There is little in life more satisfying than putting a smart ass in his place. What follows is a paltry triumph on my part, but a triumph nonetheless. It involves Magic: the Gathering, and as always, requires a little background to explain…
As I've noted before:
…Most decks have 60 cards (or more) and there are general rules for deck construction: you must observe the list of banned (not permitted) or restricted (only 1 in your deck) cards for whatever format you are building your deck for, and beyond that you are only allowed 4 copies of any one card in a deck (except for basic land cards). … The basic purpose of the game is to reduce your opponent's life total from 20 to 0, and there are a number of ways to do this. The most basic way is with creature cards, you summon creatures, and then send them into battle to attack your opponent. Your opponent in the meantime is probably trying to do the same thing, and can use his own creatures to block your attacks. There are other ways to win beyond reducing your opponent to 0 life, but that is the most basic…
Basic land cards are the power sources in a game of MTG, so 99.9% of all decks are going to include basic lands, and in all likelihood the average deck will be about 33% to 40% basic land. Everything in a deck that is not basic land is a spell, and every spell has a casting cost (a cost you must pay before you can play that card.) This all fits into the “idea” of the game that the two players are wizards using magic to defeat each other. The payment of the casting cost is made in mana (magical energy)–generally the more powerful a card is, the more mana it will require to cast. The casting cost of a card is expressed in numbers and symbols that describe how much mana must be paid and the type of mana required (yes mana comes in different types). For example, here's the casting cost for the card “Wood Elves“: 
. The means “two mana of any type”, and the means “one green mana”. So the spell Wood Elves costs three mana to cast–two of any type, and one green.
Mana generally comes from basic lands, and the color of the mana is determined by the type of basic land. There are five colors of mana, and therefore five basic land types: Swamps which produce black mana (
), Islands which produce blue mana (
), Forests which produce green mana (), Mountains which produce red mana (
), and Plains which produce white mana (
). A player is allowed to play only one land a turn, slowly building up his or her energy resources for bigger and better effects.
Early on the manufacturers of the game (Wizards of the Coast or WOTC for short) decided each color should have a particular style or personality to it. So based on your opponents basic lands only, you can get a feel for what his her deck is probably like.
Of all the colors, the most annoying is blue, which is the color of “trickery”. It's a popular color for tournament players, simply because it's a strong color that will increase one's chances of winning. Unfortunately for the casual player, blue sucks all the fun out of the game. Blue's most basic “trick” is countermagic–spells that cancel out the spells of other players. Trick number two is called bounce–spells that return cards which are in play to their owner's hands. Trick number three is thievery–stealing or taking control of opponents' cards which are in play. And the other basic trick of blue is dig–drawing extra cards, or searching one's deck for specific cards (i.e. more counterspells, bounce spells, and thievery spells).
The typical theme of a blue deck, therefore, is prevent the opponent from doing anything until you can fire off your big combo or huge creature or whatever. Sometimes blue decks are called “Draw-Go” because the blue player does nothing on his own turn except draw a card, play a land, and tell the opponent to go on to his turn. Just to give you a feel for the typical game against blue, here's a taste of what such a game might be like:
BLUE: Turn 1, I play an Island. Go.
GREEN: Turn 1, I draw a card and play a Forest. Go.
BLUE: Before the end of your turn, I play “Reach Through Mists” to draw one extra card. Turn 2, I draw a card and play an Island. Go.
GREEN: Turn 2, I draw a card and play a Forest. I play “Elvish Warrior”.
BLUE: “Counterspell”. Elvish Warrior goes to the graveyard.
GREEN: Go.
BLUE: Turn 3, I draw a card and play an Island. Go.
GREEN: Turn 3, I draw a card and play a Forest. I play “Trained Armodon”.
BLUE: “Mana Leak”. Trained Armodon goes to the graveyard unless you can pay 3 more mana for it.
GREEN: I can't, I'm tapped out. Go.
BLUE: Before the end of your turn, I play “Reach Through Mists” to draw on extra card. Turn 4, I draw a card and play an Island. Go.
GREEN: Turn 4, I draw a card and play a Forest. I play “Elvish Warrior”.
BLUE: “Rewind”. Elvish Warrior goes to the graveyard and I untap all my lands. (Lands are tapped to draw mana from them, untapping a land makes it available for more mana in the same turn.)
GREEN: Okay. I play “Grizzly Bears”.
BLUE: “Counterspell”. Grizzly Bears goes to the graveyard.
GREEN: GO (you asshole).
BLUE: Before the end of your turn, I play “Telling Time”. I look at the top three cards of my deck, put one into my hand, one on top of the deck, and one on the bottom of my deck. Turn 5, I draw a card and play an Island. Go.
