Everyone, I bid you welcome to the third enstallment of the mortal combat fest we all know as Ironman Magic. It seems Grub the Goblin Hero was not able to put together enough pennies for us to pay our rent for the Portal Plains. However, we met this really strange old lady that let us use the Sorrow's Path today in exchange for Grub's sock full of quarters--what a stupid wrinkley! She wants a filthy sock with pieces of metal when she could have charged us $0.05 like that Icatian Priest was going to for the Plains. She would have made more money that way.

It's been a while since the first two Ironman Magic events. For those of you newcomers to Ironman, I'll explain what it is. Cards and characters from Magic fight to the death for various titles. Since cards destroying each other are actually destroying each other, its called Ironman. R.I.P. is the term for cards lost in these battles (you know "rip" like "ripped up" as in real ironman Magic games). The original battles took place on the land card Arena, but it got destroyed by a few messed up fights.

In celebration of the third Ironman Magic event, all the fights will take place as special three-way duels. There are plenty of cards out there who would love to do some group killing known as Chaos Magic. The main event today will be a fight to see who can win the title of "Weakest 2/2 Creature in Magic." The contenders for this battle will be Grub, Pearled Unicorn, and Scathe Zombies. The Bears and Raging Bull were not able to make it as they were busy playing football. The sole Balduvian Horde member that survived the attack from the Force of Will has volunteered to become the new referee for Ironman.

The first battle is beginning so you better take your seet and get ready for a total slaughter!

Lions and tigers and bears...and even Jackal puppies roam the worlds of Magic. Out of all of these, the lions have always proven to be king of the speed weenies. From the non-plainswalking Savannah Lion, to the very thirsty Mtenda Lion, to the far reaches of Portal where you can find the insane Jungle Lion, these kitties know how to do some damage really quickly. Let's hope the quickest comes out of the fight with its fur intact.

PHASE 1: The three cats all line up in a row, facing the main portion of the audience seats, and begin to prance in unison.

PHASE 2: The Balduvian referee attempts to figure out if this is legal in Ironman by pulling out his special edition of Oracle. It says nothing about lining up and prancing, but...

PHASE 3: The cats begin to meow and moan, making what seem to be musical sounds. Suddenly, the theme from "Cats" can be recognized as what they're singing with their little kitty meows.

PHASE 4: "Shut yer arses up, you filthy Yankie cats!" shouts the Balduvian referee, remembering what bad music can do to those unprepared. He pulls out a very large cattle prod and begins to give them a special Scottish/Balduvian Highlands version of electroshock therapy.

PHASE 5: The cats continue singing, even doing the exact dance routine from the more famous parts of "Cats" every time they are poked with the prod. The referee finally gives in to temptation, "Looks like I'm goin' to have to teach ye filthy Yanks a lesson, now." He pulls out a very large shotgun from his hair and blows away the poor cats, one by one.

PHASE 6: Suddenly, as the last lion falls to the ground, Bravheart death scene music begins to play. Recognizing this, the referee realizes what he's just done and shouts, "No! I just shot me own kinsmen! How could I!? I blew away three of the best performing Scottish kits this world has ever seen!" As the smell of the blood combined with the smell of the smoke from the shotgun go up into the referee's noostrils, he suddenly gets an idea. "Oh, ye shall not die in vain, oh kinsmen! I'll make haggiss out of ye!"

WINNER: None, but maybe the haggiss pot. [Note: Mmmm...haggiss, builds a body good]

The powerful and confusing Rock Hydra has been itself horribly replaced over the years. Are its counters heads or are they +1/+1's...or both??? Well, the Balduvian was able to make up its mind, so Rock just has to kick its sorry @$$ for showing off. The Rock also hates being in the same family as the weaking Spitter that spits and has that head fall dead from hacking up a big loogie! Talk about your atomic loogies...enough to kill a dragon head that spits it! Anyway, they all want to take each other out to make the survivor the most favored Hydra in Magic.

