Anyway, SWARM. A couple of weeks ago (I also keep forgetting to make LJ posts in a timely fashion) I drove over to catch up with friends old and new, and to have a go at the Dominion tournament they were running. In the end I only managed one game of that due to being delayed for a whole collection of reasons (not least in Worthing when the driver of a massive crane decided to stop, get out, and yell at a driver that turned across him). No prizes for me - they were for single highest and lowest scores, and mine was an average score. Perhaps another time.
As is traditional at SWARM there was also MtG, and I played a few rounds. The Orzhov deck (not yet posted) put up a valiant effort against a "destroy the world" style deck but couldn't rebuild fast enough once the world was destroyed, while the Mephitic Ooze deck made the mistake of playing against opponents with black decks (at which point the Dross Golems cease to be effective). On the other hand I lent the Spikeshot Goblin deck out and that spent many turns slowly nibbling people to death with 1/1 goblins - it's not supposed to do that, but it worked well enough. Especially when a 1/1 Goblin Sky Raider suddenly becomes 5/1 thanks to Fists of the Anvil. I think if the person playing it had concentrated the damage on one opponent it would have chewed through their health very quickly.
One friend's reaction (Cogs - he acquired that nickname due to playing crazily complicated combo decks) to that deck appearing was hilarious - he recognised it from when I was an undergrad all those years ago. A few moments later he blurted out "oh god it's got Warhammers" as he remembered exactly what was in it - specifically, the troll-worthy Loxodon Warhammers.
