Mark Teskey will be telling this week’s story. Mark just sent his story to me instead of waiting to be taken up in the e-Pen chain; he will get a nice $5 Star City credit for his efforts. If you would like to get that $5, please send your most memorable multiplayer stories to me at [email protected].
Let’s get on with the show…
Armed and dangerous, by Mark Teskey
I was playing with a friend that was in town from Fargo (Billy) and another local friend. My friend from Fargo is notorious for bringing nasty tournament-caliber decks into multiplayer. My local friend can always be counted on to play some crazy casual creation that usually involves reanimating a Polar Kraken. He also loves playing Winter Orbs, Stasis, or something else that infuriates everybody. Me? It’s all good if it’s all black.
To annoy my local friend – we’ll call him”Beat” – I decided to fight fire with fire and pulled out an old-fashioned U/W Stasis deck that I’ve spiced up with a couple of Odyssey cards like Iridescent Angel.
I managed to get a decent draw and started dropping lands and control as I set up for the Stasis lock. A skirmish of counterspells between Beat’s R/B Control-Burn deck and Paul’s Shard Phoenix deck allowed me to get a Kismet on both of them. A few turns later, I had all of the above, plus my Iridescent Angel and two Serra Angels.
*Side note-
Does anybody ever get more than one Serra Angel in play in multiplayer? 99% of the time they get nailed by a Swords to Plowshares instantly.
Now, the race is on. I’m beating on the two of them with Angels and they are spreading around some Burn. I draw Stasis with ten islands, a Howling Mine, and Kismet in play for both opponents. I’m down to nine life, but Billy and Beat both have less than I do. Since both are playing burn, I could get cheesed out in one shot of they ganged up on me. I must lock ’em down!!
Beat goes after me and taps out. I’m salivating since I’m about to hit them over the head with the annoying bag full of lead shot named”Stasis.” I just have to get to my turn!
Billy taps all his mana to play..
Booby Trap.
He names”Counterspell”
Uh oh. If I go into Stasis.. I’m going to draw the Counterspell. I considered my options and decided to Capsize the Howling Mine to lessen my risk of drawing the Counterspell before killing them with the angels. At worst, this delays my Stasis by one turn.
Beat goes after me and taps out a bunch of things, killing Billy’s creatures. Paul taps out recasting creatures. I’m all ready to hit the”pause” switch for the rest of the game.
I untap.. I draw.. a Counterspell..
*BOOM* The booby trap blows putting me out of the game.
*Side note-
That sucks. That’s like getting Goblin Bombed out of the game when you are winning.
In retrospect, I probably should have just concentrated the angels on Billy to knock him (and the Booby Trap) out of the game. At minimum, I suppose I should have capsized the Booby Trap. I was so close to getting a two-way lockdown that I totally lost sight of the rest of the game. I guess that’s why I play casual..
Next Week
Who knows what we’ll have next week? We’ll just have to wait and see. If you have any stories to tell me, email me at [email protected].
Some random thoughts
There are a couple of things I want to do in 2002.
- Build more decks
- Play more
- Play a lot more casual
In order to do this I am looking for your help. How? I want to experiment with cards, casual play is ideal for experimenting. A lot of people are complaining about bad rares… So why not experiment with bad cards? What I am looking for is what you think is the worst card. Maybe not the worst card overall, but how about the worst card in Odyssey (Mudhole?) or the worst creature ever printed (Wood Elemental?). So send me some cards you think are the worst for whatever criteria you come up with. I will experiment with them and anything can happen from there,
Have fun,