More limited EDH, of course!

Got together with the boys last Saturday to do some Magic - ended up being a very long five player game with two Limited EDH virgins! Mark and Paddy stopped by to sling some cards with old school Limited EDH homeys Neal and Joel. Neal reworked his Bryon Stoutarm deck using Scion of the Ur-Dragon as his new general. Joel and I had done a little M10 and Zen updating of our Sliver Overlord and Vorosh general decks, respectively. Mark and Paddy made their decks in record time! The collection now includes all expert level expansions (three boosters) from Onslaught forward plus M10 and Chinese-language Odyssey and Torment, and one booster of Unhinged. That's 70 boosters of magic cards to slog through and they did it in just about an hour. Sure, their decks weren't as tuned as they'd like, but they did an awesome job getting the job done so we could play.

Need More Time

To play Magic is like William Shatner talking about climbing a mountain. No, I don't know why.

I am doing another blog, one I was already contemplating before starting Gemstones Mine and one that Gemstones Mine was possibly going to be - a single card a week love-fest. That single-card love-fest is now called The Weekly Fondle. Check it out!

Limited EDH, Take Two!

The other night we experienced part 2 of the Limited EDH experiment. Joel, Tom and I sat down to sling some "dragons" in my basement. Tom was held up at clinic by some ugliness with a patient which gave Joel and I some time to work on his deck. Joel was wondering if he had any good generals. I looked. He had a slew of mono-colored generals and one glaring five-color general - Sliver Legion.

Time for fill in the blank: The first thing we did was check to see how many _______ he had.

Did you say slivers? BZZZZZZZ. Wrong, sliver boy!. This is limited and you're thinking five colors. The correct answer is multiple-color producing lands, land fetch, and color-filtering. So how much did he have? Plenty. An embarrassment, if you will. As in 14-15 lands that could do double duty or more. If I recall correctly, there were three panoramas, two of the Alara shard lands, four or five of the Ravnica common two-fers, an Exotic Orchard, Tendo Ice Bridge, and Murmuring Bosk. He had three snow lands (Mountain, Plains and the dually Tresserhorn Sinks) and an into the north. Kodama's Reach, the Alara enchantment that makes a land a Forest, Plains, and Mountain. There were Three Obelisks, a Darksteel Ingot and five or six Signets.

Then we looked at Slivers. 14 or 15. Not bad. Four changelings and a Mistform critter later and we were above twenty.

When this deck rocked out, it was Impressive. In only two practice games I was once on the wrong end of him casting his general on turn 4! With the mana fixing and acceleration in the deck, I'm guessing that he will be able to do this at least once every four games or so. It's possible that he is too heavy on the artifact mana producers, as he seemed to glut on it in the game we played.

Speaking of the game, here's what I remember. Tom was using a deck that I built from another ULC for my wife, should I get her to be interested (and yeah, I just wanted another excuse to fiddle with my teeny cardboard friends). It uses Momir Vig and Kiyomaro as Joint Chiefs. When I sat down the night before to run Shari through it, she walloped me good and sound. I got off to a faster opening and beat her down to just below twenty life and then she locked me up on the back of Blazing Archon protected by Aerie Mystics with Covert Operative to do the dirty work. I could not draw the kind of removal I needed for such a scenario. Tom started piloting it and then did something I wasn't expecting - he cast Kiyomaro instead of Momir Vig as his primary General. But, really, that wasn't too bad. Slow starts on my part and Joel's meant that a vigilant 7/7 or 8/8 that pumped Tom's life up ten points per shot wasn't too bad. This would later come back to haunt Tom. Cue foreshadowing....

