It was the fourth game against the Warden, and he had yet to play anything that wasn’t a 1/1 that cantrips on death, a draw spell, or clearly overpriced, single target removal. I hadn’t tweaked my deck yet, not because it didn’t suck, but because you had to try to surpass the Warden in his field of expertise (defined as Professional Losery). Then, my deck went off, unleashing the bricking of eras. I had a few five drops in my deck, and they all decided, during that game, to gather for a picnic in my opening hand. My curve had been so utterly destroyed that you could have changed my classification from human to polyhedron.

I invested and drew a card to finish my turn. The card was my one 6 drop. The Warden did the same, except his card was a 1/1 Shih Tzu with anxiety that immediately attacked and let him draw another card after connecting his headbutt to my face.

A risky deck-thinner, that one.

“Oh, is that level four deck,” said Blacky.

I raised an eyebrow and turned to look at him.

“The hardest one to beat. Which isn’t so hard, but it will, at least, try to win without a eight-card combo.”

“What is the hand size limit?”

“Yes,” Blacky deadpanned.

I invested another unit of Omnikibble and went to the deck again, finishing my turn. I drew a 4-cost draw spell. That wouldn’t help me stabilize anytime soon.

The Warden played a 2 drop, a gaunt, salt-and-pepper 3/2 miniature schnauzer with the keyword Preparation. I focused on the keyword to see what it did.

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Preparation: If you haven’t invested the turn you use this card: One of the omnikibble pellets used to summon this unit or cast this spell is considered Invested.

“Nice, he’s ramping while playing fairly-stated units. Blacky, how much removal did I shove into my deck?”

“Well, if you were the protagonist of a card game anime… you’d draw it,” he commented, trying not to break my heart.

The Warden attacked with his Shih and drew his card. He drew another shih, and it attacked. Then another, and it attacked.

“Then my outs are just winning the board?”

“Board which you lost already, yes.”

I invested and ended my turn. Another draw spell…

“You know what, I’ll scoop.”

“To surrender, wish to do so and play the split-second spell that appears before you.”

I concentrated on getting out of that nightmare of a match as the warden… looked at his cards. Then, it appeared in my hand, a spell of 0 cost depicting a puppy flying a white flag. It had a lots of restrictions, clauses so one couldn’t abuse it, but I only cared about its intended purpose.

I casted it, despite not being my turn, because it was Split-second speed.

The warden answered with his own split second spell: a counterspell.

Motherfucker negated my surrender.

“That’s a fucking war crime!” I complained.

“Only if done during wartime,” answered my adversary.

I tried to will the surrender into existence again, but I only got met with an error message blinking above my hand.

YOU CAN ONLY SURRENDER ONCE A TURN

“It’s a hard once a turn, by the way,” chipped in Blacky.

I groaned. I groaned as the dogs smashed against the invisible barrier centimeters way from my face, I groaned as my lifepoints fell at a steady pace.

I almost cried when I finally lost, after 4 or 5 denied surrenders.

“I hate this game!” I claimed, shaking Blacky’s card back and forth. “No mulligan, no surrender! Why is the game so cruel?”

“The ways of the goddess are inscrutable. Yet, you can acquire some QoL goodies in the pack store. Also, the first time you beat certain levels of The Warden, you get a free pack, and levels one and three are such milestones. Take it as a welcome gift from the Elysian Monarchs.”

I wished I could flip the table, but I was back into the ball-walled room, and there were no table-shaped objects nearby.

“Okay, Blacky, lead me to the pack shop, maybe I can pull a good legendary and make this torture a bit funnier.”

Blacky shot up ahead, and I followed.