The Chess Game

So you just finished your zillionth game of Magic, and there's this strange feeling in your gut. No, it's not the Taco Bell special you had for lunch. It's an actual urge to play a game other than Magic. Lie down for a while; it might go away. If it doesn't, go ahead and try an old favourite - a game of chess. It has always been the game of kings, so maybe it could hold your attention for a while, too.

Chances are, you did not prepare for this eventuality. I mean, really, who plays anything other than Magic? So it is entirely possible that you don't have a chess set. Don't despair. You can draw a 64-square board on that old pizza box over there; it was stinking up the place anyhow. Then go ahead and use these Magic cards as your chess pieces.

White
1 King Suleiman (king)
1 Jhovall Queen (queen)
2 White Knight (knights)
2 Soltari Priest (bishops)
2 Castle (rooks)
8 Squire (pawns)

Black
1 Lord of the Pit (king)
1 Coffin Queen (queen)
2 Black Knight (knights)
2 Priest of Gix (bishops)
2 Castle Sengir (rooks)
8 Thrull Retainer (pawns)

Thumb's Up

Another installment in "Bad Card Made Good." Well... this time around, maybe "Bad Card Made Mediocre." So what are we dealing with today? Coin-flip cards. Every set seems to have them, virtually all of 'em suck and unfortunately they usually take up a rare slot. No surprise then that Krark's Thumb is a shiny, lustrous five-cent rare if ever there was one. Until we come along and break it, that is.

Krark's Thumb is not a curse for the intrepid deckbuilder, but an opportunity for fun - more fun than any Magic player should have. You just need to get the most abusable coin-flip cards out there in hand; from there it's a snap! This Krark's Thumb deck is perfectly suited for casual dueling or multiplayer mayhem. It can really nail an unsuspecting opponent, quickly reducing him to single digits. It's a fiery assault that will force even the most stalwart opponent to knuckle under. With all the reusable gimmicks a deck like this packs, it is ideal for chaos games, where double-helpings of cheese launch quite the joint offensive. Help me... I can't stop.

So how does one play with the Thumb? Certainly no Twiddle is required; although sideboarding one is a natural. Draw into a Thumb using Thirst for Knowledge, or Fabricate for one, then proceed to unleash the heavy artillery: Fiery Gambit. Don't forget to "go all in" and float mana before casting the Gambit; you'll need every last resource to unleash the nine new cards you're about to draw.

Artifacts
4 Krark's Thumb
2 Mirror Gallery
1 Wirefly Hive

Creatures
2 Goblin Archaeologist
3 Goblin Assassin
3 Siege-Gang Commander

Spells
3 Fabricate
4 Fiery Gambit
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Mana Clash
3 Shrapnel Blast
3 Stitch in Time
4 Thirst For Knowledge

Lands
2 Great Furnace
4 Island
2 Izzet Boilerworks
2 Mirrodin's Core
12 Mountain
2 Seat of the Synod

Sideboard
3 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Havoc
2 Hibernation
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Smash To Smithereens
1 Stabilizer
1 Twiddle

You Don't Say

Everything has its jargon. Sports often have uncomfortably violent colloquialisms. Professions have terms for the most specific of relevant situations. Wrestling announcers make up a new word every bleedin' sentence. So yes, Magic inevitably has developed its own set of lingo. Here are key terms, of past and present, quickly explained....

Ponza
What it is: A red landkill/board-control deck.
What it isn't: The guy from "Happy Days" who often said "Ayyyyyy!"

Engine
What it is: A combo in which you can directly trade one resource, such as life or cards, for another.
What it isn't: An unimpressive metal band that your friend's dweeby younger brother keeps insisting you try listening to.

Gas
What it is: A really good card; also, a card that fuels a deck's combo engine.
What it isn't: The most prevalent component of your dining room after eating Taco Bell.

No-Mar
What it is: A variant on the controllish Go-Mar deck that used Dromar, the Banisher; the "no" implies a version without the dragon.
What it isn't: An all-star shortstop for the Boston Red Sox.

Windmill Slam
What it is: A motion in which one forcefully throws down onto the table an amazing card that they just drew.
What it isn't: The new meal at Denny's restaurants in Holland.

Rainbow
What it is: A deck that utilizes all five colours.
What it isn't: Something hated by South Park's Cartman.

Weenie
What it is: A small, cheap and efficient creature, like Jackal Pup.
What it isn't: What you're thinking right now.

Fattie (Alt. Beater, Groundpounder, Beatstick)
What it is: A "large" creature, typically with at least 4 power and toughness.
What it isn't: Your mom. Oh wait, it totally is.

Beatdown
What it is: A deck strategy that involves attacking and generally dealing damage as quickly as possible.
What it isn't: What you get during your initiation into the Crips.

Mono
What it is: A deck that runs only one colour (i.e. "Mono-Blue")
What it isn't: A disease unlikely to be caught by Magic players.

Ahoy Matey!

Another installment in the archive of sad little theme decks - today's theme? Pirates.

Pirates go about blasting away at folks and stealing things wherever there's water. For one, that means they should be safe from land destruction decks. What's left after you destroy all the land in the world? Waterworld? Well, I couldn't really come up with a "Bad Kevin Costner movies" theme deck, despite there being plenty of fodder, so instead I thought up a pirate deck. That delightful Mercadian Masques has a lot of theme deck potential and it wouldn't be hard to put together a Masques-block deck, but I couldn't resist the likes of Pirate Ship and Ramirez.

