In a game store
on a numbered street
in a state
in a country
on a planet
in a solar system
very near and dear to my heart
I wrote this:

  Darth Vader: (Labored Breathing) “Luke, join me on the dark side of the force it's totally awesome!”
  Luke Skywalker: “You're right dad, being a Jedi sucks. Sith for life! Now let's go Death Star the poo balls outta those little Ewok jerks!!!!”
  Darth Vader: “That's my boy!! You know on the dark side of the force we don't frown on incest... Just sayin'.”
  Luke Skywalker: “LEIAAAAAAAAAAA!”

  Then I laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Now I know you're asking yourself what this has to do with magic. And I'll tell you:
  1) Have you ever met a Magic player who didn't like Star Wars?
(Actually once but I dispatched him with my lightsaber so the actual answer is F NO).
  2) I've written 6 prior pieces for this site and in EVERY SINGLE ONE even ones that have nothing at all to do with Standard I bash Jund. Well this week, I joined the darkside of the force and I feel more than a little dirty about the whole thing.

  Good news though I only went 2-2 and missed top 8. Bad news, the finals of FNM was the Jund vs. Jund mirror featuring Level 5 a.k.a. Sheldon Menery and Todd Palmer.

In a senseless diversion
that has nothing to do
with the rest of what
you're about to read
something else that makes me
and like 3 other people laugh

  Quick aside about Todd – Todd has a new nickname!

  This is a fairly long story but worth it. There is a series of movies, based on a series of books called “The Chronicles of Narnia” and in these books/movies there is a lion named Aslan, who is the general of an animal army! Our dear friend Todd has deck protectors with a picture of a lion general on them and because I'm and idiot I could not remember the name of the lion, and here is the fun part, so when we gave Todd the nickname I proceeded to just call him Ass-followed by any Noun or Pronoun: for example Ass-Towel or Ass-flyswatter. But if you want to go the Full Monty and combine all 3 of Todd's nicknames that I am aware of you go for “Ass Hands with Cheese” (Todd's 3 nicknames being 1) Jazz Hands 2) Ass- Noun/Pronoun 3) Cheese) FANTASTIC!!!

  So round one I played Vampires. Can I be honest with you guys here? STOP PLAYING WITH THIS DECK UNTIL AFTER WORLDWAKE! It's so bad. Its best draw just loses straight up to one Bloodbraid into Thrinax or Nighthawk or god help them Great Stable Stag. I took 4 damage in 2 games all of which was from fetch lands and was as bored as anyone could be.

  Vampires. NO. It's like itchy chicks, crack cocaine, and me playing Islands. NO! Or since we are messing around in George Lucas' universe today NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(inappropriate)

  Round 2 I played against GW tokens.
  Wait a second!
  When did we stop naming decks?
  All creativity is GONE from MTG? Jeez.
  I'm calling this deck something else because the only tokens in it come from Emeria. Lets go with Angelica Pickles. Why? Because, it's win is Baneslayer Angel and Emeria Angel plus it plays green, which is the color of pickle and I used to love the show Rugrats!
  That was fun!
  Let’s keep going.

  Magical Christmas Land... Stupid name. I like Conley Woods. He plays rogue decks at the highest levels its very admirable. Stupid stupid name. All decks with Lotus Cobra should have a name from the cinema classic Karate Kid (haven't seen Karate Kid? For shame! Buy the DVD right now!) for this deck I think we should go with, “Get Him a Body Bag”
Why, because the deck loses if Lotus Cobra dies, and he eats a bolt EVERY SINGLE TIME.

  LSV's URW deck? Star Spangled Slowdown. We'll get to this guy later though.

  Anyway I lost to Angelica Pickles cause BIG SHOCK 3/2 don't kill 1/6 life gaining walls. The force is not strong with me because if Carl Berghorn had been playing the deck you can take it to the bank that he wins these games in a land slide because there is no way he draws 7 games in a row in game 2. He also doesn't bumble in game 3 when he has a window to get in for 5 damage. Sigh.