PHASE 1: As the Balduvian referee begins to cook the lions into a nice smelling pot of haggiss, the hydras prepare. They all hiss at each other, knowing that the winner will get to lick the spoon from the haggiss pot. This along with the title is enough reason for them all to rip each other apart. However, they just sit looking at each other and hissing.

PHASE 2: The clever Rock gets an idea and says in its very serpentine voice, "Hey Ssssspitter, itssss my disssscard phasssse. Your turn isssss coming up after mine!" The Spitter is just so used to being used during the discard phase before its owner's turn. As a reflex action, and probably future PT winning play, the Spitter makes a really annoying sound from its throat (the sound of gathering flem to spit up) and then hacks away!

PHASE 3: Loogies here! Loogies there! Loogies everywhere (and even some in the haggiss, which will spice it up just nicely). Before the Spitter knows it, its hacked its own brains up from all four heads for loogie supply. Empty-throated as well as empty-headed, the Spitter falls dead. Meanwhile, the Balduvian hydra puts heads in the way to make sure its pathertic 0/1 body its not wiped out by the masses of flem headed its way. The Rock gets slapped around a bit by the giant loogies, but manages to eat enough of the Sorrow's Path dirt to gain some red mana and prevent the loss of heads.

PHASE 4: After the storm of flying green mucus, the Rock announces to its weaker cousin, "Looksss like itssss jussssst you and me, coussssssin." The Badie hydra charges forth, knowing it will most likely get destroyed by any verbal trick the Rock will pull if it waits around. There is a mass of twisted snake heads and a large cloud of smoke as their chaotic fight ensues.

PHASE 5: Sadly, the hydras are not able to kill each other off. Instead, their heads get tangled and they are forced to sit there and wait while come helpful Cub Scouts come to the rescue to untie the knots.

WINNER: Troop 187 from Trokair, Icatia

The Demonic Tutor's credentials go way back to when a Dominarian College Diploma actually meant something. Nowadays, he's got all this young blood taking the fame from him. Vampiric may be faster, but his teaching methods are so bad they hurt you in life. The Enlightened Wrinkley used to be Demoic's old girlfriend back when they were in High School with Bob Dole. Now the three of these ultimate tutors fight to the death to prove who has the best teaching style.

PHASE 1: If you've read the past Ironmans, then you'll know that the Demonic Tutor is famous for clobbering old people over the head with his book. However, Wrinkley lady from Enlightened has prepared for this by wearing her special biking helmet. Meanwhile, the Vampiric tutor shows his student how to carve letters into his arm with a knife.

PHASE 2: Demonic wastes no time in going after his ex-girlfriend. He lifts his book in the air and begins to slam it downward upon her poor little noggin. Right before the book connects, though, the Wrinkley slams her foot directly into the Demoic Tutors...um, well she kicked him in the family jewels, okay! A strange weezing noise comes from the Demonic, and he falls down incapacitated.

PHASE 3: Wrinkley turns to Vampiric, who is still demonstrating the finer points of arm name carving. Then she notices something about the look on the Vampiric's face--he seems to be feeling no pain at all, and there is a little white bottle in his lower cloak pocket. She shouts, "Why you little hooligan! You stole my pain killers! How dare you steal an old lady's asprin to make sure you can do your hippie carving and body piercing! I'll teach you a thing or two!"

PHASE 4: The Wrinkley reaches for the Vampiric's ear lobe, but he breaks away from his carving lesson in time to avoid the little old lady's fingers. He then growls in retort, trying to scare her. "Your Elvish and Rock and Roll tomfoolery won't work here, mister! I'll still get you!" She grabs again at the ear lobes, and misses again. The Vampiric just stands there smiling with a "Rebel Without a Cause" t-shirt on.

