LSV Energy Drink (Local Newsagents) [by @NLi10]

Crossover is important. It's when two worlds collide and interests momentarily line up in a way that enables me to bore the snackfood community with tales of gaming or my holiday snaps. In this case I managed to find a cheap (35p) energy drink (think RedBull) with the initials used to indicate one of the most famous Magic The Gathering Players ever LSV - Luis Scott-Vargas. I'm guessing it was named as such as V is a bit similar to D and they could hint at narcotic connotations without being banned. As I tend to take a drink with me to our local Friday Night Magic (an evening of games where you play for fun and tiny prizes) I figured I'd take it along and see what happened. For the one MTG player reading I played a Tempered Steel Myr deck (using my Ascension deck protectors :D ).
I remembered to drink the drink as play was underway in my first match - as with all this was a best of three. The flavour was slightly weaker than a typical RedBull, but it was surprisingly smooth & nice. Having been addicted to RedBull back in the days of 199X where you had to take your own into a bar if you wanted to use it as a mixer it was surprising to find a budget drink that was so close to the real thing. I presumed it'd have only minor invigoration effects, but didn't immediately become hyperactive. I lost this game 2-0.
I finished the drink through the next round (another 2-0 loss) and could have happily started on my 2nd can - I'm not sure where that ended up though. Maybe it's for the best that it's missing. I had no aftertaste, no jitters and was concentrating quite well but suffering due to bad match-ups. The third round was closer, but I made a few wrong plays and lost 2-0 again. Due to an uneven number of players I got a bye in the last round and technically got a 'win' for that putting me 12th out of 13.
As I began to play some side games with friends I'd gotten more used to the deck and won four fairly easy games with the same deck. Such is magic. Maybe the drink was kicking in though as while I was tired I was alert. I returned home at 11 to find the cat had made a mess. I tidied this up with some grumbles and thought I'd pop onto the Xbox for a bit. I chatted to fellow snack reviewer HiImRy for a bit and then he went to bed. I carried on playing for a while and then the TV told me that it was thinking of turning itself off after 3 hours of no buttons being pressed. It was 4am. It hadn't been my intention to stay up this late so I finished the section of Deus Ex I was on (4:30) went upstairs and checked my e-mail (5) and then went to bed (5:30). I could have happily stayed up longer, but I knew I had things to do the following day.
Chatting to people at work it seems that LSV is becoming a popular alternative to RedBull. I tend to drink neither these days but do support the F1 team (Go Mark!) but still feel that this 35p alternative to the real thing is just as effective. In the interests of sanity I'm not willing to do a comparison with a genuine Red Bull next week. Besides - I have something far more devilish to take to FNM next week...

By NLi10