That made me really, really sad, like when Lindsay Lohan did Herbie the Love Bug, because I didn’t have enough mana to cast such big creatures. I looked through my brother’s cards and saw Vigor Mortis. I wondered if I could use three of those along with three Zombifies so that no mean people could take all of my ways to get the guys into play. The only thing I worried about was the Green thing on the card. So, I asked Tommy if I could use Vigor Mortis without having Green in my deck, and he called me an ignoramus, and said, "of course, you can, you dork, you just don’t get any bonus, gah." Then, I said, "Mom! Tommy called me an ignoramus," and Mom yelled to Tommy, "apologize to your little brother, or I’ll start charging you rent for the basement!" So, Tommy said, "I’m sorry," and then, he whispered, "that you’re an ignoramus." He thinks he’s so funny.
Of course, I was having a tough time just playing with Grozoth and hoping to draw it. Once I had it, it was really cool because I could Transmute a Grozoth for a Grozoth and then Transmute that one for another one, and soon my whole discard pile was full of Grozoth. It was really tough getting that first Grozoth before I died, though. But I put in a lot of stuff that draws cards and lets me discard them like Ideas Unbound and Compulsive Research.
So, anyway, here’s the deck I’ve been playing with Grozoth. It’s called Ewwww, Groz(oth).
Creatures (9)
Lands (25)
Spells (27)
Before I played against my brother and Chris, I showed them the deck, and Tommy asked, "Why do you only have three Mana Leaks, doofus?" I thought it was a good idea since I kept getting one late in the game when my opponent could just pay the extra three mana, so I made it into a Rewind. Then, I kept just making a lot of cards into ones that I only had three of in the deck because it just seemed to work better that way and because I hate Cranial Extraction. It worked pretty well when I used my brother’s online account to practice, anyway.
Oh, and another thing that they asked about was why I used Eerie Procession. I had been using Consuming Vortex, which is really cool because you can Splice it, but sometimes I really, really needed to send back something that wasn’t a creature, and, if all I had was Consuming Vortex, it really suxor-ed. Chris thought I might want to try Boomerang since it’s an instant, but I told him that I had, and I liked the Eerie Procession because I could bring it back with The Unspeakable.
So, I asked them if they wanted to play against my deck, and my brother was like "Sure thing, terd face. You’re not gonna beat me with Grozoth. I got skills." But Chris said, "Be careful. That thing doesn’t look too bad. It might cause you some problems," which made my brother mad, and he told Chris, "Shut up, you fat lard."
My brother was playing this Green and Red deck that he’d seen somewhere with burn spells to clear the way for his big creatures, but my guys were bigger, and it’s really hard to burn them out. I got to go first, and on my second turn I played Ideas Unbound and put Grozoth, The Unspeakable, and an extra land into my discard pile. My brother played a Goblin Raider on his second turn, and I didn’t do anything so that I had the lands available for Mana Leak or Hinder if I needed it which I did because my brother tried to cast Iwamori of the Open Fist. Tommy was pretty mad, and Chris laughed so hard that milk came out of his nose, and I don’t even think he was drinking milk, which is pretty gross when you think about it.
On my fourth, I played Zombify on my The Unspeakable. I was pretty sacred because I had no mana, but all Tommy could do was cast two creatures on his turn, so my The Unspeakable made it my turn okay. I drew an Eerie Procession, sent back one of Tommy’s guys, attacked with my The Unspeakable, brought back the Eerier Procession, and sent back Tommy’s other guy. Boy, oh boy, was he steamed. Chris started laughing again, and Tommy said, "You think you can beat him, mister professional Magic writer? Go to it!" Which, I guess means I won ’cause Tommy quit.
At first, Chris played this mono-White deck that was just superfast and that I had no way to beat, but we agreed that Hideous Laughter in my sideboard would really, really help in that matchup. Of course, Tommy was all like, "Ha, you lost that one, you little weasel!" But Chris told him that it was a hard match-up because of the fact that my deck didn’t do anything against fast, small creatures. "Hideous Laughter will really change this. And he can add Plague Wind and grab it with the Grozoth." So, I didn’t feel too bad.
Then, Chris played a Black and Red deck. It was really tough because he had a lot of Black spells that could kill creatures. That’s when he suggested that I try to get Nullstone Gargoyle into play because with him in play, it would take two of those spells to kill anyone. So, I Transmuted a Grozoth to get the Gargoyle, and then the next turn I used Compulsive Research to put the Gargoyle in the discard pile. I waited until I could use Zombify and still have mana for Mana Leak. That’s neat: mana for Mana Leak mana for Mana Leak mana for Mana Leak. So, on his turn he cast Rend Flesh and then another Rend Flesh. I cast Mana Leak on the second one. Later in the game I wanted to be able to use Vigor Mortis on The Unspeakable, but it would be countered if I did. So, I cast Eerie Procession on my Nullstone Gargoyle, then I cast Vigor Mortis. On my next turn, I was able to attack and bring back the Procession to use later. I won that one, too.
So, this is my new favorite deck. It uses big, stupid creatures and can actually beat my brother and Chris.
I hope you like it and have fun with it. I know that I did.
Billy