Kiyomaro and a few helpers got us to a life scenario of Tom at 51 and Joel and I at 20 and 24, respectively. Kiyomaro was dealt with and I got a board together that included a Forgotten Ancient carrying a Diviner's Wand, who was also pumped up and faux-vigilanced by a Murkfiend Liege, plus some other random dude and the permanent that was scaring more people than it should have - an Isochron Scepter with a Turn To Mist imprinted on it. Tom then played the spell he said he hadn't seen before - Hallowed Burial. Board was reset. A few creatures hit the board and I finally got a second green to safely cast Mire Boa and have it carry a Wand of Card Drawing Goodness. I also got out a Yavimaya Dryad that helped me get a leg up on Joel and Tom's land count. At least until Tom offed the Dryad, unable to get the main culprit - the Scepter. Tom had a few utility creatures come into play and Joel had a changeling and a Deadshot Minotaur that started wielding a Heartseeker. Tom had raised Joel's ire more, so Joel went after Tom's non-regenerating critters. After he offed several and I wanted to make a move, I Creeped his equipment. Many turns went by as Joel got out Slivers, including his gerneral, while Tom and I sat behind regenerators equipped with Wands, drawing cards and confounding Joel's small, non-evasive Sliver fleet. Witness on Tom's part helped Hallowed Burial hit again and it nailed Joel's general, the Sliver Legion. Ouch.

On the rebound from this reset was when things could have gone either way. Tom and I had dueling Wand-wielders. Joel was getting left in the dust as Tom and I each started drawing two to five cards per turn. Tom seemed to be getting slightly better draws with his, as he got down the Archon, a Cytospawn Shambler and a Wall of Reverence. His life kept climbing and I was desperately trying to fend off his Covert Operative carrying some Opaline Bracers (for three). Joel decided the worst artifact on the table was the bracers, as they would hasten our demise (Joel and I were in the 12 to 14 life range). Tom didn't slow down too much, but started playing out his hand. He then chuckled as he complimented the deck design choice of a card from unhinged: Granny's Payback. Turns out Tom is30 years old. which meant that he went to 89 life. Joel then found a second artifact kill and went after Tom's Wand. Why? Because Tom's life total was huhge andhe had a scarier board presence. Two turns later I finally leveraged all my mana and drew five cards. The next, pretty much deciding turn, went like this: Eyeblight's Ending the Archon, Witness the Ending, End the Wall of Reverence, cast Nulltread Gargantuan to put Witness on top of library, use wand to draw Witness, Witness the End, and End the Shambler. Tom knew it was the end, thenks to the Eternal End engine (E cubed FTW!) I swung with my previously cast and Murkfiend Liege-pumped general. Tom took 8 and Vorosh became a 14/14. Next turn Tom was dead, but spite neck-snapped Vorosh (He had to get going, and it was inevitable at that point). Joel pretty much conceded one turn later, after I drew another four cards with the wand and he had no flying defenses to speak of for when Vorosh came back.

Here's a DUH statement: Card drawing in limited games is good. Tom even suggested banning the Wand because of it's brokenness. However, there were four artifact kill spells cast that game and only one was aimed at a Wand. Granted, Tom was going to aim one at my Scepter (still not my Wand), but I cast a Riptide Replicator for 8 so he dealt with that instead. But he might be right. Because of the Wand, I never made any Factory tokens off Urza's Factory and made very few Pests from the Nuisance Engine. I always filtered extra mana into the Wand for more cards. Good times, man, good times.

The game went rather long, perhaps a shade too long, but I blame Tom and his bottom of the library reset shenanigans. I actually had a Stir the Grave in my opening hand and kept it the entire game because almost all the stuff I lost went to the bottom of the library instead of my graveyard. That and I usually saved my mana for Wand activations. Maybe Tom was right about banning the wand.....

Time to fly,
Rodolfo

"What's the difference between EDH and Vintage?"

"40 cards."

That was in the signature on a post over at MTGSalvation that I recently saw. Kinda funny and kinda sad, really. EDH is going through some growth pains right now. It's risen in popularity over the past few years. Like any alternate format I've seen, it's now undergoing it's transition to a "competitive" format. That's a loaded statement, of course. What do I mean by "competitive?" Simply this: When enough people who care STRICTLY about winning get involved in a format, it gravitates towards a state where it becomes dominated by a handful of viable archetypes comprised of a set of cards that are considered the best available. This is just about the definition of vintage, and it flies in the face of the original intent of those players who developed EDH.

So what? Why does this matter? It really shouldn't I've heard tell that Wizards may be considering using EDH as a sanctioned format and along with that an uproar from the EDH community that doing so would ruin EDH. Huh? How? I know there exist some really brutal EDH decks out there. Some that can lock out opponents within the first few turns. Possibly even the first. Great. But you know what? Those folks are NOT going to be playing with my group, and anyone who tries bringing a deck like that to my kitchen table is going to receive some serious peer pressure to get some personality.

