A Gathering of Magic

 "Stardate 314159.2, the landing party has arrived at what appears to be a storage site. We're going to investigate the area and see if there's anything of note to report back," Horus said into the vocorder.

"Come on, Horus!" Perturabo called. He and Magnus were the most excited about getting to dig through one of the old storage silos below the Palace. 

"Had to record the mission log," Horus called back. "Otherwise it's not Landing Party."

"Fair enough," Perturabo said. With that, he vanished completely into the stacks of shelves in the silo. 

"What do you think we're going to find?" Sanguinius asked. He was keeping his investigations to the floor for now, but was intending to fly around and look at stuff higher up.

"It could be anything," Roboute answered. "I don't think Father has any kind of inventory for this silo."

"I bet he does somewhere," Magnus said. 

"Possibly," Roboute said. "But if there is one, it's buried in here with the rest of it."

"True," Magnus conceded. 

"Let's see what's in these!" Leman called. He was trying to push a storage container that was bigger than him. "There's two more back that way."

"What's in these?" Angron asked as he started helping Leman push the container. "Some kind of metal plates?"

"We'll find out!" Perturabo said. He and Rogal had started on the next one.

"Maybe it's rocks," Vulkan said as he and Corvus fought with the third.

"I don't know if I'd consider that a large or a small rock collection," Magnus said.

"It would depend on how big the rocks in each container are," Vulkan said.

"Well, that's one vote metal plates, and one votes rocks," Roboute said. "Anyone else want to make a guess?"

"Hm...," Sanguinius took a look at the boxes, then looked at Konrad. 

"I can't see into them," Konrad said. Magnus nodded as well.

"Some kind of arcanoi?" Lorgar asked. "Why else would they be psy-screened?"

"Possibly," Roboute said. "It actually makes sense."

"Uncle Malcador has a deck of arcanoi," Magnus said. "But he doesn't keep it psy-screened."

"I think that's because it's special," Rogal said.

"Let's get the top off one," Jaghatai said. Magnus made a gesture and the top came off. Sanguinius took to the air to look inside. He frowned in confusion.

"What's inside?" Horus called up.

"Boxes," Sanguinius said. "Looks like stacks of white boxes."

"Huh," Magnus said. "Can you grab one out and bring it down?"

"I'll try," Sanguinius said. He swooped across the box, hooking his hands underneath one of the boxes on top. The others heard a grunt as he tried to pull the box with him, wings straining as they tried to get the lift required. After a moment Sanguinius let go and spiraled down to a landing, head down.

"It's alright," Vulkan said. "There's bound to be another way we can get a box out. Other than asking Father of course."

"Servitor?" Perturabo suggested.

"Found one!" Ferrus said. 

"That was fast," Fulgrim said. "Wait, you knew we'd need one?"

"Well, we were playing Landing Party," Ferrus said. "I've got the tricorder." The tricorder was actually his auspex unit.

"What's inside?" Sanguinius asked.

"I'm not sure," Ferrus said. "I just get solid readings from inside. I was hoping you'd see more from the top."

"Well, grab one out and lets see what we can learn," Angron said.

"Alright," Ferrus said. He made the request, and they waited with great expectation. The white box didn't look too exciting.

"Do we get anything from the auspex now?" Fulgrim asked.

"No," Ferrus said. "it's still solid."

Jaghatai's impatience got the better of him, and he reached out to carefully lift the lid of the box. It was completely full of what looked like cards, with some dividers spaced out at what appeared to be random points. The Primarchs looked at them with curiosity before Fulgrim reached in and pulled one out.

"Dry spell?" Fulgrim asked, one eyebrow rising. 

"What else does it say?" Magnus asked.

"Dry spell deals 1 damage to each creature and player," Fulgrim read. "Some kind of game?"

"Possibly?" Magnus said, very unsure. "The back of the card says "Magic the Gathering."

"Weird," Horus said. "Wonder what that means."

"I just hope it's not Jumanji," Sanguinius said.

"I don't think so," Horus said. "Magnus?"

"Nothing psychic," Magnus said. "Other than Father's echo, but they are his."

"So are these all the same card?" Angron asked. 

"No," Ferrus said. "I think the dividers mark where different things are." He had pulled out a card that was called a swamp. It just had a picture of something that could almost look like a mushroom, or a skull.

