Ben Bleiweiss and Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar (Look, Jay! No puns!) have been doing a stellar set of blogs on StarCityGames.com. (Alliteration, I love thee.) I thought I’d try one, too. But I have nowhere near the discipline that these two guys do. So, I’m just trying this for a week. I’ll keep my rolling log (heh) here and then send it on to Ted”Our Esteemed Editor” Knutson like a regular piece. Let’s see how it goes.
Wednesday, July 14th, 2004:
I guess we’re supposed to start these things by giving you some background about us. I was born a baby. I grew up. I went to Tulane University, like Ben. Unlike Ben, because I went from 1984 through 1988, I didn’t get to see much basketball. Well, I did get to see the final, scandal-ridden season, the one in which players were accused of shaving points. The one that made President Kelly shut down the program. Because of that, I shifted my basketball allegiance to my best friend’s school, Duke University. (Ridicule me if you’d like. I’m not a frontrunner. My Red Sox fanaticism should prove that. It’s just that all of my other friends didn’t care about their schools’ basketball programs. Phil was the only real hoops fan, so Blue Devils it was.)
After graduation with a BS in Electrical Engineering, I was very, very bored. I have a bad habit of being good at things that I don’t like (like Electrical Engineering) and not being very good at things that I do like (like Magic). [Maybe that goes hand-in-hand with the Red Sox bit. – Knut] I quit that, and went to law school. I was good at that, and I liked it. Only one problem. I was ethical.
Q: What do you call an ethical lawyer?
A: Unemployed.
Flounder, flounder, flounder. In the Winter of 1998, a friend bought me a starter pack of Tempest cards. I had no idea what this was. I liked the art, though. Vhati il-Dal simply rocked. He showed me the basics of the game. I wasn’t impressed. Until he said these special little words:”And you can change your deck any way you want to.”
Sproing! I was hooked. I love cards. I had a collection of 150,000 baseball cards before I sold them to buy a brand new car (the first Acura in our town, no less). I love games. A card game that I could customize and collect. Wow.
My brother, Jonathan, his friend (and now mine) Jason, and John, the guy who hooked us all and who is now Jason’s brother-in-law, started playing. A lot. Friday was date night. Saturday was Magic night.
After a few months, in the Spring of 1999, we heard that an acquaintance of ours, one Ziggy McMillan, had a card store in which you could actually play Magic Tournaments! What a concept! We were sure that we would rock. We’d been honing our decks. I had a mono-Red land destruction deck. Jonathan had a Blue and Black Shadow deck. Jason had a mono-Green deck. John played Goblins.
We got blown out of the water. The other players’ decks were blazingly fast. And there were cards we had never heard of like Cursed Scroll. There were cards we couldn’t do anything about like Morphling.
Still, I was hooked. The reason for that was actually quite simple. I met some very nice and helpful folks that day. They had no problem, after clobbering us 2-0, helping us with our decks. Unfortunately, most of their suggestions involved buying hundreds of dollars worth of cards. Of course, they suggested trading for some. It turned out that we newbies had nothing that anyone wanted.
Then, I met Karl and Stacey Allen
Thursday, July 15th, 2004:
Karl and I spent a lot of today pondering an idea that I was sent by a fairly famous player. At least I think it was. I guess I need to qualify this in a few respects. I have no way of telling that it was actually from this person. I get a lot – I mean, a lot – of e-mails from people claiming that they’re someone else. For all I know, this was from someone trying to sully that guy’s good name.
On the other hand, if it really was from him, well, he knows who he was. Thanks!
Anyway, the idea was: could you win with a deck that had fifty-six lands and four Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]? His theory was simple. Mulligan until you get a Pulse in your hand. With fifty-six lands, you are almost guaranteed to get a land per turn.
Of course, that’s just stupid. You’re playing a game where you’re hoping that your opponent damages you and doesn’t have counter Magic or a ton of other stuff.”Magma Jet myself for two,” would, obviously, be bad.
We worked on it anyway. How about four Serum Powders instead of four of the lands? That would help keep your hand full. You probably also need some quick burn to handle Disciple of the Vault. Electrostatic Bolt would be good.
Yes, we really spend our time on this stuff.
