The Twelfth Day of Fishmas

Paul Destroys the Universe

All right guys and gals, it's the final day. Everything has been building to this. We've even added ANOTHER commentator to the mix since today is very special to him. What we have here is a multimedia explosion. I only mention it because it's literally the first time I've gotten to use that phrase for serious.

Uglyraincoat: Next Year’s Only Hit Single.

dethtron:  So the story goes something like this:  back many moons ago (like 2003, I think) Uglyrainoat hosted a LAN party at his house.  This back at the dawn of time when LAN parties were de rigueur and all the rage.  Anyhow, the kids all wanted to play some FPS that my computer couldn’t run.  Seems I couldn’t hang with the big dogs if the big dogs wanted to play anything more complicated than say “Worms World Party.”  If memory serves, my graphics card was at fault and there wasn’t a way to remedy the situation- the 24 hour graphics card store had yet to be invented.

Doing what any person in this situation would do, I told everyone to go ahead without me and proceeded to figure out how the tunable speech synthesizer worked on my sequencer software.  An hour and a half later “Paul Destroys the Universe” was born and the rest is history.

Uglyraincoat: What really happened was this.  I knew dethtron and Laub, and they knew a thousand other people.  I invited their extended friend network over for a LAN party at my house.  Someone taped themselves to another person, and lauby narrowly missed throwing a fire-cracker onto whoever it was who fell asleep on the couch on my front porch when he rolled back in for day 2.  Dethtron was ostensibly “updating” his computer, or so he said, and it didn’t become clear until hour 30 that he was making music rather than actually getting his computer to run the game.  Or maybe my perception was warped by the steady hours of constant doom and carnage being wrought on the digiverse for our pleasure.  In any case, the moral of the story is that dethtron is crafty and doesn’t like to get shot.

dethtron:  not sure where you’re getting that 30 hours from.  If you’ll actually recall correctly, you’ll remember that the whole song was written in less than an hour.  That’s why everyone was so confused by it.  And also why it sounds so crappy.

Lauby:  No, what really happened is this...  Naw.  I’m just kidding.  This isn’t Rashomon or anything.  The other guys pretty much covered it. BUT, the icing on the cake was that the game (Battlefield: Vietnam) we were all playing (except Dethtron) had this radio feature where you could drop song files into a game folder and then hear them in game when you were in vehicles.  After a while, the original track made into everyone’s folder and hearing the song though other player's radios became the norm. Paul was everywhere at all times.  Frightening, really.

Paul:  What I remember from that LAN:  the duct tape fiasco, broken glass, being jealous of someone’s LCD DESKTOP MONITOR ZOMG! and oh yes, destroying the universe.  To be fair, the universe had it coming.

dethtron:  if ever there were something that had it coming it’d be the universe.

Pauldestroystheuniverse by dethtron

dethtron:  clearly this is not just an amped up “Wrath of God.”  There’s so much more going on here.

Lauby:  At least a few cards have come up earlier in this series with phrases like “favorite art” or “most fun to make”.  Those were lies.  This card trumps all others.  But it wouldn’t do to just keep mentioning day 12 over and over again.  Chisel and NERV were fine cards, but they are no PDtU.

Uglyraincoat: I think it is because of the laser eyes.  

Paul:  I can claim some credit to the art.  The [crappy] original was done as art for my website which mostly was host to a private message board on which we all kind of cut our internet teeth and “socially networked” amongst ourselves, before that was a thing.  The website as a whole was tacky by both design and ability.  I popped together the proto-piece of lightning hands and lazer eyes to oversee the page on which I hoisted the PDtU tracks for all the world to behold.  Thankfully, Lauby took the concept to a better place.

dethtron:  fast forward a few years after the original “Paul Destroys the Universe” was written, but not so far forward as the creation of Fishmas the Gathering, and I decided that the original song didn’t really do Paul justice as it was, well... pretty crappy.  So out of the blue and for no obvious reason, I decided to remix the track in three distinct and shitty ways.

