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Once upon a time, not long ago, I was reading an SCG Daily article that Peter Jahn had written. Normally, I think he's pretty darn good. But, what I read that day shocked me. He made a Princess Bride theme deck — and it was painfully awful to behold. I mean Inigo Montoya was... Royal Assassin?! Oh no, wait, he was cast as the truly horrid King's Assassin. Dammit! And I thought I had suppressed that memory.
Well, anyone who makes a habit of announcing his presence by reciting the deeds that earned you his undying Vengeance cannot exactly be classified as an assassin. It's that whole stealth thing. And what's more, Inigo is a total rock-hard killer, and doesn't care if you're tapped or not.
So I pressed that “Rebuttal” button.
See, there's this thing that I try to accomplish when I make a theme deck, or any deck really, I mean it's pretty minor, but, I call it some degree of playability. Peter Jahn's Princess Bride deck was utterly lacking in playability. Diligent Farmhand? Ugh. It hurts me just thinking about it, which means that I thought too hard. Also, I ruined my suede shoes when I threw up on them.
The Princess Bride theme deck is somewhat difficult to do, so it's not entirely Peter's fault. Don't blame him — blame society! Due to the stifling complexity of the Princess Bride deck, it will not be standard-legal. However, it is age-of-consent type legal, MEEEE-OW!
So at the beginning of our tale Westley is not yet known as “Westley” — he's just Farmboy. What Peter misunderstood was that this made him a Diligent Farmhand, and thus tossed the deck into green and destroyed the whole project.
The truth is that Westley was still in hand. You'll understand in a bit.
See, Westley is a master of disguise — even creatures as bad-assed as Inigo can't block Westley's hardcore action-hero-ness. Even Fezzik couldn't stop him. That's right; Westley cannot be blocked.
Of course he's initially in his role as the Dread Pirate Roberts (a.k.a. the man in black), who is Talas Warrior - you know, a pirate that's unblockable.
And he has a Pirate Ship. Sweet.
All right. So Westley's girl Buttercup is totally his muse and she drives the whole movie plot.... Which is sort of like drawing cards. However, she's also always putting the heroes at risk, which is kinda like losing life.
Buttercup is Graveborn Muse.
See? I try to use some cards that are within the theme and are also semi-playable. Also, Buttercup winds up getting along with Fezzik, so... Well, you'll see.
And so we continue. Using his henchmen, Fezzik and Inigo, the evil Vizzini kidnaps Buttercup. That's a genuine Abduction. So the baddies are sailing through the sea when B-cup (they were kinda small, after all) escapes and encounters the Shrieking Eels, we'll just pretend they're Coral Eels for the sake of the mana curve — I mean, the theme!
So then they come up to these Cliffs of Insanity, which I guess is an obstacle to creatures or something. And there's totally an Underground River going by it, which obviously flows into an Underground Sea. Plus, Vizzini kinda has a lisp so when he says it, it sounds like “the cliffs of ithsanity.”
The Cliffs of ithsanity? Sounds like Maze of Ith to me.
Meanwhile, that Pirate Ship is chasing them. Westley (who is still Talas Westley) climbs to the top of the cliffs, where he must duel against Inigo. On the way, the bad guys cut the rope in the hopes that Westley will fall to a Watery Grave. I know, I know, y'all can't wait to see who Inigo is in my version....
Well, duh, he's Ramirez DePietro! They even look alike. Here, check it out:
He's a first-striking, swashbuckling legend! Damn, I wish I was that awesome.
So Talas/Westley draws some ordinary, boring, type of sword and Inigo de Pietro busts out the Sword of Light and Shadow, and they have a little sword fightin'. Westley notes that Inigo's sword is like a really shiny and pretty sword, and Inigo tells the story of how a six-fingered man stole the only other sword like it (check out that fine use of foreshadowing!), and now Inigo is on a Frantic Search for that man so that he can fulfill his Vendetta.
