Skithiryx, Why Are You So OP?

magic_skeletons

The mailbox has been seeing a lot of extra use this last week. The real one. You know, for those like… physical, paper e-mails things they send sometimes. I think they call them letters. It’s also where the magic stork drops off the stuff you buy on eBay. I’ve been getting two or three of those a day — all with my name on them. And they’re full of — you guessed it — Magic cards!

It’s only been… eight months?… since I rediscovered Magic, and now I’ve actually got around to fulfilling the promise I made to myself back in January. I will finish that deck I started in middle school. It will be playable. And I will use it in… let’s say at least one game. Let’s start small.

Thing’s gone through a lot of iterations, starting as a hodgepodge of all the undead cards I happened to have as a kid and thought were cool. There was a theoretical version of it that existed solely on a whiteboard. Now it’s shaping up to be not only real, but reasonably useful. It’s basically become a (totally metal) skeleton army where nothing ever stays dead, half my cards come out of the graveyard rather than going into it, and even when you do manage to kill something, it makes my other dudes stronger. In theory, anyway.

Will it will any tournaments? No. Did I have fun building it, and am I going to have a ton of fun playing with it? Heck yes. I said it months ago, but I’ve always put decks together for the fun of building them around a theme. If this one turns out to be good, that’s a bonus, but there were plenty of awesome cards I passed by because they didn’t fit with the rest of the deck. Like this guy: Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon.

Is it just me or is this card super overpowered? Five mana for a 4/4 with flying would be pretty good already, but regenerate, infect, and the potential for haste? What. You dang kids and your new Magic cards! Back in my day, we had to work to find creative combinations of cards that made them overpowered. Now you’ve got these “mythic rares” that are basically overpowered by definition. You’ll never learn proper strategerizing with cards like this!

I actually considered putting one of him in my deck, but it kind of felt like cheating. That, and he would look weird next to all my other cards. I’m dating myself here, but when I stopped playing Magic, a black card looked like this. Now it looks like this. And you can’t mix them without it looking like a mess. My deck was already all in the old style, so that’s what I’ve had to stick with. I’ve missed out on some neat stuff there, too. (Reassembling Skeleton, why must you tempt me by being so perfect for my deck?)

So, with the exception of a few super-expensive cards (black-bordered Will-O’-the-Wisps and Animate Deads — I’m looking at you), it’s pretty much complete. Just testing and fine-tuning to do, which means now I’ve got to find someone to play with…

Wait! I’m back in school in twelve hours. There’s a whole ocean of nerds there — just like me! Have I ever told you I love college?

(Next challenge: Finish that goblin deck that’s been gathering dust for just as long as this one!)

3 comments

  1. Oh, Magic. It can be a dangerous, addicting game. The other night, my friends and I had a ‘Magic’ party where various people played with the many decks one of my friends owns. It was a fun, throwback night.

    1. My friends and I have so much nerdness to cover that we try to diversify the nerdy things we celebrate. We might try a few more times, but I’m not sure at the moment what will work or not.

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