I drew a long sip from the metallic straw of the mate, which was a free action. My mouth was used to do so, and not my hands, because to mankind’s and Uruguayan’s (I have nothing against them, but have you seen how they hold the thermos? Red flag for interdimensional bovine demons right there) fortune drinking mate had nearly nothing to do with card game mechanics yet.

The Aquarist took his time to make a play. Second turn, six cards in hand, going first, and likely bad Mannering.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I am building suspense.” At last he flicked a card upwards. It described a pirouette and landed straight upon my pugilist. I leaned over it and tilted the head to a side to read the card, titled Eggscruciating pain. It depicted a bunch of dogs donning roman-styled armors crucifying an amorphous mass of what I assume were egg whites.

Deal 2 damage to target unit. Create Eggsecution on your deck. It is drawn after you play your next spell.

Talk about white-savior complex!

Great, some non-vanillas had puns in their text now.

“Let it resolve. I assume my pugilist goes to the Rainbow Bridge and you take 1 damage… Where are our life indicators, anyway? Do we keep track on paper?”

One of the Aquarist’s fingers sprung up. “Tunnel vision much?” he mocked as I raised my gaze over his head. And higher, and high. Mere centimeters away from the deep blue of the roof, numbers hung and shone bright red.

AQUARIST: 23

MAURO: 26

“Oh, it automatically discounts. Is this done to discriminate the shortsighted?”

The Aquarist shook his head with unwarranted energy, his mane of silver hairs wobbling like a tower of jelly. “There are no shortsighted people here.”

“Awesome, anti-moleism. The goddess decrees myopia is a skill issue,” I said, raising my hands as if praising the Goddess, taking care to not reveal my cards. “Seriously, though, cannot a single thing here be… user friendly?”

“Have you checked your settings? You do have a settings menu, as the house is yours. Well, on a lease, so to speak: the goddess can kill you at any time to vacate it, if there’s a need to do so. But you are serving her well, so don’t worry about that. Killing you off would be foolish on her part, Mauro,” he said this as one would tell his parents about a toilet paper sale: with minimal interest and just to inform the other party, if they are interested.

“I’ll forgo doing so unless I get torticollis, at least for the current match. End your turn?”

The aquarist happily obliged, slipping a card from his Kibble deck. He was going for power instead of options. I waged Eggsecution was an expensive form of removal. Perhaps even over-costed. That would make sense: drawing an extra spell on a decent if a bit costly removal was a big deal. It allowed him to safely go for the kibble card, knowing he had an advantage if we began trading one for one. Furthermore, by not drawing from the main deck, he eliminated the possibility to draw into Eggsecution, which not only eliminated the advantage of shuffling it in first place, but was actually detrimental to most organized game plans: tutoring a slightly bad card for free can be good; drawing into it naturally is a tragedy. Furthermore, if Eggsecution were to be a terrible card, it could be used to pay a discard cost.

Yet the question remained: what was he playing? Three categories, colors. One of them was big or medium dogs, judging by the icons on Eggscruciating Pain. I lacked the meta knowledge to narrow a list down by seeing a single card, but the characteristics of the card and play pattern evidenced it was a mostly reactive deck… or a deck capable of playing reactively against aggro.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I slapped myself on the right cheek. I was overthinking. The only thing an Aggro player needed to know is that if there’s a face, there’s a way. There was no need for brains, no need for brawn. Only a need for a tornado of pugs to turn that twenty-three to a round number. The roundest of numbers.

I played my second Pugilist, played the kibble card — which burned out of existence to make another ball of blue dog fodder appear by my side — invested and drew from my main deck. I had drawn the 0 cost 1/1 cantrip, which was perfect for my next turn, but I tried to show no emotion on my face.

“Do you have a printer of those things?”

“I have done great puggress towards one.”

He hummed for a second, and then played his kibble card: Conjured kibble. It was a simply really not common kibble card, with the following text.

This kibble card goes to your rainbow bridge instead of disappearing. This kibble card counts as a spell while it is in the rainbow bridge. This kibble card needs some summer lovin’.

