Late again. Dammit.

The needle was racing round the dial as I sped down to Aldershot. I was unrecognisable from my normal mild-mannered self; race-face on, shouting at perfectly innocent motorists who happened to be going more slowly than I wanted them to go, and all because my flat-mate is next to impossible to drag away from the pub.

"Just one quick drink."

I should have known better. To protect the names of the innocent, we'll call him Derek (Is that all right, Neil? I always thought of you as a Derek anyway...). Derek's got a temporary driving licence problem at the moment - as in, he doesn't HAVE one for the next year or so - and as we work within a gnat's whisker of each other, I give him a lift in to work. Every now and then I have to work past the usual finishing time of 5:30 p.m., and as soon as I tell Derek this I hear those immortal words:

"I'll meet you across the road, then!"

You can almost hear the bounce in his step and see the antici...... patory shake of his hand as he heads off to the White Horse for as much Stella Artois (a.k.a. Stegga, Dave, Nelson, et cetera) as he can fit down his throat before I can pry his fingers from the bar and drag him away kicking and screaming. Don't get me wrong, I like pubs; I even like the odd drink from time to time (three, five or seven pints are all quite acceptable), but watching someone else get drunk just isn't any fun.

I call him when I'm heading across to collect him and sure as eggs is eggs, he's just ordered a pint for himself and a Diet Coke for me. It's no big deal when I'm not in a hurry, but it's 6: 45 p.m. and I have to get home, change, grab something to eat, and get on the road to be in Aldershot by 8 p.m. This is his third pint of Stella. It's just not going to happen.

By 7 p.m., he's clasping his broken fingers and sulking as I speed off down the A321 back to the flat. A quick 'Sure' shower and couple of slices of toast and with 'The Aldershot Purger' in hand, I'm off.

I arrive in a cloud of blue smoke at the venue, run past the Alcoholics Anonymous hall ("Hi Fred!", "D'oh!") and dash down the corridor into the venue, only to be confronted by twenty people, heads down over their magical cards.

NOOOOOO!!!!! They've started!

And then I see what's being played...

"Ritual out Necropotence, pay three life and draw three cards. Done."

It's non-tournament week. Oh, bugger!

I suppose I should have checked, but that would have been too easy. So I settle down next to Paul and Simon and pull out a few decks and wait to get in on a game of multiplayer. I then realise that 'The Aldershot Purger' is likely to be pants in multiplayer. I don't really have anything much else that's Type 2 legal - and playing with type 2 decks against Moxen, Gallowbraids, and their evil ilk just isn't cricket.

Their game finishes and, Paul being Paul, opens a box and says:

"Choose a deck... Go on, any deck... Not that one, that's really boring... Any deck..." until I've chosen the one that he's itching to play. Simon shuffles up what he's been playing and I give 'TAP' a pile shuffle. Fittingly, as it turns out.

The games are fun, but I'm never in any danger of troubling the scorers. Discard just doesn't work against multiple players, and my limited amount of burn wasn't ready for the new Living Death deck that I turned out to be up against.

Time to review the not-so-crap rare that powers Paul's deck:

Twilight's Call
4BB
Sorcery
You may play Twilight's Call any time you could play an instant if you pay 2 more to play it. Each player returns all creature cards from his or her graveyard to play.

Hmm. I hadn't even noticed this card in the spoilers, and it wasn't until it landed that I understood why Paul was ecstatic about being Ratted and Addled and Pained. Dragons were falling in to his graveyard. Devouring Strossus was falling into his graveyard. Delraich made his way there, too. There was a really big sign with 'graveyard recursion in progress' written on it, and I had sauntered past it without playing the blindest bit of attention.

I had out a kickered Duskwalker, Crosis, and a Ravenous Rat, and was feeling pretty good. Simon had some stuff but no threats (Utopia Tree and the like), and then Paul drops the bomb - and three dragons come out of the graveyard with plenty of other fat. One chump block and some mighty amounts of damage later, and it's all over.

Now that HAS to be a breakable card. I don't think that Paul's deck breaks it (though in the slower multiplayer environment it certainly works), but there are definitely some options there. The question, as ever, is how to stay alive until you can cast it? One to work on, I think.

Two things that came out of this for me: The first is that my deck relies on Crosis WAY too much. It needs a couple of other significant threats, or it needs to find some speed from somewhere. The other thing is that when it faces other dragons, it's in serious trouble. And if any of those other dragons happen to be Crosis, and they land their legendary fat boy first, then it's all over in a hurry.

Some more thinking to be done. I guess it's a good job it's not a tournament week.

Paul sees my kicked puppy look and takes pity, offering a game of one on one.

"Pick a deck... Any deck... Not that one, that's a really dumb deck..."

So I drag out a G/W pants deck with Armadillo Cloaks and Kavu Titans and we set to.

This has some quite painful memories, so I'm going to gloss over the worst of it. Suffice it to say that as I didn't have any maindeck removal I lost - big time. Dawnstrider sort of laughs at Blastoderm, doesn't it? Hmm - Unyaro Bee Sting... Err...Maybe a Desert Twister or two. D'oh!

Then again he also had Restock, and for the kill there was Saproling Symbiosis partnered with Caller of the Hunt. Rather a large slice of cheese, but a very effective one. Admittedly the Caller doesn't have trample, but when he's got twenty Saproling tokens backing him up (with three generously granted by me by way of an Aura Mutation), who cares? Attack for forty. On turn not many? Now this would have problems with Simoon and the like, but a well-timed Spidersilk Armor could do wonders for this deck. I like it a lot and it could easily surprise a few people. Certainly surprised the hell out of me, but then I walk around with a surprised look on my face a lot of the time.

Add in much trading - Rebel Informers in, anything blue out - and a good night was had by all. I'd forgotten how much fun taking lumps out of each other with some fun decks can be. Hey ho! Draft next week - maybe I'll win a game or two...

And maybe pigs'll fly...

'til next time,

Richard Young
Team Pants

"The words of this wizard stand on their head."