I was down at FNM this past weekend, packing Warp World, and in the middle of my run at the Top 8, when I got a phone call. It was my friend Q, hand-picked by John Rizzo to be the basis of a future character, who was wondering what I was up to and if I was looking for company.
I told him to come on down. The last thing I’m about to do is turn away friends, especially ones who will share a pitcher of beer across the street to help soothe that Top 8 defeat.
When I first met Q, we were both in Germany. He had an old collection of cards, somewhere, that started at the genesis of the game and went up to Mirage or Visions. “Back at his house,” is what he said, and that was what they all would say — Magic cards don’t exactly travel well, and when you’re a single solder headed to Europe, the cards somehow don’t make the trip. We met a lot of young guys who had left their collections at home, not expecting to stumble into a solid playgroup and a well-supported community. But we took them in anyway, always with cards to lend and deck conversations to share.
This day, it so happened, was Q’s last day in Colorado. He was done being a soldier and was ready to head back to Minnesota and get into school. So the beer was celebratory in his mind, but it served to remind me of so many of the Magic players that I met in Germany that were there serving our country.
So this week’s column is dedicated to them. This may become heavy on the memories and less involved on the strategy, but it comes full-circle at the end, I promise.
(Or, at least, that is my intention.)
Q
Q was not what you would call an aggressive player. Most of his memories of the game prior to moving to Germany were from Antiquities, and it colored his deck choices — he always wanted to build all-artifact decks, despite the fact that we were playing Standard during Ravnica and everyone else in the area was playing three-color decks. The one memory that stands out about Q was when he was playing in a Legacy tournament and got paired against the one “semi-pro” player we had in the area. His opponent was playing High Tide and went through the motions to kill Q on turn 2 or 3; “draw 58” or whatever it was.
The problem was, Q’s deck was 80 cards. And he won that match, too, because in both games, the High Tide deck couldn’t manage 80 cards. He held that match win as a personal triumph for quite a while.
There were many other characters that I met and played Magic with during my time in Germany, and hopefully the stories are worth reading.
John K
John was the first real Magic player I met in Germany. I had gone out for a month to take some classes and do some house-hunting, and had stumbled upon a group of guys who played tabletop Magic — casual guys, casual decks, recurring Rukh Eggs and that kind of stuff. John showed up at an evening of casual Magic with what I like to think of as a precursor to an EDH deck: the deck was true Highlander, but filled with some of the most ridiculous cards in all of Magic’s history.
John’s mind was like a steel trap, and he knew that deck inside and out. He knew the myriad ways that he could kill multiple people, he understood the power of the cards he was playing — and yet he still always aimed for the “cool play,” the series of events that we’d all be talking about the next day. I still tell the story of how he used Mindslaver to take control of my turn and leave me with no permanents and dead the next turn. I was playing Ravager Affinity because (a) it was the only deck I had with me and (2) we had had a discussion the previous day about whether it was as ridiculous as I made it out to be. I had a commanding board position at the table, but it’s not as effective to go “all-in” with Ravager against three or four people, so I was just knicking in points of damage here and there. John drew and played Mindslaver, and activated it to take my next turn. During my turn, he drew a Ravager, played it, sacrificed everything to it, killed someone at the table, sac’ed the Ravager to itself, and then killed me on his next turn.
John was also capable of picking up complex decks and learning them quickly. He wasn’t sure one year if he’d be able to attend the U.S. Regionals for Military Overseas, so when he WAS able to go, we scrambled to cobble together a deck for him on the drive to the site. The choice? Tooth and Nail. I don’t even know that we actually had all the pieces, but I know he had never touched the deck before that tournament, and my meager instructions (“Vampire plus Triskelion to wipe the board”) were not going to do him much good. He still put together enough of the deck to finish in the Top 2 and earn an invite to Nationals.
John went on to become an irreplaceable cog in the machinery of the satellite communications world, and still will bring along that Highlander deck when he comes to Colorado.
Yoshi
All Magic stories, really, begin and end with Yoshi. He was the one person that I met that most closely mirrored my own Magic likes and dislikes. He is the only person I have ever known to die from missing Pact triggers, twice, in the same tournament. [Bet I can beat that story… Craig, amused.]
And he’s the only person that I have EVER known who has a nickname that came from a Magic tournament.
