So the other day I was attempting a Costanza-esque Roommate Switch. And it turned out she was into it. Sounds good, eh? Opening-a-Double Dip-in-Unglued-Sealed good. I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future were gorgeous ladies who wanted to make out while I watched. Let me tell you: Gary ain't the only one that makes a fine Caucasian. So does the man upstairs, and I don't mean Master Beethoven.

What does a guy do when he's on top of the world, Lifted By Clouds, as it were? If you're smart (and/or really, really pessimistic), you wait for the bottom to fall out. What I didn't realize, was that, as with the Transformers (and, to a lesser extent, the Gobots), there was more here than meets the eye.

Within two shakes of a lamb's tail, in a display of tagteam coordination unseen since Tito Santana and Rick Martel took down The Islanders, I was kicked to the curb by each girl. Let down easy, dumped, sacked, let go, informed that my services were no longer required, and so on and so on. The best and most baffling part is that neither one was my girlfriend. Nevertheless, I assure you that I was dumped, if only symbolically. And contrary to popular belief, grown men do cry. My friend [name withheld] is a freakin' leaky faucet. What a loser!

Was this emasculating? Does the Pope [expletive deleted] in the woods? Right now, I make a Ken doll look like John Holmes. I miss my boys, but the girls sure as Shisato didn't. This was the kind of below-the-belt sucker-punch that'd make an Andrew Golota DQ look like a "happy ending." It wasn't so much a kick in the nuts as a Chun Li-style foot-fusillade to the entire Nuts-family residence. It was a Bald Bull uppercut to my Little Mac. It'd make a railway-spike-enhanced Louisville Slugger sack-pummeling feel like an Honor-Worn Shaku spank-session ("Tapping an untapped legendary permanent you control: That's a paddling!").

And if you think that's painful, hear this: the only thing that's gonna date me now are my lame Street Fighter 2 references. So, dejected, despairing, despondent, distraught, and, uh, discombobulated, I licked my wounds in a way that'd make a dog jealous and retreated to my underground laboratory ...

"You mean your Dad's apartment where you continue to live at age 25?"

"That is correct, sir!"

... to plot my revenge. Like gazpacho, revenge is a dish best served cold. And what could be colder than building a character-assassinating Magic theme deck? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that this was how Lenin got Trotsky kicked out of the Communist Party. And if it worked once, it can work again.

I'm feeling devilish. Very, very devilish. Come, Igor! [That's Eye-gor. - Knut]

As I'm sure many of you already know, Magic provides a veritable arsenal of bad names you can call your ex-girlfriend. Champions of Kamigawa alone provides Cruel Deceiver, Teller of Tales, Villainous Ogre, The Unspeakable, and, uh, Rag Dealer. Okay, they're not all winners. But you get the idea. Personally, I'm fond of Odyssey's Cursed Monstrosity (Finally, this card is useful for something!). With this in mind, I set about my task.

After hours of tweaking, I finally got around to building some decks. The first one I will present to you is the apotheosis of self-pitying Magic theme decks. That one's for me to play. The second deck is the kind of merciless, brutal, and slanderous theme deck that even Kuro, Pitlord has nightmares about. I really do take no prisoners here. Well, I guess I took one. And she rubs the lotion on her skin. This deck is for my lovely female opponents. Without further ado ...

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!

In this corner, wearing the white trunks his momma got him in high school which are full of holes and should've been replaced by now but haven't, your host (me) playing:

Staff Control
1 Nether Spirit
Hailing from the darkest corners of the nether regions, otherwise known as Bill Nigh Unkillable Guy (you know, if you're one of his nerdy friends), Nether Spirit is one of the most resilient creatures in Magic. He'll talk a long walk off a short pier, sleep with the fishes, take a quick dirtnap, and still come back to try on some concrete sneakers. Just don't send him farming. He's useless with a hoe.

I won't say that he's an autoinclude, but when I said goodbye to my two best friends (and I don't mean my pals in the Winnebago) I distinctly remember seeing what looked like a pair of cherries, ghostly white, floating heavenward, playing a harp. And I thought of Nether Spirit. I don't know why.