You see, one of the things that impressed me about Karl and Stacey (other than being great people), was that they appreciated the creative aspects of the game. I have never heard either one of them simply shrug off an idea with”That stinks.” They’re good at teaching the game. They won’t just say”That stinks.” They’ll explain why it stinks. In the Spring of 1999, that was invaluable to me.
At that time, a lot of people would pick apart my decks and say,”Lose this, that, and the other. They stink. You want hem, haw, and gee instead.” I’d look at the cards, blink, nod my head, and say,”okay.” I had no idea why those were good ideas. I didn’t see why they were any better than what I had.
Karl and Stacey would explain why they thought a certain card was better. They also understood my monetary restrictions.
And, man, are they good. Karl was Tennessee State champ in 2000. Stacey’s even better. She’s played on The Pro Tour.
“If Stacey’s so good,” you’re wondering,”why do I only hear about ideas that you and Karl bat around?” Well, Stacey doesn’t have a job where she’s got her e-mail on all the time. In fact, she chases two-year-old James around the house all day. She gets to her e-mail like once a week.
Funny story about James. It was March 16th, 2002. The three of us were playing in a local, Saturday tourney. Stacey was about eight months pregnant at the time. She was busy whipping the boys all day long. She dropped, though, because she was having back pains. She and I watched Karl play the first round or two of the Top 8. Then, we went to dinner. Wonderful dinner. Ruby Tuesdays. I got quesadillas and the waitress’s phone number. Karl had a burger. Stacey had Cajun shrimp and a baby.
Yeah, those weren’t back pains. They were labor pains. She had James late that night. St. Patrick’s Day, 2002.
You don’t think women are tougher than men? Try going 4-2 while you’re working a kidney stone.
Anyway, both Karl’s job and mine keep our e-mail on all the time. It’s not like IM-ing or a phone call, but we bat a lot of ideas around. The”Mulligan to Pulse” deck is one of them.
Of course, we’re sure it won’t work. If we make a deck like that, it will probably get changed around so much that it’ll just end up being Big Red or Little Red or something like that. We’re driven, though. We’re constantly driven by this thought:
Q: What if we really did create a deck that was new and worked?
A: Fame, fortune, and, since we’re both married now, more fame (not babes).
Where do we stand at the end of today on Mulligan to Pulse? Pretty much we’ve decided that it’s a cute idea. We’ll test it. We just don’t expect any results that will justify spending more than a few games of testing.
Of course, we could be wrong.
Earlier tonight, we played a faux Mirrodin-Darksteel-Fifth Dawn draft. I use the phrase”faux” because there are no prizes when we play this version and you don’t get to leave with the cards since all of the packs belong to one person. We get a more honest draft (i.e. no rare drafters), and I got to keep all the cards. Sadly, I still have not pulled a Chrome Mox or Oblivion Stone from any Mirrodin packs.
As usual, I won one and lost one. I am so even Steven, it’s pathetic. I keep forgetting how little true creature removal there is in this block so playing a Bringer isn’t too tough. In other words, drafting big, beefy critters is A Good Thing. I need to do that more. I need to draft more, too.
Friday, July 16th, 2004:
My thoughts on Magic Online are shifting a bit. My brother is in the Navy. For his final posting, he got Iceland. Since he is in base security, he is a land-based sailor. He got MTGO to be able to play with us back in the States.
Okay, I’ll admit that there are some really nice benefits of MTGO. Some of which include playing Magic with my brother who is 7,700 miles away. In anticipation of this, I bought him a set of four of each common from Onslaught and Legions. I figured it would be up to him to fill out his collection. Fill it out, he did.
One thing you need to know about my brother is that he’s a charmer. I’m sure that he could convince the Queen of England to,”you know, just let me bunk here for the night. I’ll be gone by morning. Promise.” Next day, he’d have his own wing in Buckingham Palace.
Apparently, he let one of the guys from whom he bought a set of four Scourge commons that he was locked away at the top of the world serving in the Navy. The guy let him have a ton of uncommons and a couple of rares.
So, I get home from my Friday Night Magic fiasco. (See last week’s piece.) I fire up the ol’ PC, log on, and there’s my brother challenging me to a duel. How could I resist?
I chose my cheap Elf deck that I call Cheap Elf Deck 01. Hey, you try coming up with cute names for every deck you build.
