Let me start off with a bit of correspondence between myself and the mighty Dr. Richard Garfield.

He was kind enough to sign my foil Serra Angel! To me, there is no better person to sign a Magic card than the originator of the game itself!

One thing, though; along with signing the cards - I was lucky enough to get six or so signed - he put three squiggly lines above Serra's head. I was puzzled; I had no idea what they meant. I wrote to him to thank him and asked what they meant:


Dr. Garfield:

I appreciate your taking the time to sign my cards. Please do tell me, though, what the three squiggly lines you drew above her head mean?

Thank you!

Sean


(And his answer:)


Early on I felt bad just signing, so I developed some techniques to slightly personalize my signatures; typically I make them sing (music note), excited or surprised (exclamation mark), confused or curious (question mark), or my favorite, angry or concentrating (three wavy lines - kind of a Japanese anime symbol).

R^G

I'm very happy. He not only signed my best card, but he personalized it in a way he obviously doesn't do with all signed cards. (No other symbols were on the other signed cards, except for my Rishadan Port, which has an exclamation point, and my Deranged Hermit with a music note.)

So, if you are ever lucky enough to meet Dr. Garfield in person, ask him for those special marks of his; it's unique and unforgettable!

Okay, it's Invasion time and everyone and their little brother are advertising their decks or their ideas. Just thought I'd let everyone know what I'm playing in November. No super strong decks, no net decks - though one of the decks is well known.

First off, my daughter and I playtested these decks for fun a few days ago. These are my red and green decks for November:

(Nope, no stinking dec. names for me!)

4x Llanowar Elves (Beta!!)
4x Elvish Archers
4x Vine Trellis (Foil)
4x Kavu Titan
4x River Boa
4x Elvish Champion
3x Rhox (Foil)
4x Blastoderm (Foil)

4x Seal of Strength (Foil)
4x Giant Growth
2x Hurricane

20x Forests (Foil)

The other deck is probably similar to Brawler Sligh.

4x Laccolith Whelp (Couldn't find much in the one-drop slot.) (Foil)
4x Veteran Brawlers
4x Rage Weaver
2x Firebrand Ranger (2/1 guys are the best Sligh has now.) :-(
4x Fault Riders (Foil) (These are very good!)
4x Skizzik! (Err, I mean BALL LIGHTNING!!)

4x Seal Of Fire (Just traded my foil Seals away.) :-(
4x Shock
4x Giant Strength (I don't care if nobody plays them; they are very good in an aggressive deck, and are better than any two-drop creatures left or a burn spell.)
1x Hammer of Bogardan
4x Tangle Wire (With four Earthquakes ready to sideboard in.)

19x Mountains (Foil)
2x Rath's Edge

There are the two decks. What do you think? Yeah, sure, neither is going to set the world on fire. But the green one should be strong if it can last out a few turns, and I'm hoping the red one will be quick enough to cause some trouble. Either way, I think both decks are set up for a load of fun.

We played two matches, and to my surprise the red deck won four out of the five games. Later that night I took it to Wizards for Friday night Magic, and it won a couple of games from my green deck.

Nothing like a Giant Strength on a Veteran Brawlers. Watch that baby stop a Blastoderm in its tracks!

And since games seem to last longer, Skizzik almost always comes in to stay with five mana. The only reason you would cast it for four is if you had your opponent down and wanted to drive them into burn range. My red deck is lacking a bit in burn, but that was the price I had to pay for using Tangle Wire and Giant Strength. Still, it was worth it to me.

I'm still convinced the green deck will do okay, assuming it has time to get plenty of mana out and get a big boy or two out. If a Rhox shows its nasty snout, then it almost always spells doom for your opponent.

The third deck came about because I got tired of getting my @$$ kicked. The last five weeks of pre-Invasion I played green exclusively, as I wanted to squeeze the last bit of life out of my precious Cradles before they faded away forever. (Remember, there is no Extended in my neck of the woods.)

Rebels. Frankly, getting pounded by a bunch of soldiers started to bug me. But that's not why I switched. I went over to the Rebel alliance because they were fun to play.

Let me explain. A year ago when MM came out, I fooled around with Rebels a bit, but kept getting my butt handed to me again and again. I had no idea what was wrong. Weren't they supposed to be good?

Yeah, they were... one expansion later. I had quit fooling around with Rebels before the next expansion, so I never experienced the power of Parallax Wave. I also overlooked the sneaky Reverent Mantra. Those two cards just made the Rebel deck about a thousand times better.

Rebels are powerful, but not the fastest deck in the land. But now they had the ability to slow the game down, putting your opponent in some sort of time warp. Parallax Wave is so good, it's even better than Tangle Wire for slowing your opponent down. With the Wave and Mantra in hand, no lead is safe for your opponent. You can easily give ten to fifteen points of damage on one turn. Or use the Wave one turn and then the Mantra to finish them off.

So here's the deck, but remember, many parts are interchangeable:

4x Ramosian Sergeant
4x Steadfast Guard
4x Fresh Volunteers
2x Ramosian Captain
2x Lin-Sivvi
4x Longbow Archer

4x Disenchant
4x Parallax Wave
3x Reverent Mantra
2x Armageddon
4x Crusade

20x Plains (Foil)
3x Kor Haven

I've never seen a Rebel deck use Kor Haven, but it works great. Really stops Blinding Angel's ability; versatile against many other powerhouses also.