"Ooh, that's cool art," Mortarion said, pointing to the card Ferrus had pulled out.

"Father has an awful lot of dry spells," Fulgrim said, looking through the section he had pulled the card from. "Wonder why?"

"We'll have to ask him," Horus said. "Are all of these boxes more of these cards?"

"Let's find out," Perturabo said. The servitor emptied out the first box and everyone started investigating the cards. Fulgrim almost instantly bemoaning the lack of purple colored cards.

"Well, there's blue and red cards," Ferrus said. "Those combine to make purple."

"It's not the same," Fulgrim said. "But you do have a point."

"We're not sure if that's allowed," Angron said.

"It is," Roboute said, holding up a card that was printed as both blue and red he had just found.

"See, purple's possible," Ferrus said. 

"It doesn't look like purple though," Fulgrim said, but he was grinning.

"Hey, Konrad! I found your card," Corvus said, holding up a card called evil twin.

"I think we both spend too much time in the shadows to be called the good twin," Konrad countered. Alpharius giggled at the exchange, making sure to tell Omegon about it later.

"Guys! This one's full of dragon themed cards!" Vulkan called over. 

"Nice!" Corvus said. "That's your box."

"Wolves and werewolves!" Leman said excitedly. "And I found cat people for Lion."

"Hm, maybe vampires?" Konrad said finding several. "Oh! Syr Konrad the Grim. That's a good one."

"You could be Syr Konrad the Grime," Fulgrim muttered.

"I thought I was the grimy one?" Mortarion asked, giving Fulgrim a patently false look of innocence.

An alarm cut through the chatter and Horus pulled out the timer device connected to the vocorder he had used earlier. "We have to go, or we'll be late for dinner."

"What about the cards?" Sanguinius asked, there was an impressive tableau of cards spread out around the Primarchs.

"Let's put them back as close to how we found them, then have the servitor load the containers up again."

*************************

"How was Landing Party?" the Emperor asked as they settled down to dinner. "Find anything interesting?"

"We found these crates full of card boxes," Horus said. "The cards said they were something called Magic the Gathering?"

"How many of those crates did you find?" the Emperor asked.

"Three crates filled with boxes," Perturabo said.

"It was so densely packed my auspex couldn't tell what was inside," Ferrus added.

"There should have been a fourth one," the Emperor mused. "But only half-full of card boxes. I'll have to see what happened to it."

"What was it?" Magnus asked.

"A game," the Emperor said. "It's got similarities to Dungeons and Dragons, but a very different format."

"Was it made by the same people?" Magnus asked.

"Not directly the same creators," the Emperor said. "But the same company did both."

"That's cool!" Magnus said.

"Why so many dry spells?" Fulgrim asked. The Emperor pulled a face at that. 

"It's a pretty bad card, but very common," the Emperor said. 

"What's in the fourth box?" Vulkan asked.

"My decks for one," the Emperor said. "And my collection of rare cards."

"Rare cards?" Roboute asked.

"Yes," the Emperor said. "They printed cards with varying frequency. Typically this was based on how powerful they thought the card was and what they felt the value of the card should be from a meta standpoint. Rares of course were the hardest ones to find and could be very valuable."

"Could we make decks to play against each other?" Rogal asked.

"Ooh! We could do a tournament thing," Perturabo said.

"Well, I'll need to teach you all the game first," the Emperor said. "But perhaps we can."

"Awesome!" the Primarchs chorused.

*************************

Malcador was the first to notice the Emperor's distraction. Valdor didn't catch on until the noonday recess. The two shared a glance before Malcador decided to ask about it.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Malcador asked.

"The Primarchs found my Magic collection," the Emperor said.

"Magic?" Valdor asked, sounding concerned.

"A game," the Emperor assured him. "Not arcanoi."

"I see," Valdor said doubtfully. I will research this "Magic" he thought to himself.

"My sons are interested in learning the game," the Emperor said. "They also suggested making a tournament of it."

"Room for one more?" Malcador asked. "I wouldn't mind playing, I can teach myself."

"Hmm," the Emperor said. "I was planning on staying out to act as judge for rules questions and what not."

"Ah," Malcador said. "Valdor, would you care to join as well? Keep us at an even number?"

"I believe I can do that," Valdor said.

*************************

"Don't forget to rotate the card, Leman," the Emperor said. "It's important to know if it's effect has been used."