PHASE 5: "Why you rebel! Wearing that blasphemous movie's merchandise!" shouts thw Wrinkley. She gets so mad she accidentally summons up a Karma spell that instantly kills the bad-karma Vampiric and his student. Now she turns to the Demonic, which has gotten a metal walker in order to move about after the um...war injury to the private sector.

PHASE 6: The Demonic comes up with an idea as the Wrinkley rushes forward. He points out his large book on the ground and says, "Oh look, I dropped my favorite book. I wish there were a nice, considerate person who would pick it up for me, a poor cripled old monster." The ploy works, and the old lady bends over to pick up the book for the Demonic.

PHASE 7: Demonic slams the Wrinkley over the head with his walker, knocking her to the ground, helpless. As the wrinkley awakens seconds later to the Demonic ready to give the killing blow she says, "Help me. I've fallen and I can't--" The Demonic interrupts with, "And because you kicked a old monster in the jewels you won't ever be getting up again." He finishes her with the walker, then falls to the ground, unable to get up without his little metal device.

WINNER: Crippled Demonic Tutor

Grub the goblin just will not stop until every useless 2/2 creature is dead. The other two creatures still haven't been warned as to what is about to happen. They were duped into coming here because they heard there would be free Exodus packs at this fight. Poor ignorant fools...

PHASE 1: Immediately as the fight begins, the Zombie mutters, "Where's my Exodus?" The Unicorn whinnies about the best words it can to the same effect. Grub just laughs hysterically while putting the final polishing strokes to his dagger. He seems to be in a daze of insanity, laughing and looking to his knife, the opponents, his knife, his opponents, and over again while laughing and random parts of his face twitch.

PHASE 2: Both the Unicorn and the Zombie look around for their Exodus. The Unicorn whinnies (Translates to: "I need a mate, get me that darned pack so I can have the Pegasus Stampede card. Oh girls, girls, girls everywhere!") The Zombie spits out a few maggots, moans a bit, then mutters "I want Oath of Ghouls. I want it now!" Still twitching, Grub just sits laughing, lookig around, and seeming more and more crazy by the second.

PHASE 3: The Zombie comes over to Grub, "Hey man, where's my Exodus?" Grub looks at the undead beast with a very bloodshot and twitching eye, then just slashes at it with his knife. Grub finally says, "Heh, heh, heh...cool! Yeah, yeah, cool! Heh, um, dead zombie cool! Dead 2/2 horsie cool too!" After shouting whatever it was he just said, Grub walks over to the Unicorn. The horse whinnies ("You aren't going to castrate me with that thing, are you?"). Grub understands the horse talk and says, "Heh, heh, castrate. Cool. Die!" He takes out the Unicorn instantly.

PHASE 4: Sadly, Grub does not realize that he's just won the main event and is now the weakest 2/2 ever. He just keeps twitching and saying, "Dead. Cool. Heh, heh. All 2/2's must die! That was too easy! Must find bears, and bulls, and knights, and Volrath Lab tokens, and Phantom Warriors, and..." Grub keeps going on and on, obviously having gone insane.

WINNER: Grub the Goblin Hero

As the two eat all the corn and turn to me again, a loud radio playing the Armageddon sound track can be heard, and in walks Bruce Willis right from his role on the movie. "Hello boys and girls," he says, "I'd like to say personally that I'd be happy to choke these two chickens. You two little pecker heads deserve to get your butt whupped for picking on a great Dominaria Worldwide passtime as Ironman Arena. I just saved Earth from a freakin rock, and now I'm going to have to save Dominaria from some stupid-@$$ed UnGlued cards.

The chickens cluck (You're on, baldie! Now we'll get revenge for that really sick joke you told in "The Last Boy Scout" and we'll never have to see Die Hard 30!"). Bruce smiles at their little cocky challenge, and the three walk into the Sorrow's Path arena.