Then Inigo is all “I'm not left handed” and Westley is like “yeah, me neither.... Plus, I'm a freakin' ninja. Biotch!” And bam! Enter Higure, the Still Wind, the true identity of Westley. Inigo can't stop Higure and is defeated in super ninja-tastic style.
Next, Westley the Still Wind is almost killed by stones raining down at him from the mighty pitching arm of Fezzik, the giant. What giant in Magic has a Stone Rain ability? Helldozer, yo! Frankly, Helldozer is far cooler than Craw Giant. (Plus, we're still looking for that whole playability thing.)
Higure is still unblockable, and he gets by the Helldozer/Fezzik. (Little did we realize, but Higure-Westley also used his ability to get another ninja into hand for a later encounter.) Having dodged past the immense brawn of Fezzdozer, Westley is confronted by the sinister toothy grin of Vizzini, who holds Buttercup hostage. Vizzini is like a really annoying, small, ugly, bald, smiling guy - you know, like Psychatog.
Westley and Vizzinatog then play a little game in which Vizzini uses Circular Logic but winds up outwitted by Westley, who Undermines him and then has the Last Word. After some Hideous Laughter, Vizzini takes his Last Gasp.
I almost used Chalice of the Void here, but it didn't fit as well. But see? Counters, removal, this thing is gonna work.
Westley is then reunited with B-cups who had given us some extra cards while she was still with Fezzik. He busts out (get it, busts_out...b-cups? More breast humor!) with their old secret code phrase “as you (Cunning) Wish” while he tumbles down a hill and they must escape through the Fireswamp. This swamp sits on such a Polluted Delta that it's actually on fire, like the Cuyahoga River in Ohio.
So in the Fireswamp there's some Quicksand and a gigantic rat. This rat is such a total stud that it can beat up our hero. Well, only a ninja can beat up another ninja, so I think that the rat was actually Ink-Eyes, Servant of the Oni — the prerelease foil version, of course. So Ink-eyes (which was put into our hand earlier by Westley) Rends Flesh and does some damage, beating Westley all up.
Westley and Buttercup get taken prisoner by the villainous Prince Humperdinck.... Who, incidentally, had paid for the whole Abduction in the first place.
Humpy here is just a gold-diggin' brat obsessed with all the trappings and trinkets of power. That makes him Trinket Mage, and not in any way at all like Morphling. Not. At. All. Prince Trinker-dinker sends Westley off to be tortured by using his “comes into play” ability, fetching the Black Vise or perhaps The Rack.
Westley is turned over to the custody of Count Rugen the six-fingered man. Rugen, having six fingers, obviously needs a glove +1, which sounds like Shuko to me. Since Rugen has all those fingers, we know that the Count really cares about hand size — and he's pretty obsessed with suffering, so he's Kagemaro, First to Suffer.
(Incidentally if he loses his glove then prince humpty-dumps can go grab that too. That's called synergy, which I think is some kind of sports drink by Xyience.)
Next, the Count has his Thrull Retainer (who's not actually a Thrull Retainer, but rather a retainer that just happens to be a thrull) — who is a Necrite hunchback - take Westley to the Torture chamber. There Westley screams a near-Endless Scream and is presumed dead. But Inigo finds him and takes him to meet Miracle Max.
(Okay, so I didn't use Thrull Retainer, Torture, and Endless Scream. But I could have. And as a little aside here, the reason that we know that Inigo has a Sword of Light and Shadow is that he returns dead Westley to his hand by using the Sword to find him! How conveeenient.)
Max can get dead guys back using only a magic chocolate pill — which is sorta like discarding a single card, which makes him Undertaker. Which makes his house is Volrath's Stronghold. Before he helps them Max is belittled by his wife. Sorceress Queen is really good at belittling men. So they cast Animate Dead on Westley, which accounts for the obvious
-1/-0 that Westley displays after this point.