"Yes, Allfather," Leman said, rotating his land card so it was now sideways. The Emperor had explained that this was called "tapping". 

The Primarchs were learning to play with some of the decks the Emperor had made. They had found the box with his decks and rares in a different part of the storage silo. He wanted them to have experience with completed decks before turning them loose on his collection. Malcador and Valdor were reporting their own research was going well, and would also need access to the Emperor's collection to make their own decks.

"I like this mill concept," Konrad mused. He was determined to make a deck that included the Syr Konrad the Grim card, it was just too appropriate for him. Many of the Primarchs were thinking of making decks out of fun things that were close to either themselves or their legions.

"I don't," Mortarion grumbled. He was Konrad's opponent, and didn't like seeing his powerful cards get tossed in the discard before he could use them. "Unless I'm playing dredge."

"Even dredge isn't enough against a good mill deck," the Emperor warned. "But it does mitigate some aspects."

"Fair," Mortarion said. He had been excited to find out there was poison in the game and it made a quick way of winning.

The Lion and Leman were playing against each other. So far they had proven themselves to be excellent at finding even match ups and were trading wins. The Emperor was happy that it didn't involve actual fighting and they had found a good way to compete against each other.

"Thanks for helping me shuffle," Ferrus said as Fulgrim shuffled his deck after he had done a search effect. Ferrus's hands were too smooth to shuffle properly, an unexpected problem he hadn't been expecting. 

Perturabo and Ferrus were working to make three shuffling devices. First for Ferrus so he didn't have to rely on his opponent or the Emperor to shuffle. Second for Angron, who was able to shuffle, but too violent for the Emperor to trust him. The third was for Valdor. He had tried to learn, even going so far as having Malcador try to teach him. However, there was no escaping that his hands were just too large to make it work.

"Heyyyy!" Angron whined as he lost again to Magnus.

"What?" Magnus asked. "You just need a fast deck."

"Are there fast decks?" Angron asked.

"Of course there are," the Emperor said. He intended to encourage Angron towards what he referred to as an "aggro" deck. This would include making sure he found the card called raging goblin. He was certain Angron would like it.

"When can we make our own decks?" Rogal asked.

"Soon," the Emperor said. "I want you to try various decks so you know what kind you want to make."

*************************

"Oh, this is a lot more cards than we looked at during Landing Party," Magnus said, seeming in awe of it.

"I call the defenders!" Rogal called. 

"Remember, you need a way to attack as well," the Emperor said.

"Yes, Father," Rogal said. He was still determined to have as many defenders as he could reasonably get because he liked the concept. 

"I call blue!" Magnus said. He wanted to go for spell-slinging.

"Leave some for the rest of us," Roboute said. He had chosen based on factions that existed in the game, which included one that governed a central realm. There were several others who wanted to use blue as part of their decks. 

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," Lorgar said. He had found a card he really wanted to build a deck around, but was still debating if he was making a mono-color deck or splashing another color in.

"What about Malcador and Valdor?" Fulgrim asked as he worked out what he wanted to do.

"We've been making a catalogue of Father's collection," Ferrus said. "They'll get a copy, then request cards from Father."

"Oh, that's a good idea," Fulgrim said. "Keeps it efficient."

"Except for us messing up Father's organization," Roboute said.

"That implies I had these organized beyond some basic things like color," the Emperor said. "It's a lot of cards."

"Is that why I just found more dry spells?" Konrad asked.

"So did I," Lorgar said. They were both looking through black cards.

"I thought I had all of those in one place," the Emperor groaned. "They're like Easter grass, or confetti."

"Or Monopoly money?" Corvus asked. The Emperor chuckled at that.

*************************

Malcador and Valdor received their catalogues on data slates a few days later. They would request cards and the Emperor would deliver them packets of cards. Valdor's were somewhat curious, but he let it slide. Valdor was insistent that he was researching the game on his own, and teaching himself.

"You really should play against someone, Constantin," the Emperor said. 

"It's alright," Valdor said. "I'm using the catalogue to come up with other decks to test mine against."

"But can you play like Angron?" Malcador asked. He was well aware that the deck he was making would be considered a very mean one, and was plotting a second one he referred to as his "Angron safe deck".

"I can try," Valdor chuckled. "Possibly badly."

"How much longer do we have?" Malcador asked the Emperor.