We meet up. He trash talks. I trash talk. He drops a Swamp and a Carrion Feeder. I drop a Forest and a Birchlore Rangers. He follows with Unholy Grotto and a . . .
“Whassup, mah brizzle? Unholy Grotto?”
“Yeah, the guy who sold me the Scourge cards gave me some other stuff, too, since I’m in the Navy.”
Really, it wasn’t pretty. The only saving grace was that the guy hadn’t also given him Rotlung Reanimator and Oblivion Stone.
Saturday, July 17th, 2004:
The plan had been to get up early and play some multi-player MTGO with my brother and our friend Jason. When I got on at 7:15 AM, neither one was on. I played a game against a Ravager Affinity deck using my all-common Zombie deck called Cheap Zombie Deck 03. Believe it or not, I rolled him. With Echoing Decay, Festering Goblin, and Consume Spirit in the maindeck, Disciple of the Vault doesn’t do a lot of his tricks. That means combat is pretty much their only way to win. Of course, combat with a Ravager deck isn’t all that fun. Reaping the Graves gets back a ton of creature cards against Ravager, though. What follows is a not uncommon, mid-game turn:
Him: Plays Welding Jar.
Him: Plays Thoughtcast.
Him: Plays Arcbound Ravager.
Romeo: Plays Reaping the Graves.
Him:”WTF? Who plays with that?”
Romeo:”Poor slobs like me who can’t afford good cards.”
Yeah, that’s four blockers I get back. I can either hold out until the very large Consume Spirit shows up, or I keep flying over with my Death’s Head Buzzard. Thanks to Dark Banishing, Ornithopters blocking weren’t a problem, either.
So, at 7:35 AM, Luanne mentions that, since neither Jonathan nor Jason is online, we could start hitting garage sales.
Yee-haw! I love garage sales. Honestly, I do. Antique stores? I could do without them. People who sell stuff in antique stores think whatever they have that’s old and/or dirty is worth a mint. Garage sales are a different story. People sometimes don’t know what they have. They look at it as if you’re paying them to haul away their garbage.
The first one was a bust. It was in the most expensive neighborhood in town, and they had nothing but crap. The next one was a whole lot better. We found a frosted crystal vase for a dollar and a plush doll of Professor Hinkle, the guy who wants his hat back from Frosty the Snowman. You remember him, right?”Busy. Busy. Busy!” Fitty cent we paid. Cool beans.
The next one was a huge, thirteen-family one. We found a Yankees World Series pillow (that’s how much I love my Mom) for another fitty cent and a pair of those huge Hulk hands from last Summer for only two bucks. Then we were tired and went home. Total cost for the trip: $4. Haul: Hulk hands; frosted vase; Prof. Hinkle plush; Yankees pillow. Excellent.
Of course, it would have been nice to have found a shoebox full of Magic cards for a buck or three, but not a bad trip.
After we got back, Luanne was bushed. So, she took a nap. I worked on Blow Me Away some more, playing some more test games against Ravager Affinity. I won four of five. Okay, so last night was just a fluke. The deck wins thirteen of every sixteen games against Affinity. I just happened to lose two of the three to the same deck in the same match. C’est la vie. Now, I was pooped, too. So, I joined her for a nap. [Mmm, naps. – Knut]
That night, after she had gone to bed, I played some more MTGO. I played with the Elves some more. It’s funny how well they’re doing now. Everyone likes playing with their new cards, so Goblins are nowhere to be found in the Casual Decks room. Elves rock, you know, when no one’s got any direct damage stuff.
Sunday, July 18th, 2004:
Sunday is for grocery shopping, planting trees, taking stuff back to Home Depot. It’s also for playing more Magic Online! Sometimes, you even meet great people.
A guy named Kirby offered to give me a bunch of cards just because he liked my writing. I was flattered, but I felt guilty. I had nothing to give him. He just asked me to write more about MTGO and to pay it forward.”If you see a homeless guy on the street, give him a buck.” I said I’d give him a sandwich, instead, something I used to do in New Orleans. I haven’t done that much back in Knoxville because, to be honest, I haven’t run into many homeless people here. It’s not that we don’t have any. It’s just that they don’t get to this side of town. In New Orleans, I saw homeless folks all the time. That was because I spent a lot of time downtown and in the French Quarter.