Big fun, eh? There are strategies for optimizing your chances against a blue deck, but most of them involve simply getting the blue player to burn through all of his or her countermagic, which takes a lot of time and is no fun at all. So I generally avoid playing countermagic, except as an occasional strategy (I might run a deck with 2-4 counterspells in it, such that countering a key spell is something I do on occasion, rather than as a rule.) But basically I want to win while the game is still fun for both players.
Which brings us, in a circumlocutious manner, back to the story of my paltry triumph. My opponent was playing blue and red (sometimes called counter-burn, direct damage spells backed up with countermagic) and I was playing a four color deck (black-white-green-red… note the absent color). Generally the more colors a deck is the more difficult it is to play, but my deck had one goofy combo in it, which if I could get it to go off would typically put me at an advantage… but it was very risky. The trick was to stay alive long enough to make it happen. Unfortunately my big spell cost 8 mana, which is outrageously expensive, so in the early game, my deck was designed to get extra lands into play as quickly as possible.
The early game was uneventful. I got slightly ahead on the mana curve, but only had one creature in play. A tiny Wood Elves, capable of dealing only 1 damage each turn, and just about any other creature could kill it. The only reason I play Wood Elves is because when it comes into play, it lets me go get an extra Forest and put it into play as well. However I also played Sensei's Divining Top which allowed me to examine and rearrange the top 3 cards of my deck, this gave me the chance to rearrange my upcoming draws in the most beneficial way possible.
Then on turn 4, my opponent played Theiving Magpie. The magpie is a staple of blue decks. It flies so it is hard to block. It's defensively strongish (takes 3 damage points to kill it). And every time it hits an opponent, the blue player gets to draw an extra card, which improves his or her chances of being able to counter the spells you cast.
This was annoying but I had an answer. My opponent had used all his mana to cast the magpie (using all one's mana is called tapping out) which meant that he had nothing left to cast a counterspell on my turn. Which meant either (a) he didn't have any counterspells in hand, or (b) he was overconfident–which is very typical for blue players I find.
On my turn I played Faith's Fetters on the magpie, this enchantment basically turned the magpie into a completely useless lump. It could no longer attack or block, so my opponent couldn't draw extra cards from it. Tough winkies. Hard to feel bad for the blue player. It was that turn that I began attacking with my silly Wood Elves.
A couple turns later my opponent dropped a second Thieving Magpie, and this time had enough mana untapped to cast a counterspell. In the intervening timeframe however I had drawn a second Faith's Fetters, and when I cast it, it went uncountered–confirming my suspicion that the counter player hadn't drawn any counters and was desperate to get some, hence all the card-drawing cards.
By now I was at 7 mana, and thanks to my Divining Top, I had already drawn the big spell. I just needed one more mana to cast it, another mountain. I had a quick way to get it in hand. I cast Sakura-Tribe Elder, which is a tiny critter that I could sacrifice to search my deck for any basic land of my choice. True to form, the blue player countered it… much to my wonderment. He couldn't possibly know that I needed to get to 8 mana, and the Elder is an extremely wimpy critter. Why counter that? Other than being pissy about being denied the opportunity to draw all sorts of extra counterspells.
“Seems like kind of a waste of a counterspell.” I noted.
“Maybe. You can't get another land now.”
“I suppose, but I'm already at 7 with more cards in hand, aren't you worried that my next spell will be something more dangerous?”
“Well you don't get to shuffle, so your Divining Top is useless. Have fun looking at the same 3 cards over and over.”
Ah. He had countered the Elder to keep me from shuffling my deck. It's a common tactic to combine the Elder with the Divining Top: if you look at the top three cards of your deck and don't like any of them, you sacrifice the Elder and pull a land out of your deck and then shuffle, putting three new cards on top. The Top however was not rendered useless, since each turn I drew a card, and so one of the top three cards would be a new one, and I could elevate it to the top of the deck if need be. He was under the mistaken impression that I had drawn nothing but mana and didn't have anything useful in hand. Typical overconfidence. And rather brusque at that:
“Well okay, if you say so.”
“Yeah. I do. If you win, THEN you can talk.”
Ooooookay. Having blown the (only) counterspell in his hand the blue player was now taunting me, even after I noted that the next spell I might play may be worse. And it was. I played Fists of Ironwood on my Wood Elves, which when it comes into play, gives me two additional tiny saproling creatures. And now instead of hitting for 1 a turn with the elves, I could hit for 3 a turn with the elves and the 2 saprolings.
On the following turn, I tried to play another creature that would have shuffled my deck, but this was also countered. So I hit for 3 and said go.
“Getting a lot of use of all that mana, ha?” my opponent noted. This from the guy who's two creatures had been locked down since they came out.