Now it's time to storm the castle. “If I only had a holocaust cloak” Higure, the still-Westley says aloud - and then Helldozer is like “Yeah, well, I have a Whispersilk Cloak — is that cool?”
The castle gate is hard to get through, since it has a five toughness, as it's really just a stolen Cemetery Gate. But sinc Fezzik is now unblockable and can't be the target of spells or abilities, the heroes get inside anyway.
Once inside Inigo wipes the floor with the Rugen-Maro, despite the Count having the Sword of Fire and Ice (which he stole form Inigo's father) as well as his Shuko thingy glover-do. So that's another Last Gasp for the count, settling the Vendetta.
Westley is such a total ninja-monster-ultra-killer that he just intimidates Prince Humper-trinket into submission. Then the good guys ride off into the sunset on their new steeds — which all happen to look like Infernal Kirin and/or Cloudhoof Kirin. (And none of them look like Nightmare, in case you had wondered.)
Finally, Westley decides that Inigo should be the new Dread Pirate Roberts and transforms him into Talas Warrior number 2.
THE END
So that gives us this deck, which is way betterer than all other Princess Bride decks combined! Fear the powa!
Princess Bride
2 Talas Warrior
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Abduction
2 Coral Eel
1 Pirate Ship
1 Maze of Ith
1 Ramirez DePietro
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Frantic Search
1 Vendetta
1 Higure, the Still Wind
1 Helldozer
1 Psychatog
1 Circular Logic
1 Undermine
1 Last Word
1 Hideous Laughter
2 Last Gasp
1 Cunning Wish
1 Quicksand
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Rend Flesh
1 Trinket Mage
1 Black Vise
1 The Rack
1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
1 Shuko
1 Necrite
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Undertaker
1 Sorceress Queen
1 Animate Dead
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Cemetery Gate
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Infernal Kirin
1 Cloudhoof Kirin
2 Watery Grave
2 Underground River
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
5 Swamp
4 Island
So that's the deck in movie timeline order, here it is in a format that's like, y'know, readable by humans.
Wish Targets (Optional)
Undermine
Circular Logic
Last Gasp
Hideous Laughter
Vendetta
Last Word
Rend Flesh
After finishing with all that I decided to give Peter's deck a chance to prove me wrong, by going head-to-head in the first ever “Battle Of The Princess Bride Decks!”
This is what happened in a best of seven World Series of Magic. For reference, here's Peter's Deck, along with his who's-who listings;
Peter's Version
Creatures (22)
1 Merchant Ship [Vizzini's Ship]
1 Pirate Ship [Westley's Ship]
2 Birds of Paradise [in the background of a forest scene?]
1 Crenellated Wall [They stage the castle storming form here]
2 Razortooth Rats [The rat in the fireswamp]
2 Sea Monster [The shrieking eels]
1 Cateran Brute [The brute squad]
1 Noble Benefactor [The old king]
1 Abyssal Gatekeeper [The castle gatekeeper]
1 Mundungu [Vizzini]
1 King's Assassin [Inigo Montoya]
1 Craw Giant [Fezzik]
1 Cabal Interrogator [Count six-fingers]
1 Vile Deacon [The priest who tries to marry Buttercup to Humtydump]
1 Diligent Farmhand [Early Westley]
1 Sol'kanar the Swamp King [Later Westley]
1 Yavimaya Elder [Miracle Max]
1 Morphling [Prince Humperdinck]
1 Scarwood Hag [Max's Wife]
Spells (11)
1 Enfeeblement [The power sapped from Westley]
1 Animate Dead [Max's Pill, hey we agree!]
1 Keldon Mantle [Holocaust Cloak]
3 Drain Life [Torture Device, apparently three of them]
2 Magma Jet [The “fire” in Fireswamp]
1 Crossbow Ambush [The taking of Westley and B-cup prisoner]
2 Rampant Growth [In the frieswamp]
Artifacts (3)
1 Mox Diamond [Buttercup, how she became an inanimate object...]
2 Fellwar Stone [Westley and Vizzini's chairs]
Equipment (2)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice [Inigo's Sword]
1 Sword of Light and Shadow [Westley's Sword]
Lands (22) [They're in there somewhere, I'll take his word for it]
3 Mountain
3 Island
3 Swamp
4 Forest
1 Watery Grave
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Quicksand
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Bayou
I think we can all agree right now that mine is the betterer and way coolerer deck!