Anyway, a hearty”Thank you!” to Kirby. Sometime in the future, I’ll be writing about a deck I built around some of the cards he gave me.
Did I mention that Kirby said that he’d been a fan of mine since I was writing for 7Towers.net? That was over three years ago. Man, that takes intestinal fortitude. I still remember the first piece I ever wrote. It was about a deck called Ants in the Pants for the delicious Saber Ants that the deck used. The whole deck revolved around Wave of Reckoning. I kept feeling that there had to be a way to make a deck in which none of your creatures died to a Wave (i.e. their toughness was great than their power). I tried things like Spidersilk Armor, which also added a neat flyer-blocking ability. Karl suggested we just go with creatures whose toughness was already greater than their power.
Along the way, we found that the thing just wrecked Fires of Yavimaya decks. I went 6-5 at 2001 Regionals with it, not losing to Fires all day. The deck, simply by its design, also happened to beat Blue Skies. If you were playing back then, you know that, if you could beat those two decks, you’d have a pretty good day. Had I not made one incredibly bonehead sideboarding mistake at about 1:00 AM and had I not also allowed an opponent to play Submerge for free three times in five turns without me having a Forest on board, I would have been 8-3. (It wasn’t until after the match that I realized that he couldn’t play Submerge for free. Yes, I had gotten several Green creatures out, but I had done so thanks to Elfhame Palace and Brushland. No Forests in sight. Later, I found out that this, of course, turned out to be a not uncommon experience while Submerge was legal. I don’t think the guy was cheating. We were just playing at a healthy clip. If you see several Green creatures, there must be a Forest, right?)
I wanted the world to know that Karl had invented this deck, I wanted him to get credit. He had written a couple of pieces for 7Towers.net, so I submitted an article. They liked it. People wrote to me telling me they liked it. And 7Towers asked me back.
That’s right, it’s all their fault.
Monday, July 19th, 2004:
It was an awful day at work. I hate my job. I know. A lot of people say that. A lot of people mean it. I’d venture that most folks, when they say they hate their job, really mean”I wish I didn’t have to work and could just sit at home watching kung fu movies.” Me, I truly loathe my job. I gave up the glamorous life of a lawyer, what with worrying about going to jail and Hell both, for a nice, steady, forty-hour-a-week job. The only problem is that it’s a job counseling people on insurance. In other words, my job is to get yelled at by people because they screw up. They get a DUI and their policy gets cancelled. They forget to pay their insurance (again), they have a claim, but their insurance has lapsed.
Somehow, this is all my fault.
I must have bought the guy a drink, put car keys into his hand, and led him out to his car. Or I hid his checkbook and made sure that his bill never got to him (again).
Mondays are the worst. People get letters saying that their policy is being cancelled on Friday or Saturday, and they have all weekend to stew about it and plan their bile-filled attacks on whoever is unlucky enough to answer the phone. About eighty times a day, that’s me.
So, why do I stay here? Well, for one, I like the freedom. They only want us here forty hours per week. That’s it. Put in your eight and go home. I’d had enough of fifty and sixty hour weeks with nothing but promises of future advances. Being with family and friends is more important. It’s great to be able to say,”Yes, I’ll be free on Saturday,” or”We can definitely make it on Labor Day.”
Given that, the salary is very good. In five years, I haven’t been able to find a job that only requires forty hours and pays this much. The jobs are either forty hours and pay a lot less, or pay a lot more but require more time away from family. I guess Travelers knows how hard it is to get people who can stomach being yelled at on the phone. So, they pay accordingly.
I’ve had several jobs that I actually liked. I loved running retail music, comic book, and sports card stores. The hours were awful, though, and the pay not much better. Engineering was soul-draining and boring but paid well. Funny how the jobs you like the most tend not to pay very much. I’ve found that to be true until you get to upper management. Then, you’re basically getting paid to do nothing. (This doesn’t count for people who run their own business. Pete is entitled to all of the Jaguars and houseboats he can afford. Even the one in Miami that I’m not supposed to know about.)