1 Avatar of Woe
If you're familiar with the NBC sitcom Blossom (If you think I've been locked in a cage for the past ten years, you're wrong. It was only seven.), you will undoubtedly know how to correctly pronounce the name of this card. For the uninitiated, it's Avatar of Whoa. To illustrate why this makes the cut, I will tell you a sad, sad story. Hark:

It was the 34^th of Smarch ... Just kidding. It was actually shortly after Darksteel was released. I had built a fun Golem theme deck, you know, before it was cool to do so. I used the Tooth and Nail skeleton (Sylvan Scrying, Reap and Sow, and Cloudposts) because, well, Golems cost a ton. Or a ton-and-a-half Canadian. And we're not just talking about mana. We're talking about a sh**load of mana.

Moving along to the game, my opening hand consisted of something like this:

Cloudpost, 2x Mountain, Hermaphrodite Golem, 2x Sylvan Scrying, Fireball.

I don't have my PhD in Mulliganing (and I even went to Carleton University in Ottawa where they offer one), so I decided to keep this hand. Thinking that if I drew a Forest in the first few turns I'd be cooking with evil gas, I threw caution to the wind.

I led off with the Cloudpost and by turn 5 (which is very close to the Fundamental Turn for this deck) I was holding off a swarm of creatures with two Hematite Golems. But still I had no Forests. It was obvious that I had stalled out, but luckily so had my opponent. He couldn't really attack me for fear of a retaliatory strike by my Golems, which by this point could combine to do upwards of six damage.

Turn after turn went by, and I was forced to discard Tangle Golems ("He's one Golem you don't want to Tangle with!" If you're looking to get lynched by your friends, say this every 30 seconds for the duration of a multiplayer free-for-all. I was drunk, okay?), Bargain Heralds, and Mirror Golems by the truckload. Ever the optimist, I held on to the land fetchers I drew, thinking that if only I drew a Forest, I'd be in Cloudpost City and would be able to Fireball away my opponent's guys and then send another one to the dome for the win. But the Forests never came. Eventually, I had to chump with my Golems and died shortly thereafter.

I cursed my foul luck and changed decks.

Is there a point to this story? Well, of course there is! A few weeks later, I was going through my decks and I decided to give the ol' Golems a little fine-tuning. As I thumbed through the cards, I theorized that the reason for my manascrew was the fact that I had an improper mana-ratio. You see, I had four Cloudposts, eight Mountains, and zero Forests. It turns out that I had removed them so I could build another deck. Oops.

So, in summary, don't forget to add lands to your decks! Thus endeth the lesson.

Isn't that pitiful? Woeful even? Exit, stage right.

1 Hand of Justice
I know that Hand of Justice and Proteus Staff is not a great combo, but it's the only one I've got at this point. If I could come up with a halfway decent justification for it, thematically speaking, I would like to try Ancestor's Chosen in this slot. Seriously, it works well with both Unfulfilled Desires (to regain the life) and Proteus Staff (because you're sure as Shaku not casting it).

4 Spite/Malice
I had a message on my voicemail the other day. It was from the Jerk Store. Apparently, they'd run out of me. As I will explain in more detail later, I'm not really an angry, vindictive person. More a whiner, truth be told. But, alas, there is no split card called Bitch/Moan. I agree that there should be. I'll submit it at the next Invitational.

4 Denied!
Since I designed these decks for casual duels, I figured, why leave Unglued sitting on the bench? How about it's only averaging 14 points a game? Sorry, I'm confusing Unglued with Vince Carter. Really though, I love this card, it fits thematically, and it is incredibly effective when you're playing against a deck you created.

3 Withdraw
When you announce this say, "I'll Withdraw ... and [expletive deleted] on your [expletive deleted]." If you don't know what that means (and it may mean nothing, since I am after all an idiot. See Above. And below, I guess.), I will just say that I think it's a classic finishing move, not unlike Sub Zero's spine removal and Sonja's kiss of death.

4 Lose Hope
Will I ever love again? Does my butt look big in these cargo pants? Will I ever quit whining? Whenever I get in one of these moods, I do my best Tom Hanks and say to my myself, "There's no scrying in baseball!" It's so true! Scrying is a keyworded mechanic introduced in Magic: The Gathering's Fifth Dawn expansion. FYI, Tom.

