These cards are good.
Hello fellow cheeto dust crusted nerds. Gaige and I had a good weekend full of Two-Headed Giant and cheap light beer.
The real winner this weekend.
Two-Headed Giant? The fuck is that, Dan? Well, random reader, you better step out of that ignorance bunker because I'm about to drop some knowledge bombs. Two-Headed Giant (Commonly abbreviated 2HG) is the best format anyone has ever thought of for Magic. You play with a partner in a team of two against another pair. Your team has a shared life total (starting at 30), and you take your turns on the same time. You'll both untap at the same time, draw, play cards during your first main phase, go to combat together, second main, take eachother out to dinner, then lay your head next to theirs on the pillow at night. However, you still have separate decks, hands, graveyards, mana pools, battle fields, etc. The rest is played out like a fairly normal game of magic, with a few exceptions.
The biggest one is that though the two of you are a team, you are considered separate players. If a card says "Target player" or "Target opponent," then you have to choose a single player to target for it. For example, if you wanted to Lightning Bolt your opponent, you'd pick a single head, and they as a team would take three damage. But if you used Nettle Drone's tapped ability, each opponent takes one damage, meaning that their team takes two damage.
Pretty fuckin' good.
This particular 2HG event was a Sealed event, which is typical for stores running 2HG. Each team gets 8-12 packs to open (this tournament was 8), and then you build two decks using your combined sealed pool.
So Saturday at noon, our favorite local store ran its first 2HG event, which Gaige and on I jumped on like an Italian plumber on turtles. We tossed the Hamms in the trunk, and away we went. As we waited for the tournament to start, Gaige promptly bought two expeditions because he has an addiction. We sat at our seats, started poppin' our packs open, and then I immediately opened one of the expeditions Gaige just bought.
Haha, suck it Gaige.
So my experience was going pretty well. We ripped open the packs as if they were bags of skittles we forgot we had in our pockets, and I opened a Crush of Tentacles and a Fall of the Titans. Two of the best 2HG cards. I was giddy, and started slapping together a terrible Blue/Red surge deck before Gaige could even finish opening all of his packs. Which, unfortunately, didn't have any more expeditions. However, he did get an Eldrazi Displacer, which we decided to toss in the B/W deck he built, and a Jori En which was just destined to slot into my surge deck. We randomly threw shitty commons in a pile until we created these two monstrosities.
I am not very good at taking pictures.
So what's the goal here? Win, you stupid bitch. No, I'm just kidding, you're beautiful. But really, the deck wants to play shit on the cheap to get through some damage, and then control until I can murder them with a Crush of Tentacles 8/8 octopus, or Fall of the Titans them for 10+ damage. Going into the games, I predicted Crush and Fall were going to be my most useful cards, obviously, and that Anticipate, and Slip Through Space were going to be the least useful, and first to get swapped out.
Not a good picture, but better than Dan's.
The idea for this weird combination of colors was to have removal in black and fat butts in both black and white. Unfortunately flying was lacking (all i ever wanted were the flying fat butts vampires) and I pulled garbage in my packs. I knew I was gonna be the weak head. I was just hoping I could displace my way through these three games. SPOILERS: I could not.
-This horrible mess of English brought to you by Gaige
So we were feeling pretty happy with my deck, though a little on edge with Gaige's. It was a split between ramping into giant stuff and the ally control deck. It turned out to work OK, but in hindsight, I think we would have had him run Black/Green instead of White/Black, as we had some very solid green cards, such as Baloth Null, 2x Scion Summoners, Tarjuru Pathwarden, Birthing Hulk, and a couple Stalking Drones. Alas, Eldrazi Displacer's absolutely stupid ability convinced us to run white.
So team Social Justice Wizards sleeved up their decks, and we were ready to get shit on.
Match One:
Our first game was against two cool bros who affectionately named their team White Trash. One head was running Blue/Red surge, and the other was rocking Black/White allies. Basically a mirror match. Except they were better. They had the ballingest combo I had seen in a bit, a Vampire Envoy and a Serene Steward.
This kills the Social Justice Wizard.
Just attacking with the vampire let them activate Serene Steward, and a x/5 or greater is not easy to kill.