I’m talking about The Senior Vice-President in Charge of Product Placement in Adult Films at ACMECo. No one should get paid $185,000 a year simply to tell other people to do a job that they’re already doing. And I don’t want to hear any bull puckey about”We make tough decisions.” No you don’t. You make easy decisions based on other persons’ work and data. Decisions that, when given that aforementioned work and data, usually make themselves.”Sir, we can do this and make a bazillion dollars, or we can do this and lose a bazillion dollars. What should we do?””Hmmm . . . that’s a tough decision, Henderson, the kind that I get paid the big bucks to make. I’ll need to take the company jet to the company’s Colorado Springs retreat and think about this for a week or three.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one for whom Mondays blow. Therefore, our regular testing night is Monday night. Helps us unwind. After work, I stopped by the house, kissed the wife, and picked up my cards.
Karl was quite distressed to find out how badly Blow Me Away did at Friday Night Magic. Actually, he didn’t seem all that upset. Of course, he wasn’t the one who lost. He chalked up the Ravager Affinity loss to”One of Those Things,” and let it go. The loss to the Black-Red deck, well, until we test it, he won’t know what to think. Or so he says. Personally, knowing him, his mind is racing with possibilities and permutations.
The first thing I did was face off Blow Me Away against Joe’s Tooth and Nail deck. Joe is the fiancé of the young woman whose T&N deck I beat on Friday night. I think I may have left her name out of the report. It’s Kerri. She’s an excellent player. She always has fun. She always smiles. She just always seems to face me when my deck is doing well against nothing but hers.
Before sideboarding, of course, Joe’s T&N deck ripped Blow Me Away. That was expected. What wasn’t expected was how awesome Tel-Jilad Chosen was even in that matchup. The funny Mephidross Vampire–Triskelion tricks end with the Chosen. Still, before sideboarding, Blow Me Away only won one of four.
I gave up my seat to Karl so that he could test another of our ideas. I don’t know how it went because I was watching Charles and his Ravager deck take on Jonathan and his Big Red deck. It seemed like Ravager was winning that consistently. I think. I wasn’t really paying that close of attention. Charles had an old Maxim or Stuff or FHM sitting around with Gina Gershon on the cover. Wow. And she’s forty-two. Yummy. [Seconded. – Knut, who seems to like older womens these days]
Tooth and Nail continues to look tough. Yeah, I know that’s no newsflash. I just find it so entertaining to watch because everyone has their own creatures that they like in there. Since they get fetched and not cast (usually), it doesn’t matter what they are. Other MD5 decks had better start packing land destruction, Grab the Reins, countermagic, or all three.
Oh, also, Wizards should ban Eternal Witness.
I’m just saying.
Tuesday, July 20th, 2004:
I wish I had great Pro Tour and Grand Prix stories like the ones that Ted and Ben and Mike and every other writer for StarCityGames.com have. Me, I’ve only played in two Pro Tour Qualifiers, winning a total of two matches. I’ve never had the time or money to travel to watch a Pro Tour. I’ve never met any famous Magic players, although I have gotten a lot of e-mails from people claiming to be famous Magic players. I told my best Magic story up above (the one about Stacey playing through labor pains).
Maybe I should say that the one about Stacey playing through labor pains is the best story I have from a sanctioned tourney. I have a lot of stories from late nights of casual, multi-player Magic. Many involve alcohol. More than a few involve women. None can be repeated on this web site.
I guess I’ll just mention that my brother was on MTGO tonight. He was, of course, instrumental in a few of those stories. Tonight, he played his Zombie deck again while I played a cheap White Weenie Equipment deck.
By the way, have I mentioned that my brother doesn’t find Halle Berry to be attractive? Yeah, I don’t believe it, either. He says the same thing about Jennifer Lopez. Personally, I think he’s just a contrarian. If everyone’s gonna say how hot a woman is, he’ll disagree just so that he can be different. (Of course, he swears, to the point of that vein popping out near his temple, that he really and truly doesn’t find either of them attractive. As Drew Carey once said,”I call ‘bullsh**’!”)
Speaking of the latest Catwoman, how hard do you think it was to convince a movie studio to give up money for that flick. Tough sell, huh?”Okay, I have an idea for a movie. We’re puttin’ Halle Berry in a very revealing leather outfit. I need a hundred-twenty-million bucks.””Sold!” You want to meet a real salesperson? Find out who it was who convinced a studio to give them millions of dollars to make Gothika.”Okay, I need a few megabucks to make a Halle Berry flick. And she’s gonna be all ugly in it.”
