“Liar.”
I can only imagine what twisted machinations must have been breeding beneath the sweaty brow of poor Jeff Cunningham. No mortal man should have to face such a maniac in any arena of life, let alone Liar’s Dice.
Liar’s Dice
is a game of bluffing in which a table of players (often pirates) each roll dice in secret, then bid on how many dice at the table have been rolled of increasing values. Each player has two choices during his turn: make a higher bid, or challenge the previous bidder as a liar.
To understand the methodology of Herberholz’s apparently suicidal mission to destroy any possibility of Ffej winning, one must take a step back and look at the bigger picture of the relationship of these two men that some would call brothers, though perhaps “damned souls shackled at the ankles” would be more appropriate a description.
It had taken only three Herberholz Pro Tour Top 8s to break Cunningham, to force him to face the reality that he had been beaten. A negative split with his arch-nemesis the weekend he wins a Pro Tour? We’re all fortunate that it was merely Ffej’s career that had ended.
Now, consensus best active American, Herberholz was fresh off his fourth PT Top 8 and realized that Ffej didn’t even feel an ounce of pain from it. There was nothing left in Ffej that Mark could hurt anymore. Ffej had grown numb, or so he thought. He had let himself believe there was nothing left to prove.
Herberholz sitting to the right of Cunningham, total calling station… Ffej hiding his face entirely inside of his hoody… Literally life tilting as a result of Mark targeting him and calling him out.
…Negative one percent split on the event.
Seeing that Top 8ing didn’t faze the hollow shell of a man that had once been his greatest rival, Mark did what any addict would do when faced with the proposition of a tolerance where no amount of substance abuse is sufficient to get them off; he sought a new high, a new experience, in an effort to feel something.
You see Mark Herberholz
was
an addict. His addiction? Tormenting Jeff Cunningham.
Mark’s quest for a new thrill had led him into luring Ffej into a game of Liar’s Dice, courtesy of Jeroem Remie. Heezy, scoundrel that he is, even had Ffej believing it had been Ffej’s idea. After all, Mark had just learnt the game and Ffej was clearly a master. The trap had been sprung.
Ffej was pot committed to finishing this game, propping up what little was left of his self-esteem with his certainly unquestionable ability in Liar’s Dice. Unfortunately, these rather suspect supports were little more than pick-up-sticks in the bloodthirsty eyes of Herberholz.
Some crimes call for elegance, and perhaps it would be unfair to deny the elegance of Heezy’s systematic sabotaging of Ffej’s prospects of victory. Still, brute force would probably be a more appropriate account, should a police report require filing on the beating.
Mark may have allegedly learned the game just today, but already his cruel calculating genius had developed a near optimal strategy for maximal negative impact to Cunningham’s chances of winning. Mark not only challenged Ffej at every reasonable turn, he actually bullied other players into making plays that would help advance his agenda of furthering the game towards a point that would force Ffej to make a nearly unwinnable bid, a bid that Herberholz would always be waiting to challenge with seemingly uncanny omnipotence.
Cunningham was good, no question. Possibly the best… Few powers, however, can compete with pure, unadulterated madness. Mark walked a seemingly impossible line between brilliant calculation and maniacal insanity, challenging Ffej in an almost brutal fashion. Some addicts you feel the pain of. Some addicts you feel the pain of those they hurt. Cunningham had just been called out again, and it was the look on his face that made me realize that Cunningham, himself, was an addict. He was a junkie that knew the odds were against him, had finally walked away from the table, only to be hunted down by the casino owner and lured to a new game that promised better odds. This time Ffej could win, and the temptation was too much to pass up.
Another trip around the table and the bid came back to Cunningham. This time, he antagonistically raised the bid by three dice, rather than make the minimum bid we all expected of him. The implied silent taunt to Heezy might as well have been a thunderclap. The audacity! What was he doing? Had he taken the offensive? Â
Of course! This was Liar’s Dice, not Magic! He could win!
Mark’s neck whipped around with quickness unmatched since his mother had unexpectedly walked into his bedroom a night just weeks after his fourteenth birthday. Ffej just as quickly turtled up, retreating into a shell composed primarily of hoody. He pulled tight his drawstring, hiding nearly every square inch of his face in a move rarely seen outside of the World Series of Poker.
