At a card disadvantage, and come turn 3, I found myself looking at my hand trying to find out the play. I didn’t know his deck, but It was clear that any source of Pedigrees of freedom needed to be eradicated. Deep in my guts I felt an uncertainty akin to that of Poland when it sees Germany and Russia getting a bit quirky.
I stared at the card “Lovers Committee” for a long time. Why? Why did it depict nothing but several trees and potted plants? It costed 3 and let me summon three plant tokens that would immediately attack an enemy unit (or the enemy if no unit was available). Four plant tokens if I had a Walter in the field.
I played the card and a Potus, an Aloe, a willow and a Pacara earpod tree appeared: a potted plant and a tree on each side of Walter, with the trees further from him.
“Damn girls, looking mighty fine today. I may not be a paleobotanist, but I dig you all,” Walter said, sitting to embrace both potted plants, one with each arm.
My eye twitched. Cringe overtaking my body. The sweet kiss of death couldn’t come a second time soon enough.
The trees unrooted and charged against the Chihuahua, turning to splinters as they made contact. The dog ended belly up, one off his legs jerking as life left his cursed Chihuahua body. Good fucking riddance.
The potted plants, instead, hit the Warden’s face and survived.
MAURO: 23
WARDEN: 17
“I swear I will petition for that fucking joke card to be nerfed one of those days,” the Warden groaned.
I attacked with Walter. He didn’t stand, he simply flipped the bird to the Warden.
MAURO: 23
WARDEN: 16
Powerful. Inspiring. Life-changing, even.
I drew from my kibble deck and passed the turn. I was well settled on the field now. I was winning, even if card advantage wasn’t precisely on my side. The Warden had six cards on his hand, one of them a kibble card. I had five, including my kibble card. Yet I had not lost my cards on the field. He had the bigger hand, and a board wipe could make me lose a slight advantage, but I wasn’t worrying. If I had 1 health point by the time I activated Mariana’s effect, I would win.
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The Warden smirked, curving the metal plates of his face unnaturally. He played his kibble card, and then went for another card on his hand.
“I play Randomized Bracco Design!” He announced, revealing his spell card. “If there are no statistically significant differences detected in the costs of cards compared to the mean cost of their category inside my starting deck, I can summon a 2/2 Bracco Italiano for each category used on my deck.”
When a giant spreadsheet appeared in front of us and white and orange, short haired, long eared dogs starting coming out of the cells, I had to speak. “Good Father that dwells in the Heavens… not Excel.” Then I came back to … however the pocket dimension was called. “I believe summoning four 2/2 for 3 is a little bit unbalanced.”
“Oh, come on, it has heavy deckbuilding implications and restrictions!”
I raised a finger and shook it in the air. “That didn’t fly in court when my brother beat the girl that called naval engineering stupid within two point fifty-four centimeters of her life.”
“Your bother is a naval engineer?” The Warden asked, lowering his cards for a moment.
“He is not. He discovered a new vocation.”
The Warden described circles with is paw, gesturing for me to continue.
“We works as a dish at Ezeiza, if you get my meaning.”
“He washes dishes in jail?” he exclaimed, scratching his head.
“Petri. For STDs.”
“Ah.”
“Ah,” I concurred.
“Well,” The Warden drew from his kibble deck. “My turn is done.”
I played my kibble card, yard digging. Mariana was atop my deck, so I left her there. I played Walter, Battle Necromancer. It was a 4/4 rendition of the character, with him dressed in an armor of undead belts. At the start of next turn, he would draw a card with “Mariana” on its name from the deck.
When he hit the board, he and himself stared at each other. “Why am I dressed as a bootleg Final Fantasy character?” the 1-cost Walter asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Remember to wear a bike helmet when taking Mariana out for a walk. And put one onto Mariana too,” the 4-cost gave a word to the wise.
“…What deranged chain of events caused by Mariana has led to our life turning upside down?”
The battle necromancer opened his eyes wide. “Don’t let her read Poe!”
“Mariana can read?”
The big Walter just gave an understanding pat on the shoulders to the past him. “Sweet summer child.”
I drew a card from my deck and ended my turn.
The Warden played his kibble card and smiled. “This is how you lose the match.” he revealed a 4 cost card on his hand. “I play The R ANOVA.”
A Newfoundland made out of double entry tables. Blue lines, white background. A big, goofy waterdog made entirely out of data.
He manifested an expanded hologram of the card in front of me. “Read it.”
I obeyed. It was a lot of kerfuffle. “explain this effect in average IQ, please.”
“Clinically…” He muttered. “Fine. What that long ass text means is that if your play patterns follow ones statistically different from other matches of your deck or slight variations thereof —Considering matches from the entire playerbase— , the turn counter on the dog goes down by one. Starts with 3. If it reaches 0, you lose. It’s useless against most aggro decks, but against control, that prides itself in its flexibility… it can do wonders! You will have to play like the lowest denominator plays the deck, or lose… And the newfie is immune to single target spells as long as there is another big dog on my side of the table for them to be redirected to.”
“The braccos…”
The Warden nodded knowingly, and then began laughing. “Prepare for a world of Bad Mannering on my part, Mauro!”