Someday, somewhere, someone will actually play Hypnox from his hand. And then the sky will open up and thee will know thy wrath of thy Lord!
Is it just me, or does Pardic Collaborator look more than a little like Neil Forsythe? Oh, you say you don’t know what Neil looks like? Never mind then.
Aquamoeba with infinite cards in hand is one of those”combos” that R&D missed during playtesting. And just when I thought they were beginning to have a clue.
Speaking of combos, I think I’ve found a really good one: cast Wild Mongrel and then pitch Basking Rootwalla to give Mongrel +1/+1, and then – now here’s the crazy part – play Rootwalla for free! Won’t your opponent be knocked on his ass by that amazing play!
Wowzer!
I think that Sickening Dreams could be really good if put it in a deck that utilizes many Madness cards. Now, I haven’t tested that idea at all, but it sure sounds good in theory! (That doesn’t work, chief – The Rizzo, imitating The Ferrett to keep him on his toes.)
Yowzer anyway!
Lemme give you a little piece of advice: Playing Coral Net on Wild Mongrel isn’t very good. Sure, it sounds amazing in theory, but I discovered that it’s not by sheer chance, during a very long and rigid playtesting session. Instead of letting my faithful readers arduously struggle for many long hours on breaking that combo, I figured that I should tell everyone what my playtesting revealed. I know that some tech is secret, but this is tech that wants to be free. I feel that it is my honor-bound duty to help the community at-large, thus, feel free to take my results and do with them what you may.
News Flash:
Psychatog is dead!
Well, it’s dead to me at least, and we know how accurate I can be when gauging the metagame, right? What do you mean”No, you suck at gauging the metagame?”
Let’s face it, Torment has the goods to put that annoying ‘Tog right back where he belongs – in Limited.
“Chainer’s Edict is a sorcery,” says the blue mage, laughing his ass off.”Sorceries are skill testers – if you use them, then it proves you suck,” continues Johnny Islandhome. But, in this case, with this sorcery, we can forgive its misprinted timing and plop it into our decks for sheer spite and with a little malice. In an environment that is going to be filled with decks that either sport twenty creatures or one very important fellow, Chainer’s is as good as gold.
You can give me the business about how the Flashback is impossible, or you can tell me that it’s only good in Limited, but I’ll tap my two mana (okay, one mana and activate Millikin), and off one of your dudes – rather, you’ll do it for me, Mr. Target Player. You can always take comfort in the fact that you won’t have to face another opponent with Edict for the rest of the day.
Or not, since everyone with the ability to make a little black mana will be sporting four copies, with four more in the side, hoping that they don’t get deck checked. Yes, it feels that damned good to have Diabolic Edict back, even if we can only play it during our (blue mages, please leave the room for there is an offensive term upcoming)…
“Main phase.”
Sorry about the ‘Tog, by the way, but he forgot about Dre.
But why is Psychatog dead? Any ‘Tog player worth his salt will be ready for any attempt to kill him by hording a fistful of counters – thus, Edict will never resolve.
Oh wait, Edict is black. Oh, and Psychatog is black, too.
News Flash:
Psychatog is back from the dead!
Poor blue/black mages. Pity party? Sure…
1, 2, 3…aw.
1, 2, 3…aw.
1, 2, 3…aw.
Ever go through the signatures in your high school yearbook?
“UR:
2 Good
2 Be
4 Gotten”
Heh, wasn’t that determined to be lame in seventh grade?
“R/M/A”
Yeah, I’ll do that.
“AFA”
Um, if you say so, and who are you again?
“Have a great summer!”
STFU!
Heh, I said”STFU!” That’s worth a…
LOL! But not quite a ROFL! Although it was close.
Yep, I said”Blood Pet.” But why would I say such a thing? Well, it might be because I am trying to convince myself that Blood Pet is better than Duress. In a format where everyone is going to be trying out their sexy new Madness cards, I am left wondering just how good discard is going to be. Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to be chips in bag form and all of that.
Thusly…
4x Firebolt
4x Blood Pet
4x Millikin
4x Chainer’s Edict
4x Terminate
4x Pyre Zombie
4x Urza’s Rage
4x Flametongue Kavu
4x Pardic Arsonist
2x Crypt Angel
7x Swamp
5x Mountain
4x Sulfurous Springs
4x Urborg Volcano
3x Barbarian Ring
SB: 4x Duress
SB: 4x Addle
SB: 4x Blazing Specter
SB: 3x Something
Is there a creature deck in Type 2 that stands a chance against this sick-ass pile? Well, yeah.
After boarding, is there a control deck in Type 2 that stands a chance against this sick ass pile? Again, yeah.
But…Blood Pet. Why? He has two things going for him that turns a brother on and turns this mother out: 1) he’s a one-drop mana accelerant, and 2) he’s another brick in the wall that blocks and serves and is Threshold. And who in their right mind would waste removal on him – even a lowly Firebolt?
