Jim Carrey would have sued me for copyright if he had seen my mischievous grin. My health had been spent like the US defense budget. A third, ephemeral hand had appeared out of the ground to help me hold my hand spread out. The Warden was on his knees, whimpering, holding to a single card.
“Play it, motherfucker. Play the pug,” I ordered.
“No,” he pleaded with a tiny voice unbecoming of a giant robot-dog. “You will destroy it or deny it or use a board clear to send it to the Rainbow Bridge.”
“Oh, come on, I only have fifteen cards in hand and I have only shuffled my Rainbow Bridge back into the deck thrice.”
“Play a unit that ends the game already. You have eight copies of cards that do so in your deck,” He pleaded, standing with difficulty to play his pug and end the turn.
I pointed at him with my most dramatic extended-finger-pose, arching the back and everything, “When you gave me a modal card able to shuffle a player’s Rainbow Bridge back into the deck, you damned yourself, Warden.”
“It’s intended to counter reanimation and mill strategies!”
“And why should I care? You don’t give water-making powers to a man lost in the Sahara and complain when , after returning to civilization, he floods a town to drown his cheating wife and her exotic lover while he giggles and remembers a very good joke about a duck walking into a bar.”
The Warden let himself fall on his ass and grunted from frustration.
“Even your metaphors approach the length and… convolution of your ideal match, Jesus Christ.”
Was I on a power trip´? No, that’s nonsense, I was just enjoying the game like it was supposed to be: slow, grindy, advancing at the pace of machinery with severely rusted cogs stuffed inside a snail nailed into a board and exhibited in a museum. I was dropping so much target removal the CIA called telling me to tune it down.
The Warden revealed God left the door open and played it. Priority passed to me, and considered denying it. I was, after all, low on health. I browsed his RB and calculated the highest damage combo possible. It added up to 57. That was quite harsh, and I was low on on health, so I checked our life totals to make sure it was a worrisome attack.
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WARDEN: 26
MAURO: 187.14159265359…
Very low on health indeed. However, was denying the best spell on his deck good enough? No. I needed to save my counterspells for a rainy day. Even more knowing they could deny a surrender.
I let the spell go through and signaled the warden to go on with his turn. Cloudy gates opened all over the field and a myriad of pugs, including two Pugilists, descended from them via rainbow slides. They charged towards me and hit the thick barrier in front of my face. The energy shield was so swollen it had begun to go slightly opaque, like the eyes of an old dog. I could have removed them all, but I decided I could take the hit, even if it was a risky play.
When all the pugs died, a flurry of fists returned from his rainbow bridge with a vengeance. Finishing the quite lethal combo.
“See? Even my best card takes only a third of your health away.”
I raised a finger. “Less than a third.”
“Shut up!”
He finished his turn and slumped to the floor. “Wake me up when your turn ends.”
I decided it was time to end the game, so I invested one kibble out of habit, and looked at how many I had left. Seventeen only.
I played Mechadoberdorath, the worf ender. A mighty 9/12 for 10 that had the following effect:
Run over. Ever-Ready. When I damage our opponent during an attack, they send as many cards from the top of his deck to the rainbow bridge as damage they took. Afterwards, deal damage equal to the added cost of the milled cards to them.
Run over meant excess damage to his blockers went through, and ever-ready meant he could both attack the turn it was summoned, and defend afterwards.
The sky darkened even more than the usual pitch black, somehow. A dense shadow loomed over me. It was a gargantuan Doberman’s head composed in a steampunk style, with cogs, pistons and other brass component. I descended from what seemed ot be the level of the clouds, and an equally titanic body followed.
I watched bewildered. “My my! Imagine the money we could make stealing those copper whiskers!” This was followed by the thought that you can take a man out of Argentina, but you can’t take Argentina out of a man.
The giant dog had an equally egregious medal with his alternative name: El Firulai.
“Well, Firu… Obliterate!” I said, extending my right hand and opening it towards my opponent, I, the drama queen I deserve to be.
Mechadobedorath opened his mouth and a ball of energy began gathering inside. The Warden stood up from the floor.
El Firulai shoot.
“Finally. Peace!” he embraced the destructive energy beam as it hit the barrier before him. The cards from his deck burned, their costs being: 1,3,2,1,1,2,1,3,2.
The dust settled...
WARDEN: 1
MAURO: 130.14159265359…
“You got to be kidding me!” The Warden said, checking back the cards that had been milled.
I still had mana to play, so I began drawing cards from my deck, healing and whatnot. The Warden let out a howling lament as I marched onwards towards max stalling efficiency: the game would go on for another painful turn.