"It's just a game."

If I had a monkey everytime I heard that...I'd have alot of monkeys.

Well, since I'm bored and I need to take up some space, I'll check up on the definition that my little dictionary has in it:

1. A way of amusing oneself; diversion.
2. A sport or other competitive activity governed by specific rules.

I won't touch the first defintion. We are all thinking the same thing, let's just admit it and move on.

But the second definition actually can be used and abused. Now for those peeps who ONLY stick to dictionary definition, then fine, Magic is a game. But you know what connotation is? Bob: "Isn't that the stuff they put on chicken?". Ya Bob, but it's also "a secondary meaning suggested by a word in addition to it's literal meaning." Damn I'm good.

When I hear game, I think of cute little kids running around a maypole,. I think of people having fun with their friends in a casual environment, laughing it up. I don't think of people playing for $25,000 in a high pressure environment.

So, if you are just playing a game and you lose, all you lose is your pride. Right? Tell that to Brian Hegstad. He basically lost $12,500 at US Nationals for placing second, where the payout was $12,500, instead of the $25,000 which went to the champion (Trevor Blackwell).

Hell, even when I'm playing with friends, I still get all mad like when I lose. If you don't you are pretty damn weird. I get all mad like because I know that I play my best in or outside of a competitive environment, and when I lose to a friend, or anybody, that means my best isn't good enough. And that's enough to make anyone get all mad like. Yes, even my monkey.*

So what do you do when somebody tells you it's "just a game"? Dangle 500 bucks in front of their face, and tell them if they beat you, they get the money. Now crush them, and tell them it's "just a game". See how they feel.

So what if you do lose? What if you crap out so bad, even my monkey could play better than you with both of his eyes gouged out? Well then damnit, you get better. Do you just brush off the loss? Hell no! When you brush it off, you act like that loss was "no big deal". It was. Let that loss remind you of the person you once were; learn from your mistakes. Get so much better than your former self that it makes you laugh out loud. (NOT lol, as some may have you believe).

Oh ya, I guess I'll also throw in a tourney report, just for kicks.

Last Friday I went to a Friday Night Magic (which was IBC format to prepare for the upcoming PTQ season), and we had about 12 people, which is kinda pathetic, but since all my friends are here, at least I will have a good time between rounds watching my friends bash each other.

I decided to play the U/G tempo decks with various flying, trampling, untargetable bears, and counters and bounce thrown in for fun. It was basically a netdeck, and, before making the sideboard, the only card I was sure of using 4 of was Gainsay. Gainsay is bootylicious. The rest of the board consisted only of defense methods against the decks that hurt me so. Jungle Barrier vs. the aggro decks, giving me time to take control. I couldn't find any more Bind's to combat that dirty Deed (and random bad things), so I just ran 1. Oh how I wanted to see someone pop a deed, just for me to Bind it and laugh as I crush them with my Bears of Doom. Turns out it didn't see any use all day. Aw. I came to a realization that turn 2 Spectral Lynx is bad times, so I decided to go for 4 Evasive Action. As I rummage through my random stacks of cards, I find 1. Yes, 1! I call up my friend Tu (gaeacradle on MOTL) and ask if he has any. He says he does. Ah, I can breathe now. I come over to his house so I can finish up the deck (I borrowed like 20 cards from him - I'm a leech, really.) It turns out he had 2, so I had to put in a Prohibit in the 4th's place. And Wash Out is, not counting Exclude, the deck's only real way to deal with Voice of All naming blue (of course). So, the decklist, complete with my inability to trade for 4 Mongeese before the tournament, looked like this:

Name Unknown

4x Kavu Titan
4x Gaea's Skyfolk
3x Blurred Mongoose
1x Quirion Dryad
4x Mystic Snake
4x Repulse
4x Rushing River
4x Temporal Spring
4x Exclude
4x Fact or Fiction
4x Lay of the Land
9x Forest
7x Island
4x Yavimaya Coast (1 was foil because I couldn't find another one)

Sideboard (or Deck Expansion Pack*):

4x gainsay
3x evasive action
1x prohibit
1x bind
4x jungle barrier
2x wash out

So, with my deck in hand, I began on a four round fun fest, in which I manage to crap out 2 rounds, and learn some important lessons.

Round 1: Alex (?). Some starter deck.