Jonathan’s Zombie deck has a ton of removal. All I need is to keep one flier wearing a Mask of Memory getting through. I was able to do that in game one. Game two, however, was a different story. He killed all of the fliers and finished me off with a nice, chunky Consume Spirit. We decided to call it quits (i.e. I had to go to bed) after those two and call it even.
Wednesday, July 21st, 2004:
I got a flurry of e-mails from Karl today. He is really thinking hard about the Mulligan to Pulse deck. At this point, I have nothing substantial to offer. It’s all his puppy. I understand how he feels, though. If he doesn’t try to make it work and see that it doesn’t, it will haunt him. And then he might do something stupid like, oh, I don’t know, try to play it in a tournament. Ew.
Speaking of which, I am bound and determined to play Blow Me Away again this Friday Night. I know that it works (in the hands of a good player, one of which I am not). I just need to be careful. Also, I hated that final-round bye. I want to play, dadburnit!
I asked Karl what I might need to do different. His sage advice?”Don’t mulligan to five.”
Thanks, big guy. Great to hear from you.
Thursday, July 22nd, 2004:
I love music. I wish I had a poet’s command of the language so that I could tell you how much. All I can say is that it’s a part of me and my soul. I’m a songwriter, though I don’t attempt to do it commercially anymore, just for myself. Being a songwriter is like being any other type of writer. Once you are, you always are. You can’t turn it off. You can, however, ignore it. But, as any writer will tell you, you are always driven to put pen to paper, finger to keyboard, pick to string and write.
As you’d probably expect, I also love listening to music. I have a huge collection. In fact, our biggest problem with moving our two households together when Luanne and I got married was trying to figure out where all of my CDs would go. Thanks to my anal retentiveness, we got it done.
Anyway, I bring this up because I listened to an old CD that I hadn’t heard in years even though it’s one of my all-time favorites. It was Peter Case’s eponymous solo CD. Fan-freakin’-tastic roots rock/Americana rock/whatever you want to call it. Even almost twenty years later, it sounds fresh. The songs are perfectly executed. There’s humor, pathos, love, and crime. The songs are also sequenced flawlessly. This is an aspect of albums that is often overlooked. Sometimes, all of the songs are great, but the order they’re in leaves you flat. This is done perfectly.
It’s great when you rediscover an old piece of music. It’s like getting a call out of the blue from an old friend.
Why mention all this about music? I did nothing today relating to Magic.
Friday, July 23rd, 2004:
Time to play Blow Me Away again. Thanks to [author name="Joe Gagliardi"]Joe Gagliardi’s[/author] piece, I decided to replace the Viridian Zealots with Ouphe Vandals. True, I was losing maindeck enchantment destruction. This is MD5 block we’re talking about, though. What enchantments?
By the way,”ouphe” should be pronounced”oaf,” as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know what on”oof” is. I know what an”oaf” is, though. An”oaf” is clumsy and breaks things. [For the record, Buehler pronounced them”Oof-ee Vandals in the Seattle coverage. I have no idea if that’s right or not, I just figured I’d drop the 4-1-1. – Knut, adding namedropping to Chris’s articles now]
Guess what? Go ahead. Guess. That’s right. Not only did I finish last week with a bye, I started this week with a bye. Ugh. Luckily, we were in a bookstore. Since I can read, well, you can figure that one out. I hope.
So, who do I play in round two but my pal Charles and his Affinity deck. Man, I feel sorry for him. This deck just rolls his. And, as expected, in game one it does. In fact, he does something that I have never seen an Affinity player do and something that no Affinity player has done with me. He conceded at twenty life.
I made no sideboarding changes since the deck is essentially pre-sideboarded for Affinity. So, of course, he wrecked me in games two and three.
Geez, I stink.
Round three I played Jonathan Patrick and his Crystal Witness deck. As with the last match, I won game one handily, but blew it on games two and three. This is turning out to be a nasty habit.
Round four I got to play a young guy of about ten who had already quit Magic and sold his cards once. Ten and he’s already quit once? I know that almost everyone does this at some point, but to already have done it at ten puts him way ahead of the curve.