Lauby:  Well...  three shitty ways at least  HIYO!  I keed, I keed.  There was a lot genuine mirth generated by these for everyone on the receiving end.  

Paul:  What a great day that was.  Pretty sure I played those on repeat on my mp3 player for several days straight.

Lauby:   Now, all of ‘em are pretty fun, but I contend that they just can’t beat the original.

Uglyraincoat: Can’t stop that beat.  Now move them feet, c’mon. Get up.

Pauldestroystheuniverse(dancemix2005) by dethtron

dethtron:  This is the first of the remixes and still one of my favorite.  It proves just how easy making shitty dance music.  Seriously, there’s a “cutting tool” on my sequencer that makes trance melodies like this just happen.

Uglyraincoat: Tip for parents: this track is great for getting your infant to sleep!
Lauby:  This mix represents everything Technotronic worked so tirelessly to achieve.  The jam has been pumped up.
dethtron:  My one regret is that I didn’t try to break the world’s record for longest snare rush ever.

Pauldestroystheuniverse(shithopmix) by dethtron

dethtron:  this one was fun.  I got to bust out some samples from Lauby’s all time favorite movie and run them through a .wav scratcher.  Best yet, while making the main track pretty much a straight Public Enemy circa 1992 clone, I decided to slow things up for a nice little coda that throws the word “girl” around as much as possible and also involves toe sucking for some

reason.
Lauby:  You’re a monster.  That movie scarred me for life.  The day I finally come across your body, strangely drained of all color and covered in battle wounds is one I have imagined many times.  You’ll go to pass on whatever glowing gewgaw you keep in your chest cavity and then I’ll lean right up to your ear and whisper “ I hate you”.
Uglyraincoat: I thought it was pisshop.  I’m so square.  Also, why haven’t you done a skrillex tie-in.  You know.  For authenticity.  
dethtron:  all I can say in answer to that is fuck dub step.  Seriously, fuck it hard.

Lauby:  wub wub wub wub

Pauldestroystheuniverse(symphonicdethrokmix) by dethtron

dethtron:  proof that my guitar tone generator does not sound anything like a real guitar.  Did get to whip out some wicked hammer-ons and pull-offs in the solo, though.

Lauby:  The fact that you have access to an actual metal band and have not recorded this with real instruments is more than a little questionable.  But you’re the semi-trained paraprofessional so I guess I have to trust you on this one.
Uglyraincoat: This one was on the PDTU ep.  Make sure to request it from all of your favorite local radio stations.  Constantly.  For a month.  Send them links.

Pauldestroystheuniverse (D&D Nation Mix) by dethtron


dethtron: to commemorate the unveiling of this card and song, I decided to remix the original track one last time- this time with live vocals and some new verses.  It’s pretty much a bog standard future pop version of the song, so I hope at least one of you gets the joke.  All the vocals were recorded poorly by me in my pajamas.  I had wanted to get Hoagy from our band Crusader to do the vox, but didn’t have time with the holidays and my work-related near death experience.  

Uglyraincoat: The voice of an angel.  Although, as I’m listening to this, I envision great tie-in potential for our Fishmas The Gathering 8bit Nintendo (tm) game.
dethtron:  voice of an angel my ass.  Wish I could sing in tune better, but alas, I am a drummer.  Also had to super rush this because of almost being crushed at work- in an act that, and nobody believes this, involved scorpions- but not the kind that can rock you like a hurricane.
Paul:  *sniff*  It’s like I just destroyed the universe all over again.
Lauby:  I think this song destroyed my heart.  I’ll never know love again like I do now.
dethtron:  I think I just destroyed 4 non-blondes...lyrics are hard.

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The Eleventh Day of Fishmas

dethtron:  Lauby, I don’t think I can adequately dedicate myself to discussing this card.  Every time I look at your art I lose my shit.