EDH was designed to be fun, yes, but how so? The rules were meant to support the play of big spells, starting with, obviously, the generals. It was also designed with the thought of group play in mind. There is, nor will there ever likely be, a sanctioned format for group play (Two-Headed Giant doesn't count as it's a team format, which I consider different than a group format.) So don't worry about EDH. If Wizards sanctions it, it will be a stripped down version for duels. If they do that, then it really won't be EDH any longer.

One last thing. If you really want to experience EDH in a fun way - try limited EDH. Just read up on the rest of this blog to find out how we've been doing. So far, it's been really fun.

What's the difference between vintage and limited EDH?

Everything.
Rodolfo

From The Mouths Of Babes

I was playing some Magic with a couple of the boys here at school. When boy one was whinging a little about boy two attacking him all the time because of my superior defenses, boy two said "First I'm gonna get out the pancake, then I'll go after the butter." Coolest game slang I have heard in years! Later in the game, as I took out boy number one, I told boy number two that he was now "butter boy." Ah, good times. Leads me to wonder how many spin off expressions there will be:

Who's the butter?
What's your flap, Jack?
It's slathering time!!!!!!!

I could go on, but maybe I'd better not, it could get ugly.

Lates!
Rodolfo

The Afterglow

It has happened. Limited EDH became a reality over the past weekend. Ah, how satisfying. For me, at least. I think Tom and Neal (no Joel) enjoyed themselves as well. I get the feeling, however, that both Tom and Neal have enough other Magic happening on a regular basis to have caused them to not concentrate entirely on the challenge before them. I have nothing else going on - Magic-wise - so I really spent some time, and lots of play testing (goldfishing) my deck, so I learned about it, made a few tweaks, and I think it showed.

The decks were as follows - Tom had a GWB Teneb deck, I had GUB Vorosh, and Neal had RW Brion Stoutarm. Tom rocked us hard at first with a big combo - Panoptic Mirror imprinted with Harmonize. He got one use off thanks to a misplay on my part. Thinking he wouldn't get much use out of the Mirror for a turn, I recklessly played my General with a Putrefy in hand. Instead of two-for-oneing him, he one-for-oned me and one-for-nothinged Neal. Then, my general was dealt with quickly. But, I was drawing mad mana and all star Citanuil Woodreaders for some good card-advantage and another appearance by General Vorosh. Tom soon fell to a big Vorosh and Neal, who was quite mana-hosed, fell soon thereafter.

Game two was much longer. Here's what I remember:

My opening hand was slower, with just one mana accelerant (like that's poor, considering there are four in the deck, total - two signets, coldsteel Heart, and Darksteel Ingot) and a few unspectacular playables. But the first few draws saw an Assault Zeppelid and his best buddy - a Murkfiend Liege. Now my 5/5 trampling, flying, pseudo-vigilant dude terrorized the board for a turn. Then the removal flew. Then Teneb flew, and that was bad. Tom had managed to get a Juniper Order Ranger online and Teneb hit me for 7 and a Murkfiend Liege. Ouch. Thank goodness for Citanuil Woodreaders (all-stars, did I mention???) digging me into a Damnation.

With the board reset we started building again, and I went for my general. Tom saw my general, and raised me with a +1/+1 counter on it, having recurred his Juniper Order Rangers. No sweat. I used Slave of Bolas to swing two generals at Tom and Neal Condemned my general. Ouch. But I had a plan - I Perplexed Neal's Condemn. He had a grip of 5 or 6, so surely he would let it counter. No, he didn't. He traded his hand for the ability to seriously hose my general. Double-ouch, then. I still had a few decent cards out, but I was down to less than twenty life and 7 points away from Teneb harvesting me. Neal had not done a ton, but threatened quite a bit with Brion, Scythe of the Wretched, and any random dude he could swing and fling with. Then he whipped out Martial Coup for 6! Luckily, I had been holding back a little, and had drawn some of my recursion cards (go, Go , GO to the just-as-anticipatedly awesome Soul Manipulation).