Game 1: He wins the roll and opens up with a turn 3 2/2, but by that time I already have out a Titan. My turn, I spring his bad boy and swing for 2. He draws, plays it again. I spring it again. That'll teach him. Swing for 2. He plays it again, and this time, no spring for me. But I have something much cooler. I swing with titan, we trade monsters. Play out Elves of Doom (skyfolk) and leave up mana for either Exclude or Repulse. Uh oh, this time he plays out a 5 mana 3/3 (bloodstock I believe). Mr. 3/3, meet Exclude. Aw, so cute. I take control and never let go, and soon he is facing down 6 damage when he is at 2 life. Good times.

Sideboarding: I don't sideboard for this, as his deck is pretty random, and has no blue, so no Gainsay for me.

Game 2: Basically game 1 but this time his turn 3 2/2's are instead turn 4 2/2 flyers, but it doesn't matter. I take control with Repulse/Exclude fun, and never over extend, due to the 3BB black wrath of god effect I saw him try to use first game. I easily win this one, which I should. If I didn't, my rating would hurt.

Between rounds, I watch the matches that only IBC could have brought, as triple vindicating land is some good. Even in a no-mar deck.

Round 2: Dennis. U/B/R control with Prophetic Bolt, Nightscape Familiar, Flametongue, Yawgmoth's Agenda, Urza's Rage, and various other ways of dispensing out the hurt, IBC style.

Game 1: He wins the roll. He dumps out a turn 2 familiar, and I match it with a Titan. He holds back the offense for awhile, but that means his familiar has an upkeep of 1B, so that gives me a window to work around his counters. Basically, through Excluding his Flametongues and Repulsing everything else at end of turn, I stayed ahead of him and kept my hand around 5-6 cards while he was struggling to maintain parity. A Void he played (with me having a board of 2 cost bears) resulted in a bloodbath, and showing my hand of exclude, repulse, rushing river. Next turn, I draw a land and play it, then say go. What does he play? VOID! *frown* He names, you guess it, 3. My hand's action cards are sweeped away, but then I topdeck a mongoose, and play it out. That mongoose, combined with a topdecked snake, ensured a quick demise for Dennis.

Sideboarding:
-4 Kavu Titan
+4 Gainsay

I basically wanted to have a much more controllish deck to match his counters in game 2, and use skyfolk to fly over his defense, and mongeese that will always hit play combined with bounce to swing in the ground. (The Titans are all good and stuff, but as a 5/5 it will always get countered or voided with the team by his evil deck, and the other 2 drops are just better vs. his deck. I was thinking about taking out the mongoose because of his familiar, but it turned out not to be an issue.)

Game 2: He gets turn 2 familiar, I get turn 2 skyfolk. He rages the elves, swings for 2. My turn, spring the familiar. He replays it, I basically drop a mongoose which bothers him to no end, and bouncing his familiar and countering his flametongues when I drop some skyfolk is good times for me. Oh ya, gainsay is damn good at countering lobotomy, undermine, and prophetic bolts. Anyway, the tensest moment came when I had just countered a Void, and I thought I was sitting pretty. He then played an agenda. Uh-oh. (the Void can wipe my 2/* guys, and the spot removal can take care of the snake). I then look through my hand. Hmm..rushing river. End of turn, bounce his agenda, swing some damage. He's at 10 or so now, and he's getting a little more desperate. He replays the agenda, I repulse my snake, he says ok, then I counter the agenda. I swing for 6 more, and he tries to bolt my snake to search for a void, but I just repulse it, the bolt fizzles, and so does my opponent.

Round 3: Chris, with a U/G/R deck. I can't tell you that much more about it without his permission. He might have secret tech.

Game 1: Yay, I go first! I drop a skyfolk which meets his rage. He then drops a titan, and all I can do is lay my own titan and cast lay of the land that I just drew. He drops a raging kavu and send for 5, I block the 3/1 monster and take my 2. All the while, he stays one step ahead of me, and forces me to use my fact or fictions earlier then I would have liked to, which means he was all too happy to counter them with a 2/2 snake of his own. He had the game from the very beginning.

Sideboard:
-4 rushing river (not very good in this matchup)
-4 temporal spring (again, not very good in this matchup)
+4 gainsay
+3 evasive action
+1 prohibit

Again, I like to have a more controlling deck after boarding. This reflects that.

Game 2: I choose to play first, and I counter a turn 2 skyfolk with an evasive action. I get to three land, but he plays around every card in my hand like the good player he is, but then I crap out and sit at 3 land. But he keeps drawing land. Uh-oh. I heard more land is a good thing. *frown*. He forces me to use up counters on less important spells in the matchup, and this means his better spells get through (like fact or fiction), and he gets a friggin huge advantage. I can't escape, and I extend my hand. Chris deserved the win, he took a good deck (U/G), added his own changes, and made a very good deck that is capable of smashing all the popular decks.

