(That’s one funny post name there.)

I seriously wanted my first post after long hiatus to be about rpgs but I think it really doesn’t matter that much. Both of my arms are still aching but at least I moved the keyboard to a more ergonomic location right?

So Aki wrote about our gaming groups start-of-summer event cleverly named “Winter War” (trust me, it’s is clever when you know how Finnish summers are). As he was kind enough to write down the lists for our side too I really cannot refuse writing something about the event.

At least it gives me an opportunity to blame him if my condition takes a turn on the worse…

For starters I have to say that I do not have as clear recollection of this event as Aki has. It might have something to do with my memory but most likely it is due to the intense drinking I had participated before, after and even during this Talvisota.

As I consider myself to be Vorthos-player (with a side of Timmy) my psychological set up for the game was likely my greatest failure. I new that in the fluff Mirrans lost the battle and thus I was more or less convinced that we would not be having the most efficient cards. In addition to this I new that Phyrexia would have a lot of infect but had no clue (appart from equipment) what was “the thing” with Mirrans. For my morale it also did not help that the Phyrexian players are the most competitive players in our EDH group.

But as I am mostly known about bad opinions and whining in any case it did not stop me from jumping on this horse and rooting for the god guys!

My team consisted of two other players from which one “took a small nap” during the deck building and was replaced by another (who is “a bit” more competitive player). To my knowledge neither of them has been actively playing any format of MtG in a while though.

Deck Construction

As with Aki’s team, after opening the packs one deck almost built itself. Monowhite horde deck with metalcraft seemed so fast that it was our best bet and we went with that. The main win-con for this deck (that I ended up playing) was rushing the enemy down before he could get his set-up running. This almost worked in most games (excluding those with mana screw) but was enough only in one game (if my memory serves me right).

We splashed in some green to for some protection against fliers as I knew there would be at least one flier deck on the Phyrexian side. As it turned out this was a major flaw with the deck. [scryfall]Thopter Assembly[/scryfall] would have made much more sense for example.

[cardlist]
[creatures]
2 Ardent Recruit
Auriok Edgewright
Auriok Sunchaser
Hero of Bladehold
Kemba’s Skyguard
2 Leonin Relic-Warder
Leonin Skyhunter
Mirran Crusader
2 Myr Galvanizer
Signal Pest
3 Wall of Tanglecord
[/creatures]
[spells]
Arrest
2 Divine Offering
Infiltration Lens
3 Master’s Call
2 Mirran Mettle
1 Sphere of the Suns
[/spells]
[lands]
2 Forest
13 Plains
[/lands]
[/cardlist]

After the mono-white deck we hit a wall. There just was not a clear way to go. We lacked fliers so we couldn’t do that and all other mono-colors seemed like an awful choice. [scryfall]Darkslick Shore[/cards] guided our thinking to UB and we went with that. After spending most of our time on thinking how we could get this deck to work we decided to drop the black and just try to use it as a mono-blue deck with artifact/mill theme. With 40 cards in a deck milling seemed like a viable choice. Mika was the most able of our side to play a deck like this that needed a lot of consideration and I’m still pretty sure he could have done much better had we decided to go with this approach from the beginning.

[cardlist]
[creatures]
Chimeric Mass
Gust-Skimmer
Myr Velder
Necropede
Palladium Myr
Plated Seastrider
Screeching Silcaw
2 Silver Myr
2 Vedalken Certarch
2 Vedalken Infuser
[/creatures]
[spells]
Bladed Pinions
2 Bonds of Quicksilver
Grindclock
2 Halt Order
Inexorable Tide
Shriekhorn
2 Turn Aside
2 Turn the Tide
[/spells]
[lands]
15 Island
[/lands]
[/cardlist]

The last deck was just a deck that used whatever we still had. It started out as a three coloured monster but was refined to a red with artifacts deck. Its main win-con idea was that “at least one of their deck has to run with forest so forestwalk”. Granted that is not the best strategy but as time was a luxury we did not have it just had to do.

[cardlist]
[creatures]
Brass Squire
Embersmith
Ferrovore
Golem Artisan
2 Iron Myr
4 Koth’s Courier
Kuldotha Flamefiend
2 Kuldotha Ringleader
Spin Engine
Vulshok Replica
[/creatures]
[spells]
Bladed Pinions
4 Burn the Impure
Crush
Golem’s Heart
Piston Sledge
Rally the Forces
Strider Harness
[/spells]
[lands]
16 Mountain
[/lands]
[/cardlist]

We had only a couple of full sets and ended up using them as the main building blocks. Otherwise our card pool seemed to be all over the place and pretty bad. I most definitely brought down my fellow team mates with my attitude. It did not help that my mindset is on EDH scale as it has been almost ten years since I played anything in this scale with any consideration.

[cardlist]
[white]
2 Frantic Salvage
Kemba’s Legion
Loxodon Wayfarer
Whitesun’s Passage
[/white]
[blue]
Lumengrid Drake
3 Mirran Spy
Neurok Invisimancer
2 Quicksilver Geyser
Scrapdiver Serpent
3 Spire Serpent
Stoic Rebuttal
2 Treasure Mage
Twisted Image
Vivisection
[/blue]
[black]
Blackcleave Goblin
Bleak-Coven Vampires
Blistergrub
Grasp of Darkness
Morbid Plunder
Necrogen Scudder
Painsmith
Plague Stinger
Tainted Strike
[/black]
[red]
Blisterstick Shaman
Concussive Bolt
Ferrovore
2 Gnathosaur
Hellkite Igniter
Melt Terrain
Molten Psyche
Ogre Resister
Oxidda Daredevil
Scoria Elemental
Turn to Slag
Vulshok Heartstoker
[/red]
[green]
2 Cystbearer
Fangren Marauder
Melira’s Keepers
Molder Beast
2 Slice in Twain
3 Tangle Mantis
2 Untamed Might
[/green]
[lands]
Darkslick Shore
[/lands]
[artifacts]
2 Accorder’s Shield
Argentum Armor
4 Bladed Sentinel
2 Copper Carapace
Golden Urn
2 Golem Foundry
Heavy Arbalest
Hexplate Golem
Ichorclaw Myr
Knowledge Pool
2 Leaden Myr
Liquimetal Coating
Lumengrid Gargoyle
Moriok Replica
Necrogen Censer
2 Peace Strider
2 Razorfield Rhino
Saberclaw Golem
Spin Engine
Thopter Assembly
2 Training Drone
Tumble Magnet
2 Viridian Claw
[/artifacts]
[/cardlist]

The Games

I really do not remember a lot from the games. I faced Aki’s fliers in the first match and though the first game did start out in an excellent manner I was simply overrun too quickly. The next game I played was against Mikko’s infect deck that just shred me into pieces and as my team mates were loosing their games on both sides my morale just crumbled (I’m an awful player – I cannot handle neither winning or losing, this is why I prefer to play Motg for the fluff). In addition to this as a host of the whole gathering my attention was required elsewhere and I just had to leave this battlefield too early.

All in all I consider this event as a good way to get me interested in this kind of gaming again. It wasn’t the best time or place for such a thing and it would have made a lot of difference for Mirrans if one of the Phyrexian players would have been on our side with his knowledge and understanding of the workings of this set.

It was still quite fun though and I hope we can arrange something similar in the not-too-distant future.