Statistically Sus
Game 1
Sean – Atla | Ryan – Jhoira | Keegan – Emmara | Alex – Sygg
The first game of the third quarter saw a new face in each corner at the start of the cage match. First off we have Atla, the dinosaur mother who sacrifices her eggs to perform the taboo. With her eggs dying she is able to portal out a plethora of enormous drops that are extremely toolboxy and mean. She is a bad mamma jamma. Next we had Jhoira. This is a deck that Ryan has had for ages, but she got a facelift before heading into rotation. Built around historic spells, primarily artifacts here, she storms into a win usually through the life lazer. Emmara is an old but familiar face for our playgroup. Originally a 60 card brawl deck for Keegan, Ryan took her up and finally gave her some time in the sun again. She has a lot of tap abilities to make her tokens without her swinging. Go wide or go home. Lastly, we saw Lieutenant Dan make an appearance. Sygg was a playmat that Alex got from Keegan for Christmas, so he decided to make a deck around it. It is not the most powerful merfolk deck by color nature, but it has a lot of fun pieces in white that would never make an appearance in a merfolk deck normally.
Sean was the only person to take a mulligan, and Alex surprisingly won the die roll to go first. And he started with a bang, dropping a first turn Sol Ring onto the table. The next turn we saw Sygg from Alex, and Emmara from Keegan. You gotta love them 2 drop commanders. Third cycle saw Alex dropping in a Reef Shaman and a Seasinger, having to read the weird ass merfolk cards to the group. Sean followed up with an Aura Shards (take note that Alex was holding Force blue card, will be relevant later on). Ryan, not liking whatever the fuck Seasinger had in store, chose to snap her down with an X=1 Banefire. Keegan brought out the much slept on staple of Emmara, Survivor’s Encampment and started ‘tapping Emmara for a Plains‘.
Alex then proceeded to drop a Lullmage Mentor and pass onto Sean, who chose violence and dropped in a Parallel Lives. Jhoira on the next turn finally entered the field, as well as a Foundry Inspector. Keegan go out a Soul Warden to steal everyone’s life force. Turn 5 we saw Alex drop in a Smothering Tithe, which was then promptly blown up next turn when Sean cast Atla and had Aura Shards starting to pop off. Ryan not thinking his spells were reduced enough, dropped in Jhoira’s Familiar just for good measures, and Keegan brought out he Giver of Runes. For the sixth cycle Alex was starting to run out of gas so he cast a Distant Melody with only 3 merfolk on board, to which Ryan responded with a Swan Song, which forced Alex into a hardcast FoW. Atla on her next turn popped out two eggs and dropped in a Martyr’s Cause. Ryan, taking a page from Sean’s book of magic, dropped in a Locust God. Keegan made some tokens and might have dropped in Rhys, the archives are incomplete on this.
Turn 7 is when things started to get messy, Alex dropped in a Coat of Arms and a Throne of the God-Pharaoh. With his deck not drawing any merfolk, he was just beating into Ryan with an island walking Sygg, who was pumped up to a 10/10 now. Sean did not like the math associated with Coat, he made 2 more eggs and blew up both the throne and the coat (hey remember that FoW Alex had before, yeahhhhhhhh). From here on out there was not an enormous amount of action, Sean made eggs, Ryan cast historic cards, Keegan made tokens, and Alex played whatever he top decked (which were almost never merfolk).
The game came to an end shortly after, when Keegan who is just too nice of a lad, broke his unspoken vow of silence and explained that the Martyr’s Cause could be activated at any time, which meant instant speed egg sacrifice. Sean then proceeded to crack all his dino eggs to make a sick omelet. His first hit was (S)he who will not be named, as well as a collection of toolbox creatures, one that makes it so creatures cannot attack Sean. Also need to note that the main homeslice of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker came out of the portal as well. Next turn Sean portaled out 2 more big beaters, as well as a Serra’s Emissary naming creatures. In an odd fashion this had Alex actually scoop, something he frowns upon. He saw the lock that was in place, with Kiki being able to make 2 copies of the Emissary to protect against instants and sorceries, and the backup of Avacyn giving indestructible. Oh, also forgot, Elesh Norn was out as well. Shutting off Alex’s and Keegan’s commanders. Ryan followed in the scoop knowing he had no answers, and Keegan was then forced to scoop as well, giving Sean a tremendous first game victory.
