Ocellus smiled as she and her fellow students got off the train, with Princess Twilight and Starlight Glimmer chaperoning. Looking around, she had to catch her breath: they’d gone up a mountain and through a tunnel, and now they were on a plateau that was perfectly in line with the rainbows flowing from Cloudsdale up above. The crowds were quite the sight, too: Rainbow Falls was looking like a beautiful hive of activity with ponies and assorted creatures checking out the grounds of the Trader’s Exchange.
“Now, one more time: remember there are rules,” Princess Twilight said. “A trade has to be fair, or it can be cancelled. If you have any questions, feel free to come look for me or Starlight. Got it?”
“Got it!” They all replied, before the Princess went off to her royal responsibilities.
“So where do you guys wanna go?” Ocellus asked. Everyone had brought their own bags with trading material, as Headmare Twilight had suggested weeks ago, but the matter of what to trade it all for, that seemed to be a mystery, still. Ocellus certainly wanted to keep her target a secret for now.
Yona let out a little snort. “Yona want to see strings for braiding, and knitting. Pony knitting needles too thin, need bigger for proper sweater making.”
“Ooh, I wanna go check out the pet section,” Silverstream said, clutching her bag of sea shells from the Sea Pony shore. “I heard somepony’s trading away a silver catfish! Can you believe it? A silver catfish!”
“Uh, yeah, sounds… interesting.” Gallus rolled his eyes. “Me and Sandbar are gonna go check out the surfboard section.”
“And I hear there’s some pony trading ancient staffs,” Smolder said.
Everyone stopped and stared at the dragon.
“What?” she said with a shrug. “Dragonlords all have cool looking staffs, I wanna see if I can trade my gems for one, too.”
“Makes sense. What about you, Ocellus?” Sandbar asked. “You’ve been quiet ever since we heard about this thing.” He pointed to her bag. “Did you bring something to trade?”
Ocellus’s wings bunched up under her carapace, and she clutched her bag tightly. “Err, yeah. It’s nothing special. You should go on ahead without me, I’ll find you when it’s lunchtime.”
“Yeah, can’t miss us,” Gallus remarked.
Sandbar shrugged. “Okay, if you say so.”
With that, they dispersed. Starlight Glimmer, who had accompanied the students and, of course, brought her own wares and her own little shopping list, followed her.
Ocellus sighed loud enough for Starlight to hear.
“Got something on your mind?” the mare asked as they went through the antiques section.
Ocellus looked up and smiled, patting her bag. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re sure?”
She bit her lip and groaned. “Actually, it’s a couple of somethings. A lot of somethings, one hundred and forty eight somethings, to be precise.”
“That many? What did you bring?”
Ocellus opened her bag. Inside were little boxes, marked with heroic scenes and what looked like a brand icon. “Sorcery: the Ascension. I’ve got a lot of cards I wanna get rid of.”
Starlight Glimmer furrowed her brow as she walked beside Ocellus. Then she shook her head, and asked, “Okay, that raises… several questions. I guess I should start with: how do you even have that many trading cards? I didn’t think Ponyville was a card gaming place.”
“It’s not,” Ocellus replied. “It has a few shops, and the players are nice, but… I didn’t get these in Ponyville. I got them before, way before.”
“Way before meaning when Chrysalis was still in power.”
“Uhuh.”
Ocellus did not say any more, and Starlight respected that silence for a time. The little changeling needed silence on occasion, to better calibrate herself for any oncoming emotional turmoil. Ocellus had explained as much during her trips to Starlight’s office, and she appreciated that Starlight, unlike most ponies, knew to let things happen in their own time. Most other ponies made a fuss, or dropped the subject entirely, leaving the actual problem still undiscussed. Starlight just waited patiently.
Eventually, Ocellus grimaced. “See, even little changelings were supposed to, you know, make themselves useful if they could. And trading cards is, I guess, my way of doing that, or it was. They’re something valuable, cherished, but not by everypony. You get competitions everywhere, but the players all have their own little crowds. They might see you around, but they don’t know you, not really. If you happen to infiltrate pony society playing the game, it’s pretty hard to get found out. Players don’t know each other by their names, usually, they just know this one pony who plays Vampires or this other pony that plays Elf Ponies.”
Starlight nodded. “Okay, so you got these cards during an infiltration, then.”