Lauby:  Haha!  This was the pinnacle of my skill with going dumpster diving in Google images.  You know...  now that I think about it, I’m just now noticing the kind of War in Heaven theme we have going on in this set- Jesus, the halo on Billy Ruben, the use of “the last supper” all the ‘damned’ stuff, references to demons and, now,  Satan.  Was all that on purpose?  
dethtron:  I want to say yes.
Uglyraincoat: Idea for next set: Unholy Satanic Furry.
dethtron:  creepiest card idea you’ve ever thrown out.

Lauby:  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this was the card exactly none of us were interested in including in the set.  But we all make compromises for good friends.  Sometimes you compromise on something that’s ultimately valuable - like altering your negative behavior during a game or changing your inadvertently offensive speech patterns.  Other times it’s including a worthless creature in a set of homemade M:tG cards.

dethtron:  fuck walls.
Uglyraincoat: Fuck Wall would be a huge improvement.  

Uglyraincoat: The only problem is remembering that it is in your deck after you do the shot.

Lauby:  Ah yes, Bernie again. It may sound like sarcasm, but that actually happened.  Though putting one of these in your deck could be a neat way to manipulate your library.  Need to know what’s coming up?  Do a shot.  If this was a real card, it’d be in every deck.  Pretty broken now that I think about it.
dethtron:  it’s like the Jitte of Fishmas.  I seriously have to love a version of firebreathing that forces you to drink, though.

dethtron:  So if there is no such thing as whitefish, why is it in fish sticks?

Uglyraincoat: Best use of first strike in the set.
Lauby:  This is probably one of our better idea/execution combos.  It’s nice and aggressive without being OP and it works well with the buffs in our set.  I declare us official “smart guys”.

Lauby:  I actually quite like this card.  Obviously it wasn’t particularly useful given the tendencies of the editions we were designing for, but still.  It’s an interesting take on artifact removal and a nice throwback to the stark, naked illogic of the pre WotC days of Magic.   I think Richard Garfield would be proud. Or at least not not proud.

dethtron:  it’s also a stark throwback to an actual piece of shit reel.  A real reel if you will.
Uglyraincoat: Agreed concerning the ghost of Richard Garfield.  This is a fun card with a great name that reflects reality, but it is too limited.  For one thing, this should have been our answer to Pick em’ up Truck, but it only breaks activated abilities.  Also, it should have been able to catch fish a few times before breaking, because it is the only fishing rod artifact in the deck.  Combine those two things, and you’ve got a winner.  

Uglyraincoat: This card is a testament to my friend’s willingness to indulge my needs, far far after it becomes abundantly clear that they fall outside of the cohesive aesthetic of a joint project.
dethtron:  does the mention of “any graveyard” on this card imply that Zombie Elephant may go apeshit and kill ones own creatures?
Lauby:  Actually, now that you mention it...  I declare this card to be in theme and awesome!  What with IRL elephants and their drinking/rampaging problems.  It’s the perfect fit for a version of M:tG that involves a drinking game sub-mechanic.

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The Tenth Day of Fishmas

Lauby:  This actually would have been a nice land if we tweaked it a bit.  Either add a second mana option or ditch the sacrificial aspect of it I’m thinking  Yes, it’s a totally boring reference to the challenges of fishing in man-made lakes, but in an alternative universe, a card series like this is the kind of thing that could skew an entire metagame.  I declare the alternative universe us’s to be geniuses.

Uglyraincoat: It is for those reasons that this card is more than just a green fishmas knockoff of Alliance’s Kjeldoran Outpost.  
dethtron:  perhaps giving all fish protection from everything could have been a more interesting mechanic for this one.

Uglyraincoat: This could easily have been changed into sunburn counters.

Lauby:  Bah!  You guys and your counters.  Do you even remember how hard it was to keep all the counters we did have on the cards on the windswept promontory we were set up camp?  
dethtron:  then you clearly need heavier counters....and more of them, because Fishmas the Gathering II is going to require enough of them to collapse one of the cots all of our games were played on.

dethtron:  Hey look, more counters.