Though I hate scooping, I will not drag out a game if I know I cannot answer the situation on board. Our time is limited and knew I had no way around the lock on board.
Game 2
Sean – Ur-Dragon (Natural 20) | Ryan – Atla | Keegan – Kaalia (Natural 20) | Alex – Teysa
Somehow we saw 2 nat 20 rolls on non-concurrent dies. Ryan noted that this was “statistically sus“, but unbeknownst to Alex he planned to make the game even more statistically sus. There was also no new faces, with Atla making her impact known in the first game.
Every single player took their free mulligan (again, suspect), and Alex had the first turn again (very suspect).
From the jump though, Ryan was out for blood. He dropped a T1 Mana Crypt, which forced him into a turbo Magewright’s Stone. Atla’s engines were still hot from the first game. On the following turn Ryan tossed down an Altar of Dementia with no fear of wipes or removal. He had the Aura Shards in his hands.
So let us talk about Alex and Teysa. He kept a hand with 5 lands, a rock, and a Victimize. It needs to be noted that she has had 2 or 3 games straight where she has mana screwed. So he hedged that bet and kept a hand full of lands anticipating to draw into threats. So he was able to drop Teysa onto the field T3. Let us just get Alex’s portion of this game out of the way. By turn 4 he had drawn 9/12 cards being lands, and by turn 5 he had 10/13 cards being lands. The entire game he did not draw a single creature spell (incredibly sus).
Turn 4 for Sean meant that he was able to get out a Temur Ascendency, which is a super sick card to see (everyone go play pioneer, Jeskai Ascendancy is a popular deck right now). By the fifth cycle Ryan was able to pop two eggs at Sean’s end step, bringing out only a Pentarch Paladin and a Darksteel Colossus. Smol bois.
Sometime later Sean Swan Song’s (say that five times fast) a Rhythm of the Wild drop from Ryan, which was nothing but a flesh wound to him. Cause he portaled out a Craterhoof Behemoth and killed Sean as retribution, while putting Keegan to 7.
Honestly, I have very little notes more for this game. It took only 20 minutes. Ryan beat the hell out of the table with Atla, and Alex flooded in an Orzhov deck. It was a statistically sketchy and morally oppressive. It was beautiful.
Game 3
Sean – Edgar | Ryan – Mangara | Keegan – Obuun | Alex – Muldrotha
The final game of the night was also possibly the weirdest one yet for the league. We saw a new face in Muldrotha, who was the reincarnation and rebuilt version of Zaxara. Keegan had a double Shandalar mulligan and Sean and Ryan took him up on it. Keegan also took his free one. Keegan won the die roll to go first, putting the league back into balance.
Honestly this game I have very little notes on. After Merfolk drawing only non-merfolk and Teysa drawing nothing but lands, I was tilted further than the leaning tower of Pisa. My only note is that Ryan dropped a turn one Serra Ascendant and I guess that alone sent me hahahhahahaha. But this game was one that had much more in store than a beat down by a T1 5/5.
The game ended up being an absolute grinder. Ryan was stuck on 2 mana for the first third of the game, but managed to still board wipe thanks to Vanquish the Horde. And oh boy was there more to follow. I think the game had between 3-5 board wipes throughout it’s course. I believe Keegan cast Obuun over five times, and eventually brought out almost every single land in his deck. The game was grindy, and Alex’s Muldrotha was not able to get get moving very fast.
Funny enough, Alex did not read the card to know what the card does with Muldrotha. He did not see permanent when he tutored to put a card in the bin, which resulted in a Fact or Fiction hitting the bin on a tutor target.
Sean took very early aggro due to the atrocities that Edgar had partook in on earlier occasions. He was able to turbo out Edgar and jam, but unfortunately his board state stalled severely due to the numerous wipes. He did not find a good engine in time.
