General Issue 2: In Which I Muse on Moustaches and Gimmick Decks,

Today, dear reader, I want to share with you one of the reasons why I love Magic: the Gathering, more than I have loved any other game; that reason is Deepwood Drummer.

         

 

Could this motherfucker rock out any harder?  Seriously.  He looks like a hippie, banging on his taiko drums, with his padded vest and white-guy dreadlocks, but hippies could never dream of rocking even half as hard as Deepwood Drummer.  Best of all, is his massive, gravity-defying, moustache.

“What if I made a deck with moustaches on every card?”  I thought to myself, and started digging through my collection.  I almost instantly weakened this restriction to allow all forms of facial hair, and in one case, allowed a character sporting a goatee made of leaves.  Instead of building a deck on a mechanical theme, I would build using the art.

Judson built a sweet deck over at Commander Cast entirely with art featuring people riding on things, and their podcast recently featured a conversation about the topic of ridiculous Gimmick decks.  I feel I have to reference similar ideas, even if we developed our ideas independently.  Forcing yourself to adhere to a theme or gimmick, beyond mere mechanical synergies, is a great way to power-down your decks, win in new ways, and experiment with new uses / combinations for cards.

          

Some hours later, I'd amassed a mountain of several hundred cards for the deck.  While there were many cards which seemed decent enough on their own, there was little synergy between them.  Black cards seemed nearly devoid of moustaches or beards, and what few there were came attached to tiny creatures.  I discarded the color, and looked at Blue, with my shiny Sun Quan, Lord of Wu and his beautiful pencil-thin 'stache calling me to the color.  Blue's bearded creatures were also weak, while its non-creature cards sported a host of countermagic and card-drawing, all of Blue’s classics.  Perhaps I’ll try a Bluebeard deck out in the future.  Green had to be in, for Deepwood Drummer if nothing else, but Red and White offered such a wealth of beards and moustaches to choose from, I went with a three-color deck.
          

Since I was going to play this deck in the tag team division, I got to play with two generals, rather than just one.  I’d built a version of this deck some time ago, and called it “Mayael’s Quest for a Moustache Ride.”  The deck was a dog, a simple beatdown deck in a world full of Damnation, and The Bearded Menace is little better.  In a way, Brion and Borborygmos are the jobbers of my league; the deck usually loses, but has enough aggressive creatures to force a race every time, and put over their opponents.

Hazezon Tamar, Jacques le Vert, or Johan (what the fuck is that on Johan’s chin?) could command the deck in a solo match as well.  Just as soon as they shred the Reserved List, and Hazezon and Jacques don’t cost infinity dollars, they’ll go in the deck, too.  Just as soon as I figure out what the fuck is on Johan’s chin, he’ll earn a spot in the deck.  Johan, at least, is available in affordable Chronicles printing.

          

Borborygmos and Brion Stoutarm leading a deck full of fatties would be the deck's thesis, hopefully evoking some of wrestling's many bearded brawlers such as Bruiser Brody and the Necro Butcher.  Fourteen creatures, plus both of your generals, trigger Garruk's Packleader (who might have a beard or might be wearing only shadow).  While Wizards, a frequently beard-wearing tribe, were too weak for me, Giants back up their beards with the kind of beef I’m looking for, so I tossed in a few of those as well.

          

The adventures of the Skyship Weatherlight lasted about four years, during which Gerrard Capashen's combination Vandyke-and-chinstrap graced dozens of cards.  While Gerrard is on the strong side of “meh”, Dueling Grounds, Broken Fall, and Recycle are three of the deck's most powerful cards.  In fact, if you manage to get all four of these cards in play, you should be in a pretty strong position to win.

          
             Some cards feature only incidental facial hair:

          

Alliances contributed two beard-bearing lands to the deck:  Kjeldoran Outpost and Balduvian Trading-Post.  Bearded guys are more than just the stars of Magic art; they are also the victims.  Calming Licid has brought down a mighty and mustachioed foe, while Karplusan Yeti has snapped the neck of a bearded-man's friend.  Your bearded removal suite includes a fellow who's traded his Sword for a Plowshares, as well as a soul-patch caught in a Soul Snare, Vhati il-Dal feeling bad for himself, and a victim of God herself.

         Before we get to the decklist, here’s another sweet tag-team match from ECW between four of the greats.  Rob van Dam and Sabu take on the tag-team champion Eliminators, Saturn and Kronus.  While the video quality may be a little low,  it is good enough to note that three of the four men in the match are sporting facial hair (has RVD ever had facial hair?), and that’s relevant enough for me.

