Five players, one 2HG, no star game. That was the name of the night. No funny business, just right down to 2 and 3 player matches. OK, there were some shenanigans at the start of the night as Carin officially announced her pregnancy to the group. Followed by the requisite “oh no, another Slater – bokka! bokka! bokka!” type gags and congratulations.

I was having a complete experimental night with my Kiln Fiend and Level Up decks. Neither deck was made to win, but made to explore the mechanics. As such, I had a few interesting duels with Evan, Ben and Steven with those decks.

Evan’s decks in particular are really shaping up to be decking against. He’s created his own version of the Chapin U/W tapout deck with Jace and Gideon. Steven is also developing some nice extended deck strategies with invulnerability combos.

I was also happy to see Carin’s Keening Stone pay off in the mill deck. She took out Evan in two duels. One of which, Evan lost 33 cards from his library in a turn. Delicious cardboard run through the millifier.

Elf mirror vs. Evan was fun, but my onslaught of mana overcame his locus of mana. I got to test out the gelatinous genesis with elf mana generation. Verdict : Mike is Dumb! I spent 12 mana making x in the spell 5.  I put 2 5/5 ooze creatures on the battlefield. Not what I was supposed to do. According to the card, I should have put 5 5/5 creatures on the battlefield.  Card advantage and board advantage all in one spell. Oh well, guess I’ll have to leave the card in to test again.

I also know that I had 3 Nissa Revane in my deck and Evan had at least one.  Where were they? None of them came out to play. It was a MILF in hiding day for the elves.

Match of the night was to be one big 2HG game.  Me and Evan vs. Ben and Steven.  Unfortunately, Ben was playing the Bazaar Trader deck – which is tough to get going against two decks working together to make sure you can never untap with that shrewd goblin on the table.  With Evan’s new supreme control deck holding the long game – and my wolf deck drawing all their removal for the early game, we really had an ideal team going.

Next week – Slater Household North Side in Evanston.  See ya then!