Uglyraincoat: See Billy Rubin, Master Fisherman and Hank, Fisher of the Damned (edited copy).  That it makes Craw Wurm clones is the genius that holds this otherwise convoluted game mechanic together.  
Lauby: Why does it say “looks like a craw worm”?  That’s just weird.  

dethtron:  So much to say about this card, it probably should have gotten its own post.  I miss tequila Jeff very much.

Uglyraincoat: He is in a better place now.  Mexico.  
Lauby:  Now that I think about it, I think Jeff managed to contain his other, tequila-fueled self once and for all shortly after the debut of this set..  He could teach Bruce Banner a thing or to. Which is not to say that he has nothing to offer the common, non gamma irradiated man. Tequila Jeff once vomited so hard that he lost his watch.

Uglyraincoat: We just simply did not have enough creature kill otherwise.

Lauby:  yeah, this really ties into the fact that we built our cards as replacements to the rares and chase uncommons in the blocks that were current in the time. Since the three of us were the only people with actual collections, there was no way in hell our good stuff was going to make it into the hands of drunks near a fire.  So we needed to add some things back into the mix that we knew wouldn’t be there.
dethtron:  I think this card is really about the futility of war or something.

Uglyraincoat: Because OG Sunshine needed it, and we needed OG Sunshine.
dethtron:  if only there were such a thing as a Rhianna when this card was made.
Lauby:  ugh.  Oh man.  That was bad, man.  real bad.  I feel like there’s a Chris Brown joke to be made here, but I don’t want Chris Brown to punch you. I want to punch you.

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The Ninth Day of Fishmas

Lauby:  Speaking of drunk driving...    

Uglyraincoat: It is funny because it is offensive to a certain group of people’s lifestyle.  [Face palm.]  
Lauby:  What are you talking about? This is a perfectly fine salute to our country’s proud yokel heritage.  It’s pretty much the most powerful card we made and my favorite card to play as a result.  It IS America to me.
dethtron:  AMURICA!!!!!
Uglyraincoat: True, and that guy from across the way who gave us all of his “old beer” is a case in point.  He had just driven in from the Anheuser Busch factory, and insisted that anything with a born-on date older than two days tasted inferior.  (His beers were born that very morning.)  He had somehow achieved being a snooty beer-snob about Budlight.  Plus, he ran his mobile home into a tree, knocking down a branch.  He then drafted our help in a bit of impromptu tree-trimming in the middle of the campground - with chain-saw.  I guess it isn’t worth a face-palm if the joke doesn’t make any of the people it references feel bad.  We were cool with Mike, and Mike was cool with us.  Now, Mike’s wife, on the other hand, was not ok with us because her retired husband had suddenly reverted to beer-swilling, 20-something behavior and wanted to play in our bean bag tournament.  
dethtron:  AMURICA!!!!!

Lauby:  That’s a direct quote from the design process.  This card is the result of the fact that Jesus was an unstoppable monster in playtesting if you get him to stick.  Though why we decided to put Jesus and ALL of the banding cards in the same color is just one of many mysteries about this set that we’ll have to chalk up to heavy drinking or a rushed design timeline.

dethtron:  sounds like how I chalk up most of life’s problems.
Uglyraincoat: And Respeck Knuckles are how you fix those problems.

Lauby:  I’m not going to lie to you fine folks, this staggeringly bizarre card is purely a vehicle for a couple of puns about my last name.  It’s also a bit of a consolation prize for how terrible OG sunshine was.

dethtron:  so it’s not a vehicle to cram more counters into the set?
Lauby:  can’t it be both?
Uglyraincoat: That is the most dangerous laubster I’ve ever laid eyes on.  I love the counter-spell action almost as much as I love chain seafood restaurants.  ``
Lauby:  ouch?

