FiveColorFat: I'm thinking about writing again
MouthorJoe: Don't do that to people

What a ringing endorsement from my soon-to-be-unsuspended friend and teammate, Joe"Mouth" Kambourakis, huh? Be careful kids, he'll be adding cards to his sealed decks and eyeing up your fifteen year-old sisters in less than two months.

I found a black-bordered foreign Dandan in a random box a couple of weeks back and asked someone if it was still legal in extended. The response I got, compounded with my recent birthday told me that maybe I should just burn all of my cards.

"What does that do?"

"It's a 4/1 for UU that can only attack if the defender has Islands."

"Why would that be good?"

"Well, it was insane against High Tide."

"What is that?"

I found a rope, now I just need a strong enough I-beam.

My multi-player experience has increased significantly since the last time I wrote. Several months ago we were playing only fun cards and our decks were ranging from 200 to 1000 cards. Since then, decks have been trimmed down and Mystic Enforcers added.

No longer are we playing only"fun" highlander decks, but recently we've been putting in good cards that were formerly frowned upon. While the players in my group still refuse to kill all of the land and restrain themselves from playing too many counters and discard spells, creatures that were once denied play are now commonly seen. The decks are still big; 200 is still the smallest count while most decks hover in the 250-400 card range.

My apologies to those of you who wanted a review of Darksteel; I wasn't at the prerelease (obviously) and have yet to see any of the cards other than Darksteel Ingot, which a friend graciously brought me from the Darksteel unveiling.

After several months of play with the Mirrodin cards, our highlander multi-player group has adopted many of the gems of the set into our respective decks.

Since the release of Mirrodin, the artifact hate in decks has risen as many people have added some of the potent artifacts in the set. Some of the most popular include;

Aether Spellbomb and Pyrite Spellbomb
Cheap and cycle-able, these are the two best abilities on Spellbombs, and since several people play the Seals of Fire and Removal anyway, these fit right in.

Pentavus, Clockwork Dragon, and Platinum Angel are ridiculous and many people play at least one of these three. These guys are big, colorless, don't take any skill, and have a tendency to win the game in short order.

Culling Scales is an interesting card that hasn't seen any play yet. Perhaps it's the propensity for people to play giant creatures. The average casting cost in most decks is probably between three and four, making Culling Scales an unpopular choice.

Some of the equipment from the set caught on quickly. Being able to turn your lowly Man-O-War into a monster attacker is something that Loxodon Warhammer and Empyrial Plate both do well. Lightning Greaves is recognized by many to be powerful, and while most don't play it, we all envy it when someone puts the Greaves on their side of the board. Mask of Memory requires immediate attention... okay, I think I just talked myself into playing Rack and Ruin.

Imprint is another new ability that has a couple of cards perfect for our decks. Isochron Scepter can make for short games; so if you have a short temper, I suggest you ban it in your playgroup. I have imprinted Swords to Plowshares, Smother, and Impulse thus far. I've had an imprinted Terminate have me pick up my cards. Occasionally the Scepter will rot in your hand without an imprintable spell, but the times you do get to cast and imprint Lightning Bolt or Jilt makes the wait worth it. Soul Foundry is another card that can fall to abuse. The only time the Foundry has been down against me was in a three-man game and it imprinted Angel of Mercy. At this point, the other opponent and I immediately ganged up on the jerk making 3/3 fliers, but the decks are generally slow, and he was able to beat us as no artifact removal was found.

Gilded Lotus
This format isn't known for ease of mana. Gilded Lotus helps a ton, and once you cast this, you can cast nearly all the rest of your spells for the remainder of the game.

Mind's Eye
Fun for you? You bet! Going to get you killed in a hurry? Undoubtedly. Cast this at your own peril. Sometimes people just save their artifact removal and smash your skull. In theory Mind's Eye is amazing in a five-way game or two-man teams, but it gets you attacked more than almost any other card.

While Mirrodin is almost half artifacts, there are some colored cards that have made an impact on our multi-player marathons or two-on-two team games.

Wrath of God is a welcome addition to our decks since many creatures are difficult to kill and Solar Tide can keep your Merfolk Looter on the table while destroying Dragons and Legends alike.

The more popular creatures getting played have a wide variety of uses. Solemn Simulacrum smoothes land and generates immediate card advantage while Quicksilver Elemental poses a threat based on other creatures on the board. Green's contribution of creatures wasn't small, as usual. Copperhoof Vorrac and Troll Ascetic are both great attackers while Glissa Sunseeker can destroy your opponent's toys they left lying around. Viridian Shaman means that each deck gets access to two"Uktabis."

Black's best removal spell for our purposes is almost certainly Betrayal of Flesh. An early Frantic Search, Wheel of Fortune, or spellshaper activation may have put an uncastable creature in your graveyard and all of the sudden a Luminous Angel can find her way on the table while Betrayal takes care of a problem creature.

Problem creatures: heading that list is Arc-Slogger. This guy just shocks your Looters and morph creatures without any care for ten cards. One of the locals, Peter Scheffner, is a fan of immediately going to the head with the 'Slogger. That player usually has to have removal before Peter untaps or they could face a ton of damage.

Scheffner also plays Serum Tank and Liar's Pendulum. I originally didn't think Serum Tank would be too good, but with most people playing mana-smoothing artifacts like Fellwar Stone and Mana Prism, along with Mirrodin's Talismans, the Tank is always drawing him cards. Liar's Pendulum is an interesting artifact. Cheap to cast and activate, if you bat .500 with it, you're paying the same amount of mana as Jayemdae Tome at the cost of revealing your hand, which can sometimes be to your advantage.

A card I have meant to getting around to trying is Sun Droplet. Non-lethal damage to you is almost inconsequential when you are playing four or more players. I don't draft much, but I did have this in a deck one time. Bob Maher bounced it to the top of my deck with a Looming Hoverguard, and I imagine that if the Droplet doesn't get destroyed, it should be a potent lifesaver in multi-player.

Ted"Editor of the site" Knutson thought that there had to be fun incidents happening every time we played our giant highlanders. Ted is right, and some of the stories are very entertaining and can blow out the whole table or team at a time while giving bragging rights for days or weeks on end.

Since we don't play global land kill, there are very few daggers pulled, like"Mystic Enforcer, Desolation Angel with kicker," but occasionally there are ridiculous plays that can be obscenely brutal. Activating Helm of Obedience to pull a Crater Hellion or False Prophet during combat can get you kicked out of a local restaurant, while Routing the board and playing Lhurgoyf and Sylvan Safekeeper boarders on a bottle-swinging incident.

Last week, the owner of Amazing Adventures (the local store), cast Insurrection in a two-on-two game and took all of the guys, killed an opponent, then sacrificed all of the opposing guys to a Phyrexian Ghoul... saucy, no?

Anyone who wants to bring a highlander deck to Madison for the next PTQ ^h should come smash my face. I just got new stuff from StarCity, and my Adun Oakenshield is waiting to recur my Dark Hatchling. Also, Steve Port just got a dart board in his store, and I shot three consecutive hat tricks at the bar last week, so Dustin Stern and I will be there shooting team cricket for draft sets.

Kurtis"Fat Man" Hahn

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