"You have some time yet," the Emperor said. "Fulgrim's still working out what he wants his deck to be. So far the winning theme is snakes."

"I'd prefer if he didn't," Malcador grumbled. "But I won't stop him."

"He might not stick with it," the Emperor said. "But it doesn't have too much like what he likes to do."

"There's duelists," Valdor suggested. "They might be a good fit for him."

"Indeed they might," the Emperor said. Then he remembered that while there were duelists, they weren't necessarily enough. However, there was a way out of this, some of the more complex and interesting duelist cards were also faerie cards and that lent more options.

*************************

"What about faeries?" the Emperor suggested to a frustrated Fulgrim that evening.

"Maybe?" Fulgrim said. "Is there an Oberon card?"

"I don't think so," the Emperor said. "Or, not an official one at least."

"Darn," Fulgrim said, but giggled. "I'll see what I can find."

Fulgrim went off to find faerie cards, and the Emperor turned back to finding cards for Valdor. 

"What kind of deck is he making?" Ferrus asked.

"Valdor?" the Emperor asked. "Some kind of exalted deck."

"Exalted?" Lorgar asked, perking up at the word.

"It's a rule giving bonuses for attacking with a single creature," the Emperor explained. "Only clerics are anything like religious in the setting."

"And the demons," Lorgar said. He was enjoying looking at the art for all the demons.

"Yes, those too," the Emperor said. 

*************************

Slowly, the decks came together and the date of the tournament was determined. The Emperor had agreed to play against whoever came out the winner. Brackets were going to be a bit of a challenge, but the Emperor mentioned how it was usually three games in a round. This meant that there was at least some way of tracking how everyone was doing.

The Lion was using a cat deck that he was quite proud of. One of the cards had reminded him of a Calibanite Lion, and he had somewhat themed his deck around that. He was also happy that green lands were called forests. He didn't have anything that had the forest walk ability, but he had liked the idea.

Fulgrim's faerie deck was coming along nicely. He felt a bit robbed at not having either Oberon or Titania. There were several versions of Titania, but none of them were faeries, so he wasn't taking them. Mortarion was sort of interested though.

Perturabo's deck had been a bit of an adventure. It started with him finding a card called salvage titan. At first, the card looked horrible, but it got Perturabo's mind engaged. He wanted to find a way to make it at least functional. His initial idea was to fill the deck with free artifacts, then some cards to fish for the salvage titan and just get it out as fast as possible. The Emperor suggested that he also use some cheap artifacts that spawned with counters, and moved those counters to another artifact when they died.

Jaghatai had found cards themed like the population of Chogoris, and the rest was history for him. Leman had gone for werewolves to absolutely no one's surprise. He had also decided to use only snowy lands, and was trying to fit red into his deck if at all possible so he could have snowy mountains.

Rogal had found ways to attack even with his creatures being primarily defenders. The Emperor was quite proud of how that deck had come together. He was interested to see how it would do against Perturabo's deck as they had avoided play-testing their decks against each other. 

Konrad had in fact gone for Syr Konrad the Grim, and was building a sort of mill deck around it. He was also fascinated by some of the more gruesome card art. This didn't surprise the Emperor, but he didn't exactly want to encourage it either. Sanguinius had an angel deck which everyone found amusing.

Ferrus was also going for artifacts, but was using them differently than Perturabo and his salvage titan. The Emperor mused that this was more like how artifacts were meant to be used as a deck, but Perturabo's would be interesting to watch. Angron had loved the raging goblin card and quickly went for an aggressive deck.

Roboute's deck had quickly been dubbed the bureaucracy deck. It both annoyed and secretly amused him. Mortarion had found infect which was, as he termed it, a better form of poison. Magnus was quite proud of his deck, and excited to show it off to Malcador.

Horus had decided to go for allies, which sparked a bit of debate between the Emperor and Fulgrim. The way the deck work required all five colors, and the Emperor had said that was called a rainbow deck.  Fulgrim had objected to the term because white wasn't a color on the rainbow since they were caused by the refraction of white light. He maintained that it should just be called a five color deck, keeping it in line with other multicolor decks just being referred to by the number.

"Besides, even a single color deck is just called a mono deck," Fulgrim said as a final argument.

"But rainbow's fun to say," Horus objected. Omegon nodded agreement.

"I guess," Fulgrim said.