Several turns later, a Molder dealt with the scary Scythe and gained me a few life-point cushions. Those cushions disappeared fast and I was at 4 when I finally found the pieces to make my deck hum. These included Golgari Thug, Big Game Hunter, Nantuko Husk, Diviner's Wand, and a suspended Aeon Chronicler (drawing an extra card for less than 4 mana for the next 6 turns). Unfortunately, the deck doesn't hum so great when some legendary giant flings a four power creature at you. Faced with my expanding board, copious mana, and ability to draw 4-5 cards per turn, Neal thought it was time to act. Darn him and his uncanny logic! Soon after, Tom hit him with a Curse of the Cabal, and I, of course, taunted Neal that there would have been a different target if I had still been in the game. Of course, at that point, I think I could have easily survived it. Neal limped along a few turns before getting smashed by Teneb and a few of his own creatures.

I am looking forward to next time, when Neal will use his Scion of the Elder Dragon to bust all his good cards. Neal felt his collection had good cards, but lacked depth. He was also short on generals other than the Scion, and felt Brion was solid. I don't recall what Tom said about his deck, other than wondering if he was mana-heavy. Maybe he will make up his mind after paying 16 mana for his finally triumphant Teneb in game 2.

My deck list, for those interested:
Vorosh the Hunter - General
Eterenal Witness
Nantuko Husk
Dream Stalker (good to re-use CIPs, reset artifacts with choices, and re-suspend Aeon Chroniclers)
Forgotten Ancient
Mirri, the Cursed
Trygon Predator
Simic Signet
Shoreline Ranger
Riptide Replicator
Lorescale Coatl
Twisted Abomination
Creakwood Ghoul
Dread
Favor of the Overbeing
Damnation
Golgari Signet
Krosan Tusker
Enslave
Slave of Bolas
Reshape
Tolarian Sentinel
Diviner's Wand (STRONG)
Eyeblight's Ending (and Teneb was sure an eyeblight in one game!)
Sould Manipulation (need I say it?)
Cyclical Evolution (annoying to foes at times, useless to me at others)
Creeping Mold
Echoing Courage
Viridescent Wisps
Golgari Thug
Nuisance Engine
Big Game Hunter (Nice general assassin)
Double Header (from Unhinged, returns a two-worded permanent to owners hand. Stellar for most of the reasons listed above on Dream Stalker. almost all the best targets have two-word names)
Yavimaya Dryad
Citanuil Woodreaders (drew me 6 cards in one game!)
Dimir House Guard
Murkfiend Liege
Bonesplitter
Vesuvan Shapeshifter
Dimir Infiltrator (transmutes if I don't get the Bonesplitter for him to carry)
Assault Zeppelid
Snakeform
Whispersilk Cloak
Stir the Grave
Molder
Turn to Mist
Grave-Shell Scarab
Agony Warp
Skinthinner
Darksteel Ingot
Drelnoch
Isochron Scepter
Nulltread Gargantuan (beastly big and helps reuse like others mentioned)
Quiet Disrepair (if only I had drawn it that last game...)
Keening Banshee
Countersquall
Coldsteel Heart
Putrefy
Simic Guildmage
Mire Boa
Perplex
Unmake
Aeon Chronicler
Jund Panorama
Bant Panorama
Dreadship Reef
Rupture Spire
Simic Growth Chamber
Urza's Factory
12 Swamp
10 Island
9 Forest

Notable cards not played (otherwise known as tough choices or mistakes):
Pit Keeper - Pauper All-Star and should be in
Shred Memory/Muddle the Mixture - both transmute for two, so are strong candidates if I tighten the focus and two drops figure heavily
Death Denied - most likely should be in for it's ability to get multiple cards
Putrid Leech - seems too aggressive as the deck is marginally controlling, but I might be wrong
Echo Tracer - I feel I have enough bouncers, but like the transmuters, it goes in if I tighten the focus
Various fliers, land walkers and fear creatures - I had a lot and they stand ready if I go more aggro, the best being Spiketail Hatchling, Patron of the Moon, Fender Clique, and Street Wraith.

