"My Elf Deck Is Unbeatable"

Hey, you. I hope you're feeling well today. Wanna talk about Magic: Da Gathurang? WAIT DON'T GO! I promise I'll make it interesting. A post about Magic, interesting? I don't know if that's actually possible. WHATEVER. I barely remember anything specific anyway, so please read this with ZERO knowledge of Magic, and enjoy :')

Before we begin, I do have to DISAVOW Magic: The Gathering as a gay waste of time. I'm glad that I got to enjoy it for a while, but I'm also glad I didn't become too attached to it. Not just because of Transgender Vampires and Black Aragorns, although I am glad I got out before them and left during the PEAK that was the Lovecraftian Eldrazi.

It's just a total waste of time and money. (great example of money, the three "Eldrazi Titans" Ulamog, Kozilek, Emrakul iirc I bought for $80+ each because I was biiiig into Lovecraft) Like do anything else lol. Anything. "M-muh friends..." Go to the gym with your friends, go on hikes with them, go to the beach and play volleyball so some girls in BIKINIS will come over and ask to play. "W-we don't have time to do anything physical--" Learn programming together, learn a language together, make your OWN game together, read together, draw together. Find a different hobby. Magic is *too much*, it's too deep. Autism is a limited resource, and you will be WASTING yours on a dumb card game trying to come up with the perfect deck and strategies even if you're not a competitive player. It might not be as bad as Dungeons and Dragons, but it's still going to be consooming too much of your brain and money.

(Speaking of wastes of time and money: If you haven't checked it out yet, I also started a page for reviewing v-pets. So make sure you check that out! 🐱)

I started

playing Magic in my late-teens, but when I was like, idk 10, my cool older friend gave me some Magic cards, just to own them lol. You know back when you're a kid, you just give and receive all kinds of toys and figures and collectables, for no reason at all. You like this? Here, you can have it.

I had no idea what to do with them, he probably didn't give me enough for a deck, but they did leave an impression on me. They were very "mature" looking. The SPINED WURM is tattooed in my brain--you take one look at that and you KNOW... this isn't Pokemon... this is a game for BIG KIDS.

When I became a BIG KID

, a different friend of mine, I'll call him GARY, was yuge into Magic, and even worked at a Magic shop. We'd been friends since 3rd grade, now we were what... seniors in high school? He taught me how to play. He always used a Blue deck. Gary called himself the King of Lies. He was a complete 5D-chess opportunistic schemeing asshole. He was a true Blue through and through, and I never would have been as good if I'd learned from anyone else.

I was never much of a Blue player. It's too convoluted for me--what? You're saying I'm getting too ahead of myself and you have no idea what the colors are? Don't worry about it too much, it really doesn't matter. Uh, here...
White, the SUN, is SIMPLE AND GOOD: Angels, Humans.
Blue, WATER, is OBNOXIOUS AND COMPLICATED: Spells, sea monsters.
Black, DEATH and LOWER PROPERTY VALUE, is DESTRUCTIVE and EVIL: Vampires, creaturas de la noche
Red is STUPID AND STRONG: Goblins, horned-monsters, fire demons. Whatever.
Green MEANS GO. GREEN IS OVERWHELMING: Forest creatures.... Elves.

That's a good enough explanation. All the Colors have their own spells and monsters both good and evil, but that's generally what they're like. Of course, you and I are highly-educated science lovers who know that concepts such as "Good and Evil" are mere social constructs, and therefore bad. But Magic is just a game. Although I do agree with you that the depiction of angels as good is antiquated and highly problematic, and reinfor-- okay I'm sorry, let's move on.

I was mostly uh... White/Green. Angels and WURMS. I've always loved angels even though I was an Atheist at the time, and I guess the Spined Wurm really shaped my psyche. I looooved me some WURMS. BIG THICK WURMS TEARING THROUGH THE LANDSCAPE. Towards the end of school I flirted with Black/Red VAMPIRES and found great success. (Although Red on its own is probably my least-favorite) And even though I did have a Blue deck and even originally started with it, I never was too into it. But it's great to *learn* against. It teaches you to be cautious, to think ahead, to be an asshole. To think like a Blue.