3 Gifts Ungiven
Christmas comes but once a year. Christmas and I have a lot in common. Our names begin with Chris! I love this card so much I think I'm going to marry it. Try getting Nether Spirit, Avatar of Woe, Betrayal of Flesh, and Relearn. You'll be happy you did.

1 Upheaval
Your global reset button, or, as I like to call it, The Roadmap to Peace. See below for further shenanigans. (A word of warning: Do not say the preceding sentence to a prospective girlfriend. While you're at it, you might as well avoid saying, "Upheaval is a global reset button," too. It's a bit of a mood killer. Trust me.)

1 Warped Devotion
If there was a card called Misplaced Affection or Get Over It Already, You Loser! I would have included it. Since no such card exists, we'll have to go with this. Only one copy since it's so situational. By the way, if you want Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, combo this with Upheaval on Magic Online. It's cliiiick-tacular!

2 Unfulfilled Desires
Do you suffer from U.D.? I have a daily, all-natural, self-administerable remedy that is sure to cure or your money back. Just, uh, $39.95! Call now! (A quick note: This could probably be Compulsion, you know, if you're really into that sort of thing.)

2 Relearn
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ... won't get fooled again. Not with Relearn in the deck I won't! Useful with Gifts Ungiven, I like to think of it as Lose Hopes five through six. I like to think of myself as a ladies man, too, so obviously I'm completely deranged.

1 Kaervek's Spite
Why is Kaervek so darn spiteful? Because he got dumped. Probably by that slut Hanna. Furthermore, is there a better "Screw you guys, I'm going home"-card in all of Magic?

1 Stroke of Genius
We all know why this in here. The last time I heard that joke, I fell off my Titanic Bulvox and broke my General's Kabuto. [Sheldon must have been visiting Canada again. - Knut]

1 Betrayal of Flesh
The flesh has been berry, berry good to me. Until now.

1 Feast or Famine
The original FoF, as well as an apt description of my love-life. I'm a necrophile, you see. Oh, what a kidder! This is just versatile removal that also happens to combo well with the following card ...

3 Proteus Staff
Playing this deck, like being a catcher in baseball, requires you to focus less on offense and more on how you handle the staff. In this case, the Proteus Staff. This shape-changing stick is the key to the deck, allowing you to turn your man-lands, zombie tokens, and Nether Spirits into Avatar of Woe (if you're lucky) and Hand of Justice (if you're not).

1 Liar's Pendulum
It's card advantage, mind games, and hep slang for the nethers all wrapped up in, dare I say, a neat little package.

1 Baton of Courage
Due to a lack of targets, most of the time this will sit useless in your hand. But I guess that's the joke. Also, I had an open slot so I, uh, stuck this in. [I think I'm still in love with this article, but more jokes like this and I may change my mind. -Same Guy As Before]

1 Serum Tank
Like many players, the guys in my playgroup have pet names for cards, most of which are unprintable on a family site. This one should be fine. We call it ____. (Hint: It's where lesbians go to get a frosty vial of man-business.)

4 Faerie Conclave
"I'll swing with everything ..." This is here for its synergy with both Nether Spirit and Proteus Staff. As a side note, if your opponent is female and she plays one of these, you are legally obligated to say, "She had Man-Lands." Quoth the Raven. I swear.

1 Stalking Stones
Just kidding, ladies! [The restraining order says otherwise.] See Faerie Conclave.

4 Quicksand
If you've ever had to weasel your way out of trouble with the ladies, you'll know why this is here. You're fighting a losing battle, fellas. What I would recommend is this: Don't get bogged down in the verbal Quicksand, use it to kill a River Boa! I believe that's from Nietzsche.

4 Underground Sea
A slightly irrelevant note here: I used to have a set of these but I traded them long ago for, if I'm not mistaken, the insanely powerful and long-forgotten two-card combo of Merfolk Assassin and War Barge. My reasoning, if I may be so bold and call it that, was as follows: "So you're saying that I get hosed by Karma and Tsunami? No thank you, my friend!" You can see how far I've come as a Magic player.