“Several. I, umm, I kind of cheated my way into a few events. Draft events: you don’t get to bring the cards you own, but you pick up cards to make a strategy with from random packs. I was pretty good at it, finished pretty high, too.” Ocellus’s ears fell back. “Every single time.”
“Ah. So you feel bad because you cheated to win?”
“No, I cheated getting in. The winning part, I did on my own. Fairly.”
“With those.” Starlight pointed to the packs.
“Yup.”
“Wow. You’re sure you want to get rid of them, then? I mean, aren’t those cards special to you? They’re proof of how smart you are.”
Ocellus stopped, and gulped.
Starlight backed away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s fine, really. You don’t know. Nopony knows, and I’d rather keep it that way. See, the thing is, if you are acting as a counsellor right now?”
“No reason not to.”
“The thing is.” Ocellus braced herself for the admission. “I learned how to read by playing cards. I got to keep reading because it turned out I was good at it. I got to enjoy books, well, stolen books, because I played cards.”
“Right.” Starlight smiled in sympathy. “And I’m guessing you ended up at Twilight’s school because of that, too, then.”
“Exactly. But I didn’t win playing the game the way I wanted to, that’s why I want to get rid of these. Look here.”
She opened the boxes, and Starlight could see the names of creatures and spells and presumably some kind of symbols indicating cost as well as numbers for power. She flipped through the pile Ocellus gave her, using her magic to quickly scan them all. It didn’t take long for her to notice the pattern, Ocellus saw: all of the figures on the cards were in red and black gowns, usually with bull-like horns, and some kind of infernal-looking creature by their side. Starlight kept leafing through them as she asked, “You played several events to get these cards, you said. How many did you go to?”
“In total? About twenty. Pretty close together, too. You’d be surprised how much emotional energy flies around those events. Nothing you can feed off of, but enough excitement to warm up the Hive a little in winter.”
“Uhuh. And it’s picking up cards from packs, you didn’t buy these yourself?”
“No,” Ocellus replied. “You see the problem?”
Starlight nodded and read the cards out loud. “Cruel Warlock, Blazing Warlock, Warlock Circle, that one looks rare, Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Boom, Eldritch Bonanza, and all sparkly, too. So many, and they’re nearly all the same. Is Warlocks all you have?”
Ocellus nodded. “Chrysalis wanted to know what pony defeat tasted like, especially for, umm, for foals.”
“The purest form, in case she took prisoners, so she’d know when they were broken. Or to tell a fake surrender from a real one, I suppose.”
“Pretty much. I analysed the set in advance,” Ocellus said. “And I did a little bit of recon to see what was popular and what was strong. Drafting Warlocks every time was easy, since they’re not popular. But they are strong. It’s an aggressive strategy, you see: keep the opponent under pressure, finish them off before they can stabilise. Stabilising cards are rare, and there are ways to play around them. Plus, you don’t need to get too lucky with an aggressive strategy, but you can take advantage of the other player getting unlucky way more easily. Other changelings tried different strategies, mine won. And then mine won again. And again, and again.”
Starlight nodded and put the cards away. “Okay, I get it now. It wasn’t any fun for you.”
“Or my opponents.” Ocellus winced. “It doesn’t feel right to keep these cards. Chrysalis was hoping to use them as fuel for some spell, I don’t know what or how, she was crazy like that.”
“Probably chaos magic,” Starlight suggested. “That’s usually the type of magic you try with something from fiction. And usually what the crazy ones try first.”
“Probably. So I’ve kept them, because I had to. Then when she was gone, I didn’t want it to go to waste, you know? I don’t like playing Warlocks, but somepony else might. They do have an interesting mechanic with their Pacts and sacrifice outlets, it’s just not something I like. The idea of sacrificing your minions is a little iffy for me, is all.”
“I can imagine. But you’re just going to give up a piece of your childhood? Just like that?”
She shrugged. “It’s not like I’m giving up all my cards. Only the ones I don’t like. Here, look, I like this strategy much better.”
Starlight looked over the next pack of cards Ocellus gave her. These were a much brighter-looking bunch, different colour schemes as well, with their whites and blues and more vibrant reds mixed with the occasional green or even glossy black wizard's uniforms. The card texts revealed a vastly different approach to the game as well: one card gave 'Shielding' to all the other minions of its type, another gave ‘Lightning channel 2’ to all of them. Individually they didn’t seem to have the same high numbers Warlocks had, not for their cost, but put together as a unit there were some highly synergistic strategies to build around. Ocellus waited until Starlight figured it out, as she surely would.