From turn four on, they were bashing us with an increasingly large vampire, and gaining life off of it. Blue/Red guy used counterspells and a few support spells to protect the combo pieces, and we were just never able to deal with it. Sadly, as I feared, I only ever got four mana out. I was nervous about running 16 to begin with, but I am a dumb, so I did anyways, and we lost this game because of it. Oh well, lesson learned. I actually cast Anticipate once in this game, only to totally whiff and not hit a land, and then not draw one the next two turns either. I took it out the sleeve, ripped it in half, and tossed in another island instead. Not really, I love Anticipate, so I saved her. But fuck that card in this deck, more land was necessary. I also pitched Slip for a Containment Membrane we had, as that alone would have shut down Vampire Envoy and bought us many more turns.
From turn four on, they were bashing us with an increasingly large vampire, and gaining life off of it. Blue/Red guy used counterspells and a few support spells to protect the combo pieces, and we were just never able to deal with it. Sadly, as I feared, I only ever got four mana out. I was nervous about running 16 to begin with, but I am a dumb, so I did anyways, and we lost this game because of it. Oh well, lesson learned. I actually cast Anticipate once in this game, only to totally whiff and not hit a land, and then not draw one the next two turns either. I took it out the sleeve, ripped it in half, and tossed in another island instead. Not really, I love Anticipate, so I saved her. But fuck that card in this deck, more land was necessary. I also pitched Slip for a Containment Membrane we had, as that alone would have shut down Vampire Envoy and bought us many more turns.
We licked our wounds by eating McDick's Chicken Nuggets and drinking Hamms in the backseat of Gaige's car.
Match Two:
Game two was against a couple, with the dude running Blue/White prowess, and the lady running Black/Red... stuff. It was removal and good cards, essentially. Our game went well, with me dropping Jori En early on, and getting a few cards out of the deal. Gaige quickly ramped up to a bunch of mana and got out a fat butt Dread Defiler, and we were sitting pretty. We had managed to use Eldrazi Displacer to remove several counters from Support as well, so we were quite pretty indeed.
Then I topdecked Crush of Tentacles. "ARE YOU READY, BROTHER?" I exclaimed, as I turned towards Gaige. "YES BROTHER I BELIEVE THE TIME IS NIGH," he responded, as he Oblivion Striked some goober on their board. I paid the surge cost for Crush, bounced everything, and had an 8/8 octopode. It was good.
A few more unexciting turns went by with everyone slowly rebuilding their board as they chumped my octopus over and over. Then the time came. They were at 15 health left, and I had 9 mana and a Fall of the Titans that had been sitting in my hand all game. Gaige cast a Kalastria Healer and some allies to give us some life buffer just in case Blue head had a counter, and then I shot them in the face for 16 damage.
"Uh, yup, we're dead," he said. Woohoo, we did it. Sadly the other matches had already finished, so we didn't have time for a business meeting out in the car (drinking Hamms). I swapped out an island for a mountain, as I was a bit light on Red sources, and we went to our third match.
Match Three:
Our third and final round was against two kids I had seen at the store before, so I knew they were fairly good. what I didn't know was how good.
They got the play, and on turn two, they had a 2/2 and a 3/2. Not super great. We dropped our second lands and did nothing, and then they dropped a Vile Aggregate and some other three drop, and hit us for 5. Ow. We dropped some shitty cards, they dropped a Forerunner of Slaughter, supported their guys, and hit us for like 12. Ow. Then we did jack shit, then they stole our only creature and killed us. It was fast and dirty, and I felt used.
So we lost, boohoo. We're shitty, we know. BUT THE DAY WASN'T OVER. The first and last teams we played against were hanging out, so we busted out the Wizard's Tower. Our first 6 player game went on for two hours, and it was hilarious, and awesome.
We may have lost the tournament, but it felt a lot like winning because I was buzzed, got an expedition, and ate some Chicken Nugger. All in all a good day, and we're hoping they run more 2HG events so we can go and lose more.
- Dan
Think we played some stupid-ass card that we shouldn't have? Do you agree that Ancient Crab was actually the best card in my deck? Did you like reading my attempt at making shit jokes? Either way, we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment or send us a message using the form to the right to call us douchebags.
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