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Featured
Writers Deck
Garage MTG Fan Articles Community
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The Heretic's Sermon
I finally got a few minutes to write here, so I guess
I’ll give all of you an article.
I’ve been swamped with things to read, write, and
figure out over the last few days by my teacher, and
I’ve been, well, running around doing them. So,
if you don’t hear from me in the next week or so,
it’s because of the issues at school.
Okay, now...... what should I talk about. I could
talk about my deck, but I’m sure no one cares. I
could break another dumb rare, but I think I’ll take a
reprieve and do something else.
I guess I could talk temporarily about myself.
For those of you who don’t go on the message board
regularly, my name is John Hornberg, or more commonly
known as the Happy Heretic. I am a fairly
inexperienced player as opposed to many of the people I
play and talk with, since I’ve only been playing since
Prophecy. Still, I’ve learned a lot in that year
or so of playing, plus whatever I knew of strategy from
Pokémon before that.
So, if I make a stupid mistake, there’s my excuse.
I come to you from Sacramento, California, which is, and
I proudly mean this, the hub of Northern California when
it comes to CCG’s. We have some extremely great
players, that are unfortunately not pro.
Technically, I’ve just broken on the scene when
it comes to actually playing, and doing good.
I’m not one for tournament, seeing as to the fact that
I’ve played only five major ones in the Sacramento
area, and done dismal in all but the last two (second
and fourth places).
When I get bored, I’ll do deck fixes for my friends,
write about pointless experiences that I’ve had, and
of course, more breaking of stupid rares, and if I
decide to later on this year, I may do it in German, and
provide everyone with a translation also, since I speak
German pretty well (I hope that's okay with Pojo!).
Right now, I’m just killing time. I’ve
concluded that I’m not breaking and extended rares, or
Masques block for that matte, and I’m just waiting for
Odyssey. Hopefully we’ll have a Thieves Auction
like card in that set for me to break.
Which brings me to now. That fourth place finish
just happened over the weekend, at the local Sac-Con,
where they usually get about thirty to forty people
playing. I played a mono blue deck, splashing
black for Tsabo’s Decree.
Despite that, I noticed something about mono-blue and I.
We don’t mix. We REALLY don’t mix. It
took me five months, and three different mono blue decks
to realize that I’ve got to play gobs of land, and
card drawing everywhere in order to even make the deck
work!
It was ridiculous! I played 26 land, 19 of which
were islands, in a pretty much straight blue deck, and
my deck still managed to tell me, “No land for you!”
Still, I was able to do good enough to make the play
offs, and it was there that my pivotal play off magic
kicked in. I trounced my opponent in the second
game, tying it at one a piece, then my opponent, who was
playing Waters, decided he had had enough, and quietly
proceeded to kick my ass around the room in game three.
So much for coming through in the clutch.
Still, the important thing was that I had fun, and to
those of you who are just starting out who are reading
this, that is the key thing. Have fun, i can’t
stress that enough. I had to learn that when it
came to tennis, so it came to me easily in Magic.
Then comes the play things, like anticipating what
everyone is playing. I knew there would be a lot
of rebels running around, so I played Tsabo’s Decree
(One main, two Side).
This is also characterized in one funny exchange of
words that happened there. One of my friends
Shaun, brought his friend Jon, who’s coincidentally an
arrogant ..... I can’t elaborate, I just don’t like
him. I’d seen him playing Rebels right next to me
during the first round, and I said to him after the
match, “You’re playing Rebel’s aren’t you.”
“No, I’m playing Mercenaries,” He
sarcastically said.
“Fine, I’ll decree those too!” was my
retort.
This brings me to my next point: be pleasant to be
around. Don’t be an arrogant jerk, like Jon,
don’t diss your opponent, definitely don’t be rude
like my second round opponent (I taught him what for!),
and don’t be melancholy because you’re loosing.
I’m guilty of that when it comes to sealed deck,
because I suck at it.
The last thing I’m going to hammer on tournament
etiquette into is to be polite. Don’t be
obnoxious and keep asking if your opponent is done,
don’t tell your opponent right out that you’re going
to kick their ass, because that gives them incentive to
actually try and kick your ass.
Now, I’m being incredibly obvious, and I know that!
I really do, but I needed to write about something, and
this is what I concluded on. It’s one of those
issues where when you wish you could be a writer, you
have a flurry of ideas. Then, when you finally
accomplish what you want to be, you can’t think of any
ideas, or anything that you can’t get more than half a
page on.
Sol, sorry to all of you if this is stupid and horribly
obvious, but I felt it needed to be done, especially
with the way everyone was at the tournament.
I’m going to leave everyone with one final comment,
and this applies to anyone who played at the Sac-Con
tournament on September Ninth: I was none to
impressed by everyone’s attitude, and it shames me and
disgusts me that these people can get away with acting
like that! Please, there’s no need to be a snot
in this game, and there never will be. So, what
gives people have the cause to be one?
Over and Out,
John “The Happy Heretic” Hornberg
I can be e-mailed at promiseland85@hotmail.com
, so feel free to do so. Just keep in mind don’t
be rude, and if I don’t reply right away, then I’m
sorry, I’m doing my best. I’ve got a newspaper
to work on, and honors classes to pass.
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