“Radiant Harmonizer, Guardian Harmonizer, you’ve only got one Crystal Harmoniser? Is there a limit to it?” She read that card more carefully. “The first time your opponent plays a spell each turn, you may apply Stasis 1 to each Harmoniser. I’m guessing Stasis 1 is a good thing?”
“It means you can protect your Harmonisers if they’re about to be destroyed, that one’s really powerful. I don’t own a lot of Harmonizers. They’re not popular, and not too strong right now, but the key cards are still kind of rare, so it’s not that easy building just any Harmoniser deck. But those are what I’m looking for, and I figured I might as well try to get all of them so I can build anything I want. A friend got me those cards, and I know what I’d need to complete my collection, so I want to see what I can get.”
“Well, sounds like you’ve got a plan, then. Just be careful, okay?”
“About what?”
“About getting into bad trades. You’re not used to having your own things, remember? Emotional value doesn’t register the same way for you as it does for ponies.”
“I know. But I’ll be fine. And I won’t scam anyone out of anything, either.”
Starlight furrowed her brow. “Why would anyone think you’d consider scamming them?”
Ocellus shuddered. “Never mind. Oh, I think I see a card pony there. Bye!”
She dashed off without another word.
Don’t get carried away, Ocellus. Just be fair. Good things will happen when you’re fair.
The first card-carrying pony Ocellus spotted was a Pegasus with a green coat and a reddish mane, which reminded her of Miss Tree Hugger a lot. He had a small booth near the comics section, and a lot of cards laid out in folders, each page a sheet of plastic with little protective pockets to hold the precious paper. Looking over them, Ocellus remembered her recon missions: this guy had four copies of absolutely every card there was, and a few spares to boot.
“Hi, there,” Ocellus said. “Are you trading Sorcery cards?”
“I’m lookin’ to, like, finalise my collection, yeah,” he said with a slow and deliberate tone to his voice, again much like Miss Tree Hugger. “Tradin’ away some spares, y’know. Whatcha got?”
Ocellus took out her cards in a small magic field, careful not to bend anything. “Mostly I have Warlock cards. I, umm, I drafted a lot of them a while back, but I’m looking to go Harmonisers instead.”
The Pegasus nodded and flipped through some of his folders. “Cool haul, yo. I’m, uh, missin’ two Eldritch Bonanzas, three Cruel Warlocks, and I don’t even have a single Warlock Circle, never mind the holo version.”
“Great! I’m looking for Crystal Harmonisers especially, and Wild Harmonisers. Flamehearts, too, if that’s not too much to ask?” She cringed. Please don’t back out, please don’t tell me that’s too greedy...
The Pegasus seemed to have his eyes glued halfway shut, and a dopey smile on his face that never broke, again like Miss Tree Hugger. “No harm in asking, no, but I haven’t got any of those to spare.”
Ocellus pointed to one of the folders. “But there’s four of them right there.”
He chuckled. “Well, yeah, but those aren’t for trading: I always bring my full collection to these things. I can’t keep track of what cards I’ve got and which ones I don’t otherwise.”
A scatterbrain. Made sense. Still, she pouted. “So… no Harmonisers at all?”
“Sorry, umm… what’s your name?”
“Ocellus. I’m from Princess Twilight’s school.”
“I figured,” he replied. “My sister’s given some classes there a while back. Tree Hugger?”
“Yeah, you two… you look alike.”
“Peas in a pod, ponies used to say.” The dopey-looking stallion extended a hoof for her to shake. “I’m High.”
“Excuse me?”
“High Roller is my name. I’m a collector, and I draft a lot. Not a lot of Warlocks, though, or Harmonisers. You can barely draft Harmonisers in single sets.”
She shook his hoof and nodded. “I know.”
“Tell you what, though, I’ve got a lot of cards I don’t need. You can have all of them, couple hundred, just for those Warlocks,” he offered.
“That’s very kind of you, but I assume most of those don’t go in a Harmoniser deck?”
“A few of them can help with the colour fixing. And I do have some spare Harmonisers, just not the rare ones.”
“I have something else in mind for colour fixing, sir, and I think I’ll focus on getting the rare ones first.”
High Roller shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you change your mind, I do want those cards. I just don’t have what you’re looking for in stock, is all. Who knows, I might in a bit. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any Harmonisers.”
