None of these tests will really give a good measure of a jujitsu deck's abilities. If your deck consistently scores over ten, you're likely to get chewed up by faster decks.Įxceptions to this are jujitsu-style decks-those that do almost nothing on their own, but turn all your opponent's forces against him. A more typical fast deck will score seven or eight fairly consistently.
Five or less is an amazing score, usually possible only with extremely lucky shuffles or a deck loaded with out-of-print cards. Do this several times, and average the results to get a measure of the sheer brute power of your deck. Unless, of course, it's a "jujitsu" deck-see below.)Ĭount how many turns it takes to kill the fish. (If your deck can't deal 20 points of damage against a defenseless opponent, it's time to give up Magic and start playing Go Fish. All you have to do is deal 20 points of damage as quickly as possible. The most basic deck-test (originally called "The Test" on Usenet) is very much like a goldfish: it's an opponent who doesn't do anything. It just swims around in its bowl, and then one day the cat eats it or you come in and find it floating belly-up. GoldfishĪ goldfish is a rather boring pet: it doesn't do much, and you can't really interact with it. They also let you get used to playing the cards in your deck, and help you figure out your best combinations, which cards you need to protect with Counterspells, etc. The pet-inspired tests here are meant to give you some measurement of your deck's strengths or weaknesses, and how it's likely to fare when facing certain types of real decks. Various players swear by different tests, ranging from just dealing out several hands and checking to see whether you'd be able to cast any spells the first turn, to playing a duel against yourself using one of your other decks. Well, your pet can't really play Magic, but with a bit of imagination, it can inspire some good ways to test out a new deck. If only you could teach your pet to play. But you're home alone, and it's too late to call a friend. Now you want to test it out, and do some tuning before you take it up against the tournament-level decks tomorrow. You've picked out some spells that should work well together, and added a reasonable number of lands. It's Magic day at your game club tomorrow, and you have a new deck idea you want to try out. Have fun playing your pet, and be sure to come back next Monday for the start of Scars of Mirrodin previews! Plague Rats? Relentless Rats! Phantom Monster? Assault Griffin! And still others use old cards but are easily updated with current cards. Others use cards that are still around today, like Serra Angel, Lightning Bolt, and Craw Wurm. This article was written a long time ago, so some of the examples below involve things like Psychic Venom and Scryb Sprites, and may not still be relevant. Real opponents seldom sit obligingly still while you pound on them (and Magic wouldn't be very interesting for either of you if they did!), and the rest of the "pet tests" do a nice job of simulating various deck types and testing your deck against them. The other solitaire variants didn't catch on the way "goldfishing" did, but in many ways they're more interesting. This article featured multiple solitaire Magic formats, including the do-nothing "goldfish"-still a common term for testing against a defenseless opponent almost fifteen years later. In one of my Serious Fun articles, I mentioned an old article in The Duelist called "Playing Your Pet" (though I incorrectly attributed it to Duelist #8, when in fact it was in Duelist #7).
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