Uglyraincoat: It is funny because it is offensive to a certain group of people’s lifestyle.

dethtron:  goblins are not people.
Uglyraincoat: That is a hurtful thing to say.
Lauby:  You’re the kind of guy who won’t play pokemon because of the animal cruelty implications, aren’t you?  
Uglyraincoat: No way, pokemon is like any other respectable gentleman’s sport, such as cock-fighting or dog-fighting.  

dethtron:  yet another tropical fish added to the set because the native fishes of Illinois are so fucking boring.  Hell even the invasive species of Illinois are boring (with the exception of those crazy ass jumping carp).  Oh no, Zebra mussles.  Everyone run!

Lauby: Sad but true. Speaking of sad, you just pointed out a golden missed opportunity with zebra mussels.  
Uglyraincoat: I think that dethtron has not taken enough responsibility for being our resident fancy-aquarium owner / enthusiast.  Why do we have scat in here without one single example of a giant shark, man-o-war, octopus, or whale?  
dethtron:  and no sharktopus either.  Fuck dethtron, that guy sucks.

Lauby:  you get smelly when you camp for a week and willfully ignore the showers that are mere 200 feet from camp.
Uglyraincoat: I get it; you are detectable when you are smelly, and therefor not sneaky.  The game mechanic is classic blue.  But how is “stench” not an entirely different card and black?  Why a skunk, which is green if anything, and uses its power as a deterrent and not as a marker to make sneaky things visible?  This has my vote for worst design in the set.  Sheer missed opportunity here for a card that is supposed to be about body odor.  
dethtron:  I think the idea here was that we smelled so bad we couldn’t possibly sneak around.  The stench would rat us out.  That’s where the blocking of landwalk comes in.  At the same time though it’s kind of awesome to reek, so as a gift you get to draw a card.  Sounds right at least.
Uglyraincoat: I said I get it.

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The Eighth Day of Fishmas

Lauby:  Here’s a nod to the bane of camper’s everywhere.  The raccoons that hung around out campsite were particularly well fed since even if you’re a classy drunk, you’re still a drunk.  I guess what I’m saying is that properly storing your food is not likely to happen.  And then all your paella and port are gone.

Uglyraincoat:  However, they are extra cuddly in case you forget your pillow.  
dethtron:  judging by the sacrifice ability on this card, those are some bloodthirsty raccoons.

Lauby:  Fun fact, the picture for this card is actually a shot of the production process for the chum we mentioned earlier in the series.  NOW you can be afraid to ask about the back story, dethtron.

Uglyraincoat: We employed the “no shirts” spell in real life, scaring off a huge mobile home from taking the spot next to us.  “This” our naked torsos proudly proclaimed “is what you are choosing if you park your family here.”  
dethtron:  well it’s probably for the best that I wasn’t there that year, then.  My sheer animal sexuality might have brought the mobile home back.
Uglyraincoat:  Animal sexuality, another underused game concept.

Uglyraincoat: How is this Laub’s card?  How did we not do a better job in design, such as including some very convoluted system of sunburn counters?  How?!?  ANSWER ME!!!
Lauby:  Yeah, that’s a really good point.  We could have done so much with this card.  Though on any level, it’s hard to do much when the IRL story you’re trying to create rules for revolves around “gets sunburn ridiculously easy and is fully prepared to look like an idiot to avoid it”.
dethtron:  could have been creature type “Germanic honky” perhaps.

Uglyraincoat: Germanic Honky Wizzard, which counts as a Wizard 

dethtron:  why is this whiskey not made any more?  Willie, lay off the Sensi and get back to putting your name on high quality, affordable hooch.

Lauby:  That was some great hooch. I can actually remember grabbing the last bottle of the stuff at the liquor store - covered in dust and buried behind something else.  If we were doing a competition for ‘most nostalgia represented by a single card”, this would be my pick.  
Uglyraincoat:  I don’t get it.  There are tons of great, cheap whiskeys available that in no way contribute to the vast fortune of Willie Nelson.  
dethtron:  but do those whiskeys come with a piece of bandanna and guitar pick?  No, didn’t think so.