I'm also considering getting rid of the Longbow Archers. I know that may make the deck just a bit weaker, but I'd kind of like to put in stuff like one of each of these: Ramosian Commander, Rappelling Scouts, maybe a Ramosian Sky Marshal and one Jhovall Queen. Make the deck a bit tougher in power, and maybe make the Rebel engine a bit smoother with more searchers.

I'm pondering perhaps making Armageddon a sideboard card and sticking in two more Rebels. Kind of like Ramosian Captains, as they are like Longbow Archers but can search.

I'm hoping Armageddon can be a sideboard card and can be brought in as needed, as Wrath of God will be. I'm also using a bunch of Circle of Protections in the sideboard, as they look very good to me even though no one seems to use them.

I received a bunch of Rebels on Friday afternoon, threw the above deck together, took it down to WotC, and played it. No, this isn't a tournament report. Just brief highlights.

First game I drew in a mirror matchup. Lucky me. I won the first game and he won the second. The third he got Worship out, and me? I had sideboarded out my Disenchant, as I didn't think I'd need them!

Luckily for me, we had taken a long time and I was able to use my Kor Haven to hold off certain combat damage until time was called. My opponent went on to win his next three games and finish clear second!

I lost the second game in another mirror matchup! Lost in three fairly close games.

My third round opponent dropped, and fourth round I got what I consider my dream matchup: Green!

Yep, I was able to smash this young sucker the way I'd been pounded upon in the last few weeks.

Rebel engine, Parallax Wave, death. Next game; Rebel engine, Parallax Wave and Reverent Mantra... death. Third and fourth game for fun - DEATH!

So I finished 1-1-1. Not bad, considering this was my first try in a tournament with this deck. Rebel decks can be a bit tricky, at least to me.

I should be getting a bunch of foil Rebels to make my deck shiny. That would be nice.

I had three different people offer me tons of Rebels. One offered me all of my wishes, but strangely never wrote back. The second offered me a lot and said he could get a few more, but he wanted me to wait a few days, and in the meantime, someone who had a full foil Rebel deck finally decided to break it up, so I'm getting a bunch of foil Rebels for a bunch of red cards such as Hammer, four Ball Lightnings, two Skizziks, four foil Seals Of Fire, two Cursed Scrolls, and a few commons and uncommons.

I should receive four foil Ramosian Sergeants, a couple of Ramosian Lieutenants, a foil Ramosian Captain, a foil Rappelling Scouts, a foil Ramosian Sky Marshall, three foil Seals Of Cleansing and a foil Disenchant, and twenty-two foil Plains. (I think that's it, but it's late and it is hard to remember all of the cards in such a big trade.

(My second-round opponent had Rebel Informer in his maindeck! Nice surprise against my Rebels. I've added one to my sideboard.)

That's it for now. You've seen my three decks for my future. Any help is welcome, especially concerning the Rebel deck, as it looks to be the strongest of the three and - luckily for me - is the most fun of the bunch to play!

SELF SERVING SECTION!

Can anyone help me? To the best of my knowledge I have at least one Deranged Hermit from all the languages it has been printed in. Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian. All languages except German. At least that's what I've been told by a pro tour player whose name shall go unknown - Thanks Alex S! - Does anyone out there have a German Deranged Hermit for trade? Are there any other languages I've missed? All help will be appreciated!

I'm also looking for black-bordered, foreign Serra Angels and Crusades. Will trade fairly well for them!

Lastly, I'm trying to gather the largest collection of Shadow cards in the World! Everyone please help me. Soltari Priests and Monks are a priority, and foreign versions and signed versions are needed as well. All of you mighty traders out there please dig deep and trade me your worthless shadow creatures...

Finally, another in a series of The Weird Adventures Of Deranged Dad!

So it's Monday, my day off, and I'm taking a nap. In the nude. It's pretty hot in San Diego; no winter here. Don't always sleep in the buff, but I decided to this morning.

I'm resting; people my age need a lot of rest, you know. Where was I? Oh, yeah, I'm almost asleep and guess what? The front door opens!

My wife, you might think, as she has the only other key.

Wrong!

It was the apartment repairman! A couple weeks ago when the apartment flooded (you may have read about that in an earlier adventure), they had left me a large fan to dry out the carpet. No, not just a large fan; a huge, monster of a fan, with industrial power.

The previous repairman has a bum knee, so they sent the new one to retrieve the blower. He says he rang the bell and I must have been too drowsy to hear it.

Up I jump in surprise, before realizing what's going on. I grab a blanket, and we proceed to have a thirty-second conversation. He's telling me he knocked and he rang the bell, while I'm saying, "Get out until I get dressed!"

It takes a full thirty seconds before he finally leaves. He is way apologetic; I told him I wasn't mad but, thought he had to have approval from the resident of the apartment to enter.

He said he'd speak to the manager, and, after another apology, left.

That sure shot a bolt of adrenaline through my system, and any thoughts of rest that day were quickly dissipated.

And how was your day?

Later,

Sean Erik Ponce
Deranged Dad

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows..."