Magic the Gathering

This is a sub­mis­sion from Ryan Mor­lock and is his entry for the 2009 States Writ­ers Con­test.

Good morn­ing Banes­layer. Glad to have you. You’ve been busy since your arrival on the magic scene. Why don’t you tell us a lit­tle about your next big event?

Thank you for hav­ing me. My next big event is actu­ally very scary. I am def­i­nitely not look­ing for­ward to it. Like you said, I have been very busy – almost across the entire event cir­cuit. FNMs, 5ks, Grand Prixs, PTQs, Magic Game Days, pre-releases, releases. Oh yeah, did I men­tion that I am a Pro Tour Cham­pion and a World Cham­pion? My resume already is start­ing to hang up there with the best of them. All of that looks like a walk in the park com­pared to States 2009.

What do you mean by that? States is always com­pet­i­tive, but is gen­er­ally regarded as less cut-throat than some­thing like the pro tour. Aren’t you more likely to run into a casual or table-top gamer that is out there for fun?

Oh sure, it is fun and games for you guys, but do you have any idea of the beat­ing that I have to go through? All of those fancy abil­i­ties on my card really just mean that I have a giant tar­get on my back. Do you real­ized how many times at a par­tic­u­lar tour­na­ment I am ter­mi­nated, pulsed, exiled, bolted con­sec­u­tively, blasted, judged, marked for death, trapped in obliv­ion or sent on a jour­ney to freak­ing nowhere? Now mul­ti­ply that times about sixty and you will get an idea of what I am up against for States 2009. If you do not believe me then you can go to http://the2009s.com and check out all of the tour­na­ment loca­tions. It truly is a hideous end.

Surely there is some­thing that you can do about it?

Look, I can brave some of those ele­ments, but not all of them. You have to remem­ber, those are just the tra­di­tional, clean-cut ways to die. States play­ers are a dif­fer­ent breed. Oh, they will use all the reg­u­lar stuff, but then they will pile on all sorts of new ways for me to meet destruc­tion that I wouldn’t nor­mally have to face. For exam­ple, they will go out of their way, wretchedly sac­ri­fic­ing their own crea­tures if nec­es­sary, to make sure that I’m on the bat­tle­field by myself and then serve me up at a ban­quet. Then I heard about this test­ing ses­sion where a Banes­layer was turned into dragon’s slave, forced to work for him and then sac­ri­ficed. Even worse, I heard about another Bans­es­layer that was head­ing toward vic­tory by her lone­some when out of nowhere she had her beau­ti­ful soul defiled by a demon. Demons? Drag­ons? What is this crap! I am sup­posed to have pro­tec­tion from those. So yeah, states play­ers use the really messed up stuff.

Are there any lessons that you can learn from other angels?

You mean like Serra? Talk about your wicked step sis­ter. She is a poster child for the next fallen angel. She laughs at me, kick­ing back in the retired con­structed binder sip­ping on a planeswalker soda and giv­ing me the “been there, done that” speech. That lim­ited game sure is the life. Every so often you get recruited but then you only have to come out one out of forty times instead four out of sixty. Then when you do make it out, chances are you are going to be the hero and soak up the glory because there are not a bil­lion ways for you to die. Con­structed is so much more work.

Eme­ria is the new girl on the block, but right now she is not quite in the same class as most of the fin­ish­ers. She has got poten­tial, I’ll give you that, but she is def­i­nitely not focused. Right now she the only thing she seems inter­ested in is real estate. And she always smells like chicken.

Any­one besides angels that might have advice to offer?

There is a giant up here in the clouds, but good luck get­ting any infor­ma­tion out of him. Talk about a big head. He’s been hon­ored so much that he thinks he is too pure for this gig any­more. He believes that he is now invin­ci­ble and just spends his days singing hymns to his goats. What is the world com­ing to? I’d def­i­nitely like to quell that attitude.

You came out dur­ing M10. What do you think of Zendikar?

Time out. We angels all have the­o­ries on where cre­ative comes up with these names. Here is mine. Once a week the whole office is instructed to open up a blank doc­u­ment. Then they are told to bang their heads on their key­boards one time. Those results are then sub­mit­ted to cre­ative who then sorts through them to col­lect all the good head prints. What con­sti­tutes a good head print you might ask? Well, the good ones are easy to spot because they con­tain the let­ters Z, X or Q. All of those sub­mis­sions are then reg­is­tered with the patent office.

Ok, thanks for that. What about Zendikar?

Zendikar itself, it is great! You know why? And this is some­thing that States 2009 also has going for it. No faeries. I’ve only been around for a cou­ple of months, but wow did that get old quick. Tap you down, bounce you, stut­ter you, counter you, swarm you. All of that for 2 mana and a measly life a turn? Good rid­dance. Angel­blos­som sure has a nice ring to it though, doesn’t it? If it spit out chick­ens, I bet I could get Eme­ria on board…

If not for the hard work of one par­tic­u­lar tour­na­ment orga­nizer, states might have been left for dead. From your ear­lier responses it seems appar­ent that you do not approve of its return.

I’d def­i­nitely like to meet this Glen God­dard char­ac­ter in a dark alley and spring a trap of my own on him. Watch­ing him fall into a bot­tom­less pit would be priceless.

That sure is a harsh atti­tude for an angel. Shouldn’t you be thank­ful to this guy for help­ing you find work in these dif­fi­cult times?

Yes. I truly am thank­ful and I am not really seek­ing his blood. I am still an angel at heart and would let him escape, if nar­rowly, from any real dis­fig­ure­ment. Look, there are a bunch of great things to get exited about States 2009 for. Prizes like card pro­mos, play­mats and entry fees are def­i­nitely cool. That com­bined with a day of great gam­ing and meet­ing lots of peo­ple makes for good fun and good stories.

Despite the crit­i­cism, it appears that you might actu­ally be ready to gear up for the upcom­ing adven­ture. Any last words?

I am a lady, so I’d like to men­tion that there are some excel­lent brands of deodorant/anti per­spi­rant out there (yes, the kinds that have BOTH are nec­es­sary). Eat­ing bean bur­ri­tos the night before is also not rec­om­mended. You can play vam­pires if you want, but they suck. It’s get­ting to be that time of year, so you might want to con­sider play­ing elves. Or play free spells. Just pro­tect me. Cher­ish me. Trade me for value if you must – and I promise that I will bring you a lot, but for States Sat­ur­day 2009, give a girl a break and remem­ber that Pit­fall Trap is a fine removal spell!

1. is she talk­ing about world queller or cloud­goat ranger?

   KT | December 3, 2009, 9:09 pm | #

Additional comments powered by BackType