High-stress matches=Lessons learned

My friend comes home from work Tuesday and declares he wants to playtest the two decks he just built. He built a Hogan deck that is completely away from orthodox Hogan-building procedures. But it's effective. I play Shelton on this one.

First, the pre-match was a pain. He had already told me his pre-match order earlier that morning, but I think he thought I forgot because I was half-asleep. I don't usually forget stuff said to me while I'm partially unconscious. Which is quite ironic, because I usually forget everything told to me while I'm completely conscious. So I know he's playing Whatcha Gonna Do, Brother?-->I'm Gonna Break You. My Pre-match helps me, so I wanna stop that. I play Calgary, then follow it with I Want To Play The Game. Hmmmm...I'll take out I'm Gonna...oh crap. He has two I'm Gonna Break You's in his backlash deck as protection for I Want To Play The Game. Just perfect. So I take one out, which is as useless as all get-out. And guess what he drops to my ringside? Wrestlemania. Now I've gotta burn one every turn. I eventually counteract that by running Greco-Roman Specialists to put it back into my Backlash deck.

He had reversals for most of the stuff I was throwing at him, but i was managing to get fortitude off reversals, and the occasional maneuver I might get off. Early in the match, I play Beating The Odds, because I know he's gonna pop Whatcha Gonna Do, Brother once he gets maneuvers in his hand. Sometime later, he plays something I can't reverse to remove it from my ring area. Oh well, next turn, I play ANOTHER Beating The Odds. LOL...man was he pissed. So later he figures just forget it, pops Whatcha, and I pop beating the odds on his maneuver, reverse it, then hit Shelton's Splash. And he's done.

Next up, Raven. Nothing incredibly fancy, except the foreign objects almost killed me. I had about 20 cards in my hand, none of which I could play. Either they were reversals, or high fortitude maneuvers while I was sitting on 5F. I was so frustrated, and he just kept saying "THROW SOMETHING" which made me even more frustrated. We were actually scowling at each other at this point. Plus, he wasn't throwing anything either. I couldn't hit anything from my backlash deck, I already had my maximum out in the Ring. Everytime I drew a low fortitude maneuver, I'd play them, see it reversed, put it at the bottom of my deck, then shuffle in two cards for Calgary. Eventually we were both down to just a few cards in arsenal, and it became apparent whoever could get some damage off first would win. That was me with a reversal. At that point, I showed him my hand at the point where he was telling me to throw stuff to prove the point that I would've if I could have.

Then he had the audacity to ask me to test them with my Gail deck. No thanks, I couldn't take another match like that Tuesday night.