As a consolation prize, he kind of likes it when he’s facing down a Blurred Mongoose and the opponents Flametongue Kavu is sitting in hand all useless-like. He can’t be Recoiled, Repulsed, stolen or otherwise targeted, for he pretty much reads: When Blood Pet becomes the target of a spell or ability, laugh at your opponent and then pay one life and put him in your graveyard. Of course, if you can find some use for that one black mana, then wassup, Mike D, come on and get some.
Better than Duress? Perhaps. Okay, he’s not, but he is a twenty-turn clock.
News Flash:
Duress is back from the dead!
Hey, why doesn’t Wizards print creatures with power and toughness in fractions and/or decimals?
Chainer, Math Genius
Creature – Mathematics Professor Legend
1BB
2.5/1.25
B: Sacrifice Chainer, Math Genius to deal 1.5 damage to target creature or player.
“Pie are square…”
He’s a, well, twenty divided by 2.5 turn clock.
FrigginRizzo: ß-Sucks at math.
FrigginRizzo: ß-Thought this went out of style last year.
Oh, it did.
STFU!
Heh.
With fractions and/or decimals, Flametongue Kavu would not kill a creature with toughness of 4.25, but it would be oh so close! After a few expansions of fractions/decimals, Wizards could get tricky and utilize Algebra, Calculus, and perhaps a little Geometry or Trigonometry in their creature stats.
Dave, Lord of Pizza and Beer
Creature – White Trash Legend
2RB
3.33 (x – y)/4.92
When Dave, Lord of Pizza and Beer comes into play, you may have it deal 2x + y(z) damage to target opponent. If you do, Dave, Lord of Pizza and Beer becomes a hypotenuse until end of turn.
RB, Sacrifice circumference: Dave, Lord of Pizza and Beer deals 3.14/x (!) damage to target binomial.
“…I thought cornbread are square…”
Add Flashback and Threshold to this mix, and hells, I think Magic would become America’s favorite pastime! Goodbye, ESPN2, hello PBS!
For no reason…
Oscar Tan
Creature – Rakso Legend
U
1/1
You may only play Oscar Tan any time you could play an instant, since sorceries suck.
All Type Ones get +1/+1
Sacrifice a Type One, put a 1/1 Type One creature token into play.
“See, you CAN play Type 1…literally!”
Anthony Alongitog
Creature – Kitchen Table Legend
WBRGUWBGRU
99/99
During your upkeep, you may have target opponent break this card. If you do, well, then, cool.
“If ya’ smeeeeeeeeellllllllll… Oops, I work for that other wrestler!”
The Ferrett
Creature – The Ferrett
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
and one little white mana symbol (W) just to piss him off
0/1
“From Alaska to Cleveland…and this is progress?”
Tony Boydell
Artifact Creature – Something British
4
69/69 (snicker)
When Tony Boydell attacks or blocks, you may sacrifice Tony Boydell. If you do, sacrifice Tony Boydell. If you don’t, sacrifice Tony Boydell.
“The British are coming, the British are coming, oh yeah, the British are coming!”
-Danny The LOL! Boy
Pro Player
Creature – Scum-Sucking Douche Bag
6
6/6/6
As an additional cost to play Pro Player, you may cheat your mother friggin’ ass off, sign a contract with the devil, and sell your first-born to white slavers in East Timor. If you do, draw a marked card from your sideboard, insult target opponent, file false tournament reports, and a whole bunch of crap because apparently pros suck.
0, Whine a whole bunch: Get away with it. For a while.
“There is no controlling legal authority.”
-Al Gore, speaking on behalf of pro players everywhere
And I would be remiss if I didn’t include this bad boy…
Your Mom
Creature – Matriarch
1
0/1
When Your Mom comes into play, target opponent becomes s*** until end of life. Any player may say”your gay” to counter this effect.
0, Correct player that said”your gay” by putting a goddamned apostrophe where it friggin’ belongs: Gain one life.
“As usual, comments are in red…”
Speaking of such, February is Black History Month or some such. What do you have to say about that, Chuck D, leader and head militant of Public Enemy?
“It’s the shortest and coldest month…”
Can’t win for losing, can ya, Chuck? But you did wear a damned clock around your neck, so a cold, short month seems like the ultimate fashion accessory.
I took Millikin and his crew to yet another Type 2 Friday Night Magic, this time expecting it to kick some ass. I got a friggin’ bye in the first round and then lost to Jeff Emmert’s Psychafriggintog in the second. I beat a severely manascrewed Josh Holbrook in round three and don’t remember what happened after that. I think we just bypassed the T4 and drafted. Heck, it was one whole day ago – how can I be expected to remember that?
