Teach Yourself EDH in Three Weeks

    Time for another fun combo (and by fun I mean disgusting). Linvala, Keeper of Silence + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Kormus Bell. All lands are also swamps. All swamps are also 1/1 black creatures. Linvala says your opponents can't use activated abilities on creatures, i.e. can't tap their swamp creatures for mana.

    If there's anything we learned from today's games, it's don't forget your pot holderz. Enchantment lockdown is scary. Today we played one five player free for all and one teams 3v3 (Marvel style!). It was interesting to watch people's mentality in the free for all game. Kanji was the only player running poison and while he could've easily rushed down one person, he played it quite evenly. No one wants to be that person picked on in an FFA - in the team game there were no hard feelings because you knew who your opponents were. Unfortunately, I feel that the reason why the free for all took so long was because everyone was going quite easy on each other. Quite a few graveyard shenanigans too. Maybe some graveyard hate is in order. After playing, all I could think about was how to improve my deck. To think that originally I planned out seven different decks, but right now I really want this one to flourish before I move onto another. I guess another factor is - do I want a number of crappy budget decks or one solid deck? The nice part about having more than one deck is that it makes it harder for others to meta against you. After all, once you reveal which general you're playing, no one can change their deck. A bunch of us, myself included, made a bunch of mistakes that could have easily been prevented had we been paying attention to what was going on the field. For example, no one realized an enchantment that G owned had been destroyed, but we continued to play as if it was still in play. Sometimes we messed up with what our own cards did and sometimes we realize that we could have taken an opponent out had we played correctly. I guess it all comes with practice and figuring out all the options your deck has in any situation.

Negative Playing Experience

    Take a look at this combo. Sharuum the Hegemon + Sculpting Steel + Disciple of the Vault. With Sharuum as your general, Sculpting Steel and Disciple of the Vault aren't too hard to find with tutors and card draw. With Sharuum in play, play Sculpting Steel copying Sharuum. The legendary rule goes off and they both die, followed by the copied Sharuum's come into play effect, choosing to bring Sharuum into play. Guess what you target with that Sharuum? This infinite loop goes off while Disciple of the Vault slowly but surely kills off all of your opponents. Disgusting. Sure it will win you the game, but was it worth it? The reason I thought of bringing this up was because Richard mentioned that his deck might be underpowered compared to the rest of ours. Now, in a casual format with nothing to gain - creating an NPE deck isn't necessary. Of course, an overpowered deck won't always win and will probably become the main target in a multiplayer game. When Beard and I were creating decks I told him, "Don't hold back on making your deck dirty, I think I'm going to do the same." When we finally got around to playing, it was all a matter of if our deck could go off or not. I'll never forget having to draw, discard and say go seven or so times in a row. I created this group for the sake of us all having fun. If someone isn't having the greatest time with their deck, helping to improve their deck will probably work better than having to tone yours down.

    I've seen some sick combos, for example from Kanji's deck: Worship + Near-Death Experience. QUICKLY BEARD, PACK AN ANARCHY. But seriously, your deck should be able to deal with types of cards (enchantments, artifacts etc), not specific cards. I do want to encourage randomized team play, so even if your deck doesn't have all the answers, your partner can help out. You've also got someone to watch your back if you're playing a scary general. One of the main reasons why I didn't want to include sideboards was because we'd probably mix up the partners after a team game. It would also mean that people who had a sideboard would most likely be running wish cards to fetch from their sideboard. I don't want everyone to have to get wish cards and make a sideboard in order to keep up with those who have that advantage.

    In closing, I have somethings to bring up and would like to hear some feedback. Would you contribute to a pot in the future? Let's say six of us show up for a 3v3; we each buy a pack and members on the winning team get two packs each. It would mean that people will try to make their decks better so they have a better chance of winning. Which I'm not against, however, I don't want anyone to be left behind and would really like to see that everyone has a decent chance with their deck beforehand. How often can you come for EDH? I had originally wanted to set this up weekly. I understand not everyone can attend every week, but I think it would be nice that there is the option to drop by weekly. In closing, here's a turn one win with two cards: Game of Chaos + Black Lotus (and a lot of luck).

Welcome to the World of EDH Fighter 3

    Greetings and welcome to a mini blog for EDH (aka Commander) in Etobicoke. First of all, I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors as I am quite tired while writing this. Magic the Gathering is one of those games (*cough*Diablo 2*cough*) that I keep quitting, only to find myself coming back to it a year or two later. I was doing quite well staying away from MtG until I was introduced to a highly entertaining format called Elder Dragon Highlander. My girlfriend's brother taught me how and proceeded to destroy me with his own decks. Granted, I was playing with his as well but it's just not the same. EDH opened up all new creative possibilities in deck creation and I just had to make my own. I won't explain EDH as I feel that the majority of people reading this blog will be friends already familiar with it. I would like to create a small community in Etobicoke (at a minimum) to start playing. That's not to say that there aren't people already playing, I just have to find them that's all. My friends and I have gotten into the format using the following generals:

Azusa by yours truly
Hanna by G
Konda by Richard
Rakdos by Beard
Saffi by Kanji
RG Wort by Matt

    While generals are interchangeable - colours aren't. That's not to say that people won't be switching up their decks and such, right now it will be interesting to see where this goes. I haven't seen the Wort, Konda or Hanna decks. Konda doesn't look like he gives too much to offer, however, being indestructible and having bushido 5 make it a hard creature to get rid of. I don't think the Wort deck is goblin themed. Maybe just a nasty burn fork deck? Enchantments with recursion can be very scary to deal with. I would hate to go up against a deck running Propaganda, Ghostly Prison AND Windborn Muse.

    Maybe a hundred MWS solitaire and test games later, I finally received my deck in the mail. Around 1AM at a Perkins restaurant, I challenged Beard to a game. Naturally, playing in person was infinitely times more fun than through the PC. Where getting land-screwed can be frustrating on MWS, I couldn't help but laugh at waiting at least seven turns for a land to drop (that'll teach me to keep a good hand waiting on one forest). Knowing when to mulligan is something I need work on. One on one was fun and quite straight-forward, but I'm really looking forward to playing multiplayer. Preferably teams with an even amount of players on each team. I could go into a lot of detail on the mentality of free for all multiplayer games in my experience, but that could probably take a blog post of its own. It will be interesting to see how games turn out. Will one person's deck dominate? Will people have to change their deck to fight the meta? Will we get an even number of players? Stay tuned.