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After conversing with my fellow Magicians and PMing Sage, we had our invite for the night. Alas it would prove fruitless, as the call to go out drinking was heard a little louder than the cries of “Come, Fox. Come and play with us...” Thimu had his accursed cricket to play, and me and Hierophant hadn’t made any public transport plans, so it was curtains closed for us before the first event even started.

Regarding the second such night, see the first. Many of the same terrors plagued us, from Thimu's cricket to mine and Hierophant's drinking. Once again, the curtains were closed and we weren't even through with dress rehearsals.

As one more month round its way around to being its first Saturday, we were blessed with a gift! Thimu’s cricket was no where to be seen, and I managed to elude the call of too much drink (on account of not having very much money). Picking up Dead Peanut but having to leave Hierophant behind (he hadn’t done so well resisting the drink as I had) we began our drive to Sage’s glass tabled house at 5.30 pm. Such a ride was taken in this:

Thimu's Car Legendary Artifact Creature - Car When Thimu's Car comes into play, search your library for four creature cards and reveal them. Target opponent chooses one of them. Put that card into your graveyard and remove the others from the game putting that many +1/+1 counters on Thimu's Car. When Thimu's Car leaves play, return the creatures removed from the game with Thimu's Car into play under your control. 1/1

Packing our things into the car was easy enough. Dead Peanut and Thimu were in the front meant I was in the back with my bag of Magic, my bag of holding, Dead Peanut’s bag and Thimu’s too. This would leave anyone with rather little leg space, and when you can contribute any height you have to long legs you’re bound to feel a little cramped. But not to worry! While I had no space I also had no responsibility for directions given, wrong or right.

We soon arrived at Woolies because we needed some munchies for mid-game halts as rule discussions broke out and general sustenance. I was also under the impression that we were going to stop for tea at Maccas for immediate consumption, and the ending of my hungry stomach, but it was not to be so.

Hierophant Legendary Creature - Illusion When Hierophant comes into play, if Fox Murdoch is in play, put a Drink counter on Hierophant. If Hierophant has a Drink counter on it it can't go to Sage's Saturday Night Magic events. 3/4

On the road, Dead Peanut and Thimu were more of less helping each other in getting the car to Sage’s. One read the directory while the other drove, allowing me a precious half hour to read through The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I did feel a need to speak up however when Dead Peanut announced that the street we wanted, we’ll call it Tiffany street, was just around the corner. This wasn’t the case, as it was rather a shorter version of the word, Tiffer street, as I pointed out. My efforts in helping us arrive at Sage’s completed, I returned to my book.

Then we arrived. Getting our bags out and locking the door, we traipsed up the stairs and found the appropriate building via the appropriate letter box. Finding a buzzer that looked something like an electronic torture device, I tentatively pushed the button and found it made a noise that suggested someone, if not me, was currently being singed internally. A moments pass and the door to our immediate right began buzzing, so we entered the building. Up one flight of stairs we found apartment 3 and 4, so I figured we were to keep going up. This proved fruitless however, as I found the last door and turned around. “Wrong way, guys,” I said, to a duo-tone grunt from my fellow travellers.

Finding the right door, we knocked and found Sage opening it. This brown eyed female looks like Dorothy if you ask me, and with a warm smile we were welcomed in.

Dumping our bags and putting various alcoholic drinks aside, as well as soft drinks, we made rather short rounds about the place finding faces to put to the names. Gibbers_1 was there, as was Necroticon, so too was Nerv1979 and Kugelblitz. It would appear that remembering any more than that would be difficult, as my mind is great at remembering faces once seen, but it has little to no ability to remember screen-names and people if I don't spend the night playing games with them.

All the hellos said, we sat down at two tables combined to allow for an approximately 10 player game, and I say with total conviction that we should never do this again. Not only were turns so far spaced apart that you were guaranteed a five minute chat about having a religious obligation to watch Survivor with one of the judges from the Betrayers pre-release (again, name forgotten, both real and screen-name), it also guaranteed you had little to no idea of what was happening over there. I knew the game was soon to be over when an equipment happy player was shooting his hands over his cards, announcing his actions with an eagerness not seen again that night. Who’s up for a game with Mass Hysteria, Endless Whispers, Engineered Plague (set to Soldiers) and too long a playing field, as well as a quadruple Warhammer equipped creature swinging in for more than 100 life a turn?

After half the board was dead Sage and I decided to end things ourselves and start another game on just one table. This was a masterstroke to the proceedings of the night as it saved many people a mental haemorrhage for anguish or frustration. The next game we played was a 5 player chaos game which featured a turn 3 Eureka thanks to Michael, seeing an insane amount of artifacts hit the board, including the ever feared Darksteel Colossus. The game soon saw Thimu biting dust as I attacked him with a Bribed Darksteel Colossus of Michael’s that was wielding the Sword of Kaldra, which I soon lost to a Duplicant of Michael’s. The game ended several turns later with Dead Peanut dead as a peanut too, after which came a second Eureka. This got everyone’s hands empty once again as well as netting Gibbers_1 3 land drops on someone else’s turn. My turn I dropped the last of the Fifth Dawn Stations and announced that that was it, I won. Ending the game with all pieces of the Kaldra equipment out and the four stations I have only one thing to say for Eureka. Weeeeee!!!