On his next turn he cast Boomerang on one of his magpies… this returned it to his hand so he could cast it again. Which he immediately did… tapping out. This told me he had probably run out of counterspells temporarily. Thanks to my Divining Top I had managed to finagle Pillory of the Sleepless out of my deck.
So on my next turn I cast the Pillory on the newly reborn Magpie. Now, once again, it couldn't attack or block, and it would cause my opponent to lose a life every turn, so now I was doing 4 a turn. I couldn't resist.
“Getting a lot of use of those magpies, ha?”
“Oh I will.”
I was at 28 life at this point. My opponent's life total was now under 10 but he was still supremely confident that his counter-based deck would defeat my deck which at present, he still hadn't figured out. He had assumed that it was an amateurish deck because it had produced only small numbers of creatures and a lot of extra land. This would be his undoing.
When my opponent reached 6 life, he played a big blocker that let him draw extra cards each turn. In the meantime he destroyed two of my teensy creatures so I could no longer afford to attack, since he had a blocker. That was bad for me. I had since drawn the mountain I needed (thank you Divining Top), but I couldn't afford to cast my big spell because I knew it would be countered. I either had to burn him out of counterspells or wait for him to tap out again. I wasn't sure he would, his overconfidence had already bitten him twice. This might make him more conservative.
So on my next turn, I played a small critter, and again my opponent countered it. That was one less counterspell I had to worry about for my big spell, so I was glad to see him waste it.
“Awesome.” I said, when my spell was countered.
“Yes it is.” he noted, and then added: “Glad it makes you happy.”
“Oh nobody is happy to see their stuff countered, that's why I generally don't play with countermagic. Countermagic is for pussies.”
“LOL”
Had I goaded him into showing off his deck's power? I hoped so. On his next turn he took another point from the Pillory, dropping to 5 life, and then his deck “went nuclear”. He cast Repeal, returning the magpie to his hand (destroying the Pillory), then he cast the magpie again, and another creature. This gave him 3 usable creatures to my one. He was now in a very strong position. Except that he had left only 1 Island untapped. This was not enough mana to counter a spell given the format we were playing.
“Hmmm. Just one land untapped.” I noted.
“Yeah, so?” he asked.
Clearly he believed that it didn't matter what I cast next… which is basically stupid. For all he knew I could be holding a dumb old burn spell in my hand that could have dealt him 5 damage.
“Oh nothing, never mind.” I said.
Now he knew I was up to something, and he had no idea what it was. So my turn began. I dropped my mountain and cast Warp World. Warp World is a complicated, deservedly expensive, and ultimately chaotic spell. It can completely upset a game, and it is very risky. The textbox of Warp World reads:
Each player shuffles all permanents he or she owns into his or her library, then reveals that many cards from the top of his or her library. Each player puts all artifact, creature, and land cards revealed this way into play, then puts all enchantment cards revealed this way into play, then puts all cards revealed this way that weren't put into play on the bottom of his or her library in any order.
Essentially every card in play goes back into its owner's deck, then players shuffle, and deal themselves a new card for every card they picked up. Everything in the new pile that can go into play goes into play, and everything that can't (i.e. spells that aren't permanents like countermagic, bounce magic, burn spells, etc) goes on the bottom of the deck.
It's risky because you may end up putting your opponent's best cards into play. It's risky because you may end up putting your worst cards into play, or perhaps putting nothing but a big pile of basic lands into play. But that's part of what makes it fun, and there are ways to mitigate the risk. What my opponent had failed to notice was practically every spell I played so far had a comes-into-play (CIP) effect. Fetters gained me life, Fists generated token creatures, Wood Elves got me extra land, and some of the countered critters had minor CIP effects. A CIP effect is simply a bonus that happens when a permanent first enters play. And my deck was chock full of them. And I was about to put 11 random cards from my deck into play. Since my deck was 40% land, this meant that there was a pretty good chance I would have around 6 CIP effects all in one shot, while simultaneously getting rid of all my opponent's existing permanents. Since my opponent's deck was chock-full of countermagic, bounce magic, and burn magic, he had a pretty good chance of having a bunch of his stuff end up on the bottom of his deck where it would do him no good. 
So boom. The world ended and a new one began. My opponent and I both got a quantity of basic lands, and 4 creatures. Unfortunately for him, where he got burn and counter, I got enchantments, so I had more things I could put into play. First things first, of my opponents 4 creatures, 2 were legendary. A legendary creature is special, if a legendary creature is in play, there can be no other creature in play with the same name. If another copy of the legendary creature comes into play, both copies are instantly destroyed. Unfortunately for my opponent, his two legendary creatures were the same creature, and so they were both destroyed… leaving him with 2 creatures, a Thieving Magpie, and some wimpy creature that was not going to help him at this point. That was his big CIP effect for the turn.
