This was it, the big day. Timothy, David, and I had all qualified for Redemption Nationals and had gotten special permission from our parents and the youth pastor to skip church and play. If we won, we would earn $500 cash and the right to take home the Crown of Thorns trophy for a whole year. We had scrubbed out hard last year, but this year Timothy said he had a ‘secret weapon’ from his uncle. He wouldn’t tell us what it was until we got to the convention center. David showed up at 7:05, 5 minutes late. He already had Timothy with him and they were driving his mom’s minivan, which was awesome because David’s Honda Accord didn’t have air conditioning and the windows don’t roll down anymore. I tried to get Timothy to tell us about the secret weapon but he just laughed and patted his backpack.

We got to the venue a little early, and Tim took a little ziploc bag out of his backpack. “These will kick our game into high gear for sure!”
“Are those Adderall?” David asked.
“No way man, even better. These are mushrooms!”
“I don’t know if we should play on mushrooms, won’t that make us see demons and stuff?” I said.
“Do you guys want to lose the first three rounds again? My Uncle says that part of the Bible was written on Mushrooms, these will get us closer to God, how can we lose?”
I looked at David and he nodded. We all took some of the dried up mushrooms and swallowed them with some Mountain Thunder sodas, then headed in.

Registration was really busy. We lined up and handed in our deck sheets. David and Tim were sticking with their Lion’s Den/Bathsheba combo decks but I had used my Christmas money to buy all the cards for the Whore of Babylon control deck. My deck took more time to get going, but it had a better matchup against most of the field, especially against the Solomon’s Temple beatdown decks that were the most common budget build for casuals. We went and sat at one of the tables. Tim kept patting his backpack and winking at us but I didn’t really notice anything from the mushrooms yet.

Round One

I got paired against Honesty. I had met her before because she was in my cousin’s home school group. I tried to be friendly but she was all business, shuffling her deck and drawing her opening hand without even cracking a smile. By the second turn it was obvious she had opted for the Solomon’s Temple deck and once I got my third Wise Man onto the table with his Gift For The King of the Jews she didn’t have any outs and signed the match slip.

At this point I was starting to think Timothy had just tricked us into eating some shiitake mushrooms or something to screw with us, which would be typical him. I couldn’t accuse him because he was still in game, so I just found David and we waited for pairings for the next round.

Round Two

My opponent for round two was a little kid named Titus. He couldn’t be terrible because he had to at least win a qualifier to get here, but he was also on Solomon’s Temple and the Wise Men did their thing again. The lights in the venue were getting really bright by the time we finished and I almost forgot to sign the match slip but Titus was really nice about reminding me. I ate a granola bar and it tasted awesome.

I found Timothy and asked him if the mushrooms were real Revelations mushrooms and he just laughed at me like a robot would laugh, so I laughed too. David also won his round so we were all doing great. We needed to get 4-1 or better to top 8.

Round Three

I ended up getting paired against an adult man named Michael. I think he might have been the Archangel Michael. I asked him if he liked mushrooms and he said no, so I didn’t tell him about my special advantage. He asked if I liked mushrooms and I told him I wasn’t sure yet but I should know soon, and we started playing. He was playing a deck I hadn’t seen before that used Judas Iscariot to tutor for 30 pieces of silver but I don’t think he ever drew Wicked Bribery to spend the silver on and the Whore of Babylon took over the game, clearing a path for my good guys to rescue all of the lost souls. After the game I went to buy a Gatorade and he flew back to Heaven since he was out of the running for top eight.

David was reading the pairings to himself out loud, he got through them a couple times before the next round was posted.

