Power Play #9
I Trump Your Careful Planning with the Ace of Suck It
I introduced my old D&D table to Magic the Gathering years ago, since I picked up 3 long boxes of common cards that one of my buddies didn’t want anymore. The game was hugely popular in a scary Beanie Babies way to me, but all of my role-playing friends poo-pooed it because we were REAL gamers (see “The Gamers: Hands of Fate” for reference on our attitude towards card floppers). After dividing up piles of cards and playing a few games, a couple of my friends were hooked. Buying boosters, playing in tournaments, huge investitures of time and treasures. I liked the game, but I was content to play with 3 seasons worth of common cards and could make a respectable deck. One day, my buddy decided to make a Money Deck. Meaning, with nary a thought to strategy he just put all his most expensive cards into a deck. It was a random assortment of legendary cards hardly related to each other with four different colors in play… and he beat me every time. If you have the money to burn, you can overcome strategy and planning almost every time.