Anyway, I had watched him play during my round one bye. He had a deck loaded with bombs like Razormane Masticore and Cosmic Larva (backed by Eon Hub). So, of course, I had to (say it with me)”Mulligan to Five” ™. And I won. I don’t know how other than a steady stream of artifact destruction.
It happened again in game two as I had to”Mulligan to Five” ™. Again, I still won. So, another glorious 1-2 (I don’t count byes) night means that Blow Me Away is retired.
So, what do I play next week? Stay tuned.
Saturday, July 24th, 2004:
No Magic today. Not even MTGO. Lotsa antique store scrounging. We found a great solid wood chair with funky vinyl covering for only ten bucks. Nothing much else to report. I mean, that Ted would let me. [Chris obviously scored. – Knut, filling in the blanks and wondering if you are still reading]
Sunday, July 25th, 2004:
My birthday is actually the 26th. Since Mondays are horrible days to try to get folks together, we planned a cookout at Mom’s. I got lotsa cool stuff. The final volume of Futurama on DVD. A Taz doll that armpit farts the alphabet. Yes, really. And my brother called from Iceland with huge and glorious news… that I’m not allowed to share. Sorry. Anyway, he made me promise that I’d be online to play MTGO with him and a special friend later. I did, and I was.
After we got home, Luanne and I sat down to watch The Yankees and The Red Sox on ESPN. As expected, The Yankees started pummeling The Sox, scoring two runs in the top of the first. I figured the rout was on. Luanne went to bed. I fired up MTGO.
Of course, my brother’s waiting. Hey, he’s on a Naval base in Iceland. What else does he have to do? (I could actually respond to that, but in the interest of decorum, I won’t.) We start our match. Turns out we’re both playing mono-Black this time. Oh, great. Battling Consume Spirits. Grimclaw Bats is less than useful in this matchup. Luckily for me, I get the mondo-big Consume before he does. In fact, right about the time that Johnny”Captain Caveman” Damon hits a three-run homer around Pesky’s Pole to give the Sox a commanding lead.
An Open Letter To Johnny Damon:
Dear Johnny,
You have matinee idol good looks. You’re, dare I say it, dreamy. Shave the beard, and cut the mane, dude. You look like the third one from the left on the evolution chart. (Yes, I swiped that from Jay London from Last Comic Standing 2.)
Chris
Neither one of us has a sideboard, so game two pretty much plays out like game one. First Consume wins. He does. We decide that we can stay up for one more and switch decks.
I choose Elves. He chooses Affinity. Uh-oh. Fortunately, I win the roll, and get a second-turn Naturalize on his only land. I am able to get a Wellwisher out wearing a Whispersilk Cloak. She gains me enough life that I can just keep pinging at his. We sign off and get to bed after I congratulate him again for That Thing That I Can’t Mention.
Monday, July 26th, 2004:
It’s my birthday. Hooray for me! My article on The Baseball Player’s Mentality hit today, and the forum is full of people arguing over who was worse: Ty Cobb or Hitler. I guess I don’t know my history, but one was an a$$munch who could play baseball pretty well while the other was evil incarnate, bent on eliminating an entire religious group or two from the earth. One guy, going by the handle asdfasdfasdf said:
“Good article. Keep it up. Tiny little error though:
“‘He ended up, thanks to the aforementioned artifact poppin’ spells, with two Glimmervoids and three Arcbound Ravagers on the board. If at any point in the final three turns I had drawn Echoing Ruin, I’m pretty sure that would have been bad for him, since it would have completely cleared his side of the board.’
“Sac in response, dude. That’s a pretty elementary play. Nice work regardless.”
I can’t slip anything by you guys. Glad to see someone was actually paying attention. Meanwhile, Smackman was saying:
“The most important thing to take out of this article, however, is what Chris said about asking out the cutest girls. I went to my 20-year high school reunion and ran into several gorgeous women who (without prodding!) said they would have gone out with me – If I Had Asked. So here I sit now, single and now thinking about all those wasted years…so Get Off Your Arse And Risk Getting Slapped!”
Truly.
It is obvious that Magic strategy is not what people read my pieces for. Good thing, too, ’cause I’m so bad at it.
I guess it’s time that I send this in so that I can get started on next week’s piece.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. If you actually read this far, give yourself a great big round of applause.
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com