In a recent Semafor article, JD Vance admitted to having played Magic: The Gathering.
Vance’s wife Usha had also volunteered during a recent “Fox & Friends” interview that her husband had a “dorky” streak — including an interest in Magic: The Gathering, the fantasy card game popularized in the 1990s. It was, Vance said when asked, a phase.
“The big problem with transitioning from being a 13-year-old who likes Magic: The Gathering to being a 15-year-old who likes Magic: The Gathering is that 15-year-old girls do not like Magic: The Gathering,” he said. “So I dropped it like a bad habit.”
That said, he did reveal his “embarrassing” favorite deck from his playing days.
“Yawgmoth’s Bargain,” he said.
Now, Yawgmoth’s Bargain is a six mana enchantment card that costs 2 black and 4 colorless mana.
Skip your draw step, trade 1 life for 1 card.
Now this by itself isn’t *THAT* powerful… but there are a handful of combos you can use to make it deadly… specifically, these two:
Soul feast gives you life, Skirge Familiar gives you mana in exchange for cards in your hand that you just don’t want.
Everything is expensive, though. So, you need Dark Rituals and Peat Bogs to really get rolling but if you can get a copy of Yawgmoth’s Bargain out early, your opponent will likely sigh and concede early (unless they have something like Disenchant or Enter the Roil or Naturalize or, if a red deck, enough direct damage to nudge the bargainer over the edge once they trade for too many cards).
It seems like it’d be a fun deck to play but not play against. So, I’d say that the Bargain decks can fight against the Millstone decks, and they can both yell at each other for “cheese”.
I’m pretty sure the reason women despise Vance has nothing whatsoever to do with Magic The Gathering.Report
No wonder he had to have one shipped in from overseas.Report
IN JB’s world, everything is about being sore about Dungeons & Dragons being very unpopular when he was in high school and marking you as a target for cheerleaders.Report
Most of us got over that.Report
While there are lots of examples of women who don’t like MTG or the people who play it, it isn’t universal. I know a few women who play MTG, or have played it. I think what 15-year-old girls really don’t like is 13-year-old boys, and older boys who still act like they are 13.
Early teens. It’s a transition we all went through.Report
Well, I have to say that I’ve known other young men that loved to play black decks, dress in black, and act like they are the baddest thing in the room. As long as they weren’t running for Vice President, I felt kind of sympathetic to them, since the whole thing seems like they are trying to convince themselves more than anybody else.Report
Oh JFC, women don’t dislike Vance because he played Magic even if it is still a mainly male thing to do. Women dislike Vance because he is an anti-abortion extremist, a hypocrite, and basically gets to as close to arguing that allowing women to vote was a big mistake without explicitly stating it.Report
No no Saul, women voting is just fine as long as they are subserviently pumping out babies and dinner for their husbands.Report
Many years ago somebody on Gawker wrote a mean article that made fun of her date because he admitted to playing Magic the Gathering. Therefore, women who refuse to vote for Trump and Vance are doing so because of Magic the Gathering rather than Dobbs and the promise to ban abortion, contraceptives, and end recreational sex? Do I have this right Jaybird?Report
Dude, all I was doing was taking the deck that he said that was his favorite and broke it down for the reader.
“Yawgmoth’s Bargain,” you might have asked reading the excerpt from the article. “What the hell is that?”, you might ask.
Well. That’s the deck. That’s the basic combo (though, as Dark Matter points out, there are others that could also work with it).Report
Now this by itself isn’t *THAT* powerful… but there are a handful of combos you can use to make it deadly… specifically, these two:
I can think of others. Mirror Universe swaps life totals with your opponent. Basically any deck which is speed/burn might benefit from this… although the 6 mana to cast thankfully means it’s not a turn two thing.Report
Unless you got really lucky with your sol ring draw.Report
I’m a Sky and Scale man, myself. I mostly just sigh when I see decks like this one and try to get enough mana beforehand to bounce cards back to his hand.Report
I’m going to comment, gently and with affection, that the various commenters who’re jumping on Jaybird for this post seem to be reading really really far between the literal lines of what he wrong. I’m going to further suggest, again with genuine affection to my co-leftists, that you consider that your reaction in these comments may well be making a point for Jay that he couldn’t have achieved had we stuck to the themes Chip, Dark and Doctor Jay’s comments hewed to that I endorse whole heartedly.Report
I even criticized Vance’s choice here!Report
JB has done nothing to really elicit a good-faith interpretation from most of us to be honest and a lot of us don’t think his ideology is loveable libertarian scamp.Report
The guy posts a non-political gaming article every week, dude.Report
oh sure, we all know what he REALLY MEANS by that, you right-wing jerkReport
Yes, what North said. As a many-years IRL friend of Jaybird I, too, often find reason to criticize some of his rhetorical choices but jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, y’all! This post ain’t one of them.Report
Based on my own experience, the real problem is 15-year-old Vance hanging out with the wrong 15-year-old girls. But yeah, I get it. Even as a nerdy D&D player I looked at Magic and thought, “No way…I ain’t THAT nerdy!” But now here I am many years later with close to 20 decks and having just this week spent mumble mumble mumble dollars to upgrade my Shelob, Child of Ungoliant spider tribal (excuse me: KINDRED) deck.Report
I’d be in MTG myself but, some 20 years ago, around the time Weatherlight came out I realized how the card treadmill system worked and that I’d be buying cards endlessly and decided (with Weatherlight and my hatred of that crew lending a mild assist) to stop playing.
But my husband is still in it bad. We have a constant running battle between his desire to cover every surface of our home with cards and my minimalist tendencies endlessly driving them back into the crate(s) and binders where they’re supposed to be contained.Report