“I’ll come back and see if I can’t trade up, then.”
“Can’t hurt to try.”
Ocellus had jotted down the names of the cards High Roller was missing. It always helped to have a good sense of inventory, after all, even if it would be fruitless in the end.
“He’s not going to trade away his Harmonisers, for anything, because he doesn’t have Harmonisers to spare," she said to herself. "But if I get a lot of Harmonisers, he might appreciate some spares, too. There’s bound to be someone with a lot of them lying around, right?”
A glint of a holofoil caught her eye.
She buzzed over to the stall, nudging a few ponies as she went, and gasped.
“Crystal Harmonisers, Wild Harmonisers, Flameheart Harmonisers...”
“I’m guessing you’re playing a Harmoniser deck, too?” the owner of the stall asked. He was a gruff-looking orange stallion with a ruddy beard, a bit on the chubby side as well.
“Yes, sir,” Ocellus replied. “I have some Warlock cards I’d like to trade for Harmonisers.”
The Unicorn took the cards in his magic, then checked a crystal ball. “Hmm, not bad, but Warlocks are worthless in the current meta.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I think aggressive strategies are always in the game,” she replied as he gave her cards back.
“You misunderstand, little girl. I mean the cards are worthless. These Harmonisers are worth twenty bits each, thanks to the recent performance at the National Championship Series.”
“Twenty bits?”
“One fifty for the Crystal one.”
Ocellus’s left eye twitched. “But… but… how? I thought Harmonisers were a casual strategy?”
The trader let out a dismissive groan. “Ugh, what, have you living in a cave for the past year?”
“Most of my life, actually, and it’s less of a cave and more of a balcony now, with the roof blown off and all. But no, most of this year I’ve been in Ponyville, and busy, I guess.”
“Then you wouldn’t know,” the trader said. “Harmonisers as an archetype are not competitive, this is true: they die too quickly to aggro, and they do not generate enough value to withstand a board wipe.”
“But Crystal Harmoniser does, and Wild Harmoniser can let you defend while Flameheart can do burst damage in return,” Ocellus replied.
“True, very true. The problem is that all the other Harmonisers are too weak as individual cards, and Crystal Harmoniser doesn’t do any damage without support. So, rather than building an entire strategy around it-”
Her heart sank. “Somepony started using them in control decks, huh?”
“So you do know the game.”
Better than you might think. “B-but how much are Warlocks worth now, then? I have a lot to trade away, a whole pile of rare ones.”
The trader checked his crystal ball again. “In the current meta and market? You’d need a thousand Warlock Circles to be worth even a single Crystal Harmoniser.”
Ocellus looked at the treasure trove in front of her. This guy had all of the Harmonisers, in multiple full playsets and pristine condition, obviously. They all had price tags, too.
Sure, the Infernal Harmoniser was cheap enough, but you only ran that one in special situations. The Bastion Harmoniser was good, too, but she already had four of those to serve as a draw engine. Pyrohemia Harmoniser, and the four other plague-based ones, were likewise fairly cheap.
I could go back and get those from Mister Roller, probably.
I could build a deck around those. It’d be like playing a real Harmoniser deck.
No. No, I need all of them or it won’t be the same. I just have to think this through.
“Umm, Mister?”
“Ace," he replied. "Ace in the Hole.”
“Mister Ace Hole, how do you know how much a card is worth? Does that crystal ball really know?”
“Oh, I’ve got a network of players connected to this crystal ball, it lets me know the market. We have the best intel, the absolute best.”
Ocellus grumbled to herself. “Okay, thank you anyway.”
She passed by more stands with comic books, board games, regular visual novels, even self-published ones by the ponies owning the stall. Some of it looked appealing, to be sure, but still she forced herself to stay on track.
I want those cards. I need those cards. Maybe I’m going about it all wrong. I’m sure if I can find some of the younger players, they’d love to play Warlocks. And I do have enough of them to make a whole deck, with support cards to boot. Several decks, even.
She found some prospective traders near the food section: little colts and fillies who were gawking at each other’s collections. She approached them with a spring in her step, happy at the prospect of a simple, fair trade that everyone could benefit from.
“Hi, there. I see you’ve got Sorcery cards?”
The colt in the middle, who she presumed was the leader, looked up. “Yeah, we’ve got cards. Why do you ask?”
“Umm, do you happen to have any Harmonisers you’re willing to part with?”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Depends. What are you offering?”
