“This has got silly.”

I can't make anything else of it. There's only one way to put it, really.

So here goes.

“It's not pining – it's passed on. This site's multiplayer section is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late multiplayer site. It's a stiff. Bereft of life. It rests in peace! If the Ferrett hadn't locked multiplayer in the sidebar template, it would be pushing up the daisies. Its article archives are now history. It's off the web! It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

“This… Is an ex-multiplayer site!”*

Ah, that's better.

I need the quote because I really want you to imagine this for me. You know. The raised tone of voice. The animated matter. The properly flailing hands. The piercing stare. The unflinching fury. That's how I feel.

For oh, woe is me, what happened to StarCityGames.com's casual side? Is it hiding in the shadows, like a popular girl's ugly sister? It is permanently out of favor, like a bad eighties hairstyle? Has the audience disappeared? Are they all over at MagicTheGathering.com, like our dearly-departed very-esteemed-editor Ted Knutson (oh doubly woe is us)?

Well, I can answer part of that last question. I'm a multiplayer dweeb, and I'm still here, and I'm not getting my fix. You know what triggered my rage? That same Teddy Cardgame's “The 2005 StarCityGames.com Awards.”

An excellent year in review. But he mentioned no casual authors.

Suddenly, I was awakened from the insipid contentment I had drifted into. For the rest of StarCityGames.com is good. Very, very good. But there were few casual authors to mention – for few casual articles had been published! To my horror, I discovered that the multiplayer article center only has three articles in it, the most recent of which was submitted over a month ago. The tragedy!

Oh, there was that brief Golden Age where the Ferrett would post weekly casual challenges, and articles poured in lured by the $20 bounty – but alas, that time has come and gone. (The Ferrett ran out of ideas, and nobody bothered to suggest any – The Ferrett) But what can one girl do? Only this: She can try to write. And submit. And call upon her fellow in-the-closet-casual-mages to do the same. We must rise up! We must conquer! Fill the front page of StarCityGames.com with multiplayer gems once more. I beg it of you.

So now, without further ado, I will make the first attempt at resuscitating a dying article format: I bring you my bestest, most consistent multiplayer deck. Among its primary virtues are simplicity, redundancy and reliability.

Frankly, it's hardly my style.

I am, after all, a Blue Mage. The more intricate, unlikely and delayed my victory is, the more I like it. Unfortunately, the main drawback of those intricate, unlikely, and delayed victories is how desperately rare they are. Sometimes, it's better to just win.

And while this deck lacks any Islands, it's still very satisfying to play. For when you and your five-card combo have been kicked in the shins one too many times, you can always say: “All right. Now you've really done it. I've had it. Remember – you brought this on yourselves. I'm bustin' out The Pussy Deck!”

When I speak of pussies, I refer, of course, quite benignly to one of Magic's recently spotlighted species: Cats. They were rampant in Mirrodin, as the Leonin of lore. But to get to my deck's core, we need to go a little farther back. Anyone remember Prophecy? No

Let me introduce you to the Rhystic mechanic, as well as a pair of feline siblings: Glittering Lynx and Glittering Lion. They have the magic words “prevent all damage” on them, which tends to be some good in multiplayer… If not for that pesky addendum of “No, wait, do not prevent all damage if any sod at the table is willing to pay X.”

Thankfully, our lovely game comes with a built-in solution, too: Cursed Totem.

Cursed Totem can be the total nuts. It shuts down Wellwisher, Psychatog, Grave-Shell Scarab, Triskelion, Twilight Drover, Avatar of Woe, Masticore, Morphling, Birds of Paradise…. The list goes on and on. Any creature-based shenanigans your opponents were planning will be probably be prevented by this marvelous artifact. If I'm going to confine myself to a trickless beatdown based deck, so will everybody else.

On the other hand, it can also paint a big red target on your forehead – plenty of people are going to be really upset that your dippy artifact in your dippy cat deck is going to prevent them from pulling off their Really Cool Trick. Their first priority will be to Take You Down! with whatever else their deck does that Cursed Totem doesn't protect you from – and that can be very unpleasant.

But are you defenseless? Hardly.

Before I continue, however, I must confess to a tragic fact: I am lacking in material wealth. The little money I do have tends to go primarily towards food, heat, and shelter, not cardboard. My decks, therefore, tend to be devoid of all too many pricey rares. This includes dual lands. This means my best decks are usually mono-colored monstrosities. The Pussy Deck is no exception.

Glittering Lynx, Glittering Lion and Cursed Totem lock me into a mono-White Cat deck. Mono-white for financial reasons, tribal for flavor. That means the meat and bones of it will in fact be in Mirrodin's Leonin. If you look at the Cats available from that block, as I did, you will notice the following features:

1) Most don't have activated abilities. (Aha! I smell Cursed Totem synergy!)
2) Most are small and wimpy.
3) Plenty of them fly.
4) Lots of them do cool things when armed with Equipment.
5) Many don't tap to attack.

