I tried Hatebears and home made pizza tonight, and one of them was really good.
I played vintage white weenie for years. It was my thing, which is to say that I was kinda an idiot. I ran Pump-Knights, Null Rod, Mother of Runes, Wasteland, Armageddon, and splashed blue for Time Walk, Ancestral, and Psionic Blast to finish... so basically that deck sucked. But I tried for years to make that pet deck work. I lost to blue decks. A lot.
So it was pretty great when I won game 1 tonight, totally destroying the mana base of Kari's Gush/Mentor Deck... Gush protects you from Wasteland? Please... don't make me laugh. 3 Wastes, 2 Phyrexian Revokers, 1 Thalia, 1 Spirit of the Labyrinth, 1 Vyrn Wingmare later... I was getting that malevolent, nostalgic, righteous feeling. Like when you hear that the kid who bullied you all through elementary school just got caught embezzling money or something... aww... that's really too bad.
So that was sweet. But then I was rudely reminded that Kari's actually good at this, and so is her deck. She's also has had an actual sideboard against Fishy decks since before we played in the Team Serious Open.
She has two mainboard Swords already, and has a Bolt in the side as well as cleverly (her idea not mine) boarding in "meat" against hatebears. In come 3 Containment Priests, and 1 Aegis of the Gods. A meat shield. Those were big problems for me. They stalled me out in Game 2 and she landed a Mentor eventually and I couldn't beat it.
Game three was pretty interesting to me actually, though I lost and it took about 3 minutes in total. I lead on Gitaxian Probe and see that I'm about to die. Kari is holding - Mentor, Lotus, Mox Emerald, Tundra, Preordain, Preordain... So that's a good hand. I'm holding - Thalia, Null Rod, Misstep, Vyrn Wingmare, Plains, Plains, and no longer held the Probe which was resolving...
So as I was leaning that I was about to wash dishes, it dawned on me that Gitaxian Probe is really nice in Hatebears for this reason. Now at least if I drew a Mox I would know to play Null Rod immediately, and I would very likely win the game. On the other hand, if you hypothetically replaced the Probe in my opening hand with a Mox, absent the look at Kari's hand, I would certainly just play Thalia, the thing I always play if I can against an unknown hand. And after her first turn I would be facing her board of Land, Mox, Mentor and be awaiting the creation of tokens off the Preordains... I would lose. It seems like much of Hatebear is just playing the critical hate right away on turn one. If you hit the thing that beats their hand, you probably win. If they get out and can start squirming around your hate, you probably lose. A peak at their hand seems very valuable.
So probe resolves, I draw a card hoping for mana, see a meager Plains (careful what you wish for). Then I scoop and go clean the baking sheet that Kari used to make the pizza on. She makes it on Nan Bread, which is really light and good. Not a lot of dishes tonight... so a good night to test Hatebears. What should I test next?