“Warlocks. Lots and lots of Warlocks, enough to make whole decks.” She spread them out in her magic, careful to show off each and every one of them.
The boy scrunched his nose. “No, thanks. Warlocks make a decent enough strategy in a Limited format, but they can’t hold a candle to any of the control decks in the current meta. Even the heaviest aggro deck right now doesn’t use Warlocks. I mean...”
Ocellus’s spare heart sank to join the first one. All the kids whipped out a crystal ball much like the one she’d seen Mister Ace use.
The boy checked some statistics, from the looks of it, then winced and flicked his ears. “Yeah, Warlocks aren’t viable in this metagame.”
She shrugged and looked away. “But, neither are Harmonisers?”
“No one plays a Harmoniser deck now, no, because of all the control decks, but you can still use Harmonisers in a control deck,” said a filly next to him. “Crystal Harmoniser makes for a good threat that dodges removal and as long as Wildheart is out you’ve got a bomb you have to answer straight away. They’re a pretty good toolbox combo with counter-magic to back it up.”
Great. They know the language. They’re competitive players. And they’re younger than me. They’re all blank flanks, even.
“Yup, says right here the most tuned-up Warlock deck has a win rate of only twenty percent in the high ranks, that’s abysmal,” said the lead colt, pointing to his crystal ball. “If you’re looking at aggro decks that splash a few Warlocks, you can get up to the thirties, but that’s nothing compared to Harmony Control.”
Ocellus sighed. “Right. So no way to get Harmonisers, then? You’re absolutely sure that information is correct? There's no way someone else is feeding you bad information?”
They shook their heads, and the filly gestured to her companion. “Don’t you know who this is? This is Wild Card, he won Regionals last month.”
And yet he doesn’t have a cutie mark. Must not like the game very much, then.
“I’ve got spare Harmonisers, but I only trade for stuff that’s better,” Wild Card said. “And right now, the control decks all run the big three Harmonisers, sometimes five, maybe seven in the toolbox version or the sideboard. You drop those, you’re losing at least five percent in your win rate.”
Ocellus let her ears droop. “Okay, thanks anyway.”
She moved along to the food court, and got herself a sandwich. Her bag of cards felt heavy on her side.
“Wow, that was really something.” A voice behind her said.
“Hey, Starlight. Did you hear all that?”
Ocellus noticed Starlight was carrying what appeared to be bushels of bamboo sticks in her bag. “I may have used a little enhancement spell to eavesdrop, hope you don’t mind. I understood maybe a fifth of all that, if it helps.”
“It’s okay. Gamers like to speak their own language sometimes. Makes it feel nice and exclusive, I guess.”
Starlight sat down and motioned towards the stalls in the distance. “I saw that pony with his price list, too. Are they really going for fifty bits, each?”
“No, a hundred and fifty each.” Ocellus took a big bite out of her loaf, chewed it as she mulled it over in her head, then let out a little grunt. “Somepony figured out that those cards I want are perfect finishers in a control deck when they’re put together, so now the prices are through the roof.”
The mare blinked. “Okay, making progress, I… understood about half of that, but I guess that means no one has Harmonisers to spare? Not a single pony you can trade with?”
For her part, Ocellus looked up at Cloudsdale, thinking out loud. “Three ponies I could trade with. One’s a collector, he can’t spare the cards I’ve got my eye on, but he has a lot of spares, so I could get a bunch of cards from him, no problem.”
“Except the ones you really want.”
“Exactly. Even if I get a bunch of cards, most of them won’t be worth much, so I can't trade up with them. Then there’s the pony with his price lists. He has the cards and he’s willing to trade, but he’ll only trade for something that’s even more expensive. And since my cards are out of the meta, that means I can’t trade them with him.”
Starlight made a confused face she usually reserved for when Trixie was failing at an escape act. “Meta?”
“Then there’s those foals over there. I thought maybe they were regular players like me with their own pet decks, but no, they’ve got those crystal balls and their information network as well, checking the win rates of every decklist and cards. They’ll only trade for something stronger. I picked a bad day, I guess: the meta’s not Warlock-friendly, so I can’t get rid of them.”
“What is this meta you keep mentioning?”
