Rayje Fails To Swim

Today I played two games against 420Taco. They mentioned a lack of wins, so I look through my decks for something that has decent strength but I can “throw” the game without being too obvious—I hope. I opt to go with my interchange deck. Rayje goes first for 420Taco. They choose defense. Not what I would have expected. Usually you draw with the first and then add the other effects later. With a simple opening turn of Staff of Hyren and Monarch Hyren, I am not too impressed. At this point, I am thinking it will take patience to throw this game. O'qua starts with Submerge and Orthean Belt, so when I pulled a second Submerge in the opening hand, I thought I would put a lot of resources into one Abaquist which O'qua would summon with her power. I took the single hyren. Not exactly a move for throwing the game, but I was so severely tempted by the rare occurance. Apparently her power confused my opponent a bit, so the game was a little slow for that. When they would use Hyren's Call with Rayje to get an Iceberg Hyren, I chose not to call them on that. I just simply changed plans. Instead of kindly throwing the game, I would try and win. O'qua would summon a Giant Parathin using her power and interchange away. Shaper's Apprentice then used Crushing Surf to eliminate the Iceberg Hyren and take the staff. This wouldn't immediately spell doom for Rayje, but it wasn't something he would survive easily either. When Rayje's would continue to play non-Universal spells and creatures without penalty, I just simply witnessed it and went on. It didn't save Rayje, or the next Rayje. Now, the next Rayje would use Beam of Light on my Orthean Belt and Deep Barl. Deep Barl had six, so I refused that. So, Rayje would use a Tidal Wave as well to just get rid of it. With Monarch Hyren rounding out the turn, I smiled to myself and used Undertow on the single creature. Now this would've finished off Rayje, except the regional penalty had been skipped again. On their next turn, Rayje would use Hyren's Call to summon a Night Hyren. With a Baloo Root and Arderial's Crown also played, I was thinking that I wasn't dealing with a very skilled player. Another Undertow would finish off this Rayje and 420Taco would concede the game.

After the game, I tried to tell 420Taco that Regional Penalties and Restrictions isn't exactly universal in its application to Universal as a region. Non-Universal might avoid them for playing Universal, but not so for the Universal Magi when playing non-Universal. I can only hope that this sinks in eventually.