First of all, apologies for missing the past couple of weeks, real life reared its ugly head and vomited all over my spare time.  I was two parts into a look at mono colour strategies, which will now be completed at a later undefined date, now that the format has rotated.

Second of all, apologies for the unnecessary use of unpleasant imagery in the first sentence.

[This space reserved for future apologies.]

I must be a cruel parent.  My three year old son desperately wants a dog or a cat, and still I haven't relented.  We live in London, and although there are fields, trees and woods in easy reach of our house, it still doesn't feel like the best place to own an animal.  Sometimes I pretend to be a dog for him - he even has a name for me 'Buster'.  So far I haven't made him feed me, or take me for long walks, but maybe that would make him see the responsibility and scale down his wants - to maybe a picture of a goldfish.  Now that I could manage.

Before I go further, here's some useful advice:

"Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful." ~Ann Landers

The only pets I ever had growing up were a brace of goldfish won at the fair, who I called Moby and Dick.  After about twelve years, Moby decided he was a jumper.  We found him one morning lying on the table, evidently having jumped out of the tank some hours before.  That left me with just one fish, and a slightly awkward conversation every time anyone asked if I had any pets, and what they were called.  (And I was at risk of those awkward moments for some time, Dick lived another ten years, surely a record for a goldfish won at the fair!) But anyway, I'm not here to talk about dogs, cats, goldfish or even chihuahuas.  Pets exist in all forms.  Try as we might to make decisions with our heads, its our hearts that really rule the Leafdrake Roost.  All the big decisions are made south of the head (some further south than others).  Which car to drive, which house to buy, which partner to live with... and of course the biggest decisions of all: which Magic cards to play with.

Obviously we all play with tens, dozens, hundreds or thousands of different cards, but we develop normal relationships with most of them.  A card that performs well will earn your respect and admiration, and probably make it into a large proportion of your decklists based on merit.  A card that fails to perform after several chances will generally be traded away or sit in your folder (virtual or otherwise) collecting dust.

But like most environments, Magic isn't a meritocracy.  At least it isn't when humans are selecting the decklists.  Okay, I'll concede that most tournament lists don't owe too much to sentimentality, but I'm sure a lot of them feature cards that the builder overvalues due to personal bias.  In other words: 'pets'.

Pet #1

With that said, here's the first of my pets.  Beautiful, I'm sure you'll agree.  Look at the sleek, glossy coat.  Admire the wondrous effects.  Hark at the look of sheer indignation on the tiny snake's face. There are several things I love about this card.  One is that as a multi-colour card, it's Kaleidoscope legal.  Not so relevant now that no-one plays Kscope, but more relevant is its rarity.  It's common, and therefore pauper legal.  People still play that I hear. It has an easy casting cost, and is a great combat trick, removing evasion, deathtouch or any other effects you card to mention.  It doesn't do much against counters, and enchanted creatures will still benefit from their enchantments (although it's an especially nice trick against something like a Nip Gwyllion coupled to an Edge of the Divinity), but in the main it's a great way to turn a dangerous attack from your opponent into card advantage for you.

And then of course there are those wonderful three little words at the end.  'Draw a card'.  I think that was when I realized I was in love.

Here's my pet pauper deck, featuring my pet card.  It's not tier one, but it's got big doleful eyes, and wags its tail whenever I walk into the room, which is good enough for me.

Pet Snake

A casual pauper deck by Splendid Belt

Creatures 4 Basking Rootwalla 4 Coiling Oracle 4 Elvish Visionary 2 Errant Ephemeron 4 Guardian of the Guildpact 4 Kor Skyfisher 4 Mulldrifter 26 cards Other Spells 2 Armadillo Cloak 3 Into the Roil 2 Oblivion Ring 4 Snakeform 11 cards

Lands 4 Evolving Wilds 6 Forest 2 Halimar Depths 3 Island 4 Kabira Crossroads 1 Plains 3 Simic Growth Chamber 23 cards Sideboard 4 Benevolent Unicorn 2 Circle of Protection: Black 2 Circle of Protection: Red 3 Dust to Dust 4 Kor Sanctifiers 15 cards

I don't think there's too much that needs explaining there.  Quite a few creatures, and a few of the lands, enjoy being sent back to your hand via Skyfisher or Roil.  I just jumped into MODO and played a few games while writing this up, and beat MBC principally by Roiling back my creatures when they were targeted by Tendrils or Corrupt.  In another game, I was able to match a Teachings deck for card advantage by recurring Mulldrifters, Visionaries and Oracles.  I also played RDW, who struggled to get me below 15 life, with a steady stream of Crossroads coming, and occasionally being recurred via Skyfisher.  Having the fortune to be able to throw a cloak on Guardian of the Guildpact didn't hurt either.