“Sorry, it’s a gaming word. It means what’s popular and what’s winning. Since there’s a lot of players, there’s a lot of information on what works and what doesn’t. If slow strategies are popular, then, umm, ‘bigger’ cards get to be popular, and more expensive. If aggressive strategies are more popular, then the smaller, quicker cards will be popular. But as a rule aggro decks are cheap, only two or three cards from those lists are worth any money. A lot of money, sometimes, but, you know...”
Starlight nodded as she chewed on her meal.
“What did you get?” Ocellus gestured to the sticks in Starlight’s bag.
“I traded some reprints for bamboo sticks from Maude’s boyfriend. He has the absolute best sticks, he even gave me some advice on how to grow my own. Said it was for the benefit of fine sticks everywhere to have them soar freely.”
“Huh?”
“I wanted good sticks for my kites.” Starlight winked. “Strong, but light, and Mudbriar is an expert in sticks, after all.”
“Oh.”
After pondering, Starlight said, “Actually, come to think of it, why even bother trying to get those cards the hard way? You know how to replicate paper, I taught you and Thorax how to do that last spring, didn’t I?”
Ocellus nodded and smiled. “Yes, and it’s been really helpful to our Hive, but I don’t want to make copies of these cards.”
“Why not? You’re not a hyper-competitive player, are you? You wouldn't play them anywhere you can get banned from.”
“No.”
“And you only care about Harmonisers, you’re not trying to collect all the cards or sell them. So why?”
Ocellus let her head hang. “I want to have my own. And I don’t want to cheat.”
“Oh. Okay, I see.”
She clenched her eyes shut and whimpered. “I want this, Starlight. I really want this, for me. And I’m not even sure if I should want it. Isn’t it bad that I want something? Isn’t that the kind of greed that drove Chrysalis?”
“Not necessarily. You’re not a bad changeling, you’re always helpful." Starlight tapped her chin and pondered out loud. "Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve seen you have your own things that much, or enjoy them. You read a lot, sure, but it's all library books, things you have to return."
"Books that aren't mine," Ocellus said. "We don't have a lot of things in the Hive that are really ours. As single changelings, I mean. We have to share a lot, and that's good, right? Sharing is good."
"Yes, sharing is good, but having your own things to share in the first place is good, too. Having things you enjoy be yours is not a bad thing. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have nice things, especially little nice things like this, if you're willing to put in the effort. You’re still thinking of how to get things fairly, aren’t you? You don’t want to steal or swindle anyone out of it?”
“No. Maybe. That’s bad, isn’t it?”
Starlight waved the remark away. “Look, if you want my advice: it sounds like the value of these cards isn’t absolute. It’s only because of these… ‘control decks’ that you can’t get what you want. But those strategies don’t rely on your cards, do they? A Harmoniser deck isn’t the same thing as a control deck?”
“No, a control deck is slow, and typically doesn’t run many minions, only a few big ones that are hard to get rid of and generate value, enough to win the late game. Besides that, it’s all board wipes and removal and disruption, mostly the kind of stuff that’s expensive to buy. Harmonisers run a lot of, well, Harmonisers, which means a lot of minions. They’re not control, though, not exactly. It depends how you build them. That’s kind of why I like them: Harmonisers share their abilities with their friends. Add one to your army, everyone changes. There’s a lot of ways to build them.”
“But only one way that’s the best.”
“Best in the meta, for now. I think most ponies only use it because it happens to work and no one’s figured out something better yet.”
“So Harmonisers are built to be aggressive, then, like Warlocks?”
“No, not exactly,” Ocellus said.
“But you said they’re not control. What are they, then, usually?”
“Well, if you’re using the most common, standard Four Suns Harmoniser deck, that would make it...” Ocellus’s jaw hung open.
“Make it… what?”
“Oh. I think I just had an idea.” Ocellus cringed again, hard enough to want to curl up into a ball and hide under the table.
“Is it a bad idea?” Starlight asked.
“I’m not sure. Could I run it by you first?”
“Of course. How bad could it be?”
Ocellus came trotting over towards the stall. “Hey, Mister High Roller, sir?”
“Ah, little Warlock collector,” he greeted. “Find what you’re looking for?”
“Maybe. I was thinking about what you said.” She took out a stack of her Warlock cards. “These cards are what you were missing, right? With a few extras to spare?”
High Roller nodded. “Yup.” He took out a heavy stack of card boxes and slammed them on the table. “What are you asking for them? Harmonisers, right?”
“Those Harmonisers, and these.” She flipped through the bin and quickly found the junk cards she wanted. “The rest, I might be able to find trades for.”