Lorgar had his deck centered around the shadowborn apostle card, and demons. The Emperor was beginning to worry what he was going to do about Lorgar's infatuation with religion. Vulkan had spent a long time going through the, admittedly quite sizeable, dragon collection. Finally he settled on red and green as his colors of focus.

"Why those two?" Corvus asked.

"Red lands are mountains,"Vulkan said. "That goes with the terrain of Nocturne, also the mana itself looks like fire."

"Always a draw," Corvus giggled.

"Naturally," Vulkan said with a grin. "And green for Salamanders."

"Nice," Corvus said. His own deck was leaning towards rogues, he was also trying to blend in ravens. Konrad had pointed out the raven man card, and Corvus was still thinking about it.

Alpharius and Omegon had had several long discussions about what their deck would be. Alpharius had already been chosen to be the one to participate in the tournament. A good-natured argument had broken out the first night about which one of them was the "evil twin". Eventually it was decided that slivers were the best play style for them, which lead to another rainbow deck.

Several of the Primarchs tried to get the Emperor to tell them about the deck he was going to use as the final round. However, none had been successful, the Emperor wanted it to be a surprise fight for whoever got there. The Primarchs had already figured out the themes for both Malcador and Valdor, but not the exact decks. Konrad was hoping to get the chance to pit his deck against Malcador's.

"Maybe one of your games will be a draw," Mortarion said. "That would be funny."

"How would that affect the tournament rankings?" Konrad asked.

"That game would be discarded," the Emperor answered.

"It's not likely to happen though," Sanguinius said. "One or the other is likely to be faster."

*************************

Finally, the day of the tournament arrived. The Emperor had set up a meeting room so they had enough room for all the tables that they would need to play. 

"How are we going to determine opponents?" Magnus asked. He was also interested in playing against Malcador. 

"I'll have the pairings up shortly," the Emperor said. He was still working out who was going to play against who. After awhile, he got the last pairings set up, and hoped Malcador would forgive him.

Everyone settled in across from their opponents, and started shuffling. Except for Valdor who set a card to the side before going to add the rest of his deck to the red painted shuffling machine.

"What are you doing?" Malcador asked. "You need to pay for that."

"It's my commander," Valdor said. "Aren't you going to pull yours out?"

"Commander?" Malcador asked.

"Commander was the most popular form of Magic for a long time," Valdor said. The Emperor, having caught the conversation came over.

"We aren't playing commander though," the Emperor said. "Just regular 'kitchen table' Magic."

"Oh," Valdor said. "I made a commander deck, though."

"Didn't you wonder why I provided four cards?" the Emperor asked.

"Choices," Valdor said. He had enjoyed looking at the different card arts and picking the one he liked the best.

"I know I sent you at least one play set that was identical," the Emperor said.

"Those were harder," Valdor admitted. He had done a lot of careful assessments to select the one card he was putting in the deck.

"And what happened with the other three?" the Emperor asked.

"I kept them all," Valdor said. "I was under the impression we were returning all the cards after the tournament."

"Well, I guess you're running a singleton deck," the Emperor said. "Put Rafiq of the Many back in your deck and shuffle again."

"This might get interesting," Malcador said. 

+Be nice, Malcador,+ the Emperor sent. Malcador gave a snort at that. 

"I wasn't expecting to be matched up against you," Perturabo said as he sat across from Horus.

"Maybe Father's trying to shake up the pairings," Horus said. He hadn't really expected to go against Perturabo either, at least not round one. 

"Possibly?" Perturabo said. He had expected to face Rogal. There were going to be five rounds, so he figured there would be time for that match up.

"May the best man win," Fulgrim said as he and Ferrus waited for Ferrus' card shuffler to finish it's cycle.

"You're on," Ferrus said.

"This is going to be fun," Leman said to Magnus.

"Each round will consist of three games," the Emperor announced. "Best two out of three is the winner."

"Alright," Angron said to Rogal. They determined who was taking first turn by revealing a card from their deck and whoever had the highest mana cost went first.

"Ready, Vulkan?" Konrad asked, giving a toothy smile.

"Ready to beat you," Vulkan said with a smile of his own.

The Emperor paced around the room, watching as the matches got going. He wanted to be on hand for the rules questions he knew were going to happen. He had tried to make sure the Primarchs knew all the rules and how they interacted, but there were a lot. 

