If you've followed my style of play philosophies over the years at Sally and now here at Nexus, you know I'm a competitive player. Or rather, that I'm what's considered this weird
amalgamation of a Johnny-Spike. Meaning, I'm going to do what I can to win, regardless of how hard I have to kick you in the teeth to do it...but I also want to design the win con my own way (such as, for example, most control decks finishing on an
Aetherling while I choose to finish on
Prognostic Sphinx with or without a
Pike in it's claws). This, in my case, is most viewable in my pursuit of
Experiment Kraj. Now, I know, yes, I'm not the
U player. But there's something about this deck and it's zany interactions and different game every time effect of it that drew me to it. It became synonymous to others, that Kraj had gone from "binder rot jank excuse to play the colours" (you can see how far I go back in this format haha) to "ruthless doomsday machine", in my hands. It's this deck where I coined the phrase "when 3drinks plays
U, nobody wins". And it was easy to see why, I'd get to that turn six or seven and every turn would take over fifteen minutes as I finagle my options, triggers, activation sequences, and would win in the way that only I could.
Soon,
Illusionist's Bracers got printed, and Kraj as a deck had found it's ultimate weapon. All the lines of play grew more compact, eventually revolving around
Arcanis and
Triskelion abilities, copied, and an
untap, to lead the deck to it's eventual table kill win. It still took several pieces, and it still was viewed as that deck only I could turn into a ruthless machine with. And then the
Heroic ability was created;
Since then, my brain refuses to look toward the other interactions, because
it knows about
this interaction. Suddenly I can take infinite turns, generate infinite untaps, infinite mana, infinite draw, and all of a sudden my "adorable", beloved purple ooze mutant had become the same entity that was reviled from LGS tables.
I didn't like what I had become. My interest waned in the deck, and any of it's attempts to reel me in were for naught.
So, what do you do when a deck you once beloved, and had turned an entire group onto as "your's" that could only behave in your hands...what do you do when it misbehaves to this point where you're disgusted by it? When
Sygg hit this point, I had retired that deck undefeated. But I didn't have that attachment to that deck, that was a tempo deck which only had a goal of "swing for three". Kraj is different. It was special...until now. I don't want to play it, but I don't want to forget the weird interactions over the years. Weakening it isn't an option, as that will just feel like watre'd down Kraj.
I'm sure I'm not alone here. So let's discuss! Certainly we've all had this feeling of "betrayal" by a deck we once beloved that
morphed into something we didn't want it to become, right?