 

 

Borborygmos and Brion Stoutarm, The Bearded Menace

Creatures:  34

Diligent Farmhand
Magus of the Candelabra
Avenger en-Dal
Unruly Mob
Dwarven Miner
Deepwood Drummer
Qasali Pridemage
Pulsemage Advocate
Calming Licid
Cunning Sparkmage
Exuberant Firestoker
Manic Vandal
Femeref Archers
Borderland Ranger
Silhana Starfletcher
Yavimaya Elder (Urza's Destiny, not the WTF new art [which I love])
Avalanche Riders
Citanul Heirophants
Master of the Wild Hunt
Garruk's Packleader
Juniper Order Ranger
Sawback Manticore
Gerrard Capashen
Thundercloud Shaman
Karplusan Yeti
Sunrise Sovereign
Torsten Von Ursus
Wiitigo  (sure, that's a beard)
Arbiter of Knollridge
Hamletback Goliath
Carnage Wurm
Boldwyr Intimidator
Guardian of Cloverdell
Hearthcage Giant

Spells:  27

Swords to Plowshares (Revised)
Soul Snare
Rancor
Armillary Sphere
Mind Stone
Ray of Revelation
Fling
Cream of the Crop
Deglamer
Lignify
Darksteel Ingot
Mobilization
Repentance
Terashi's Grasp
Broken Fall (is great, I promise)
Cultivate (no 'stache, just a nod to reality)
Kodama's Reach (also just in for the power)
Dueling Grounds
Congregation at Dawn
Seer's Sundial
Sarkhan Vol
Wrath of God
Harmonize
Garruk Wildspeaker
Dual Nature
Recycle

Lands:  38

Balduvian Trading Post
Kjeldoran Outpost
Grasslands
Mountain Valley
Arctic Flats
Highland Weald
Graypelt Refuge
Kazandu Refuge
Karplusan Forest
Brushland
Shivan Oasis
Elfhame Palace
Terramorphic Expanse
Reflecting Pool
Jungle Shrine
Mosswort Bridge
Rupture Spire
6 Plains
6 Mountain
9 Forest

           I want to end with a segue-way, one which will be rather long-winded, as I am prone to be.  I promise that, by the end of the story, I’ll lead into the topic of my next deck and article that I’m going to share with you, my dear readers.
          

While the details of how I got there are a long and winding story (which will be appearing the ultra-collectible Issue #0 at some point in the future) I spent the last moments of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 in a pillbox-like guard tower with a Ugandan mercenary, guarding vegetable gardens and fenced-in pastures emptied of their sheep for the night.
          

My primary job in The Army was as a “Petroleum Supply Specialist;” I ran the on-base gas station and drove a fuel truck, itself a mobile gas station.  Every day, our Forward Operating Base, with 1000-plus soldiers and airmen and a few hundred third-country civilian contractors, required 3,500 to 4,000 gallons of fuel to run its fourteen semi-trailer-sized generators.
          

 The jobs which sucked more, or were more dangerous, were assigned by rotation.  My number came up to drive on thirteen fuel delivery missions, none of which resulted in any injury for anyone, American or Iraqi.  I was lucky in only pulling one week of Tower Guard duty, but unlucky in the timing.
          

While daytime in December in the Fertile Crescent was rather pleasant, with temperatures in the sixties and a running battle between dark, downpour-bringing, clouds and beaming sunshine, the nights were something different.  Lows dipped below freezing every night of the week I sat in that tower, on an upturned bucket, bullshitting with a Ugandan mercenary, a twenty-five-year old who’d already served a four-year term in the Ugandan Army named Isaac.
          

Tower Guard duty was technically a combat job, and required that I wear “Full Battle Rattle” in addition to any gear I need for the cold.  I was, by virtue of my stout, hobbit-like frame, assigned to carry the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon and six hundred rounds of steel-belted ammunition for it strapped to my chest.  With a helmet, that added up to over eighty pounds of gear.
        At midnight, every night, two Ugandans driving an unarmored Hummvee would deliver some food and drinks.  Every night Isaac would get the same things:  four pints of milk, four to six bananas, and a honey bun.  I usually ate a banana or two, too.
          

 “Do they grow bananas where you come from?” asked Isaac one night, early in my week of Guard Duty.
          

This sparked a night of conversation about food and farming, during which Isaac revealed to me his life’s plan.  I can only paraphrase what Isaac said to me, as the memory is a little hazy with time, and the story has grown a little in the telling.

‘They pay me a thousand dollars a month, and give me food and a room free.  This is my second year in Iraq.  After this year, I will have enough money to buy some land and some cows and chickens.  I can grow my own bananas and get my own milk and eggs and chickens.  When I have that, women will come to me.”

Isaac told me that he didn’t care if his future wife was the prettiest.  What he wanted was a woman who would help him tend and harvest the bananas, cows, and chickens.  He wanted a wife who was an equal and a partner.  Isaac wanted a woman who kicked ass.

There it is, my verbose segue-way:  five hundred words just to tell you that the theme of my next article is women who kick ass.

In Issue Three, I’ll finally get to Active Women, the tag-team that was too powerful for the format.  I’ll also give some updates on how actually playing these decks is going.

1. http://www.commandercast.com/jtn05