In order to give Peter's deck a decent chance — and though I refer to it as “Peter's deck,” he was not playing it — I decided that his version could go first. In subsequent games the loser will play first. Thanks to my playtest partner, who played Peter's deck until game four, at which point we switched. (More props go to Peter Jahn and a thanks to him for his contributions to the community... And hopefully, thanks to him for being a good sport.)
In game 1, Peter's deck gets its God draw. Peter plays Bayou and Mox Diamond discarding Craw Giant, which comes into action via Animate Dead. Not bad, not bad at all.
Meanwhile, I am starting with six cards, as I initially drew Swamp, Swamp, Island, Polluted Delta, Watery Grave, Volrath's Stronghold and Pirate ship. The new hand was much better; Last Gasp, Infernal Kirin, and The Rack along with three lands.
I play out a tapped Watery Grave and pass the turn back. Gulp. Pete's deck plays Taiga, bashes for five with Fezzik, and then plays King's Assassin. Yikes! I'm at fifteen and staring down Fezzik and Inigo!
“Fezzik, jog his memory!”
“I didn't mean to jog him so hard.”
I draw Prince Trinket-Dinket and grab a Black Vise with him, hoping to convince my opponents to play many cards so that I can capitalize on Pete's quick start with The Rack that I'm holding. I'm tricky like that.
Then Peter bashes me again with Fezzik. Down to ten. Luckily, I draw Vendetta, lay land, and say “go”. He untaps and Magma Jets my prince. Ouch. He attacks with both his guys and I Last Gasp Inigo, and then Vendetta his giant.
I'm down to six? Okay, maybe his deck is better.
I draw Volrath's Stronghold on the next turn, cast Infernal Kirin, and pass the turn. Pete untaps, draws, plays a land and follows it with Diligent Farmhand and Sword of Fire and Ice. On my turn I play The Rack and attack, holding the Rend Flesh that I just drew. He untaps and takes three from the Rack, putting him to fourteen. He pays to equip the sword onto Farmboy, but I respond with Rend Flesh.
I draw Last Word, attack, and say go. Peter untaps, takes two more from The Rack, plays a land, and announces Morphling. Just like when Westley talked him into giving up, I have the Last Word for Pete's prince. He's now down to nine, and I have six damage a turn on the table. He passes to me and I attack and say go. Peter finds no answer for The Rack and dies.
That's the only time Peter's deck gave mine any trouble at all.
The worst one for him was game 4. First-turn Black Vise, second-turn Last Gasp his Cateran Brute, third-turn Sword of Fire and Ice, fourth-turn Psychatog holding Circular Logic.
“Inconceivable!”
“Never bet against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”
Then again, there was game 6, when Talas Warrior equipped with Shuko just went the whole way.
There was that one time when Peter summoned a third-turn Sol'kanar and that's just plain cool. I played all seven games just to be sure of the winner, my deck won 7-0.
But Wait! There's More!
Because this is the bestest article ever written about hokey movie decks it has the following special bonus section!
So I was watching The Mummy Returns, and there were these flesh-eating beetles. And I was all, “Man, these flesh-eating beetles rock!” Plus there were also a couple of hot chicks fighting over ultimate power and like other important stuff. So then I was thinkin' that this could be some kind of cool Magic deck.
First, we'll need beetles - the kind that eat flesh. Grave-Shell Scarab seems perfect. Then we need more beetles, so I picked Shambling Shell for that role.
