Highlights from BronyCon 2018: Magic and Nightmares

Previous Highlight: Say It Ain't So!

In which son_of_heaven176 plays another game of Magic: the Gathering, meets one of Firebrand’s editing crew, and says goodbye to new friends.

Sunday, July 29, 2018, After BronyCon Closing Ceremonies

After Closing Ceremonies, Pink Flash, DarkWind and I stopped by my hotel room. I know that I said during the last Highlight that I forgot why I decided to stop there. Well, it seems that my memory got refreshed between then and now: memory serving, I had stuff to drop off in my room and stuff to give away. Also, as mentioned before, I introduced Dark and Flash to NR and Pinkie Guy.

As I mentioned during “Where art thou, Firebrand?”, I got a backpack along with the card box. I wasn’t planning on bringing the backpack with me to New York, so I decided to give the backpack away to Pinkie Guy. I told NR and Pinkie that I would be stopping by Dark’s hotel room first, and NR mentioned that he and Pinkie were going to go out for dinner later that day. I said that I would call him so that we could coordinate where we were going; Dark and Flash were planning on leaving around 7:00 PM, and I was planning on leaving their hotel room well before then.

Before BronyCon, DarkWind had told me that he and Flash had two other roommates. One of them was none other than Final Cut the Bat, one of Firebrand’s editors. And when I entered the hotel room that Sunday afternoon, there he was on one of the queen-sized beds, not a care in the world aside from his not-fully-functional Nintendo Switch.

DarkWind had already packed, and Pink Flash didn’t have much packing left to do. After Flash took a few moments to finish packing, he and I decided to play some more Magic: the Gathering.

As I mentioned in “Is that Keyframe?”, Pink Flash had brought two decks with him: a mono-Green deck and a mono-Black deck. I had a Blue-Green deck. I had only played against his mono-Green deck before, but now he decided to bring out the other deck, which he was proud of. It was his “nightmare” deck; almost every card had “nightmare” in its name.

Memory serving, we played two games. The first game went by quite quickly (unless memory betrays me, I was mana-screwed—in other words, I kept on drawing mana cards, but no monsters or other spells—so he won handily).

The other game was a lot slower. After a few turns, we both had some heavy hitters on the field.

On my end was Garruk’s Horde:

Garruk's Horde — 5GG

Creature — Beast

Trample
Play with the top card of your library revealed.
You may cast the top card of your library if it's a creature card. (Do this only any time you could cast that creature card. You still pay the spell's costs.)

7 / 7

On Flash’s end, he had Nightmare.

Nightmare 5B

Creature — Nightmare Horse

Flying (This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach.)
Nightmare's power and toughness are each equal to the number of Swamps you control.

The thunder of its hooves beats dreams into despair.

* / *

Both sides had quite a few creatures on the board, but neither side wanted to make an attack first. It was a Mexican standoff: the first one to move would be blocked, and his attacking monsters would be killed or tapped at the end of the combat phase. The other player would then be able to attack with impunity on his turn.

I do not recall what exactly changed the face of the game. However, I do remember that one card was played that gave Flash the ability to remove a few good cards from my deck. That card was Nightmare Incursion:

Nightmare Incursion 5B

Sorcery

Search target player's library for up to X cards, where X is the number of Swamps you control, and exile them. Then that player shuffles their library.

With that card, he removed every last Unsummon and counter spell that he could from my deck.

Perhaps Flash remembered that Nightmare has flying, or perhaps some other card changed the game. I don’t recall. However, what I do recall is that the standoff eventually got resolved, and unless my guess is off, Pink Flash eventually won.

After the two Magic games, I decided that it was time to leave. Dark and Flash were going to get an Uber to the bus station from which they would head back to their home state. As for me, my battery was running low, and I left my portable charger in my hotel room!

But even with the low battery, I managed to get a photo of the three of us.

From left to right: DarkWind, SOH176, Pink Flash

As I mentioned before, I had met DarkWind on the BronyCon forum. We still talk daily, and to this day, I consider him my closest friend. As for Pink Flash, though it started off with me knowing him via DarkWind, we do get along in our own right nowadays, and God only knows where our friendship will go from here.

After our goodbyes were said, I left the room and was about to call NR…but then the battery finally died on me. Well, off to the Sheraton to get my charger, and hopefully, off to dinner from there.

And with that, we have one last Highlight to go. Next time: Bronies Forever!