"Go," the Lion said after playing a forest. His hand wasn't spectacular, but it had good cards he wanted for later.

"Looks like turn one will be exciting for me as well," Corvus said as he also played a forest.

The first game of round one went fairly smoothly, with the exception of the match between Valdor and Malcador. 

"Is our friendship going to survive this?" Malcador asked as they watched Valdor's deck get shuffled.

"That depends," Valdor said. "How many turns are you going to give me this time."

"Oh, so we can put a concrete number on our friendship?" Malcador asked, one eyebrow raising in a joking manner.

"That's not what I meant," Valdor grumbled, Malcador chuckled.

"How about three turns this game and four the next?" Malcador asked.

"Four this game and five the next," Valdor countered, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Hard bargainer," Malcador groused. "Deal."

"Thanks," Valdor chuckled. "Maybe I'll have a comeback."

"Possibly," Malcador said.

*************************

Valdor did not make a comeback. In fact it was more of a challenge for Malcador to give Valdor the promised number of turns each game. The Emperor declared a bit of a break to allow both Valdor and Ferrus to level out. Fulgrim had totally defeated Ferrus and it caused a lot of frustration. 

"I'm sorry," Fulgrim said, trying to apologize for how hard he had beaten Ferrus.

"I don't want you to be sorry," Ferrus said. He felt bad about being angry at Fulgrim, but he had really wanted to win. 

"Round two pairings are up!" the Emperor announced after the break. He had paired Valdor and Ferrus to let them vent against each other. Though tempting, he chose to not pit Malcador against Fulgrim. Instead Konrad was going against Malcador.

"Let's get this going," Perturabo said to Rogal. The Emperor was having fun watching the matches and figuring out when he could put the rivals against each other. It had helped him that Perturabo and Rogal had both lost in the first round.

"Hm, not a match up I was expecting," Mortarion said as he watched Roboute carefully count how many times he shuffled.

"It makes sense though," Roboute said. He had been paying attention to Mortarion's match against Alpharius and was working out ways to get ahead of Mortarion's poison deck.

"It's not a mill deck, right?" Valdor asked as Ferrus took the first turn.

"Artifacts," Ferrus said. "No mill, and not even Konrad's deck does mill like Malcador's."

"Good," Valdor said. Maybe I can get a win in. 

Round two seemed to go faster, though the Emperor was sure that was related to them getting the game down better. He enjoyed watching them all play. Vulkan was arguing slightly with Magnus about an interaction, but they resolved the issue before the Emperor got there. 

Lion lost to Angron in round two. He felt it was a step back from his round one win over Corvus. Angron for his part was doing really well and excited about it. Fulgrim's elf deck wasn't quite able to stand up to Alpharius' slivers. Corvus was making a comeback, beating Jaghatai who had lost to Sanguinius round one. Leman lost hard to Horus. 

Konrad's deck, while versatile, wasn't able to withstand Malcador's mill deck. Sanguinius and Lorgar seemed close in the first game, but Sanguinius pulled out the win. Valdor, looking less annoyed, still lost completely to Ferrus. He admitted that it helped that Ferrus had lost so badly earlier, so it gave Fulgrim some relief.

"Besides, there's three more rounds," Valdor said while they waited for the last games to finish. "Statistically I should get a win in here somewhere."

"Statistically, someone does have to lose every game," Ferrus said doubtfully. "And you are making good headway on that."

"We'll have to play and find out," Roboute said. They were at neighboring tables.

"Indeed," Mortarion said. "Who's still going?" 

"Perturabo and Rogal," Valdor said. "I'm not sure which one of them is dragging it out."

"Both," Roboute said.

"Definitely both," Mortarion agreed. "Hey! Hurry it up you two."

"You want them to go faster?" Angron asked.

"I can get bored too," Mortarion countered.

"Let's go support them," Sanguinius suggested.

"Cheerleading?" Leman asked. He wanted to cheer himself up after his loss.

"Yeah, that's a great idea," the Lion said. He'd at least won one of his three games against Angron, but lost the other two. "Like at a tourney." 

"Hah!" Rogal called out as he beat Perturabo to win the round.

*************************

Round three started to get a bit weird as there was an uneven number of undefeated players. The Emperor solved this by borrowing someone from the players with losses in their records. Konrad was the lucky one to get in with that, paired against Sanguinius. Horus faced off against Alpharius, and Malcador was paired with Angron.