4 Polluted Delta
Move along, nothing to see here.

2 Tundra
Fun fact: Tundra is an anagram for "Dr. Tuna" which, coincidentally, is a name I just made up. "So you're saying I get hosed by Boil and Stench of Evil? No way, Jose!"

2 Seat of the Synod
2 Vault of Whispers
Strictly to put counters on the Serum Tank and subsequently get shut off by Null Rod.

5 Island
4 Swamp

And in this corner, playing a deck with a mana-curve like an hourglass, a deck that cannot in good conscience be described as aggro-control (but I'm gonna do it anyway), in the black trunks:

Collecting Nuts, Taking Names
4 Nut Collector
When I was deciding what the focus of the girl-deck would be, what I will very generously describe as my thinking was as follows:

Id: Spitting Salamander?
Superego: Nah. Too, uh, wrong.

Id: Bone Shredder?
Superego: Nice ... but not really a centerpiece kind of card.

Id: Nut Collector?
Superego: Wasn't that a movie with Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington?
Roger Ebert: No, silly, you're thinking of Bone Collector!
Me: Close enough. Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!

Unfortunately, for any purpose beyond supplying the title to a great serial killer movie, Nut Collector is just bad. It's soooo bad that when you build a deck around it, you really build a deck around it. Just kinda ignore that it's there and hope your other cards will pick up the slack.

4 Squirrel Wrangler
I'll admit that this one is a bit of a stretch, thematically. I like to imagine that this is called Squirrel Strangler. You know, in the spirit of, say, Dolphin Flogger or Chipmunk Puncher. Oh, baby, make it hurt so good.

4 Acorn Harvest
This card furthers the "squirrel and castration" theme. I bet you didn't expect to read that sentence in a Magic article. Unless you're [name withheld] - you know me too well!

1 Savage Beating
Self-explanatory, I suppose. See paragraph 4 above.

4 Whispers of the Muse
Token flattery. This deck isn't Burning Bridges after all.

1 Gush
Don't forget: Bring a towel!

4 Flaccify
Until they make a spell called Neuter (I suggest a Remove Soul for U, or possibly a Humble variant), this, uh, soft counter from Unhinged will have to do.

4 Mesmeric Orb
What would a deck based on the two hot girls who dumped you be without a couple pair of Mesmeric Orbs? ("He means boobies!") And if you think that's a bad joke, be thankful that I scrapped the Part the Veil/Clamfolk deck I was working on. Janky! In all seriousness though, these supple Orbs allow the Nut Collectors to get to threshold and put Acorn Harvests in the graveyard. Plus they act as an alternate win condition. You know, just in case Plan A: Nut Collector Beatdown doesn't work out.

(A quick side note: I really wanted to make the first deck a Mono-Blue Orb deck, for obvious reasons, but the Black cards fit in like square pegs. In square holes, silly!)

4 Null Rod
You'll notice that this shuts down your opponent's Serum Tank, Baton of Courage, Proteus Staff, and Liar's Pendulum. Don't you just hate Virtual Card Advantage? In art as in life? I hereby submit that cards which provide VCA be henceforth called ChK-Blockers. As in, "I woulda won that game, except his Moat was totally ChK-blocking all my guys!"

1 Spellbinder
More flattery. I can't help it. This allows you to turn squirrel tokens into Squirrel-phidians (by imprinting Whispers of the Muse), and if that isn't cool enough for you (I mean, come on: Squirrel-phidians!), imprint Savage Beating and just win the game!

2 Gilded Lotus
Yeah, I know it gets shut off by Null Rod. It's the most stunning lack of synergy I've seen since Jem And The Holograms went off the air. But maybe that's symbolic, eh? Maybe Gilded Lotus is a euphemism. Ever thought of that? Besides, have you seen how bad the mana is? It makes Leroy Brown look like Charlie Brown. Or does it make Divine Brown look like Downtown Julie Brown? I can't decide. Vote in the forums!