Now, of these features, #2 and #4 quite heavily suggest the inclusion of some armaments to flesh out our feline fighters. Shopping for inexpensive multiplayer bombs in the Equipment department quickly leads us to the Loxodon Warhammer aisle… And it's an absolute beat stick. It gives your pint-sized Cats a much needed power boost and helps keep your own health in the green as well. Life gain gets better with every extra mage at the table.

My other choice is perhaps a little more inspired. Vulshok Gauntlets is a perfect fit for this deck, due to #5. It's cheap to acquire, cast and Equip. It huge-ifies your Cats, and its drawback is irrelevant when handed to a Leonin Den-Guard or Skyhunter Prowler. In the worst-case scenario, you can move it around after you attack, or Equip it to a Glittering Lion for a huge, nigh-indestructible blocker (with the Totem out).

That leaves removal. Occasionally, your opponents are going to insist on casting creatures before your Cursed Totem comes online, or that it won't shut them down effectively enough. Likewise, enchantments and artifacts might be a problem. The latter is a no-brainer: Disenchant. For the former, I have Swords to Plowshares, so I'm using those. If you're as poor as I am and Swords-to-Plowshares-less, may I suggest Devouring Light, Afterlife or Path of Peace, depending on what your problem creatures are.

Finally, that brings me to –

Cats Featured by Elske van der Vaart on 2006-01-22 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11145.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 3 Cursed Totem 3 Loxodon Warhammer 3 Vulshok Gauntlets	Creatures 4 Glittering Lion 3 Glittering Lynx 4 Leonin Den-Guard 3 Leonin Skyhunter 3 Skyhunter Cub 4 Skyhunter Prowler 3 Skyhunter Skirmisher Instants 2 Disenchant 4 Swords to Plowshares Basic Lands 22 Plains	Stats: Average mana: 1.44 Average creature mana cost: 2.46 Average creature power: 1.42 Average creature toughness: 2.08 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 36.07% Instants: 9.84% Creatures: 39.34% Artifacts: 14.75%
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

It might not look like much. It, in fact, looks like it might be aggro. And aggro, as the Ferrett has written, is dead. But it's not really aggro. It's… efficient. And harmless-looking. Don't dismiss it just yet.

The synergy is exceptional. The Cursed Totem is important, but the deck will still function well without it. Let me walk you through it.

Against aggro decks, you have excellent weapons in the form of your many early drops (no nibbling during the games' first few turns!), your Glittering Cats (with a Totem out, they're fantabulous blockers), and the Loxodon Warhammer (lifegain keeps you out of slash-and-burn range).

Versus mid-range aggro-control or combo-type decks, your Totem will often prove pure gold. In multiplayer, any successful attempt to control the board almost has to be permanent -based (whatever your trick is, it probably won't suffice to pull it off just once) and often involves at least one creature. Cursed Totem should shut it down. You should be able to rush the exceptions (and the ones with efficient artifact destruction). An equipped Leonin Den-Guard, Skyhunter Cub, Skyhunter Prowler or Skyhunter Skirmisher is really big really fast.

This same trick should help you against pure control-based strategies. But really, your main weapon is the built-in redundancy: You have no really fundamental pieces. Counter my Vulshok Gauntlets? Fine. Kill my Skyhunter Cub? Go for it. I'll ride my Leonin Skyhunter with its Loxodon Warhammer to victory instead. One of your Cats and one of your Equipments is bound to sneak through. It's not enough to control the occasional big creature or single game-breaking enchantment – everything needs to be kept under wraps.

The other thing that should help you in a multiplayer game is this deck's innocuousness. Your deck is not scary. It's just creatures… And they're not even particularly powerful creatures. I suppose once you Equip them they're a little threatening, but you're not going to do anything really nasty like, oh, recurring a Deranged Hermit over and over. Until the Cursed Totem comes down, you shouldn't have to interfere with anyone's game in any way that will really piss him or her off. When it does hit the table, the one guy with the Wellwisher plan is going to be fuming – but there will be others as grateful for the relief as you are.

So how do you play this deck? First of all, you can play it against one opponent just fine. It's a rather efficient beatdown deck. That's exactly what your plan is: Don't overextend, just get one or two Equipped felines out, and attack. Half your guys fly, so aggression really is your forte.

In a multiplayer arena, be a little more subtle. Until you have a Loxodon Warhammer, there's really no point in attacking anyone you don't want to kill immediately. It will just invite aggression, and you should be happy to let others do most of the work for you. You can sit on your army, playing defense until someone provokes you or the commencement of the endgame. If you have a Warhammer, you can nibble at people for the lifegain it awards you, but don't piss off anyone you can't handle.