Something my friend smugly said that I'll never forget is

Some people think drawing 20 cards in one turn is a bad thing. Not me 🙂

That's the most Bluish thing I've ever heard, and you have to respect it. (Drawing 20 cards in a single turn is ALWAYS a VERY bad thing since they'll all go to waste unless you've got some kind of trick up your sleeve)

Even though he taught me, I rarely got to play with him. He didn't go to school with me. He'd always be better than me, beating me 2 out of any 3 games.

But

in school

? Heh... *adjusts glasses* I was top dog. The big dog. The shark in a pond full of bleeding brainlet femboys.

I don't remember how we all started playing, but before very long, a group of us was basically always playing Magic. Before class, during breaks, during class itselflol. There was me...Ron...Vito...Joe...(these are fake names) and... why can't I remember the last guy's name lol uhh... Damian? Aiden? I can't remember what his actual name was. Maybe it was Ethan... he wasn't really my friend, so I don't feel bad about not remembering. I'm kinda surprised I can't remember it, though, because he is an IMPORTANT character: These are ALL important characters, so let me tell you about them.

Ron first. I loved Ron. He, Vito, and Joe made school a lot of fun and we'd hang out after school most days too. Ron was my GREATEST RIVAL in Magic, losing to me only 80% of the time. But man, I loved me some Ron. We went to concerts together, we'd play vidya together, trade books. He once lent me the entire Evangelion series, and I just kept it for months and never watched it and kept forgetting to return it lol. One day, we were all going to work in a warehouse together, and we all sat in Ron's van and took a nap and put off going in as long as we could. A comfy nap with friends on a cold day in a warm car! But I ruined it by deciding we had to go in. Joe really didn't want to lmao. It was a rough day and some short autistic oldhead was trying to start shit with me because-- I dunno lol. I really don't. Maybe he thought we were going to replace him or something. I think he actually tried to give me a noogie but he couldn't reach my head. It was a really cool place though, it was a company that uh... sold and serviced like LEGACY computer parts. So there was all kinds of COOL stuff that we were shipping out that was maybe as old as we were! The boss was very nice and said we could come back any time. But those days we all had dreams of doing easy non-work in an office. Ron and I almost ended up working together at an ISP but he accidentally said "fuck" during the interview :') If he'd been there with me, the job would have been so much more tolerable. And he didn't end up finding a job for a while after that. Just like in Magic, one curse can change everything.

What a jerk, saying "fuck" during an interview to work at my job with me! He was my best fren, how could he FUCK it up like that?! I loved spending time with him. Ron and I went to the very FIRST "The Dick Show" live in Philly. And even though he lived almost an HOUR away, sometimes he'd come pick ME up and THEN we'd go hang out with Gary all night in his dilapidated room that he shared with his insanely cute gf who he'd stupidly break up with because she was too small and tight. Yeah, Gary had a gargantuan cock--even a little bigger than mine--but why would you leave a girl just because you can't fit your entire shaft in her? That's the most insane thing I've ever heard. "Abloohoo hooo, I keep hitting her cervix! I can't go on!" REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

For all the years I knew him after that, he always regretted breaking up with her. It's way too easy to take good women for granted when we're young.

He had this "trick" he'd make her do, where he'd ask her to explain Naruto to him, and she'd start excitedly talking about it--very, very nerdy--and he'd like physically cringe at it as if it were a bad thing. WHEN WE WERE LITTLE KIDS, we used to READ NARUTO together in Shonen Jump, so why was he acting like that? Why are you acting like your gf being into a very-very-very-popular anime about a ninja is like torture to you? It's CUTE. My gf at the time loved Naruto too, she *read* it. I remember the "get a load of this" look on her face when she told me that Itachi was secretly a good guy.