Mark’s piercing gaze began to drill a hole into the force field shielding Cunningham from his would-be assailant. Mark hadn’t even planned on calling this time, but now he had to know; what was the nature of this maneuver? Was this desperation or did Ffej know something Mark didn’t?
Time slowed to a crawl as without a word, the table turned to witness the showdown. Only the faint rustling of tumbleweed and a Clint Eastwood-esque whistling cut through the silence. The tension in the air between the two desperados made breathing difficult, vision blurry.
It was too much. I certainly wasn’t calling, and in those epoch-spanning moments in which Heezy studied his sworn enemy, my mind began to wander…
It was almost eight years ago…
I awaken to find my hand resting on the shoulder of the sleeping gentleman in bed next to me. Gathering my wits, I silently celebrate having managed to sleep at all, while I calmly release my teammate, Erik Lauer, from my embrace. I’d been having a terrible time trying to sleep. It was 4 a.m. last time I checked. How long had I been out for? Â
I turned clock-ward, the suspense mounting, heavy like so many blankets cocooned around Lauer and Lauer alone.
4:33 a.m.
Are you kidding me? How had it come to this?
It was the summer of ’99, and I was knee-deep into my Limited-specialist phase. While I’d never cashed an adult Constructed Pro Tour, I’d produced two Top 8s, a Top 16, and a Top 32 in six Limited events. The 1999 US National Championships had thus far followed the formula, as I crushed both of the Saga-Legacy-Destiny drafts, Day 1. I knew I only needed a few wins to lock up the Top 8, but I had no deck, and time was running out on having any sleep. Not a good way to try to turn around a lifetime of failing at Constructed.
The room seemed to swirl before my eyes. Was I even awake? I went to take another swig of NyQuil, finding the bottle empty. How many times had I repeated this same loop during the night? Years of slavery to sleeping aids and insomnia had me in a vise-grip rivaled perhaps only by Hulk Hogan circa 1988. Â
Had I really shown up to the US National Championship’s without a Standard deck? All I had built was a Time Warp deck that only an Eric Taylor could love. I was on Team CMU, how could I not have a deck? What had we spent that precious playtest-time coin on?
It had been just a few painfully short weeks earlier at CMU’s Secret-Volcano-Lair, deep in the bowels of the “O,” that we, Erik Lauer, Randy Buehler, Mike Turian, Aaron Forsythe, and the rest of team CMU, had tried in vain to break Yawgmoth’s Bargain.
Having discovered the world of raves just a couple months earlier, I was obviously making my way cross-country towards the (debatably) generational event of a lifetime, Woodstock 99. After stopping in Pittsburgh for a couple days, I ended up having so much fun, I decided that staying and hanging out there was a better plan than continuing on. In retrospect, I believe I made the right call.
Eating fries at the “O,” we were surprised to discover the spoiling of Yawgmoth’s Bargain. In the foolish haste of youth, I proclaimed the card totally busted and that it would likely not take 24 hours to break. I was wrong. Or at least we couldn’t do it in 24 hours. I’ll spare my teammates and I the embarrassment of listing what we tried, but suffice it to say, we didn’t, in fact do it at all, by the time the tournament rolled around…
Back to the CMU Hotel
I watched the minutes change, one by one, and when six a.m. rolled around, I finally accepted the fact that I was going to have to give sleep a miss this time around. My body crept from the bed, and I made my way to the floor where I fanned out the Turbo Time Warp deck I’d been hallucinating about during my non-sleep. I tested it a little during the week before the tournament, but I cannot for the life of me recall what possessed me to pick it, rather than the Assassin Precon deck that would surely have been a better option. I’d like to think that the cocktail of NyQuil and the failed attempt at sleeping before my usual (clearly wise) 8 a.m. bedtime were the primary driving forces behind this rather dubious decision, though I would believe a powerful demon if it claimed that my own foolish youth, recently brain damaged mind, and perhaps naïve nerves played a role.
I laid out the deck. Time Warp, Exhaustion, Power Sink, Impulse; were these really the cards in my deck or was this a glimpse into my fractured psyche?