This doesn't apply if there's that One Girl With The Crazy Combo Deck, of course. Send your Cats in as soon as you've got them. Everyone will thank you anyway. Try not to overextend, though. Don't play out Cats just because you can. Remember that anyone can pay the Glittering costs if there's no Cursed Totem out – including players you currently have no quarrel with. Really, it's straightforward. Just ride the synergy and redundancy this deck offers.

The one thing that does bug me about The Pussy Deck is that it gets absolutely nothing out of being The Pussy Deck. I mean, it gains zero power from being tribal. There's no mechanical reason not to add non-Cats to it. It doesn't weaken any of your cards. I live with it, because I like the flavor of it. And I like saying The Pussy Deck. The only way to remedy this defect that I can currently see is Raksha Golden Cub. He's a Super-Duper Creature Leader! He's also seven mana, which is way out of this deck's natural range. He's cool, but in my unfortunate experience, he's also completely useless.

Now for a short alternate reality section. This deck does very well in my local kitchen table metagame, but yours might be different. You also might be less financially destitute than I am. Obviously, half the fun in casual Magic is building your own decks, but I cannot resist offering some suggestions. It's like an exercise in imagining alternate realities. I am, of course, going to stay within the Cat theme – it would be against my principles not to.

What if all my precious artifacts keep getting blown up?
Ahh, yes – that is unpleasant. I imagine your primary problem is the Cursed Totems. Other players at the table will usually have far scarier artifacts than mere Vulshok Gauntlets. One thing you could try is Leonin Abunas, perhaps in Lightning Greaves. Puss in boots!

If you really can't keep the Cursed Totems on the table, maybe the best course of action is simply to remove them and the Glittering felines from the deck in favor of more Cats and Equipment, since they're not key. If the problem is in the Equipment – consider a different approach, in Bonesplitter, Leonin Scimitar, O-Naginata, and Leonin Squire.

What if I keep losing to the enchantment- or artifact-based combo decks you say I should be able to rush?
Well, the straightforward answer is to up the number of Disenchants or Disenchant effects. If you need a more permanent solution – and are significantly richer than I – consider adding Green for Aura Shards. Green also gives you access to a number of lovely Cats, most notably Fleetfoot Panther (which does double duty as a Cat-saver), Krosan Vorine (removal on paws!), Mirri, Cat Warrior, Noble Panther and perhaps Horned Cheetah… Although that does raise the deck's curve. It may not be a problem if your metagame is slow.

What if I'm wealthy and want to add some actual, you know, rares to the deck?
My first suggestion would be the Sword of Light and Shadow or Sword of Fire and Ice. Both are exceptional pieces of equipment and add some real power to the deck. Once you've got those, look at Leonin Shikari, who fits the curve perfectly and lets you do all sorts of nasty combat tricks (especially with the Vulshok Gauntlets).

You might also consider Jareth, Leonin Titan. Sure, he's six mana, but he's a powerhouse and gives the deck an iconic creature to rally around. Savannah Lions would be a real addition to the deck if you intended to use it mainly in duels, where speed is more of an issue. Finally, Leonin Sun-Standard might do something for you, and it fits the theme.

What if I do have all those fancy dual lands you keep going on about?
You could try the Green plan listed under the “What if enchantments and artifacts are beating me up?” alternate reality. Another option, however, is Red. Red is full of cool Cats (like Chartooth Cougar, Savage Firecat, and Scoria Cat). It also gives you access to cool spells from Boros: Lightning Helix, Brightflame, Rally the Righteous, and the older Squee's Embrace. (Not to mention Sunforger, of course.)

It does raise your curve and do away with some of the deck's simplicity… But variety is the spice of life, and if I had the cards for it I'd try it.

I hope you've enjoyed this introduction to my most consistent multiplayer deck. Hopefully you will respond by writing an article about your most consistent/fun/exasperating/challenging/destructive casual deck, or submit a response detailing why I am full of crap, or why Hounds outperform Cats any day. I'm waiting. I'm sure many other multiplayer fans are waiting too.

I'd like to close with one final flavorish thought: Why are there so many White Cats anyway? There's a reason for the expression “It's as impossible as herding cats.” Cats are not exactly social, self-sacrificing, everything-for-the-group type creatures. All the Cats I know are highly individualized selfish charmers. That's definitely Black, and a far cry from White and Green, their home colors in Magic. I can sort of see Red – there's a little impulsivity there – but that's it. What do you think?

For now, until next time,

Elske van der Vaart
elskevdvDEATHTOSPAM@gmail.com

* - My apologies for shamelessly ripping off Monty Python.