High Roller checked the cards Ocellus had picked out. “Fires of the Warden? You sure you want a playset of that? It’s kind of a dead draw, most of the time.”
“I’m sure. I have a plan.”
Ocellus strode confidently towards the foals who were, still, not trading anything with passersby. It seemed the market had stagnated somewhat.
Well, here goes nothing.
“Got something better?” Wild Card asked. “If you’re looking to trade away any Harmonisers you’ve got, there’s always room for more Crystal.”
“Actually, I was thinking maybe I could play a match against you. I want to see what the strongest deck in the meta can do when it’s played by a real champ.”
Wild Card snorted. “You want your Warlocks to get beaten up?”
Ocellus grinned in response. “Oh, it’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
Starlight heard the commotion before she saw it.
“That’s ten times in a row! You’ve got to be cheating!” A colt cried out.
“Hey, it’s not my fault you can’t follow up after a board clear,” came the reply.
“What is going on here?” Starlight asked.
Ocellus shook her head and held up her forelegs. “Look, just watch, I can get any pony to beat that, anypony at all. Mister Roller?”
“Okay, okay, don’t get your membranes bent out of shape.” The Pegasus pony came floating by idly, before landing at the table.
“Just watch,” Ocellus said. “You saw me play against that deck, Mister Roller, you know how mine works.”
“That I do.” He sat down, shuffled his cards, and drew. Wild Card did the same, grumbling all the way.
From Starlight’s perspective, they might as well have been explaining antiques. Cards went to the table, cards were tipped sideways, little dice were rotated showing different numbers.
Wild Card played something that made Ocellus’s stand-in scoop up all his Warlock cards. All except one.
“Okay, and now Warlock Circle has eight counters on it, I get to grab any Pact I want, I’ll take Pact of Eternal Life.”
Apparently this was terrible for Wild Card, because the boy groaned and planted his face on the table.
“Pact triggers, I’ll bring back Cruel Warlock, and thanks to Flames of the Warden he can attack straight away. Lose one for every Warlock that died last turn and… you’re dead.”
“How?!” Wild Card cried out. “I wiped your board! I gained life!”
“Yeah, but you still run out of life points long before my deck runs out of minions.” Ocellus took her cards from Mister Roller. “And you can’t respond quickly enough once Flames hits the board.”
Starlight smirked. “Looks like that control strategy isn’t so foolproof after all. I thought Warlocks are supposed to be weak in aggressive decks?”
“It’s not an aggro deck; it’s midrange. It’s that Flames of the Warden: it’s supposed to be a dead card because you have to spend your whole third turn playing that without any board presence, but Warlocks don’t care if they lose board early as long as they can push damage.” Wild Card grunted and threw his head back. “They keep forcing the Pact sacrifice when I bring out a Harmoniser, so I can never get more than one going.”
“And one lone Harmoniser is too weak,” Ocellus added. “Pity there’s nothing you can replace them with, though.”
“Phoenix would stand up against it,” Wild Card said. “But if you’re cutting Crystal for Phoenix, you have to cut the whole Harmoniser package and you might as well go Dragons at that point.”
Starlight suppressed a giggle. She understood about three quarters of what was going on now. Her ears pricked up when the pony from before, Mister Ace Hole, nudged Ocellus on the side.
“I might be in the market for those Warlocks now, if your offer still stands,” he said.
“You’re willing to part with Harmonisers now?” Ocellus asked. “Even Crystal Harmonisers?”
“A single playset, no need to go overboard. My intel tells me the price is about to drop a little bit. I have the best intel, the best.”
“Of course. No need to go overboard. And I’ve got plenty more cards if you boys and girls want them, too. I’m getting rid of all of them.”
Ocellus held her cards in her magic as the train started on its way to Ponyville. In her bag, she had some visual novels, comic books, and some self-published works she’d managed to get in exchange for her suddenly valuable Warlock cards.
“So, that’s all the Harmonisers, huh?” Starlight asked.
“Yup. And I kept some Flames, and a few other cards, just for the fun of it.”
“And you got yourself some new reading.”
“Yup,” Ocellus replied. “It was pretty easy, once ponies heard about the price going up again.”
“Good thinking. So, which Harmonisers are you going to actually use? If there’s so many, I mean, you can’t use them all at once, right?”