I'll call his gf Elisa and mine was Leah. They're IMPORTANT to the story, because uh, idk who cares? They did play Magic with us sometimes though. That's what you do with your girlfriends, right? You don't marry them, you don't give them children, you teach them how to play retarded gay card games. Building families, building futures? Erm, no, we're too young for that. We build DECKS.

Idk how good Elisa was, I can't imagine she ever beat Gary, but Leah beat me at least once. I still remember the smug look on her face, she was so beautiful. You have to understand my sorrow-- these girls weren't trashy, they weren't dumb, they weren't fat. They were beautiful, healthy(Leah's toned tummy still keeps me up at night), funny, kind-- So why didn't we marry them? I don't know if I believed in marriage at the time. I never had a Christian role model to show me a better way. What, my father? Come on, he's just an Old White Man, what could he possibly know about life? People complain about their friends getting married, maybe if I saw a friend getting married I would have snapped out of it sooner. No, all my friends were gay godless hedonists just like me.

When Leah beat me at Magic, I should have proposed to her instead of proposing another game.

Ron met her at least once, when we saw Sage Francis together(atheist hip-hop). I remember him not being very pleased with me when we broke up. Ron was always smarter than me. Heh, but I sure knew how to beat him at FAGGOT CARD GAME!

I can't remember EXACTLY what kind of deck Ron used, but I do remember it was red and dumb. That's the kind of guy Ron was, pure strength, like a dwarf. Also he was short. Out of everything and everyone I left behind when I moved from my home state, Ron is easily one the people I miss the most, he was my brother. Wanna hear a funny Ron story? He once spent a drunken night at a girl's house and had to flee from her baseball bat-wielding father the next morning. And she STILL kept trying to see him after that! He's just that loveable. That's kind of a "classic" story, right? But I'll never forget it, because he said they did ANAL, and that's so fucking disgusting I can't stand it. Barf.

Vito wasn't great at Magic. Vito was actually a very highly skilled chess player! Like, idk, basically semi-professional. But Magic? No. Vito was always experimenting with different decks to try to solve the COMPLICATED PUZZLE that was me, but he did favor Green. He probably got me a few times, but it was never safe to bet on Vito against me. "A few times" out of probably over a hundred games? C'mon.

You know, even though Vito was a really shy, soft-spoken guy, he had a THING going on with a cute nursing student! How did he manage to get that started under our noses?! We were *always* together! W-weren't we? Maybe whenever he went to the bathroom, he was actually seeing her. It's hard to imagine Vito in a romantic situation. It was hard enough for US to get words out of him. Maybe in bed(or the stall), he's suddenly not quiet at all, he knows *exactly* what to growl in her ear as she's holding on to him as hard as she can, SHIVERING. I hope they got married.

Joe was a real cool dude. He hadn't played Magic before, so we taught him. Joe was a funny guy, he'd be like idk... who's the freakin main character in The Office? Jim. Joe was basically just Jim. Because he was so normal and not-autistic, it was really fun making him laugh. He had a good sense of humor, obviously, because he laughed at my jokes.

Since I'm talking about everyone's private lives, I might as well tell you about the funny time Joe was suspicious about a girl who sent him nudes. "I don't think that's her" he said, showing us her clothed and then the nudes in question. It was close, but he was right. It WASN'T her, because I HAD SEEN THOSE NUDES BEFORE. Of course I had, they were pretty common. That's craaaazy, though, imagine sending *someone else's* nudes to someone and pretending it's you. What *won't* you lie about? So he finally replied to her something like "Now can I have a pic that's actually you?" I'm embarrassed for her just thinking of it. After school, Joe ended up with some Azn girl, I think they got married, and that makes me happy.