“Awww. That's a shame.” I noted.
So, on to my effects. First of all, 3 enchantments had come into play, two Fists of Ironwood, and a Pillory of the Sleepless. I immediately moved the Pillory on to the Magpie, locking it down and guaranteeing that he would lose a point of life every turn again. The fists I moved onto my own creatures. When the fists came into play, they in turn each generated 2 saproling creatures again, so once those effects went off I now had 8 creatures. Then on to the comes into play effects for my creatures. First up? Wood Elves, not that exciting, but I now had far fewer lands than before, so going to get another Forest was good. Next up? Nekrataal. When old nekkie comes into play, you destroy a nonblack creature, so my opponent's wimpy critter died, leaving him only with the locked-down magpie that cost him a life every turn. Next up? Skeletal Vampire, aka “Batman”. When Batman comes into play, you put two additional black bat token creatures with flying into play. I now had ten creatures to my opponent's 1 creature (which couldn't block). Last up? Blind Hunter. When Blind Hunter comes into play, target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life. So I went from 28 life to 30, and my opponent dropped from 5 life to 3 and was staring at an army of 10 creatures he couldn't block.
“Boy sure am glad I had ALL THAT MANA.” I declared.
“I should have held back so I could have countered that.”
“Um. Yeah.”
“Well I thought your deck was simple. I wasn't expecting a combo.”
“Clearly. When countermagic is all you've got, you really shouldn't tap out so that you can't cast your countermagic. Or, you could build a deck that's fun instead, and then both players could enjoy themselves.”
“Actually this deck is fun.”
“Oh yeah. Getting all my stuff countered was a real blast. Uber-fun. You're the god of fun.”
“Well you didn't really get to see it go off, which is fine with me.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. When you win, THEN you can talk.”
So my opponent began his next turn, and lost a life to the Pillory, dropping to 2. Immediately after drawing his card for the turn, he quit. I wonder what he was looking for? I knew he was playing Pyroclasm because he had to put one on the bottom of his deck from the Warp World effect. That would have wiped out all my little critters, but not Batman, which he still could not block. I think though, that he was hoping to draw Evacuation. That would have returned all creatures in play to their owner's hands. It wouldn't have taken care of his depleted life total, but it would have given him a couple turns to try and get back on top again.
Alas, whatever he drew it was not to his liking, and he departed. Which is fine with me. 
Who'da thunkit?
I mentioned in an earlier article that I wanted to write about this, so I guess now's the time. If you had told me 2 years ago that I would become an avid MTGO player (that's 
Like MTG in the real world, MTGO is played with collectible trading cards (or rather, virtual representations thereof). Also like in the real world, you have to build a deck out of your limited supply of cards. And just like in the real world, you buy these cards in booster packs of 15 cards, or in tournament packs of 75 cards (or rather, virtual representations thereof).
No Physical Limitations
Second, in the RW, in order to play MTG you need to have a friend who is available to play the same time you are, who is in the same physical location as you, and who happens to have brought his decks with him. If you want to play a multiplayer (i.e more than 2 players) game you'll need to coordinate even more friends into the mix. If you want to attend a tournament, first you'll have to find one, and then travel to the location where it is being held on the date it is being held.
Finally, MTG was originally designed by people who had some background in computer science, (the game tends to appeal to software developers), and the mechanics of the game are somewhat involved. In the RW, a lot of this is glossed over and people tend to play loosey-goosey… but online, the software makes you follow the game mechanics and as a result, makes you a better player. You are allowed to take some shortcuts of course, but only in such a way that makes clear what you're skipping. Seeing the game engine in operation will teach you tactics that you may not have considered. Here's a tiny example:
MTGO keeps a game ticker running as you play, so anything that happens while playing (including any chat between you an the other player) is recorded. The image at left here shows the game ticker at the bottom. At any time during a MTGO session you can request to see a completed game you played during the same session replayed. Doing this sometimes helps me spot strategic errors I may have made while playing.
It never fails, no matter what, everybody in television is always trying to make their mark on something. Which is okay unless it's your something. WLVI (channel 56) has opted to bring back Creature Double Feature for the summer. I loved CDF as a kid. Many a Saturday afternoon in the 70's was spent watching crappy Japanese horror movies with my Dad. So I greeted the news that CDF was coming back with elation. Right up until the moment I switched it on to find that CDF now has “a host”. A talentless hack in a tacky costume as “The Ghoul” who speaks in a phoney Romanian accent so poorly that you can't understand a word he says. Worse yet the Ghoul has to appear at each of the extremely frequent and long commercial breaks. We watched until we couldn't stand it anymore and then switched over to the ball game. Even my 9 year old daughter, who loves bad monster movies, expressed irritation at the annoying Ghoul.
