Control Magic

No one has the balls to approach her, I thought to myself. This wasn’t Worlds or even Nationals, so you didn’t have the best players here, but she sure stood out, at least in my mind. But an ice queen, to be sure. I certainly had no plans to make a fool of myself, no siree.

I breezed through the first round, matched up against a younger player, a guy a little too brash and way too aggressive, especially against my deck. His red and white creatures struck early, taking my life total perilously close to death, but I didn’t panic, counting on my lifegain cards to appear, which they did in the nick of time. Frustration was etched across his face until he scooped his cards, ending the second game after having lost the first in the best-of-three match.

As I walked around to see how some friends were faring, I saw her again, matched up against one of the top players from our region. Standing across from her, behind him, I saw that she was playing blue/white, a control deck. Well, that makes sense, I almost said out loud, then checked myself. Studying her for a moment, I saw her eyes darting from her cards in hand to those on the battlefield, both hers and his. His creatures, numbering six, far outnumbered her two.

Wrath of God. The iconic Magic: The Gathering white removal spell. I saw it coming before she tapped the two white mana and two colorless mana. When in doubt, white wipes the field. Her eyes flickered up and caught mine. I smiled, well, maybe more of a smirk, and moved on.

Hours later, it was the final round before Top 8 and I was undefeated. I was shuffling my deck and down sat the ice queen. I noted that her breasts didn’t bounce much at--STOP! Concentrate! I stuck my hand out over the table and at first she looked, then extended hers with a slight smile and shook mine. Decent grip for a girl, I thought.

She crushed me the first game, managing to get Lorthos out and tap down my side with ease. I admit I was foolishly spending far too much time stealing glances at her chest and wondering if that was just her bra or if her nipples were jutting out a tiny bit.

She won the second game too because I got mana screwed, no lands for seven straight draws so I had no way to get my side developed. She almost looked sympathetic to my plight but I figured that was simply me projecting. Ice queens are not sympathetic. She did make a note on a small piece of paper.

As I gathered my cards I saw that she had extended her hand across the table. Rarely was this done because no one was happy being the loser of a match, but I wasn’t going to let my bruised pride rule. I shook her hand and then realized that she had passed me a note as I watched her get up and go to the Judge’s station to drop off the scoresheet.