Joe naturally gravitated toward our group because we were White. And that's exactly the deck Joe ran. White. You have to understand, I'm not saying Joe was RACIST--erm, obviously not, he married a Person Of Colour :^) --it's just that the class was 50% "Whites Who Know Most Of This And Just Want A Diploma" and 50% "Latinxxxs Trying To Pay Attention So They Can Provide For The Kids They Already Have At 20".

To put it into perspective, I gradutated top of the class despite spending idk, half of every day playing Magic and looking at naked selfies of emo girls. Top. #1. Numero Uno. And I made sure my friends all succeeded too. I'd organize study sessions for us every week--it's really easy to study with the guys you play video games and Magic with. We had a good, fun-loving group that PLAYED HARD but also worked hard.

So that's why Joe was with us: we actually talked. The guys on the other side were there to just learn on their own. Absolutely admirable, but not fun.

However...

There was ANOTHER group of Whites...

An evil group... of fun-haters...

The Too-Serious Autists.

These villains were led by none-other than the Class Representative, Melvin. Melvin was chosen by the TEACHER to be the Class Representative, because he really did already know *everything*. Like, he had all his COMPTIA CERTIFICATIONS, it was a mystery why he was even there.

Lemme give you some examples of what an asshole Melvin was:

1- He didn't allow his sister to use Facebook. "Erm, based?" Yeah I know, but he didn't do it in a COOL way like forbidding her and she just respects him sooo much that she'll obey him. NO, he would-- lmao he did it by blocking it on their home network so she just couldn't go to it lol. And he like took her phone and put parental controls on it. Melvin wasn't some kind of proto-based traditional man, he was just a weird control freak.

2- Unsolicited, he went around to everyone in the class and told them whether he thought they'd "make it" or not. I wasn't going to make it, even though my grades were higher than his. Of course his smelly sperg minion *was* going to make it though.

3- He kept bragging to us about some obviously-fake job at NASA that was waiting for him. It was real spy-thriller military technology shit, meanwhile were were in like, a basic networking class. Joe and I would be crying with laughter when he talked about it. That sounds mean, and it is, but don't worry, he couldn't tell that he didn't believe him.

4- He kept bragging to us about his obviously-fake girlfriend who worked for NASA that he never wanted to show us a picture of. Joe laughed so hard at this I think Melvin knew he didn't believe him.

Melvin's two cronies were Damian and uh... idk, let's call him Kenny.

Kenny isn't important to the story at all, he didn't play Magic. He had absolutely insane body odor. The guy reeked. Like Ron, he actually applied at my job, but thankfully my manager's nose worked.

Damian was Melvin's Starscream. Feigning loyalty to him but only because he believed Melvin would get him a job as a NASA-spy too. Without a doubt, he thought himself better than Melvin, better than all of us. Damian spoke like a gay theatre kid. Like Karl Heisenberg from Resident Evil Village, you know that pompous, above-it-all way of speaking. Also he painted his nails black.

After class, when Melvin went home to stop his sister from going on Facebook, Damian would come hang out at the mall with us. Why wouldn't he, we're FUN. During the day, he was a disciple of Melvin and rarely spoke to us. Why would he? We weren't NASA scientist-spies. But that was fine. While we were at the mall, we'd all buy tonsssssssssss of Magic cards and play-- except for Damian. Suspicious.

During one outing to the mall, for no reason whatsoever, Damian told us that he crossdressed. I have no idea why he did that. The guy was probably 6'3 and over 300lbs. Why was he telling us this? It made absolutely no sense. He even said something like he *looked hot* too. Of course, I was a very Tolerant Person at the time, so even though something was screaming at me from the back of my head, I just smiled and nodded. But Joe questioned me later "wtf is wrong with him?" and kept his distance from him after that. Joe was always smarter than me.

After several months, Damian started saying that he was getting his cards together to play too. It turned out that he was actually a VETERAN PLAYER.

"My old Elf deck is unbeatable" he assured us. "I've never lost with it."