Also, I forgot my user name and password for frigginrizzo.com, and the email addy that I gave for the hosting company to contact me is a dead AOL addy, so if you are one of the one peeps that check my site and wonder why it hasn’t been updated in like, forever, there’s your answer.
At least I still have the domain name for another six months or so. Can’t update the site, but hey, that’s what you get when…Whatever. Who cares?
I went 0-2-get-a-bye at the draft following FNM, and boy, doesn’t that feel good. With a thirteenth-pick Basking Rootwalla, one would think that my deck was tight, since I was the only one drafting green. Heh on you for thinking that.
Since Torment, the latest expansion set in the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game, A Dr. Richard Garfield game, has now officially”hit the shelves,” I attended the Sneak Preview tourney at Crossroad Games, a Dr. Richard Garfield establishment, on Saturday, a Dr. Richard Garfield day of the week.
This is what I put together and I didn’t even cheat by adding a whole bunch of cards that I got last week at the real Prerelease, for I forgot to bring them. Damnit! And I wanted to get caught but confess before I was caught, so I could get banned for six months like all the cool kids.
Obsessive Search
Peek
Careful Study
Skycloud Egg
Kirtar’s Desire
Predict
Mystic Visionary
Cephalid Looter
2 Skywing Aven
Call of the Herd
Stern Judge
Dreamwinder
Balshan Collaborator
Dematerialize
Churning Eduardo
Concentrate
Centaur Chieftain (like I could not play a card with”chief” in its name)
Resilient Wanderer
Llawan, Cephalid Empress
Possessed Nomad
Mystic Zealot
Second Thoughts
7x Island
5x Plains
3x Forest
Timberland Ruins
Seafloor Debris
Forty-one cards and only seventeen lands? Well, I did have eight card drawing spells – which often gave me Threshold on turn four or five, so heh – thus I went against the grain (my grain) and went with the daily recommended allowance of land. Sometimes even I can’t fight the seether.
While I thought the deck was a total pile, I doubt that I’ll ever have more fun than I did when casting Churning Eddy and announcing”Here comes Eduardo!”
Think about it: You bounce a guy and a land and cry out”Eduardo.”
I guess you had to be there.
Round 1 was against Mike Dupre, he of”I’m very quiet in Foily Five games so I get to win” fame.
In the first game, Mike drops that 1/1 Dwarf guy and the 1/1 eat-your-graveyard guy, while I build up some love with Mongrel, Call x2 and Nomad. When I drop Overrun Man and swing, he goes from 23 to 9. A Zealot joins the mix and it’s sexy.
The second is neato: Mike actually played Hypnox from his hand. Yeah, that guy’s good when you have two flyers in your hand at the time.
Game three is Constructed vs. Limited. Mike kept a very slow hand, which of course meant that I had to go Visionary, Mongrel, Wanderer, Zealot, and finish him off with Overrun Man. ‘Twasn’t perty at all.
1 to the oh
Andrew the Answer Boy thinks he’s got the answers in round 2, and when he drops Hypnox, he kind of does. Heh, two matches in a row I actually got to see Hypnox played from the hand of a human bean. Funny.
Game two is all about flyers, and Andrew’s inability to deal with 2x Aven and a Zealot for spite.
Who splashes Mongrel, Call, and Overrun Man, and goes: Mongrel, Call, Flash Call, Overrun Man, serve for game? Well, me, ’cause I’m silly like that. Poor Answer Boy – seems I was asking him the wrong questions, which meant game, set and match for the good guy. In this case, the part of”good guy” is highly overacted by yours truly. Oh, and Eduardo made a token appearance as well.
“Eduardo.”
Two to the oh
The Jackal to the Pop to the Pop to the Jackal drops Aven Fisher and Skywing Aven, so naturally I drop L.L cool Wan and watch Pop’s floor hit the jaw. He had three blue creatures in his deck – that’ll teach him to find 66.67% (or 66.66 with a line over it to indicate infinity) of them in the first five turns.
Due to a clerical error, I was able to sneak out another win. Pop was at four, which apparently looked a little too much like a nineto him that he marked himself up to twelve after a Morbid Hunger. I was unaware of his clerical error, but had his life at seven, which of course, was the actual and factual numeral of love. The five-point difference was just enough that Pop played it a little different and thought he had another turn when I threw three dudes at his lone blocker when he was at one.
I announced that he was dead and he looked at his scoresheet, then immediately beat up a little kid that wandered a little too close to a curb. Thus, a curb sandwich was given.
No, he was not happy.
Three and oh
Round 4 was against resident”pro” Mike Emmert. The first game was all about me thinking that Sligh is a good deck in Sealed. With my dudes being dropped for what seemed like thirty or forty turns in a row, Overrun Man had plenty of Men to Overrun.