Note: Chris went on to go 4-0 at this FNM.

Round 4: Dennis (the U/B/R guy)

note - Because of time constraints, and the fact that we were both in the loser's bracket, we were forced to only play 1 game, without sideboards. This is definitely not a good thing for me, as without gainsay's, I really am in a deep hole. He has spells that can sweep my hand or board, depending on the situation. Not good.

Game 1 (first and only game of match): He goes first and again gets turn 2 familiar. His undermine's hurt me quite a bit, but an early skyfolk is hurting my opponent. Alot. When he finally decides to deal with my skyfolk, he is at 6 life (through my skyfolk and his own assortment of painlands). He eventually prophetic bolt's the skyfolk, and I repulse it in response, to deny him the card searching. I then drop a Kavu Titan w/kicker, and he allows it. He does nothing of importance on his turn, then I swing. He blocks with the familiar, and I tell him to take 4. He immediately winces in agony, and he told me he completely forgot about the trample part. This must have made him plenty angry, because he then plays a bounce spell on the titan, then lays an agenda. Now, in this matchup, if the agenda starts going active, its bad times for me. I mean bad. That means all those void's that I countered now get an additional shelf life. Sadly, no counter in hand. My turn, I play the titan, he undermines from the grave, then I play out a mongoose that I had yanked off the top this turn. But he still has that annoying little 1/1 regenerator. He then plays a p.bolt on my turn aimed at my head, and it resolves, and he goes searching. I go, draw another land, and say go. But no, he has a surprise! End of turn, he plays fact or fiction from the grave. Here, I'll just list the relevant cards. Crosis. He nabs it, sticks it in the air, and says go. Yay. However, Dennis looks very distressed, as if he doesn't have a counter. He even tells me that I have a 2 turn window to pull a rushing river off the top. I don't, he smacks me around with the big hunk o' loving dragon, and I die a horrible death. *frown*. The weird part was at the end, he looks at his hand and realized he has an undermine in his hand the entire time, so there really was no window where I could win. Oh well.

I finish with a disappointing 2-2, but I learned some important things about how to play this deck (this was the first tournament I played with this deck).

• NEVER overextend. Only have out 1-2 bad boys out at a time in the early-mid game (not counting snakes), so you force your opponent to deal with them while leaving mana open for exclude/repulse/river/snake. You ideally want to play out a threat or 2 early, and then play the rest of the match on your opponent's turn. (well, except for the attacking part of course, and the occasional temporal spring, if you have mana open after that.)
• Know which cards are threats and which are merely speed bumps. Cards like nightscape familiar...these are speedbumps. You bounce these if they leave mana open or just swing if they don't, and exclude them on the way back down for even more card advantage. Hold the mystic snakes for only the worst threats. Cards like Yawgmoth's Agenda and Void. These are one of this deck's worst nightmares. Prepare to play around them from the very beginning of the match if your opponent is playing B/R. If you don't, you will really pay for it. A good way to play around it is to space out the cost of your threats in play, so you force your opponent into making bad decisions. Example: you have 2 mystic snakes and skyfolk and titan in play. Your opponent voids and picks 4, killing the 2 snake, but you still have 2 bears in play and 2 more in your hand. Now if you had all 4 of those bears in play, your opponent wouldn't hesitate to pick 2, and you just lost 2/3 of your army, and all you have left for offense are 2 measley snakes that are likely to get bolted or raged. But because you let your opponent void for the wrong number, you now have an army that can easily be replaced. Yay for you!
• Against control decks like go-mar, Temporal Spring early and temporal spring often. The lost land drop(s) can make a huge impact. Against aggresive decks, if you feel you can gain control without the spring, then hold onto it, as it's a backbreaker late in the game, but if you need to, just spring.
  

There are a multitude of other helpful things like those, but I'm kinda looking forward to playing with my monkey a bit more. He's lonely.

Anyways, feel free to post to tell me what you think about anything in this thread. Thanks!

Till next time.

* - Hey, since I'm talking about monkeys, you all should see Fight Club. It's really a great movie, and if you haven't seen it, go now!

** - Courtesy of Beyond Dominia.

PS: Thanks to The Magic Dude, kingkyle, and thegame for help on editing/revisions. Thanks again!

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