Thimu and Dead Peanut had started playing another game once they’d been killed, which featured an enchantment driven Thimu deck versus Dead Peanut’s kitsune samurai healer deck. The game had come to a stalemate as Dead Peanut’s Opal-Eye, Konda’s Yojimbo was enchanted with Ward of Piety but that was ended when Thimu slapped it with an Arrest. The game went to Thimu as Necroticon was quickly going over his deck for the Extended PTQ that was on the next day, but I’m not going to go into that here, there’s nothing casual about a PTQ at all.

Going from one card game onto another, Michael had brought a game called Bang! Ever wanted a quick shot ‘em up card-based game that got people giggling like little school girls because Dead Peanut had a choice of banging Thimu or banging Sage? Then this is your game. With straight forward Bang! cards to Missed! cards to Gattling Gun cards that hit all opponents, this was a spaghetti western without the spaghetti or Clint Eastward. A fun game which Thimu managed to win without a single scratch, some how, but I still managed to kill the Sheriff, played by Necroticon.

Thimu, BBB2 Legendary Creature - Human Fluke-artist Whenever Thimu becomes the target of a spell or ability, flip a coin. If you win the flip, counter the spell or ability targeting Thimu. 2/2

During Bang! the pizza had arrived and I was able to eat my own in all its entirety. Sometimes it pays to genuinely like the taste of thin-based vegetarian pizzas.

After enough Banging each other, Sage suggested we play a board game and we decided to play Betrayal at the House on the Hill, seeing Twister wasn’t a possibility. Before that however Dead Peanut and I had one last quick game of Magic. It came down to Dead Peanut tapping out and being hit with two Ogre Leadfeet, an Iron-barb Hellion and a Slith Ascendant. Then it was onto Betrayal.

Betrayal was a new game to Dead Peanut, Thimu and I, so after some rules talk we got started. If you know this game it may make sense, otherwise feel free to skip this part of the article: it has nothing whatsoever to do with Magic.

First of all you pick characters. Necroticon took the old scientist while I was the little girl. There was also the muscleman, bimbo and clever news reporter wannabe lady. You begin in a haunted mansion whose door conveniently blows shut behind you. You explore the building, finding Items, Omens and Events until someone’s Omen becomes a problem, a la the Werewolf or the Zombie King. An Omen might read something along the lines of your character being bitten, take one die of damage (and these were the weirdest die I’ve ever seen. More so than the d10 or %d, these had 2 sides each of 2, 1 and 0!). Then at the end of a player’s turn they would role against the Omens that had, needing a number 1 less than the amount of Omens in play to trigger the Betrayal. If the biting Omen went off, it would turn out that a Vampire had bitten the player, and was now after everyone else…

The first game played rather well flavour-wise. The cute little girl with the teddy bear had actually brought all these innocent humans into her mansion so her Hellbeasts (bats) could feed on their blood. Rolling for how far the bats move and how many new ones appeared each turn sounded like great fun, but when you roll two zeros in two turns, you kind of figure your bats are either fat, slow, stupid or a combination of the two. The heroes completed their task easily enough, making enough Knowledge checks to find out how exactly you would go about Exorcising my bats, but not before the old man and little girl into a round or three of fisticuffs. While the old man was the aggressor to begin with, he hobbled off after the little girl gave him a sharp shot in the beans, which was followed up with a doll swing to the head.

Dead Peanut, WUBRG Legendary Creature - Human?? At the beginning of your upkeep, even though you're playing Betrayal and not Magic, if there are four or more Omens in play flip Dead Peanut. 2/2 >>>>>>>>> Undead Peanut Legendary Creature - Werepeanut Zombie All Zombies get +1/+1 and all Werepeanuts get +1/+1. Whenever Undead Peanut deals combat to a creature, put a Werepeanut counter on that creature. It becomes a Werepeanut in addition to its other types. BB, T: gain control of target Werepeanut. (This effect doesn't end at end of turn.) 3/3

The next game we played started out similarly. General walking about the mansion, entering rooms, and then triggering the Omen. This time it was a Blob that appeared, slowly pouring from one room into the next, turning anyone who came into contact with it into a Blob person. This was rather early in the game, so we had nowhere to run, fast. Necroticon became a Blob person almost immediately, free to wonder around the house and place singular bits of Blob while the main Blob continued to extend every monster turn.

Upstairs and the ground floor were very quickly taken and it became a race to search more rooms and find more Ingredients (to dissipate the Blob) before more Blob came pouring down into the basement and covered us all in Goop. It was three players against three Blob people which was looking good for the remaining heroes. We could search three new rooms while the Blob was moving at one room a turn and luck must’ve been on our side as we found the Ingredients, threw them in and won the day!

After the game I had a celebratory drink of Black Sambuca for the victory, but it had been waiting since the games start as I was saving it for when I got Blobbed. Guess I should’ve played like that more often. The question was asked if we wanted to play another game after that, and while I replied with a hearty YES! Thimu pointed out that it was 2 am, so off to home it was.

Packing up our things and thanking Sage for a real kick ass night, we got into Thimu’s car and had a delightful time of trying to find the appropriate motor way home. This took us left and right and into a few double turning lanes that Thimu didn’t expect, as well as quite a few people who seem to think 2 am is a great time to be running around.

Thimu pulled up at my house and I was left with thoughts of It’s only another month until the next one, as I went inside, upstairs and fell into bed fully clothed.

And that, dear reader, is the way in which Sage rose above the rest.
Fox Murdoch (Darkur_Fox in the forums).

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