I ran to the bathroom to vomit. I fell to the porcelain god, expecting sweet release, but there was nothing. I had never had a drop of an alcoholic beverage at that point in my life, but my understanding was that throwing up was often the best thing you could do if you drank too much. Unfortunately, I had not drunk too much. I was just all kinds of messed up on my own, and while my stomach seemed unsatisfied with our present arrangement, it also seemed unwilling to negotiate any sort of alternative.
My third shower of the night did little to remove the uneasy queasiness deep within my bowels. You think my tremors are bad now? Imagine what I looked like after a night of drinking cough syrup instead of sleeping, and shaking with the nerves that I once felt on a conscious level. Â
Eventually the sane and mature members of CMU rose from their slumber and prepared for a day of battle. We made our way over to the tournament center, though I suspect without Lauer’s friendly and positive energy, I never would’ve made it to the site. His laugh, his smile — they were infectious. I couldn’t help but get yet another “second” wind, adrenaline beginning to course through my brain.
Every sight, every sound began to blur together. I was losing it. Caffeine was certainly not bringing me clarity, but at least I was in the right room, surrounded by gamers. I looked up, suddenly realizing I was in the middle of a match. I studied my opponent, Darwin Kastle. He was playing a Living Death deck of his own, an archetype he was famous for, back in the day. I looked at the time. Thirty minutes left? Had I really missed this much of the round mentally? I looked at his side of the table. Survival of the Fittest was on the battlefield? No wonder I had less lands than he had creatures on the battlefield with his face on them.
Was this really happening? Why would he pay all of those echoes? I looked to his graveyard. Living Death? Well, I guess that explains that.
“That’s okay,” I said to myself. “I have losses to give.” It was then I saw the round number listed “#10.”
“What?”
Darwin repeated “Attack for six.”
“Oh, sure, that’s not what I meant. What round is this?”
“Ten, right?”
“You have to be kidding me!”
It wasn’t until after the round ended that I discovered much to my chagrin that I was already 0-4 on the day. I sauntered over to the feature match area where I learned the true nature of the nightmare I was trapped in. There in plain light, clear as day, Zvi Mowshowitz had a Yawgmoth’s Bargain on the battlefield with two Delusions of Mediocrity, countless mana, and a Blaze on the stack.
Delusions of Mediocrity? We had missed Delusions of Mediocrity? The irony was too much, and I began laughing uncontrollably, leading to my being asked to leave the feature match area. Zvi had cracked the code…
Bargain by Zvi Mowshowitz
4 Grim Monolith
4 Mox Diamond
4 Scroll Rack
4 Voltaic Key
4 Dark Ritual
4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
3 Delusions of Mediocrity
1 Intuition
3 Show and Tell
3 Turnabout
1 Blaze
4 City of Brass
4 City of Traitors
3 Crystal Vein
2 Rootwater Depths
3 Swamp
4 Underground River
I asked Zvi about how he had arrived at this masterpiece, a hidden gem we had been unable to uncover.
“Was pretty straightforward line to the deck I played. First I went looking for ways to put Bargain into play. I found Academy Rector, Show and Tell and built a version for each. Adam Katz played the Rector version, called Anakin, but once I had Show and Tell, I knew I wanted to be able to get both 2U and 4BB as quickly as possible, and that I would win once I played it. As a result, I grabbed all the mana in the world and of course Vampiric. I realized if the deck worked, I would get DI mana, so I only needed one kill card. This is where I went for Delusions I think, because I realized I needed more cards. I went looking for life gain. Both decks had to find a good life gain card; otherwise if you took damage, you couldn’t win. Delusions was the result of a basic search. The other deck used Scent of Jasmine, by the way. It drew the whole deck, then killed with Seismic Assault off of Moxen.
Scroll Rack was the hardest card to find. Luckily I’d used it before. I never had more than one slot for kill; it was only a question of what it was. Scroll Rack was the key. It ties the deck together in many ways. A lot of good deckbuilding is having tried other stuff before. I knew about Scroll Rack from past decks; Academy in Rome, Turbo Land, and Land Tax, etc. I very much had Lauer’s Academy deck from Rome in mind as a model.”
It was then I was awoken by Mark’s re-raise.
“Liar.”
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”Â