Of course in all those games, I was pretty lucky with my draws.

Speaking of Oracles, it's more than possible that Sea Gate Oracle would be quite a lot better than Coiling Oracle in this deck.  But I just like the Coiling variant.  Perhaps he's another pet.

Pet #2

So far so snakey.  But there's more to me than slithering reptiles.  There's another card I like almost as much.  He's mummified, marvelous and mostly obsolete, yes it's Dimir Cutpurse!

I like this card so much it moves me to poetry (in Limerick form). There once was a card name of Cutpurse, Who made life for his opponents much worse. He draws you a card, And makes them discard, And really deserves a much better verse. But really, he draws one for you AND makes them discard?  Surely not.  It's such a totally broken card that it has literally broken my MODO client.  I can't get him to appear, no matter how many times I reboot, reset or repair.  Personally I think it's just that he seems to good to be true, and so is.  Even when someone tries to link the card to me whilst in the game, it doesn't work.  I've no idea what would happen if someone actually played it against me in a match.  My guess is that the universe would implode.  Or MODO would crash, one of the two.

My first inclination is to throw the Cutpurse in a Kaleidoscope deck, as that's where I've played with him most since he got bored with standard and wandered out of it a few years ago.  But since no-one plays Kscope (did I mention that before?), my next inclination is to try Extended.  Oops, that's all changed and he's not allowed there either.  Okay, well it's going to have to be Legacy then.

Pet Mummy

A casual legacy deck by Splendid Belt

Creatures 3 Blizzard Specter 4 Dimir Cutpurse 2 Ghastlord of Fugue 4 Glen Elendra Liege 4 Inkfathom Infiltrator 3 Ninja of the Deep Hours 3 Shadowmage Infiltrator 2 Sygg, River Cutthroat 4 Wasp Lancer 1 Wydwen, the Biting Gale 30 cards Other Spells 4 Agony Warp 3 Dire Undercurrents 7 cards

Lands 4 Dimir Aqueduct 4 Drowned Catacomb 8 Island 7 Swamp 23 cards

Okay I cheated slightly, it's pretty close to my Kaleidoscope list, but it is strictly speaking Legacy legal.  Knowing very little about the format, I haven't included a sideboard.

Having thought about this list, I realized that the Shadowmage Infiltrator is also another pet really.  Not perhaps on the same level as the snake or the mummy, but within the spectrum of favouritism that casts its rainbow like shadow over my entire collection of cards.  I suppose it would be possible to list your entire collection in order of favouritism.  I'm not sure how they'd fall, but Snakey, Mummy and um, Shadowmagey would pretty much make up my top three. 

I'm fairly sure I'd start losing the will to live once I got down to around rank 175.  What do I prefer, Carom or Vigean Hydropon?  That's a level of questioning I think I can live without.

Although since I've gone ahead and asked it - it's the Hydropon.  A 5/5 for three that can't attack or block?  Those crazy Simic mages, they just make me smile.

There's just time for a quickie.  One more.

Pet #3

If there's one thing in common with all my pets, it's card advantage.  With Snakey and Mummy it's more obvious, they actually draw cards.  Old Royally here takes a little time to get going, but when he does he's a beast. Okay, he's a glass cannon.  He can bring down almost anything, but all it takes is a Mogg Fanatic and he's toast.  I can accept that.  He's my pet, so he's forgiven any sins.  I know he's not technically a brilliant card, but I've built probably around a dozen lists around him, just because when he works, it's so much fun. And it doesn't hurt that he features possibly my favourite artwork in the game either.

New Pets

Conclusions

I hope at least some of that made sense.  Play the game enough and you can't help but generate affection for certain cards (or is it just me?).  Somehow, the clunkier the card, the greater the affection.  Do you have pet cards?  Cards that most others overlook, but that you devote hours to finding the perfect deck for?  I'd be really interested to hear about it.  Especially if any of them are newly released in M11.  Now that'd be a whirlwind romance.

Now I'm off to pretend to be Buster again for my son.  It's a dog's life....