  Bumble, that's a funny word stole it from Brennan, Speaking of Brennan, he top 8ed a PTQ this weekend, Congrats, whatever. That's not important. There is a mystery a foot. Let me set the scene. It's 3:40 I have just gotten out of work and Brennan sends me a text and the following conversation takes place, transcribed in total from my phone:

  Brennan: Car's broke, Pick me up?
  Ross: Ummm in like an hour. I just got out of work.
  Brennan: OK, I'm good, I called Triple A and they are on their way
    An Hour Passes
  Brennan: -Brennan's Address- Triple A won't be here for like an hour
  Ross: I'm already at Armada
  Brennan: -Swearing-
    More time passes
    Further time passes
  So its approximately 2 hours later and Brennan kicks the door in to Armada games and is like “I hate you guys”

  That's all fine and good but...
  How'd he get to the shop?
  When questioned he was coy and mysterious...
  First person who finds me the answer to this question gets something... gets the same thing whatever the person who drove Brennan to the store got, but not from me...from EJ.
  Terms agreed.

  It's a full fledged Armada Games Mystery!

  So in Round 3 I played against RB Blightning and much like Vampires was never in any danger of losing either game. But in these aggro matchups the extra discard spells, in this case 3 main deck mind rot, really preform quite surprisingly. Resolving them keeps your opponents off of either a removal spell, a discard spell of their own, or a threat of some kind. The Mind Rot is in the deck for the very hard to win Grixis (from here on known as Sorrin's Cruel Sphinx – which is a GAWD AWFUL name, but better than Grixis) match but actually makes aggro slightly more tenable when they get hot hands.

Before I get to round 4 I've been challenged!! My round 4 opponent, Roberto, insulted my honor! The challenge:
Build a functioning Legacy deck around Warp World and win the Legacy event for some prize of some sort.
I love a challenge. And here is the deck:

Lands:
8 Mountain
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Creatures:
4 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Vexing Shusher
4 Tattermung Maniac
4 Goblin Guide
4 Jackal Familiar
4 Goblin Bushwhacker

Spells:
3 Warp World
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Mass Hysteria

  Unlike Legacy decks I brought to you guys in the past, this is straight from my brain, which probably means it's going to massage some frenulum (look it up). But that probably won't matter because counting the Warp World Roberto through at me when he made the challenge I probably only own 9 of these cards (yes that's 8 Mountains and 1 Warp World). We'll see what happens. To be continued... (spoilers??? Maybe)

What
You
Are About to
Read
Is not just senseless bragging
I am actually trying to make a point
while also adding a bit
of
self
deprecating humor to the mix

  In Round 4 I played against Roberto (obvs) who was playing Star Spangled Slowdown. And in games 2 and 3 he had Baneslayer on turn 5 both times. Cries, cries, cries. But listen to this SICK play I made to win game 1.

  So it's game one and I am pretty far ahead but wholly out of gas and my hand is flaccid because I drew land and Terminate that couldn't target Jar Jar Sphinx (I'm getting ahead of myself here) but with 2 creatures in play and Roberto at 4 I attack and he goes to 1 with just Thrinax in play. Ordinarily, if you've ever seen me play, I miss that I can potentially just win the game here, but in this case I didn't miss the play, and at the end of Roberto's turn I Terminate my Sprouting Thrinax to get 3 1/1's and win. I only mention this, not because it is that great of a play, because solid players (which I'm not) can see it and make it every time. But it does illustrate a point about Jund. A lot of the deck IS just Cascade and pray but there are some subtleties to the deck like this play or even, Bituminous Blast-ing your own creature for the chance to pray. Some small things you only really see when piloting the deck.

  So The Evil Empire is defeated by Ewoks (they blow) again! But much like the real Star Wars I'm going to follow up and besmirch my masterpiece (YEAH I SAID IT!!!!!!!!!!) by following it up with a wholly unsatisfying sequel article that is still kinda cool cause Yoda is still dope only now he can do back flips and smash dudes and (SWOON) Natalie Portman!

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