Sunday, October 28, 2007

At least someone will get it

A friend of mine that used to work at the Friendly Local Gaming Shop until he left for better employment told me this story, and it's one of the best stories I have ever heard.

He's sitting on nine mana, looking for one more land so he can cast and crack Mindslaver in the same turn, hence not letting his opponent get a chance to obliterate the Slaver before it goes online. His opponent casts Fireball, gets him down to 8, and then casts Eternal Witness and returns Fireball with nine mana up next turn. My friend frowns at this situation, but draws his card hoping to hit a land or some other solution. His Draw was Tooth and Nail and he had the mana to cast and entwine it. However, the question was What to get? Darksteel Colossus wouldn't work and he didn't have a Platinum Angel in the deck to fetch, let alone have it stick long enough to find a solution to the Fireball. However, he remembered that he had a pair of Bottle Gnomes stashed away in the deck somewhere, so he decides to put his chips down. He taps his mana, and declares in the loudest voice he could make while being within tournament standards, "Tooth and Nail, Entwined for Bottle Gnomes." EVERYBODY, including the head judge, rushed for the table to see if they heard right. They did, and my friend drops a pair of Beverages on the field.

The opponent draws, and then starts to look flustered. No matter how he figured the math, he could not kill him this turn. So he drops a creature (I forgot what it was!) and passes turn. My friend's turn, draws a Forest (which he still has framed in his house) and lays it down and cracks slaver. He takes his opponent's turn, swings into his bottle gnomes, wipes field, and burns himself with the Fireball. It's then a complete swing for my friend, concluding the match in my friend's favor.

After the match, my friend picks up his cards and heads to his next match, or at least to wait for it. The opponent sits there, cards still laid out on the table, untouched, unmoving. Five minutes later, a friend of the opponent walks up and says "Hey man, what happened?" The opponent, without even blinking or moving just mumbles:

"Bottle Gnomes."

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