I mentioned the word”Kegel” a week or so back, and no one knew what it meant. Am I the only one who spent his formative years doing”Kegels?”
Since Mike cheated by having Think Tank in his deck, I was only able to get him to four before I succumbed to the pressure in game two. Oh, and he also dropped a turn 3 Cabal Torturer. Let’s see how bad that guy is against my deck.
Stuff that guy kills on my team:
Go look at the decklist – it’s a lot!
The third game was all about Cabal friggin’ Torturer and Think Tank. Yeah, he’s kinda lucky to pull that Torturer on turn 3 in consecutive games. Yeah, I guess he’s just lucky and really isn’t any good at Magic. I think.
Three to the wun
My round 5 opponent, Ben, asks me if I want to ID.
Should I ID, at a 16K casual-feel Preview Event, for a chance to win, say, a box of cards?
He ends game one at twenty-four life, thanks to the new echoless Radiant’s Dragoons, while I sat and stared at Hallowed Healer, Angelic Wall, Blessed Orator and a whole wall of Emboldens.
I take a few hits here and there in game two, while overextending with a ton of guys and waiting for Overrun Man. He came. He saw. He, well, cold comes correct up in this mutha huncher!
With about ten minutes left for game three, I figure I better come out da’ closet in a hurry. Mongrel, Call, Call, is effectively neutralized by Teroh’s Faithful, which he got to cast twice because he threw a friggin’ Seton’s Desire on it and I had to Dematerialize that bad boy. Yeah, I had a Second Thoughts in hand at the time, thanks for asking. Still, it would’ve made no difference, for he had a hand full of”you can’t beat me in time” in his hand, which is a good place to have it, I guess.
“Come out da’ closet” is a euphemism for”get out of the gates” or”commence beatings.” It does not mean”reveal homosexuality to the world.” But thanks for thinking that.
Three to the won to the wun
Quarterfinals vs. Jason broken deck.
Things that were in Jason’s deck:
2x Faceless Butcher
2x Petravark
Laquatus’s Champion
Cabal Patriarch
Firebolt
Fiery Temper
Acceptable Loses
And they all came to play.
It’s not too cool when a Nightmare takes some of your stuff and the only thing you can do about it is bounce said Nightmare with a stinkin’ sorcery.
The second game took a lot longer because he decided to bleed me to death with Patriarch. But I showed him – I slapped his ass with a Kirtar’s Desire. What’s that, you say? Patriarch can still use both of his insane abilities? Um, yeah, but when you get sick of dropping Eduardo and the like on the 5/5 sick ass, you do what you can to stem the bleeding. And hope you draw the Wrath that you don’t have in your deck.
Someday, I hope to cast Eduardo on Sexual Chocolate. Incidentally, every time I see said Chocolate Sex Machine in play, I must say”I invented him.” You can look it up – I did. And I don’t care what the guys in R&D say.
However, since Jason had to leave, he said”I concede to you, Rizzo” as he was walking out the door.
Hey, ain’t too proud to beg, and I’ll just think of it as a Grand Prix bye that came in round 5. Still, ’twas nice of him to hook a brother up. See, sometimes it pays to be the Emotional Tampon of Magic.
No one really wanted to play the Semifinals except Johnny Play It Out. Emmert and Answer Boy wanted to split the prizes so we could get in a draft before it got too late, and the other-to-be-determined guy could have been coerced as well. Although, since this was a sanctioned event, someone would have to be declared the winner of this shindig, which means some guys would have to take a loss for the cause of drafting with the shiny new cards.
My speech:
I’ll split if everyone concedes to me.
Who has the entire T8 scoop to them?
Well, not me. But heh anyway for trying.
Mike beat me like a drum in two straight. Yeah, he did it with turn 3 Cabal Torturer – in both games. Man, he’s really, really good at Magic!
I got a few packs for my trouble with the Tribbles and I’d really like to share with you, dear readers, every card that I opened. But I’m just a tease and won’t. So there.
I was too tired to draft, and you really and truly don’t care, nor should you.
In case you were unaware, some Torment cards are really good in Limited. But you can read all about it in my Sideboard and Magicthegathering.com and Scrye columns. Oh, wait, that’s Alongi. My bad.
Dearest Antonio,
Jesse Ventura was an awful actor, although he was okay in”Predator.” He sucked in”Abraxas,” though. And”The Running Man.” And”Master of Disguise.” But I have a ton of scripts that would be perfect for him! Call me – we’ll do lunch!
Ciao!
-Gianni Friggini Rizzollini. A.C.E, A.S.C, and a whole bunch of acronyms that no one cares about
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a list of Jesse’s films? More proof that when you know what you’re looking for on the net, all you can find is porn. Not that I’m complaining…
Jeez! All I ever do is write about Magic!
“Eduardo.”
Tee hee.
Heh.
John Friggin’ Rizzo