PHASE 1: Bruce begins by saying, "Yippie k--" The referee interrupts, "Ah, Mr. Willis, watch ye language. There be women and wee babes around ye know! Now don't go quoting ye movies because they just have too much cursing now boy." Bruce accepts, and readies a cat puppet on his hand.

PHASE 2: "Oh no" shouts the King in actual English. "You aren't going to tell the joke! We'll peck your legs off before we let you even use that stupid joke again!" The too chickens charge.

PHASE 3: Bruce makes a voice for the puppet, "Hey Bruce, why did Mr. Milo cross the road?" Bruce is about the continue the joke, but the chickens rushed him too fast. He is forced to use a concealed gun inside the cat puppet to blow away the king.

PHASE 4: The king laughs as he makes his last clucks in the world. He pulls a large leather satchel from under his wing and pours the contents onto the ground. To the amazement of the whole audience, thousands of tiny dice come pouring out--all rigged to have 6 as their side of landing. The king laughs as all the dice turn to the side of 6.

PHASE 5: The only chicken left alive is the Free Range, which suddenly grows to enourmous proportions. "Holy sh*t," says that ill-mouthed Bruce Willis, "That big fat mother f***er is the size of Texas!" He looks at the puppet, and waits a while as the Free Range finishes growing.

PHASE 6: Bruce clicks a little button on the cat puppet's head that resembles a nuclear launch button. The jumps up the chicken's giant leg and burrows into the feathers of the beast. As an explosion sound can be heard coming from inside the feathers, Bruce leaps out of the feathery beast and watches as the big clucker is fried by the hidden nuke inside the puppet's head. Large chicken nuggets and giblets rain from the sky everywhere. A huge piece of fried chicken breast lands right on the haggiss pot and knocks it over, much to the anger of the referee. As Bruce walks away he says, "Nobody can beat the Hudson Hawk. I'm gonna go play some Nintendo now. And by the way, does anybody want to know why the chicken let Mr Milo cross the road that way?..."

WINNER: Bruce Willis

PHASE 1: The referee has Braveheart music playing, while Grub has Wierd Al music playing. The two sounds clash and destroy each other. Now the arena is filled only with the sounds of people munchng away at mountains of chicken meat. Also, very peculiarly, the loin cloth Grub is wearing is blowing in the wind...but there is no wind at Sorrow's Path.

PHASE 2: Grub throws his favorite knife to the ground, and smiles as now the few hairs on his head begin to blow around a bit. The referee pulls out his clan sword and charges with full force. He strikes directly at Grub's neck, which does not give under the highly sharpened Scot/Bald blade.

PHASE 3: A piece of giant ribbon suddenly hits the ref in the face as he wonders what went wrong. He looks towards the ribbon to discover that its connected to a fan...a giant fan...one that is blowing directly on Grub.

PHASE 4: Grub snickers, "That's right. I blew some of the counters onto myself from the chicken right before it got nuked. Now that its nothing but a giant barbeque, you have no hope of getting the counters.

PHASE 5: The ref tries to run, but Grub catches up with incredible speed. It seems that he's stolen an Agility spell from somewhere. Grub announces, "I have so many counters on me I could get rid of you with just a flick of my finger. But, I'll get you with my new sock full of quarters." The ref runs.

PHASE 6: Grub catches him, raises a large coin-filled sock, and quotes the spell he stole somewhere, "Inhale..." he fsmacks the ref with the sock, "...kill..." he listens to the cheers of his fans, "...exhale."

WINNER: Grub, again.

Mad Dog welcomes any feedback you have about this or other Mad Dog Rants. He'll look over any suggestions you have for upcoming Ironman Magic fights. Don't be scared, as long as you don't smell like fresh Homelands cards he shouldn't bite. He'll nibble off a few fingers, but he won't bite. You can contact him at madcanine@yahoo.com or you can yell "MAD DOG!" at the top of your lungs while holding an open can of beans to the wind. If he doesn't come running to your neighborhood from the yelling and beans method, you better just try e-mailing him.