I raised an eyebrow. “Graveyard synergies with spells? Or maybe just needing cards in your rainbow bridge to trigger something?”

“Stick a battery in my ass and call me Sally, because I am guilty as charged.”

I blinked. Then I did it again. Slowly. “What?”

“I am trying to be amusing. Is it working?”

I shook my head, and a pang of sadness raided my brain at the sight of the Aquarist’s dejected expression.

“I’ll play my turn, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead,” I said, not showing any sign of empathy, of weakness. You couldn’t give lategame players an inch: Most of them used the metric system.

He pondered over his terrifying hand, probably choosing which of his up to five spells to use to kill my poor creature of god. The dribbling, face-winzipped, snoring animal from paradise that stood proudly over the table, unmoving, like a card is meant to be. Unlike Blacky, who was peering out of his card, a floating schnauzer heard breathing over my shoulder.

“This will do,” The Aquarist flicked a card over my unit. He had very good aim for a giant robotic weredog, I have to grant him that. The card was a 2 cost spell that depicted a mangy, mixed breed dog taking a paw to his mouth, as if shushing you. He wore a decayed police hat. Cur-few.

Target unit can’t attack for a number of turns equal to 1 + (dog2 of spells in your rainbow bridge), with a maximum of 7 turns.

“Dog two?” I looked confused at blacky.

“Dogarithm base two.”

I sighrunted, or whatever you would call the sonorous expression of frustration I emitted in that moment. “Is it the same as a logarithm?”

“No. A Logarithm gets peed on. A Dogarithm does the peeing,” he stated with absolute confidence that, indeed, that was how the world worked.

“Does it work the same a logarithm?”

“No: it pees on the logarithm, master. I have already explained this.”

The Aquarist gestured for me to stop chasing the argumentative tail. “It gets calculated the same way, if that’s your question. Two turns with two spells. Three with four. Four with Eight. Five with sixteen.”

“Okay, it resolves.”

A card drew itself from his deck and got added to his hand. Eggsecution.

Why was he using that card? Sure, it stopped a single threat for a few turns , but it was terrible otherwise. Against pug aggro, though, the difference between killing a pug and stopping it from attacking for a few turns was trivial. But he knew I had Gather the Grumble to sacrifice a dud. He knew the deck I was playing with, form the first to the last card. I didn’t know his, and didn’t know mine — but for that last part there was no one relevant to blame. Just my idiosyncrasies and I.

Why was he running that card? Synergies, probably. Synergy with what, besides spells in the grave: that was the question.

He invested, drew from his deck and passed. I invested, played the 0 mana 1/1, and drew a card. I smiled at the sight of an old friend.

“Are you ready for a lesson, aquarist?” I boasted, flipping Anxious Pugfessor to reveal it

“I am always willing to learn.” Like a good control player, he removed the emotion from the board, and from the moment.

I threw the Anxious Pugfessor (Four attack, one health, zero covering for Psichological or breathing diseases in his health insurance) at my opponents face like a ninja would a shuriken. It bounced off the metal and landed face up on the table. “Consider that my attack.”

“Okay, let it resolve.”

AQUARIST: 19

MAURO: 26

I invested my remaining kibble and drew from my deck. If he only had single target spells, going wide was a safe bet. And for that, I needed both cards and the resources to play them.

Of course, if this was a friendly match, I could always ask.

“Excuse me, Aquarist: you know what I am playing, so… can you at least tell me what your deck is about?”

“Oh, let’s say… I have a cur for everything.”

I looked at Blacky, asking him to translate with my clueless expression.

“Fifty percent chance you go from a winning position to being thoroughly fucked if the game goes late. You may also have the most amazing time of your life and win, though.”

“Tell it straight to me you Canis annoyus.”

“The flavor text is something like ‘primitive long ranged weapon in front of the pet of the Grim Reaper’.”

I backhanded my guide back into his card, hitting him square in the nose and making him whine like a little puppy. I thought he was offering no useful information. I wish I had thought about it another second, because soon, I would bow before the dog of death.