Welcome to something new in the casual play corner. We’ve all had our moment of glory in a great multiplayer game one time or another; I thought it would be a good idea to get those stories on the net, so people can have a laugh at the bad cards that were played and actually won. The idea will be that we’ll have a different writer telling their story every week – I hope this works out and we’ll be able to keep this going for a long time. (Me, too! In fact, it’s such a great idea that I’ll personally give $5 in StarCity credit to the person Gis chooses each week. Well, except for that Alongi guy… I refuse to give money to someone who works for Jesse Ventura – The Ferrett)
My story is from a game played some three-odd years ago, of which I can’t remember a lot except for the end. I don’t know who played what – only some specific cards. Let’s start with some info about the rules and players:
Rules:
1) Free-For-All. Attack anyone (split attacks are legal), spells reach everyone.
2) Chaos Magic. We used the chaos table available somewhere on the net to get an effect each round.
3) Rare Ante. Each player has three rare cards available) 1 will be the prize for the player winning the whole battle (last man standing) the other two will be given out when certain conditions are met. You have to make up the conditions yourself (and keep them secret); you are not eligible to meet one of your own conditions and get your own card. If you want examples, the first person to take three turns in a row gets rare #2; the first person to have all five basic land types out gets rare #3.
4) Type I. Proxies allowed. Three non-legal cards in deck (more on this later).
Players:
Jaap: Collects land. The non-legal card in his deck which stood out the most (both literally and in my mind) was an oversized City of Brass. That surely was one way to interpret non-legal.
Jan Willem: A rogue deckbuilder, his decks usually work quite well. He played with New Year’s Eve, an enchantment with three counters on it. During each upkeep remove a counter , if you can’t sacrifice <this> and each player shuffles all his or her permanents, graveyard and hand back into his or her library and draws seven cards (yes this is a card with fading, sort of). This was a card from Inquest, which he had glued on a spare common.
Anton: Jaap’s flatmate. Only plays once every couple of months when we play a group game. Used to play a bit more. Added three Unglued cards to his deck as non-legal cards. We had a lot of laughs when he played Gerrymandering (Remove all lands from play and shuffle them together. Randomly deal to each player one land card for each land he or she had before. Each player puts those lands into play under his or her control, untapped).
Me: I can’t remember anything about my deck apart from the cards I won with.
The Game:
Our idea of multiplayer is probably a bit different. For us, it’s having fun. Usually what happens is that we’ll play one long game (three-plus hours), and then everyone dies in a single turn. We always pick on the strongest person and leave the ones close to dying alone. On this particular evening, we had been going at it for about four hours when I played Black Market. A lot of fun cards are quite expensive, mana-wise; with a lot of people, many creatures will die. This would get me the mana I needed. I passed my turn. In the next three turns, roughly thirty creatures died. So they were openly wondering what I was going to do with thirty black mana. I gave them an evil grin; this is when they got worried.
So in my upkeep, Anton wanted to use his Goblin Festival; he had six mana available, and I was at four life. Jaap and Jan Willem both had at least four mana left.
(For those of you left in confusion, here’s the text of Goblin Festival:
Goblin Festival
1R
Enchantment
Urza’s Destiny Rare
2: Goblin Festival deals 1 damage to target creature or player. Flip a coin. If you lose the flip, choose one of your opponents. That player gains control of Goblin Festival
(Meaning that if Anton lost the flip, it would pass to an opponent, who would then use their mana to wipe Gis out – The Ferrett)
He taps six mana and activates the Festival three times:
First damage, flip…. He wins.
Second damage, flip… He wins.
Third damage, flip… He wins!
So I live. I draw my card (with a bigger and more evil grin on my face), add 30 black to my pool, tap all my lands (except for two Island) and announce:
The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast Customer Service
XYZRR, Sorcery, Unglued Uncommon
The Ultimate Nightmare of Wizards of the Coast Customer Service deals X damage to each of Y target creatures and Z target players.
X = 26 (One player still had that much life)
Y= 7 (all the creatures on the board)
Z = 3 (Everyone but me)
No counters. No Bolt you in response. I WIN!
Well I hope you enjoyed this little story. If you have any comments, please send them to [email protected].
Next week, I will hand the e-Pen over to casual player #1 Anthony Alongi, who is bound to have a better (or weirder) story then this one.
Remember it’s just a game – have fun!
Gis