Team Meandeck is recruiting. We’re booting Roland Chang off the Meandeck Island. Ever since he became the Legacy Champion, he has become obsessed with the format and is no longer Vintage material. We are looking for prospective teammates who can ply their wits and knowledge of Vintage Magic to fill our roster.
When Wizards announced their “Great Designer Search,” we voted to run a search of our own. We want the best! This test will challenge your understanding of the format, your knowledge of the community, your comprehension of proper Vintage etiquette and lingo… All to see if you have what it takes.
In addition to joining the greatest Magic team ever, you will have unlimited access to our secret deck laboratory, the Meandeck forums, private test sessions against any Meandecker, and access to our Card Vault, which contains playsets of every card ever made.
Twenty-four hours from now, answers will be posted in the feedback thread and no further submissions will be accepted.
When you have taken this test, submit it to: [email protected]. If you prefer snail mail, you can send your application, postmarked no later than the date this article went live to:
Michigan Correctional Institute
P.O. Box 91501
USA
Good luck!
QUESTION ONE:
Misassignment of Role = _______
a) Game Win
b) Game Loss
c) The Beatdown
d) Mana Drain mana
QUESTION TWO
What comes next?:
Counter, Sac, Tap, __________
a) Dance
b) Will
c) Fade
d) So many insane plays!
(Hint: “No, No, No: Sacrifice, then tap.”)
QUESTION THREE
Your opponent wins on turn 1.
The appropriate response is:
a) Good Game and a handshake
b) How lucky!
c) Sonuvabitch!
d) I quit.
QUESTION FOUR:
Translate the following shorthand:
T1:
P1: Blotus, Shop, M. Crypt, T. Crypt, Shaman, 3Sphere, FoW.
N. Rod. GG. WTF TAHTS RIDICULOS U LUXAK
QUESTION FIVE:
GWS, from Team GWS, stands for:
a) Girls With Schlongs
b) Geishas Want Samurais
c) Goyim’s Worldly Sentiment
d) Girls Wary of Studebakers
QUESTION SIX:
You activate a Mindslaver and on your opponent’s turn. They draw a Demonic Consultation. The proper card to have them name is:
a) Tooth and Nail
b) Chaos Orb
c) Humpus Wumpus
d) Abu Jafar
e) Spring forth, my burly protector!
QUESTION SEVEN:
Ethics Question
You find a deckbox on a table. You open it up and you find a fully-powered Control deck. You:
a) Take the deck home and eBay the contents
b) Tell your teammates that you found a decklist, then take the deck home and eBay the contents
c) Tell your teammates that you found it and bitch about how sub-optimal it is. I mean seriously, two Goblin Welders in Slaver?
QUESTION EIGHT:
When you typed “Vintage Magic” into a Google search, the top search result was:
a) TheManaDrain.com
b) Starcitygames.com
c) Morphling.de
d) Grandma’s Coochie.com
QUESTION NINE:
You take a seat across from this guy:
It’s round one of the tournament. You hazard a guess that he is playing:
a) Combo
b) Goblins
c) Burn
d) Keeper
e) Sun Wukong
QUESTION TEN:
Proxification — making artistic proxies — has become something of a hobby within a hobby for many Vintage players. One of the people at the forefront of this movement made the proxy linked here.
Who made these proxies?
a) Timmy, P.G.
b) Randy Buehler
c) Barack Obama
d) Vroman
e) Warren Peace
QUESTION 11:
You sit down across from this guy:
You fan open your hand and you need to make a wild guess as to what this guy might be playing. You think about it and decide that he is playing:
a) Burn
b) Fish Deck using lots of Null Rods
c) Stompy
d) Suicide Black
QUESTION 12:
Can you tell me what the following decks are and why some Vintage designers give decks the dumbest names:
a) EBA
b) Cerebral Assassin
c) The Funker
d) Gilded Claw
e) Oshawa Stompy
f) Sex
QUESTION 13:
Pairings are up and you take your seat. You sit down and wait. Out of your peripheral vision, you observe a furtive glance over your shoulder, as if someone is trying to peer at your deck while you shuffle. A guy walks over in a wardrobe that is more expensive than your ten-proxy deck. His well-matched, buttoned shirt sweater was probably purchased at Express, and you catch the faint aroma of aftershave and mint gum. He unfolds a pressed playmat. He removes a fancy pen and a legal pad. He briefly runs his hand through his wavy hair.
This man is playing:
a) Sligh
b) Stompy
c) Mono Blue Control
d) Something with Foils and a flashy kill
QUESTION 14:
The following is considered “hot tech”:
a) Substituting Jester’s Cap for Null Rod in Uba Stax
b) “Innovating” a new archetype by adding Burning Wish to a control deck.
c) Putting Tormod’s Crypt maindeck in Control Slaver
d) Adding 3x Intuition, 4x Accumulated Knowledge and the “MeanDeck” prefix
e) Eating Sweet BBQ wings from BW3s while playing with your Vintage deck unsleeved. (And getting the sauce on your video camera so that it is no longer operational.)
QUESTION 15:
Your opponent lays a turn 1 Raging Goblin, what do you do?
a) Chuckle and combo out on turn 10
b) Force it, that crap gets crazy
c) Lose, if you are Ray Robilliard
d) Stare blankly at the table for twenty minutes, rethinking the meaning of life and pondering the mysteries of the universe, space, and time.
e) Both c & d.
QUESTION 16:
So your opponent has a board of bob, Usea, jet, sdt, delta. He is representing FoW and teh bananas drain, with four cards in hand and the mox tapped.
You’re holding eotfofyl, but you don’t want to run into his counters. What do you do?
a) Wait for a better time
b) Hope he’s bluffing
c) Wait until his upkeep
d) Huh?
QUESTION 17:
Your opponent temoped your Kevin with Chain, Needled your Cryptxor and BEBed your Weldar. You just Drained his Grifts off Rit/Petal and now it’s your first main. You Undressed him earlier, so you know he’s holding Nerco but he’ll need to TD a rit or Blotus to cast it. You’re holding Kevin, Sundering Ben and a foil Doug Linn Thirst with four lands and teh Drain manas. What is teh winn this turn? xor.
a) Knock your opponent’s deck on the floor and call teh J2g.
b) Grab your opponent’s hand, use it to knock your deck on the floor, call teh J2g.
c) Yawgmoth’s Will.
d) What?
QUESTION 18
You sit down across from this man:
You hazard a guess that he is playing:
a) A Mana Drain Control deck
b) Storm Combo
c) A Mishra’s Workshop deck
d) A Fish Deck with many Null Rods
QUESTION 19:
You sit down across from this strange fellow. He pulls out a crumpled up piece of paper with scribbled notes and what appears to be some equations for cold fusion.
This person is playing:
a) Workshop Prison
b) Zoo
c) Control Slaver
d) Storm Combo
QUESTION 20:
Are you good enough to join Team Meandeck?
a) No.
b) Nope.
c) Not really.
d) Yes, but I play real formats/poker instead.
Scoring Guide:
20 correct. Congratulations! You are good enough to join Team Meandeck.
18-19 correct. We’re sorry! You are a strong candidate, but we only take the best. We suggest you forward your resume to Team Reflection.
16-17 correct. Contact Jdizzle on team GWS.
14-15 correct. You are good enough to join team GGs.
13 and below. ICBM is calling.