Ryan mana screwed most the game so he drew almost no aggro, but late game he had a comback and got some good equipment like Sword of the Animist out and eqipped it to… a 5/5 horse token. Dead ass. Sean that deranged hermit had tossed in Crested Sunmare, which had produced a horse before it was promply wiped away. But it was not in vain, for it’s death protected the horse it made, which proceeded to beatdown the state alchemists who ravaged it’s homelands of Ishval. It wore it’s brothers horn and a scar across it’s face… whoops sorry wrong story. But pretty accurate to the actual beatdown it gave though.
Alex spent most the game dirdling and trying to rebuild his board after each wipe. It was like watching an NPC work on his house every day in video game. You know that he will never make any progress, but maybe, just maybe the devs would have taken pity on the NPC and in a later cutscene you’d see the NPC’s house completed in the background. Welllllll the actual NPC did complete his house, then he prayed to his lord Zaxara, who left him with an ancient relic of the god’s time, the Managorger Hydra. It came to him as a humble and weak 1/1, much like the NPC named Alex was. Frail and susceptible to attack at any time. But he devoted his life to the hydra, slowly nurturing it with vampiric blood from Edgar. With each powerful spell is sapped a small amount of power, like the fractions of pennies off of the dollar during a transaction. This only fueled it’s bloodlust, entrenching it’s anger over the stolen stapler, the voices in the hydra’s head told it to burn everything. Finally the hydra gave into the voices, letting go of the pillar on Bespin station and plummet down through the cloud city into the upside down.
With his new found power the Managorger Hydra first killed the lord of the vampires, Edgar. It tied it down, seasoned it with garlic and relished in the sizzle of the skin as the garlic bore down into the raw flesh. Finally he tossed it in a boiling cauldron the size of Lavender town and tossed sunflower seeds into the pot and watched as the vampire lord boiled to death, compulsively counting the sunflower seeds. It died before it reach 100, ending on 99.5.
Fueled by blood rage and sporting a camelback full of vampire blood to further drive the thirst, it sprang upon the elf spirit Obuun, protector of Yavimaya. The mana gorger’s old master, now equal, pushed the soul out of Obuun with baleful mastery, then cooked the spirit of Obuun into an enormous chili. In an act of kindness the Hydra invited the entire forest of Yavimaya to a cookout, which the main course was chili. As the elves, druids, spirits, and ents ate the hydra sat in wait. It listened to the praises of the chili, the laughter of joy. The hydra stood to speak, the creatures of the forest hushed. As he sprung into his preamble the face of the hydra slowly grew thinner, forcing a smile onto his face. He soaked in the surrounding mana, growing even stronger. He hadn’t drank in five days, his form dehydrated. Then he told them the truth, that they had all each eaten the soul of their protector, Obuun. The inhabitants of the forest wept, tears of every color of the rainbow dropping off their plump faces onto the ground. No, not the ground, the hydra’s tongue. He cherished every tear like it was a drop of holy water. Not a single tear hit the undergrowth of the forest that day, for each head of the hydra drank to it’s hearts content.
Meanwhile in the Republic, Mangara was preparing his 86 for a full on siege from the hydra. He had every man readying themselves, and the towns people promptly placed. Mangara was a man of resolve and compassion, he fought hard for his Republic and believed in the 86. But as the hydra bore down on the city walls, it standing 21 kilometers tall now, Mangara felt nothing but despair. He as the hydra crashed into the city walls, sucking up civilians like they were a slurpee, Mangara tried a last ditch effort to settle the wreckage that was unfolding before him. But he had forgot during preparations to store up mana, and did not have enough left to do so. So he waited, in the eerie silence of predeath air for his fate. The hydra knocked Managara to the side, chopped him up with an enormous support bar that was ripped off of a trebuchet. It then took his toga off like a wrapper on a candy, and formed what was left of his pulpy body into a line. The hydra, with a fat racoon standing on two legs on it’s back, snorted up the remains of Managara the Diplomat.