Guten Tag from the Germany of my soul. I’m freshly moved into my new digs, and what with it being 11:30 pm, and this column horribly overdue, it’s time to kick it into overdrive and hope I don’t drown in mediocrity. Excuse any tense shifts you find along the way, it’s just me rehashing material I’d left about a week ago. Pretend you’re Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap, I know I do.
I’d like to publicly acknowledge all of you who wrote in to point out my folly. Anvil of Bogardan really *doesn’t* stop Necro. It sure used to, way back when. I took all your letters in good faith, so if you were looking to make me feel like an idiot, it didn’t come across that way. Try harder next time.
Isn’t it my Esteemed Editor’s job to catch these things? A little [Actually, OMC, you’re way off base on this one. Anvil now reads "Players have no maximum hand size, etc.". Tough break – Ed.] would have done the column good, as well as prevented the deluge of helpful e-mails under which I’m buried, barely moving. I assume he does something, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what. [you wanted mail, OMC, i got you mail! if i’d mentioned that, you’d still be sitting in your apartment, talking to Vincent Price, rather than your readers! jeez. 😉 – omeed.]
If anything good is to come of this catastrophe, it might as well be the fact that my proven readership has crested into the double-digits. And that’s base-ten, for any smart-alecky binary boys out there chuckling to themselves that "That means it’s not just him anymore, hyuk, hyuk!".
So what have I got in store today, Magic-wise or otherwise? No celebrities, I’m sad to say. No, this time it’s just you, me, and the dead-pan three ring circus of my continued existence. Pull up a chair, it’s going to be a party one way or another.
Speaking of which, consider this your token "Happy New Year". Most of this is getting written beforehand, but I can guarantee that I’ll have spent the evening enjoying a big pile of Nothing. It’d be sad if I wasn’t so goshdarn delighted to be depressed.
And why am I late? I’m probably not late enough that any of you will notice, but my gosh, it’s been hectic. Between New Years, three visits to the hospital, and a good friend’s mother dying, I’ve been on the go.
I can say this, though. It was absolutely the best funeral I’ve ever attended. Reverence through irreverance, that’s my motto.
How much filler do you think I can pound out? I’m tempted to test the limits.
Enough of death and tragedy then, and onto the hip, HIP world of the Waterloo Magic Scene. DJ’s take note: the fat beats spun in this end will be The Next Big Thing.
In the wake of last weeks virtual tsunami, I spent three days plowing through my decktesting. What I have come up with is not encouraging. My deck only wins when my opponent loses.
That’s just about as humiliating as is possible. It’s the deck that turns every match into a goldfish match. Every deck has something that they want to do to win the game. Necro gets out Necropotence and draws cards and drains you to death. Sligh counts you down from 20. Oath uses tutors to get situational answers, then builds up resources while denying the opponent’s. My deck tries to build a large resource presence on the board and then Stormbind you out.
Unfortunately, my deck is really *really* easily disrupted. With so few land and so few mana-creatures with more than one toughness, I’m really asking to be blown out of the water. Beyond that, my victory conditions are fragile. Plus, it has few answers to threats opponnets may pose, containing only seven true "answer" type creatures it can tutor for. Winter Orb also counts, I suppose.
So what has to happen in order for me to win? Well, first, because I posess so few answers, my opponent’s plan has to fail. What with the redundancy built into most extended decks, that basically amounts to a mana-screw. Not auspicious. Secondly, Opponent has to have no ways to disrupt my mana-base, because if they have any one way to deny me mana, it’ll probably amount to taking Ol’ Yeller to the woodshed for some emergency arms training.
And what do we call a deck that can only function well on opponent’s bad draw and lack of answers? I call it a shambolism, but go with whatever you feel is appropriate.
So that leaves me with no deck, and a real feeling of dejection.
And that leaves you with this, my shortest column to date, and no real insight. My apologies. If you get anything out of this, I hope it’s an illustration of the importance of testing. Not just for revealing a deck’s flaws, but for giving general direction on how you want to build your next deck.
Speaking of which, I’ve decided that what I really want is to mess with my opponent’s game plan. If they can’t do what they want, I’ve got to be in good shape, right? Right. Next week should be the next of a potentially long list of awful, no, God-awful extended from which I hope to squeeze brilliance like creamy centres from Christmas chocolates.
I’m ending it on this note: "One time, I saw Cam Food eat a hot dog."