Uglyraincoat: Might I direct your attention to the fact that I saved Laub the burden (and bragging rights) of doing all of the card art by his lonesome?  I win again!

Lauby: the burden thing can’t be overstated.  I was pretty close to drowning in all the work I had to do to get the art ready and even the small things like Uglyraincoat banging out a good representation of our recurring crow problem was a lifeline.
dethtron:  might I direct everyone’s attention to the fact that a clear opportunity for some truly lewd antics was missed in connecting this card’s name to its mechanics.  The peeping ability would have been priceless.  Mind you I have no idea what the peeping ability is, but you can rest assured that it’s fucking priceless because I said so.

Uglyraincoat: Much more impressive than a Pick ‘em up El Camino.
dethtron:  does this card encourage drunk driving?  It’s kind of making me want to jump my car off of some shit while totally housed to be honest.
Lauby:  Hmmm... yeah. This is probably the most irresponsible bit of card design in the set.  And not just because we’re suggesting driving while playing a version of M:tG that relies on drinking, but also because it turns out that on our plane, you can drive two or more trucks at the same.  
dethtron:  I’ve got two feet, don’t I?

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The Seventh Day of Fishmas

dethtron:  even if this has nothing to do with Fishmas, this card with its super convoluted rules will always have a special place in my heart.

Lauby:  Mine too.  It’s not just the fact that we created a card just to justify our use of the banding mechanic, but the fact that we forgot to write ‘legendary’ on the card type.  An amazing fact that we didn’t realize it until there were two Jesuses on the table and we tried to call someone out on it.  
dethtron:  idea for Fishmas the Gathering II- Doppel Jesus!
Uglyraincoat: Jesus Flash Dancing Christ
Lauby:  Jesus II: Jesusment Day, the Final Jesussing
dethtron:  Jesus Tap Dancing Christ II: the Softshoeing

Uglyraincoat: Should be two white and a green.  Nice concept, though.  

dethtron:  my hatred for campfire singalongs will never die.
Lauby:  If only you could use counterspells on actual campfire songs.  
dethtron:  I’d remand the hell out of some sing alongs if I could.

dethtron:  tougher than Dandan yet smaller?  I’m calling shenanigans on that.  All things must be judged by the standard set by Dandan after all.

Lauby:  see, the thing is that Dandan isn’t all that big. He’s actually pretty small.  It’s just the magnification effect of the water.
Uglyraincoat: You’ve blinded me with Science!

Uglyraincoat: Leonard Nimoy narrated this card.

Lauby:  If only the back half of that part of my education was as interesting as this card.  I kid, I kid.  This card is really boring.  
dethtron:  oh, you mean that wasn’t intentional?  …..why are you looking at me like that?  …. put down that knife.

Uglyraincoat:  Mosquitos are nature’s land-lords.

Lauby:   love the use of replicate on this one.  The whole things is a nice little package of theme and function.  Which makes me wonder what the hell happened with some of our other cards.  Did we make a bunch of clever stuff and then phone in the rest?
dethtron:  I pretty much phone it in all day 24/7

Uglyraincoat: I still own, and proudly wear, that shirt also.  
dethtron:  you need to go shopping.
Uglyraincoat: I think that the quote is pretty good, and the art is fun, but it needs a tweak to make it work since it is invoking the card communism (thanks to Laub’s card art and not original card design, mind).  “Look at the top X cards of target library, where X equals the number of Wizards you control.  You may play one of these cards as if it were in your hand.  Place all unplayed cards into their controller’’s graveyard.”  
Lauby:  When it came time to make art for the tribute to a real person cards, I tended to spend a lot more time on things.  It was bromance before that was a word. So the art is pretty rad on this.  It’s the closest I came to bodging something that actually looked like a painting.

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