Now, I realize that Shambly is a plant and not an insect. Well, that's gotta be a typo. I mean if he was really a plant he'd be a shambling husk, like Nantuko Husk, who's actually an insect...Whatever! I'm stickin' with Shambly.
Then there're the hot chicks and then there's, like, the undead master guy, The Mummy. So I thought that Ghost Council of Orzhova would be a pretty bad-assed bad guy type. And like the Mummy himself, the Ghosts are super-hard to get rid of. Oh yeah, and the Council hangs out with this one hot girl named Teysa who is to Orzhov as the XB is to Toyota.
So Teysa is going to be the evil girl that, like, serves the ghostly masters. So then we need another hot chick to be our heroine.... But not in an addictive way, okay? We're all just casual users. We could quit at any time. So the other lady is going to be Savra, Queen of Hearts. Er, wait - I mean, “Queen of the Golgari.” My heart is black and moldy, so those are kinda the same thing right?
Whatever. She totally gives me Vigor Mortis - in my pants!
I've noticed, by the way, that this deck is actually looking somewhat deck-like, whereas I was originally thinking that it looked more like a bad movie than it resembled a playable pile of cards. Just an observation.
So in the movie there are also these demon soldier guys and they look pretty gnarly - so I'm gonna say that they're about as weird looking as four-armed snake men. And since we are playing green, that means that any excuse to put in Sakura-Tribe Elders is good enough. Oh yeah, and I had a Waking Nightmare about the mana base, too. These weird-lookin' guys just keep coming from this unholy city in the desert, so I have to put in an unholy city. Maybe Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree is a good card. There are no standard-legal city-Deserts right now anyway.
So when something dies it like turns putrid and mummy-like, and you might say that it was Mortified or it wouldn't have died in the first place. Right?
Oh my God! I almost forgot that there's like a guy hero, too. And a little kid. So a cross between a little kid and a hero would be like an elf or something, I guess.... Although, the kid is sorta tainted because he wore the unholy bracelet of power. And there's also this, like, protector-type guy who shows up and gives all the other “good guys” +1/+1 til the end of the movie, or at least until the end of the turn.
And the evil mummy guy can use magic and beat you down just by looking at you! Totally scary. I know.
Therefore, I must conclude that if I was an ancient undead Egyptian lunatic necro-priest sort of fella, this is totally the Type 2 deck I'd be playing:
4 Shambling Shell
3 Grave-Shell Scarab
3 Savra, Queen of the Golgari
3 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
3 Ghost Council of Orzhova
4 Putrefy
4 Mortify
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Elves of Deep Shadow
3 Glare of Subdual
2 Selesnya Guildmage
2 Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
2 Swamp
2 Plains
3 Forest
3 Temple Garden
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Godless Shrine
1 Brushland
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Okina, where my grandpa goes to temple
Strangely enough, this deck isn't as bad as you might imagine. It's pretty cool when you have a Grave-Shell Scarab out with Savra and Teysa. Pay 1 mana, draw a card, gain two life, pay two life: your opponent sacrifices a guy and you get to put a 1/1 white spirit token into play! Cool. Oh yeah — and you can dredge it back the very next turn!
That Ghost Council is kinda good with saprolings and such as well. You can make a Vitu-Ghazi token, tap down your nastiest foe with Glare of Subdual, then sac the saproling (gaining two life if Savra is around) and Astral Slide the Council out only to drain a point when the ghostests-with-the-mostests return to play. Teysa tokens can work with Glare, Selesnya tokens work with the Ghost Council, and it's all pumped up on that Xyience drink.
!MAD TECH ALERT!
Putrefy and Mortify do not suck.
So there you go — a Mummy Returns theme deck that is standard-legal. Now you can finally stop wondering “when will someone make a semi-playable, standard-legal ‘The Mummy Returns' deck and satisfy my craving for such things?” Sweet.
You'd think I'd be done at this point, and you'd be right.
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