"What are you doing?" Angron asked as Malcador pulled out another deck box. 

"My back up deck," Malcador said. "Meant to be 'Angron safe'."

Angron made a pouty face. "You don't have to change decks, I can handle going against your mill deck."

"You swear?" Malcador asked. He didn't relish the idea of having Angron's anger turned on him.

"I swear," Angron said with confidence.

"Alright, we get to fight," Leman said excitedly to the Lion.

"And I'm going to win," the Lion said.

"No you're not," Leman retorted.

"Are we all getting unexpected match ups?" Fulgrim asked as Rogal joined him. 

"Maybe?" Rogal said. 

Valdor looked hopefully at Jaghatai, but was beginning to be concerned he wasn't going to win any of his games. Jaghatai was actually pretty good at the game, but had had some deck issues and match up problems. 

Magnus was pushing hard to get a win against Roboute. He wanted to play against Malcador, but knew that at this point it'd have to be because he was on loan in the next round. That wouldn't happen if he didn't get a win here. Roboute had figured it out to, but wasn't willing to just give Magnus the win.

"Well, lets see what happens," Ferrus said. He was happy to get the wins against Valdor, but also paradoxically felt bad about it. Valdor's deck was clearly not properly functional to compete against the others. Mortarion was his opponent this time, and he was curious to try his hand against the poison deck. 

Mortarion, for his part was actually disappointed in how his deck was doing. Poison was clearly supposed to be a strong play style as it gave an additional win condition that was even faster than normal. However, both Alpharius' slivers, and Roboute's counter deck had done numbers on him. 

"See? That wasn't so bad," Angron said as he beat Malcador in their first game. 

"But we still have two games to go," Malcador said. He had gotten a good sense of Angron's deck and was certain he had a way of countering it.  The trick would be doing it in a way that didn't get Angron spectacularly angry.

"I can take it," Angron said. "I'm going all the way."

"Possibly," Malcador said. "But you have to get past me first."

"Ha!" the Lion said as he won his first game against Leman. 

"As Malcador said, this is only the first game," Leman said.

*************************

The rest of the round didn't go as planned for either the Lion or Angron. Angron did keep his word about not flipping the table or doing anything violent against Malcador for his two losses. The Lion just pouted while Leman crowed victory.

Magnus got what he wanted as he had beaten Roboute and got paired against Malcador for the fourth round. Sanguinius was going against Horus, and it had the looks of being a very intense match. 

Lion was looking to try and beat up on Konrad to vent having lost so badly to Leman in the third game of the round. Konrad thought he was ready for it, but was also contemplating giving the Lion a game. 

"Hope you're ready for me," Angron said. "I'm not making any promises with you about not getting angry."

"You don't have to," Leman said. "I beat Lion fair and square. I can take you down."

"Malcador already did that," Roboute said. 

"Roboute's right," Fulgrim said. "You should probably be nice."

"Maybe," Leman grumbled. The Emperor gave him a long look. "I'll behave, Allfather."

"Good," the Emperor said. 

"Maybe I'll actually get my deck to fire this time," Perturabo said as Valdor's deck shuffled.

"Possibly," Valdor said. Perturabo was one of the only ones who had lost every round like Valdor had.

*************************

Horus beat Sanguinius, and Malcador beat Magnus. Magnus didn't mind, but Horus felt bad about beating Sanguinius. 

"But why?" Sanguinius asked. "I thought you wanted to face Father?"

"I do," Horus said. "But I'm keeping you from facing him."

"You know we don't have to stop after the tournament," Malcador said. "It could become part of game night."

"Oh, that's a great idea!" Magnus said.

"I believe that if I fix my deck, it would be an interesting thing to join," Valdor said. "I read that it could be played more than just head to head like we are doing here."

"That's an interesting idea," Rogal said. 

"Gives more way to do things," Perturabo said. "Or at least more people to use as shields."

"Of course you'd think of us as shields," Fulgrim grumbled. 

"Hey, we're opponents," Perturabo said to Fulgrim as the Emperor put the rest of the pairings up. The more interesting match was the Malcador vs Horus match up.

"Hey, I was hoping we could go against each other," Jaghatai said to Magnus.

"I'm not going to go easy on you," Angron warned Sanguinius.

"That's fine," he said.

"I'd be happy to win even one game," Valdor said. 