The Pirates
1 Armored Galleon
1 Cloud Pirates
1 Kukemssa Pirates
1 Pirate Ship
1 Ramirez DePietro
1 Reef Pirates
1 Rishadan Airship
1 Rishadan Brigand
1 Rishadan Cutpurse
1 Rishadan Footpad
1 Steam Frigate

Strange Monsters
1 Drowned
1 Sea Monster
1 Skeleton Ship
1 Tidal Kraken

Shore Trouble
1 Betrayal
1 Bribery
1 Hoodwink
1 Misdirection
1 Port Inspector
1 Rishadan Pawnshop
1 Waterfront Bouncer

Sailing the Seas
1 Barbed Sextant
1 Coastal Piracy
1 Crooked Scales
1 Deep Water
1 Doom Cannon
1 Embargo
1 Explorer's Scope
1 High Tide
1 Piracy
1 Piracy Charm
1 Siren's Call
1 Star Compass
1 Trade Routes
1 Treachery
1 Treasure Trove
1 War Barge
1 War Tax

Destinations
1 Coral Atoll
1 Dark Depths
2 Dreadship Reef
10 Island
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Remote Isle
1 Rishadan Port
1 Rootwater Depths
1 Saprazzan Cove
1 Seafarer's Quay
1 Watery Grave

Five Guaranteed Ways To Win

Tourney scene too rough? Sick of losing all the time? Of course you are. After all, you do lose all the time. I can tell. I smell it from here. Anyways, here are five sure-fire techniques for turning humiliating defeat into glorious victory. Simply follow the simple step-by-step directions and the fame, moolah and chicks will all be yours.

It's a fact.

Rags to Liches

Trash rares. Every set has 'em, and the odds are you're gonna crack one or two while trying to score a hot rare foil. It doesn't have to be that way, though. No, I'm not advocating ripping packs open before making you gaming shop purchases. Instead, why not turn garbage into gold? With a little ingenuity, any card - alright, goblin game excepted - can be turned into a theme deck gem.
Today's lesson: Nefarious Lich Lockdown.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: 99.9% of the time, Nefarious Lich blows. In a way, though, that makes it a useful card. For one, you'll never have trouble trading for one or four. More importantly, when you break it, you'll look like a friggin' genius. So how exactly does one go about doing this?

In order to break this seldom-used enchantment, you'll need both a surefire way to gain life and a productive means by which cards could be pitched. Enter Confessor and Zombie Infestation. Suddenly, for every two cards discarded, you gain two life. However, with the Lich in play, you would draw two cards instead. Chuck those to the infestation, create another 2/2 creature token, draw two cards, wash, rinse, repeat.

The Lich and the Infestation are black; Confessor is white. We're done choosing colours, right? Not so fast, killer. Let's not forget that should the Nefarious Lich leave play, even due to a bounce spell, you lose. Don't leave home without a splash of green for Tranquil Grove. Furthermore, this gives you access to an alternate win mechanism in Wild Mongrel. The broken hound serves two purposes here. First, it allows the deck to come out fast with teeth bared. Secondly, in the event you can't get an Infestation into the mix, the dog provides you another means to which you can cycle cards. Use black elimination to clear the path and let the dog swing for the fences.

Four copies each of Diabolic Edict and Ghastly Demise, plus three Innocent Bloods, clear out threats while you set up. Four Tutors let you fetch the Lich, as do your Sterling Groves if the situation is dire. Try to keep a Grove in play to protect you at all costs, though.

Lastly, the deck runs Life Burst. In the early game, it provides a shot in the arm to buy time to set up. It also lets you play the Lich in a pinch, netting a potential 16 cards for two mana. That oughta find the creature-kill you need, or the Confessor and Zombie Infestation needed to set up the kill mechanism.

The Deck

Black
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Ghastly Demise
3 Innocent Blood
2 Nefarious Lich
4 Zombie Infestation

Gold
3 Sterling Grove

Green
4 Wild Mongrel

White
4 Confessor
4 Life Burst

Lands
3 Forest
3 Krosan Verge
3 Plains
11 Swamp
2 Tainted Field
2 Tainted Wood


There are a few other options you can run. Echoing Courage can serve as insurance, but you should be able to spawn enough tokens to flood your opponent in one or two attacks. The confessor serves as a keystone in the deck, so a form of protecting him can be paramount; Floating Shield isn't a bad idea. Running Greater Auramancy instead of the Grove can let you stick to only two colours, smoothing out the deck. Lastly, if you have money, bombs like Damnation and Vindicate can tighten the deck up, and fetch lands can ease out the mana curve further. As is, however, the deck should work better than you'd expect.

The most fun decks to play are ones where your opponent laughs when you play a "rotten" card, then watches helplessly as that crapmeister causes their death. Sure, I wouldn't recommend whipping this bad boy out at a Vintage tourney, but heck, for sheer fun value, I'd rather play Nefarious Lich than Donate or Affinity any day.

As a parting note, try the Nefarious Lich with Words of Worship. Just for fun.