We arrived in Germany about the same time and quickly bonded over Magic. He had played tournament-style Magic in his previous home in California, so we worked together to set up tournaments for the Magic-playing population. At first, we could only schedule them once every other month, so we would try and find other places to go and play tournaments. Mostly this would be out somewhere in Germany or France, and we would happily submit ourselves to a night of misunderstanding everyone in the building simply to play Magic.
One weekend, we had driven about a half-hour south to play in a Legacy tournament hosted by a little local game shop we had found. Most of the players spoke some English, but even then, Magic has its own language where you can generally get the point across of what you intend to do simply through hand gestures and card-pointing. We made some small talk, and they announced the first round pairings.
Announced them out loud.
It took us both about two minutes to realize they were pronouncing “Josh” with a J-turned-Y and a long O — Yoesh, for lack of a better way of translating it. So from that point on, he was Yoshi to me.
Josh was also my introduction to Elder Dragon Highlander, a format with which I am now so entrenched and in love that I should really thank him the next time I see him. (Hopefully that will be sometime this week.) We let him pick the format for his final FNM appearance, and that was what he chose. I’ve had my Intet, the Dreamer EDH deck ever since, although to say it’s gone through a few permutations is an understatement to be sure.
And there are dozens more. My good friend Emily, not a soldier herself but a military spouse, and my consistent partner in Two-Headed Giant. Shane, who became a very good competitive player and who I hope will pick it back up when he moves back to Colorado. By the end of our time running tournaments in Germany, we had about fifty people in our “local players” database in DCI Reporter, and I’m happy to have played with every single one of them.
Wizards as a company was tremendous to the soldiers as well, sending FNM cards and other goodies, and sponsoring the previously-mentioned “U.S. Regionals for Military Overseas.”
To Serve Humanity
Despite Q leaving the military with less-than-favorable memories, I was still reminded of the great times I had playing Magic with the soldiers that I met in Germany. And to honor their service and dedication to this country, I am proud to dedicate this deck to them.
When Captain of the Watch ($5.99) was spoiled for M10, most people just looked at it as a potential replacement for Cloudgoat Ranger in the various token decks. It is, to be fair, a bit more value on the investment — 9 power of vigilant creatures for six mana total. But with the level of tribal support for Soldiers in M10, coupled with the Soldier-class-specific cards in Morningtide, I think we can go all-in on the Captain’s soldier-pumping ability and produce a deck truly worthy of topping out at the good Captain.
4 Elite Vanguard
4 Goldmeadow Stalwart
4 Ballynock Cohort
4 Cenn’s Heir
3 Aven Squire
4 Preeminent Captain
3 Captain of the Watch
2 Thoughtweft Trio
4 Path to Exile
4 Harm’s Way
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Rustic Clachan
18 Plains
Rare Cost Summary:
Preeminent Captain ($2.49 x 4 = $9.96)
Captain of the Watch ($5.99 x 3 = $17.97)
Thoughtweft Trio ($0.99 x 2 = $1.98)
Rustic Clachan ($1.49 x 4 = $5.96)
I tried to focus on the old tried-and-true method of “working on a curve,” which left me with some tough choices: I have plenty of Kithkin Soldiers — enough to support Rustic Clachan, I thought — so is that two-drop spot currently occupied by Aven Squire better served by Wizened Cenn? I decided against it for two reasons. One, the deck needed some aerial way to break through potential creature stalemates, and it wasn’t running Cloudgoat or Spectral Procession. And two, this is a theme deck for crying out loud, and Wizened Cenn is no Soldier.
Ideally, I would like to never actually CAST Captain of the Watch — I would always like to cheat him onto the battlefield with Preeminent Captain, bypassing his six mana cost and pumping the Preeminent One all in one fell swoop. That would be some impressive tactics.
Rares You Could Add, If You Had ‘Em: The white weenie decks of today run both Honor of the Pure ($12.49) and Ajani Goldmane ($17.49) for a reason — both offer a second way to pump up your creatures, although Captain of the Watch does a fine job of this on his own.
Atten… HUT
Thanks for letting me reminisce a little about my past, and let me say another big “Thank You” to anyone serving their country, whether here or overseas somewhere. It may seem like a long, convoluted way to introduce a Soldier-themed deck, but I am truly thankful for everything that these men and women do. The next time you see a guy in uniform, remember what they do for our freedom, take a moment and say “Thanks” — they appreciate it.
Until next week…
Dave
dave dot massive at gmail and davemassive at facebook and twitter