2 Guided Passage
This has all the right colors, is a surefire way to put another one of your hand-clogging eight Squirrel Lords into your synonym-for-hand (How about "grip"? Or "mitt"? Don't you have a thesaurus?), and I just happen to think it's a cool card worthy of your attention. Check it out.

4 Exploration
"Plot a course for the Reproductive System, Mr. Data."

"'Fo' shizzle, my kizzle."

"Engage, beeyotch!"

1 Fastbond
If I may get philosophical for a moment: Fastbond, in more than name, is like falling in love. Initially, it allows you to empty your hand, but it quickly ceases to be of any benefit to you and soon thereafter only causes you pain.

4 Forbidden Orchard
The inclusion of this card might baffle some and justifiably so. Let me just say that there are far fewer cards that can adequately represent the unmentionable parts of the female anatomy than those of the male. And Nether Void just didn't fit the color scheme.

25 Other Lands.

I sent the mana-base related calculations to NASA, and as soon as they get back to me, I'll tell you what these cards should be.

(A quick side note: If you noticed that these two decks have 69 cards each, then you might just have more time on your hands than I do. And I'm holding a box of clocks.)

13,000 words later, I will close this near-libelous tirade on a conciliatory note. In the spirit of fair play, I will, for the purposes of the bad kind of self-flagellation, produce a decklist which quite cruelly strikes the very core of my being, or, as I like to call it, my endoskeleton:

[How many of you OCD folks checked the word count when he said 13,000 words later? - Knut, who knows it wasn't just him]

G/R/U MAD?
4 Kris Mage
Hey, it's me! Almost. This card serves as an enabler in that it facilitates my spiraling descent into alcoholism. Uh, what I mean is that it provides an outlet for your Madness cards and allows you to make some use out of the Loafing Giants that I have regretfully included below.

4 Keeper of the Flame
I'm a hopeless romantic. Or a creepy weirdo. It's a toss-up really.

4 Arrogant Wurm
Undercosted beater or two-word summary of my character? Have I told you that Yu-gi-oh is for infidels, I mean idiots, and that Magic is the One True Game? Do you see what I mean? Arrogant.

4 Loafing Giant
I don't want to say I'm lazy, so I'll put it this way: when I started this article, the five-slot in this deck was taken up by four copies of - let me double-check my notes, okay, here it is - Googoo Gaga. I believe it's from Legends. I coulda come up with a better joke, but, you know: lazy. I'm also tall.

4 The Brute
With a physique that most closely resembles - oh, I don't know - Wandering Ones, "The Brute" is the second most inappropriate nickname I have been given during my 25 years of life. The most inappropriate? That'd have to be "The Hardest Working Man In Show Business." Do I look like a man to you? I do? It's the mustache, isn't it?

4 Narcissism
I do have an Affinity for the mirror, I will admit. *Cringe.*

4 Fiery Temper
Like The Brute, this is equally inapt. I'm about as aggressive as a Kitsune Diviner with Haste. But this is supposed to be funny (play along) and, well, "Hell hath no fury ... something something."

4 Circular Logic
My first and only philosophy paper, "Six Pages In Search of an Essay," was a masterpiece of rambling incoherence. True story.

My amusing anecdote explaining the selection of this card has failed utterly. I will have to discard it ... and then pay its Madness cost to counter your Shivan Dragon! Oh, what a save!

1 Desperate Gambit
"What are the chances of a guy like you and a girl like me, you know..."

"I don't know, one in a million."

"So you're saying there's a chance!"

4 Lay of the Land
Or so I'd like to think. I have a Phil Stanton-esque data chart to prove it (while not metagame distorting, I do appear in a lot of Top 8's), but we'll just say that this fixes mana and contributes to threshold. What's that you say? I forgot to include any threshold cards? Oops. Look: an eagle!

4 Taiga
You get the picture. I realize that making this deck is like handing your enemy a loaded gun (loaded with bullets, even), but I'm not too worried because, get this: Those girls I mentioned don't even play Magic! Suckers! I have just one more thing to say to them:

"You may have won the battle, Turtles, but there will be others!"

Stay tuned 'til next time when I reveal who's my daddy!

(Hint: It's not the 1987 Denver Broncos.)

Chris Millar
cmillar2 at hotmail dot com.