Round Four

My opponent and I got randomly selected for a deck check. While we were waiting for our decks to come back, I asked him if he knew what the book of Revelation was written on. He asked if I meant an island and I nodded. That was right. That was exactly right. An Island. The Apostles came back and said my opponents deck was illegal because he was using an altered copy of Whore of Babylon that had been painted on to make it look like she was Misty from Pokemon in a swimming suit. After talking to the Head Apostle they decided the modesty guidelines for events also applied to cards so he lost the game and had to replace the card. That was good for me, since if my opponent lost that meant I won. I could draw the next round and get into the top 8, but I couldn’t draw a swimsuit on any of my cards. I later found out this was extra lucky because my opponent’s deck was built to maximize Son of God and there would have been nothing I could do.

David lost his match but Timothy was also undefeated. We shared some potato chips. David told us that the apostle Peter was the smallest person in the Bible, because he slept on his watch, but Timothy said that size isn’t real and we’re exactly as big as we think we are. I said sleeping on a watch sounded uncomfortable and then the pairings for the last round went up. I was matched against Timothy so we intentionally drew so we could spectate David.

Round Five

David was paired against Michael, who I played in round three. I guess he hadn’t flown away after all. I told David to be careful because his opponent was an archangel, which Michael thought was funny but David said all his opponents had been angels today and he wasn’t worried. They both shuffled up and the game was over extremely quickly. It took almost an hour but I didn’t notice most of it, since time is illusory. David managed to win, so we were all in top eight!

After round five, David, Timothy, and I all went to Chic-fil-A to celebrate our great run. When we got there, the parking lot was empty and all the lights turned off. We huddled together, trying to understand what was happening. Had we sinned against God? Were we being punished for the mushrooms? After a few minutes of fearful whispering, Timothy remembered that Chic-fil-A is closed on Sunday so we went to Subway and bought all the big cookies.

Quarterfinals

We all finished the little baggy of mushrooms before the top eight started. We didn’t want to lose our connection with the divine when we needed it the most. We had bad luck though, I was paired against Tim. We asked the Apostles if he could concede since my deck was better equipped to handle the other players, but they said we should put the decisions in God’s hands and play it out. Tim got a rough starting hand and I had the turn one Empty Tomb to lock down his Roman Centurions while I drew into the Wise Men combo. He was also relying on Lot to be his main attacker, but I don’t run Lot’s Wife so I could defend against it easily.

David lost his match against a guy I had sat next to in round two, Abraham. We would be seeing him again later. This suddenly meant I was the only one left playing from our Church, so I needed to really bring my best. David, Tim, and I all went to the men’s room and we prayed for the mushrooms to kick in extra hard, in Jesus name.

Semifinals

It was Honesty again, my opponent from round one! She was a lot more cheerful now, and she told me she had bet her brother she would win prizes so even if she lost now she still wouldn’t have to do dishes for a month or vacuum. I asked her if she liked mushrooms and she said yeah, but only on Pizza. I hadn’t even thought about putting them on pizza, we would have to try that for the next tournament. Her deck didn’t do any better against mine than it had the first time, so I stacked up a bunch of souls fast. We shook hands and she wished me good luck. I told her God had given me something better than luck and she just gave me a thumbs up.

I forgot to get out of my seat because I was thinking about what music looks like, so the judge came and collected the slip and then David and Timothy got me for the Finals.

Finals

My finals opponent was Abraham, who I’d sat next to earlier and who had beaten David in the quarters. I knew he was playing True Conviction, which is normally a bad matchup for me. But when we sat next to each other, I’d heard him tell his opponent that his mom was Jewish and she wouldn’t let him use cards from the New Testament. That meant he wouldn’t have Apostle Paul or The Seven Seals in his deck and so he wouldn’t be able to counter The Whore of Babylon when I drew it. We went back and forth for a few turns, I played out the Wise Men but he used Pharaohs Hard Heart to stop me from playing the Gifts To the King Of the Jews so they didn’t do much. He tried to attack with Samson, Strongest of Prophets but he couldn’t get through The Temptation Of Christ to do damage. Eventually I drew the Whore and he couldn’t do anything to stop me, and three turns later I was the champion!