Sometimes I just do not have the words to express what I think about something. This mock Magic card is one of those things.Although it does somehow fit in with the theme of Part 2 of Recap #24! So hurray for that.
As I have gotten older I have found that I know what to expect from life most of the time. I can remember being younger and seeing the world through a different lens, where many things were still mysterious or foreign. I can remember anticipating certain events or dates, like birthdays or grandparents visiting. The feeling was so intense that it nearly felt like it was physically affecting me. Nowadays anticipating something usually means that I am in charge or preparing and coordinating and the physical nature of it affects me in the form of a headache or heartburn. That may just be what happens when you have kids too.
The point is that somewhere in our pasts we can all remember the feeling of laying in bed trying to sleep the night before a big event. Laying there in bed, eyes wide open and heart racing. It was maddening and exhilarating. Then we grow old and decrepit emotionally and we steel ourselves from such trivial emotions...mostly.
When Chris first purchased the case of boxes for the new Mirradin Besieged I was excited to get my hands on the new set and dig into it for tweaking and building a new deck. Then weeks passed by and we were looking for a date when all of us could meet up and tear into the boxes and trade cards and possibly draft. That day was hard to decide on as schedules were constantly in flux from week to week.
The day finally came when all of us could meet to pay Chris our portion and tear into the case. I was still at work when the opening of cards began. I received a single text from Paul informing me that one of the packs he opened had a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas in it.
I lost focus on the task in front of me, and quickly made up some lame excuse as to why I needed to leave in 15 minutes to my co-workers, who seemed disinterested in my, lame excuse and began finishing up as much work as I could in as little time as possible. A sudden feeling had come over me. I felt a bit out of breath, and flushed with excitement. My mind kept losing focus and wandering. Then I was in my car and driving as fast as I could legally drive and feel "responsible" down the freeway and through the neighborhoods towards Paul's. It hit me that I was boiling over with excitement. Normally when a new set comes out I will buy a box to little fanfare. I will take it home and tear into it and set aside the rares and cards that I know I will use in decks. Then I will organize the colors and store the excess away. The case was different. It was the first time we were buying a large amount of cards as a group and it felt unifying and satisfying to see that corner turned. When I arrived I was happy to see Snape absorbed in some complicated organization process hardly able to take himself away from it.
The first two games of the night I was playing against Matt, and could hardly focus on the game, as I was half paying attention to opening packs and separating the rares and cards that I would use. I was playing my blue and white Luminarch Ascension based deck against his mono black kill deck, and I would simply get an ascension out and play fog cards until the quest was powered up. The games both ended in my pumping out an absurd amount of angels and flying over for victory.
As we set aside the mythic rares that we opened, we realized soon that we had 5 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas cards we had acquired from the case, along with hero of bladehold and hero of Oxid Ridge, a Blightsteel Colossus, a Thrun, the Last Troll, Glissa the Traitor. The pool of mythics was looking nice, and the prize pool for the draft day was sweeter than ever. I still haven't heard from Don what mythic rares he pulled from the box. And we still have 1 box unopened! I cannot wait to draft it.
Paul and I played two matches against each other where in the first match I was having all the luck and Paul was having no luck and had to mulligan so many times it became nearly ludicrous for him to continue.
In the second match things somehow flipped and I became the one who could not draw land in my opening hand. I mulligan again and again only to find no land until I have four cards. Two lands and two spells. I do not feel good when I don't draw a land in my first three draws. I get mana screwed and he destroys my dual land promptly causing my scoop and frustration. It was as if we really did not play each other, only played our decks which were being difficult and unruly.
I played against Snapes elf deck with my new prototype artifact deck featuring Tezzeret and Knowledge Pool. It is a work in progress, and it was a little slow to start, especially against a quick-hitting elf deck but I managed to stave of defeat and overwhelm in game one. In game two Snape proved to quick for my deck and though I fought it off as best I could I could not pull off a repeat of game one. All in all I was pleased with the progress, but I need some modification and more Tezzeret to make the deck better. Snape probably would like to see less of it! Especially Knowledge Pool. The Shimmer Myrs did their job in the game I won, getting out the pool and allowing me access to the pool quicker than my opponent each time a spell playing.
Paul played against Matt with his deck 'Rape' which features Braids, Cabal Minion. The crazy chick at the bar that Sam always used to take home. Or was that Trevor? Anyway, now she is a crazy Cabal Minion and she makes you sacrifice shit when you don't want to, which is why I guess Rape is an appropriate name. I am working on 'Mace' the preventative answer to 'Rape' but it will be some time before I have the necessary cards. Matt had the look on his face of someone who had been sexually brutalized and Paul seemed pleased. It was only fitting that the second match that they played Matt was able to win back some dignity after the beat down from Rape and stick it to Paul a couple of times for playing such a ridiculously powerful deck against a newer player.
This is the same staul-Paul who we know and love for playing his stasis deck during multiplayer games, which lock the game down on turn four. Causing many minutes of tapped lands and creatures. If I had a chaos orb, I would rip it up and drop all the pieces onto stasis.
This is the same Paul who played his Tendril of Agony deck "Testicles of Agony (neutered) against Izzy the first time that Izzy played with us! Of course Izzy never came back again after that. Which is sad and funny simultaneously!
Then Paul, Snape and I all played multiplayer FFA games until we could no longer stand it. The first game I played 'A Tale of Two Mimics' and was surprised to see Paul play a Mimic vat with his white knight deck 'Giddy Up'. Snape played his 'We Are Legion' and the tide turned in my favor when I was able to imprint 'Fleshbag Marauder onto my vat. No one was allowed to have creatures after than and then no one was allowed to win but me either.
The next game saw me getting annihilated by Paul early on with his Rape deck. Even after I played Inquisition of Kozilek turn one I could not stop his whole hand from playing and since his whole hand was aimed at me I was soon top-decking and had nothing to show for it in board presence. I whined and pouted about Paul playing his vintage deck against my standard type-2 deck, and threatened to stage a coup on recording the game officially, but in the end I followed through on nothing. Snape won the game anyway. It's funny how worried Paul and I are about one another in FFA games because we will automatically go for each others throats despite the odds of other people attacking us with our pants down. Surprisingly both Paul and I still have a fair amount of FFA wins, so some sort of strategy behind the madness seems to be working.
In the final game of FFA I played my vampire deck, and I got rolling with it early on. I got one creature out early with a blade of the bloodchief and before I knew it I had a 13/13 powered vampire and I was ready to beat some skulls in. Snape had a lot of deathtouch basilisks out but I was able to make pudding out of them with Gatekeeper of Malakir, and some unintentional help from Paul. No one had an answer for my super charged vampire, and I was able to walk away victorious.
Thanks again to all who are participating in the draft, and who chipped in on the case!
A special thanks goes out to Chris for taking the initiative in buying the case and spotting everyone the money ahead of time and hoping to get paid back promptly! Very brave indeed!
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