I welcomed the challenge. By this time, I had accomplished feats such as -800ing Vito and beating Joe and Ron at the same time in a 2v1. If I played 200 games, I won 190 of them. I was the KING, baby. I'd even beaten the *entire* class in a giant free-for-all game of Quake with zero deaths: no-one could beat me at ANY pointless gay game.

I had also been elected the Class President in a fair and democratic election, having won over the Spanish voters by leading the class to a crushing victory over the nursing students in a pumpkin decorating contest. This was a huge moral victory that gave me something to fight for other than myself. I was the HERO of the class who OWED it to THE PEOPLE to defeat Melvin's obnoxious gay fuck peon.

There was a lot at stake here. If Damian really DID have an unbeatable Elf deck, and he beat me in Magic? It was over: The VIBE of the class would be forever ruined. Under my rule, the people flourished and had fun. If I was DETRHONED by Melvin's #2, the foundation of our classroom experience would be shattered. If I couldn't beat Damian at Magic, how could I be trusted with ANYTHING? It would delegitimize the Class Presidency and reinforce the power of the Class Representative, effectively ending the Democratic Republic that the classroom was and transforming it into an Autistic Autocracy.

You think I'm being dramatic? Maybe a little, but think about it. I'm the kind of guy who can't have fun playing Magic unless *you're* having fun with me, I don't like winning on its own. So as I'm beating the tar out of you, I'm at least trying to make you laugh, I'm doing voices, playing appropriate music on my phone, reminding you of how much luck plays into it, I'm not going to let you feel *bad* about losing to me. That's not Damian, Damian will just smugly beat you matter-of-factly with no humor, it would SUCK losing to Damian. So if he's the new best Magic player in class, it casts an unfun shadow over all games we play.

I had to do something. Grrrrawrrr... DAMMIT!! I COULDN'T LET HIM DESTROY OUR WORLD! I HAD to beat Damian!

And I did.

The End. I've dragged this out long enough, right?

It turned out he sucked, and his deck sucked. He beat Vito with it once, and then I beat him with my Vampires. And then we did best 2/3 and I beat him again. He never beat me with his shitty Elf deck. And the entire time, I was mocking him for saying it was unbeatable, and he had to take it. The class was saved, I was the hero.

That's the end of the story lol. At the end of the year, Joe actually pulled a *perfect* White card to counter my entire Vampire deck, it was so funny. I begged him to trade it to me, but he wouldn't. Ron wouldn't let him even if he wanted to. I don't remember what card it was, but it was like *comically* destructive to my deck, and the VERY NEXT DAY when we played, he drew it and beat me. ME. The hero. That's Magic.

Anyway, when school ended, we pretty much stopped playing. Ron and I might have played a few more times when we wer e hanging out with Gary, but definitely not much. It was just something for us to do while being lectured about computer stuff that we already knew. That's all. If I could go back, I'd make us do something else, something more productive. But we had fun. God, I'm so glad that stupid Elf deck wasn't unbeatable.

Bonus Lunch Story

We were playing in the lunchroom one day and a nursing student came over.

Hot girl: "What are you guys playing?"

Me: "Erm, Magic: The Gathering."

I was too young to know to have her sit down and play with us lmao. I wasn't even that young, but maybe we're always too young until the day we die. But even back then I realized an hour later that it was CRAZY that I actually said the entire "Magic: The Gathering" instead of just saying "Magic" lmaooooo

She was probably Vito's gi--WAIT NO, I REMEMBER IT NOW. Vito was dating this SHY GIRL. How did that even happen? TWO SHY PEOPLE? She'd LOOK at him as if we were all in like 1st grade. Good job, Vito.

Vito's the real hero of the story. He definitely spent WAY less money than me, Joe, or Ron. Vito was always smarter than me.

Well, that's all. Uh, Magic: The Gathering sucks, but Friendship is Magic :')