The weeks just seem to be flying by here at Ask Ken. The e-mails keep coming and I keep answering them. Some of you may have noticed some older e-mails going up here. That’s right, I save them all, and just because it doesn’t go up right away doesn’t mean it won’t get answered, it just means I don’t really know the answer and it’ll take me a bit longer to make up something plausible. Anyway this is Ask Ken, and I’m your host, ken Krouner. I just had a great idea, let’s open a little Reader Mail! Hey!
Today’s letter comes to us from Stephen King. The master of horror writes:
At GP Columbus, during round 5, I was playing this guy who clearly just wasn’t that good. He had 0 byes, he lost game one largely in part to him forgetting that Blinkmoth Nexus required a mana to pump itself (actually, I think you were sitting right there laughing about it), and we were in the middle of game 3. He had out a Leonin Bola that was negating my Sword of Light and Shadow, and had Betrayaled my Pentavus. Now, the only way I’m winning this game is if I can get back Pentavus with the Sword, and his only flyer is white. So I say”attack”, he taps a random myr, then I use it for mana and put the Sword on my Arcbound Stinger. He screams”judge” so loud that Mark Zajdner almost has a heart attack, and the judge of course rules in my favor. Pentavus wins the game.
Now, was this a baggy thing to do? He clearly wasn’t very good, didn’t realize I could do it, and was extremely pissed that I did for the rest of the match. I don’t really feel bad about it, since he should know the rules at a GP in the x-0 bracket, but I’m just curious about what others might think.
Sincerely,
Stephen King
Well Spooks McClooks, I was in fact sitting next to you. I actually realized after the match something else about that infamous Blinkmoth Nexus block. It was a gang block on a creature with Sword of Light and Shadow attached and one of the blocking creatures was a Leonin Den-Guard! Sadly, I didn’t realize this until sometime long after the match.
As for the second part of this little tale, I am not really sure what to make of it. My competitive side tells me this joker got what he deserved, but my moral compass takes issue with it. I think it was pretty clear what he intended to do. In my social circles the phrase”inside your attack step before you attack…” has become assumed, with the much more rare”before your attack step” becoming necessary to be said explicitly. I don’t think it was that he was unaware that he could tap inside your attack, but rather was just sloppy.
So now the question becomes should you capitalize on his sloppiness. My answer is that it is up to you. I personally won’t judge you if you choose to do it the way you did here in the future. I personally would probably not do it, but I have lost much of my competitive drive.
So no, Mr. King, I do not think you were a bag.
The source on dilemmas, draft and moral,
KK
That’s all the time we have for today. Join us tomorrow when we look into the future of one of the greats of the game who is bidding us farewell. G’night Everybody!