Ocellus chuckled. “No. I’ll use whichever ones I feel like. There’s so many combinations I want to try, I’ve thought about this for so long.” She bit her lip.
Starlight noticed. “You did nothing wrong, Ocellus.”
“I scammed that Ace pony out of his cards, and I publicly humiliated a little boy. Over trading cards.”
Starlight rolled her eyes. “Do I really need to say this again? You did not cheat, and you didn’t scam anyone. They agreed to the trade, you showed them a strategy that was better, which is exactly what they asked for. You said it yourself: it’s all about the meta. What’s popular now won’t be popular tomorrow. What players think is strong now won’t work tomorrow. It’s not your fault those things swing in value so much, you simply sped up the process. If you didn’t do it today, some clever pony would have thought of it at the next big tournament, and imagine how upset those foals would be if they lost that bad at a big contest. Wild Card has a title to defend, you did him a favour snapping him out of that tunnel vision. Him and everyone else playing that game.”
“I guess. But then why do I feel so bad about it?”
“Probably because you got what you wanted, and because you’re used to thinking you don’t deserve that. But you do deserve it, Ocellus. You’re not bad, or greedy. If you had been, you would have found some dirtier way of getting what you want without giving anything in return.”
Ocellus went silent, and Starlight did the same. Carefully, Ocellus put her cards away so she could focus on the mare. “I guess that’s something you can relate to, huh?”
“Maybe a little bit,” Starlight replied, idly staring at the bamboo sticks she’d gotten. “It goes away after a while, though. Think of it this way: next tournament, Wild Card might win using your cards. Mister Ace Hole will probably make money off your cards once they get popular again. And High Roller is just happy to get closer to a full collection, and he’s got more space with some junk cards gone, and those junk cards went to ponies who liked them. Everyone’s happy. Aren’t they? I mean, you weren’t wrong when you said that strategy works, were you?”
“No, no, that’s pretty basic stuff: midrange relies on beating control by applying pressure on a specific turn, usually right after a board wipe. Flames of the Warden is kind of a sleeper card there, since you sacrifice your turn three tempo to set up lethal on turn se-uhh...” Ocellus stopped herself from rambling, as Starlight was staring now. “Umm, I mean, yes, Flames of the Warden lets minions attack the turn you play them, but on its own it doesn’t do much. Because of that, Flames decks are generally a good counter to hard control decks, and they can kind of stand up to aggro, depending on the build. That’s all true. Hard aggro still beats them, though. But that’s just how the game’s made.”
“So you didn’t lie, and it’s not a scam. If everypony is else is happy about it, you should be, too. That’s what a fair trade is. You should be proud of yourself: that was clever, and it’s not like changelings have had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, not as a species.”
“No.” Ocellus smiled. “You’re right, maybe I am worrying a little too much.”
“It’s okay to like stuff, Ocellus,” Starlight said. “It’s okay to want things, too.”
“I know. But, still, thanks for reminding me.”
Starlight smiled. “That’s what I’m here for.”
With that, Ocellus patted her bag, and went to join her friends. After sitting down unnoticed, she listened to Yona going on about knitting and braids, Sandbar and Gallus discussing the merits of different types of wax for boards, and Smolder trying to tell Silverstream why this replica of Vermithrax Pajorative’s spear staff was so much cooler than the stupid fish Silverstream had gotten for back home.
Ocellus listened, and stayed quiet, even when she wanted to object that silver catfish were freshwater fish, and did not belong in the sea. She stayed quiet, even when the noise hurt her head a little.
She simply enjoyed the company, as busy as the Hive back home, and looked forward to her next bit of alone time, to build and tinker with a deck of cards.
They’ll listen if I have something important to say.
That’s a fair trade, right?
“So what did you end up getting, Ocellus?”
She looked up, and realised she didn’t even notice who’d asked. Everyone looked at her, though.
Guess I might as well.
“I, umm, I got some new trading cards.” She got them out, and everyone stayed perfectly quiet. “They’re… kind of important to me, since I learned how to read with this game.” She sighed and chuckled, feeling like a weight fell off her back. “It’s a bit of a long story. And a little embarrassing.”
“Can’t be any worse than what we’ve gone through today,” Gallus said. “Any of us, from the sounds of it.”
Again, Ocellus smiled, and she raised her cards in a magic glow to show them off. “Well, you remember when we had Economics 101, and Professor Applejack showed us what a pump and dump is?”
The End.