Lesson I – The Rag Man

It’s a card right? I mean, you win when you play it … sometimes. Blood Moon is a deceptive card though, it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling but you are a blind fool. And a deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths. Let’s lay down some of those truths.

I sometimes use Fog as an example of a deceptive card that lets you really remember winning. You won that one time when all the stars aligned and, clearly, should’ve died that very turn if it were not for this and that. It does not, however, remind you of all the times you sat with the card in your hand, doing nothing. Cards need to do things for you to win, we could probably agree on that right? I think in many ways Blood Moon qualifies here. Sometimes it just flat out kills all opponents’ upcoming plays. Other times they have a Fellwar Stone when you decided to play with plains in your Blood Moon deck. Other times you slam it when you have an opening around counterspells and whatnots but strand a bunch of your own cards in hand due to playing three colors in your Blood Moon deck.

So for the tournament where I won the Rag Man (A price given out to last place in all our tournaments, Ed.) I played a Blood Moon deck with Savannah Lions, splashing for blue power (because I am not a peasant by position, nor by nature). To make a long story short, it did not go well. I even met a Merfolk deck where my Blood Moons just did everything that is close to nothing.

Lesson II – Sorrows Path

I did not plan claiming all these trophies, to aquire them you have to be ready to be beaten a lot, like a lot a lot. But it’s also a bit like in that Fight Club scene where they are told by Tyler Durden to go out and get beaten up by complete strangers. It’s not as easy as it seems. I claimed this little gem by coming 5th place just out of range for the top4. I actually won the Sorrows Path in the raffle just before the top4 and it seemed fitting to say the least. Råberg signed it when he beat me in the win and in. Anyway, I played this:

Arabian Aggro is a great deck. Recently we have seen a lot of creature based decks popping up and in that meta, you probably win playing Swords over Lightning bolts but hey, I feel that if you put a lion and a gorilla in a cage fight… the monkey will beat the shit out of the cat. I did try playing three sylvan in the sideboard in this event because I had seen “Farsan” go unbeaten in the swiss at n00bcon, and he won against like, at least two-three The Decks (including mine) with them, as a sort of Ancestrals. But they did not serve me that well, and I don’t like that card as much as other people do. I think I had control a bit too much in mind building my deck and let that be a lesson to you all, you probably will never meet the decks you plan to meet anyhow.