"I could give you one," Konrad suggested.

"No," Valdor said. "It should be from my own merit and ability."

"That makes sense," Konrad said.  He hadn't really wanted to throw a game anyway. 

"I think this is going to be my favorite match up," Corvus said as Vulkan sat across from him. 

The final round began, and Valdor tried to drag it out as long as possible. He really wanted to find a possible way to get a win in. The Emperor wandered over, to look at what Valdor had to work with. He saw something promising in Valdor's hand.

+Clone Ser Konrad,+ the Emperor suggested. +Get some of your life gain going and you can at least give Konrad some of what he's been doing to the others.+

+Thank you,+ Valdor sent. Konrad watched the Emperor carefully, but decided to not act on any visions. 

"Maybe this is your game," Konrad said, then drew a card. "Or not."

*************************

Valdor didn't win that first game, but did win the last of his games in the tournament. 

"Ha!" he said as he punched one hand in the air. "I finally won----"

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" Horus' scream of dismay cut across Valdor's victory cry.

"Hey!" Ferrus said hotly. He didn't think it was fair to do that to Valdor. Fulgrim stopped him.

"He's mad about losing to Malcador," Fulgrim said. "I don't even think he's aware that Valdor won."

"Oh," Ferrus said, deflating.

"Malcador is the winner," the Emperor said. "Now, you have to face me."

"I think I'm ready for that," Malcador said.

*************************

There was a pause as everyone packed the other tables away, and set up the extra chairs to watch. Then they sat across from each other, each borrowing one of the available card shufflers to avoid any accusations of stacking the decks.

"Who are we rooting for?" Vulkan asked Corvus.

"Father?" Corvus suggested. 

"I like that idea," the Lion said, Corvus had dragged him over as well.

"I'm going for Uncle Malcador," Magnus said.

"Not at all surprised you're rooting for him," Leman said.

Finally the decks were ready. Malcador got the first turn, and played an island. The Emperor took his turn and played a scrubland.

"Real exciting opening," Alpharius said.

"But pretty standard," Roboute said. 

The Emperor and Malcador traded turns without too much going on. It was clear that the Emperor was setting up several complex ways of winning. Or one technical way of winning with multiple paths to get there. 

Malcador, for his part, was trying to run the Emperor out of deck as fast as possible, and doing a decent job. He didn't think it would be fast enough. Not with the way the Emperor was piling on counters on his one Angel of Destiny card. 

"That's a lot of counters," Sanguinius said with some concern. The Emperor had several things piled up on what was called "the stack" that would collapse, and probably trigger some form of game end. Then he swung with Angel of Destiny. It didn't kill Malcador, but the Emperor cast a card called Essence Harvest to collapse the stack.

"You've lost, Mal," the Emperor said. "There's nothing you can do."

"Oh?" Malcador asked, then tapped the two islands he had specifically kept available. "Each player draws two cards."

The Emperor froze, he only had one card in his deck, a copy of Angel of Destiny that Malcador had moved from his graveyard to the bottom of his deck. It had ended up being the only card after Tunnel Vision had made him mill until he found that card. He had been decked.

"Ha!" Malcador said.

+I have words for you, but I can't say them because my sons are present,+ the Emperor sent.

+Something to look forward to later,+ Malcador replied.

"That was great!" Magnus said.

"I liked it," Konrad said. "How long did you have that Vision Skein?"

"It was one of my early draws," Malcador said. 

"Nice," Mortarion said.

"We should pack up," Valdor said. "And perhaps someone can assist me in fixing my deck at some point."

"Yes, we do need to pack up," the Emperor said. They were going to need the room back for other purposes before long.

*************************

"So, what did you all think?" the Emperor asked the next day.

"It was fun!" Horus said. "We can still play sometime?" 

"Of course we can," the Emperor said.

"I was really enjoying it," Roboute agreed. "There's lots of different strategies to try."

"And the card art is varied and fun," Fulgrim said.

"Though possibly don't want to do just artifacts," Ferrus said. He was already thinking of ways to improve his deck.

"Who's going to help Valdor?" Sanguinius asked. 

"I can," Rogal offered. "I think defenders are similar to the exalted strategy that he was going with."

"And you're interested in exalted yourself," Perturabo accused.

"A little bit," Rogal said. "Something wrong with that?"

"No," Perturabo said with a smile.