I am really looking forward to more fun with the ULCs and EDH, regular EDH, and constructed 60-card decks with the ULCs.

Until later, may you be able to cast a 16-mana general for the win!
Rodolfo

Getting Closer... Plus A Limited EDH Rules Update

Things are looking up. This Saturday is the first try for Limited EDH. I have made a few last minute addendums to the rules set.

First, in case I haven't mentioned it, THERE IS NO BANNED LIST.

Second, OFF COLOR HYBRIDS ARE LEGAL (with the caveat that any other mana symbol on the card is legal as well. So, gosh, no off-color Guildmages from Ravnica. Shoot, I think I had a Selesnya, too!).

Third, generals are handled by what I call "Joint Chiefs" style - essentially you can use multiple generals to support up to, but not over, three colors. Meaning, you can't combine generals to get four colors or five colors. You could still play five color, but you'd have to be lucky enough to get a 5-color general AND have the mana base to support it. I think this is enough of a drawback. You pay +2 for your primary general and +3 for non-primary generals each additional time you cast them in a game, facilitating the need for a +2 counter and +3 counter for tracking purposes. The primary general will be the first one you cast during the game. You may only play one general at a time. You may play a general from outside the game only if ALL generals on your joint chiefs are removed from the game. The joint chiefs count as one card when putting the deck together. So 99 non-general cards plus your general or joint chiefs.

I put my deck together and we'll see how it goes. My general is Vorosh, the Hunter (GUB), and I was close to going with Zombies, but instead approached the build similarly to the build I did for the 5-Color tournament I won (see report on StarCityGames.Com). I concentrated on maximizing utility, card advantage, and a few other synergies. So far test draws seem to be alright. But the real test will be this Saturday when it faces off against the other decks.

Can't wait, so don't be late!
Rodolfo

Oh No! The Anticipation Again.

What anticipation? Well, it comes in multiples. First, Limited EDH will happen next Saturday. And, Alara Reborn packs should be arriving any minute now. Can't wait. Why? Because Wizards has scored with this set. Sure, it was a gamble. The challenges of designing an all gold set are pretty huge. Don't believe me? Go look up a MaRo article about it. He usually does a good job of explaining, even if it seems he has a huge ego. But, hey! Wouldn't you too if you were in his shoes? He's kinda earned it. But they really did a good job. I have to give mad props for the decision to push cascade to the lower rarities. It is a really fun mechanic and having it at lower rarities means that newer or more casual players who do not get a lot of cards will still have excellent access to it, which should help in acquisitions.

Playing at the pre-release was a real blast. I went 3-1 in a field of about 18 to top 8 and lost to my only swiss round loss in the quarters. It was OK because I wanted to get back to the lake for supper and to see how the wife and kids were faring with the in-laws. But what made it even more fun was that there were so many good playables in the set that each round I faced a vastly different deck. Each play, though I knew the spoiler pretty well, was a surprise. The challenges were fun. I'd have to say it was one of the most fun pre-releases I've experienced in years because of that diversity. Alara Reborn's excellent execution is what made it happen.

It's just over a week and a half until we meet and actually play some limited EDH. Finally! I sent the ULCs home with the crew so they could spend time constructing so we weren't wasting vital playing time when we get together. Tom made a big mention on Monday Night Magic. Sounds like he's excited. I would be too if I had Teneb, Platinum Angel and Darksteel Colossuss. But watch out! Rumor is that Neal has a Ravager and other tasty affinity enablers to play with. Not sure what Joel had, but he has the time on his hands right now to do some mad experimentation (good luck in the Job hunt!).

That's where we are at. I'll let ya know what gets busted from Alara Reborn. I am hoping for some Maelstrom Pulses as much for the fantastic art as for the awesomeness of what it does.

And finally, I really meant it when I whined a post or two ago about having my GURU lands. The kids I introduced the game to have gone out and purchased cards. Wizards - are you listening?!?!

Feliz cinco de Mayo!
Rodolfo

Something Old, Something New...

So, yeah. Alara Reborn looms large. So far looking good. As a fan of multi-player and now EDH, I can't help but like some of the cards that are just under tournament playability. I mean, a 1/5 for two mana. Really. And it doesn't have defender? Nice! I can find uses for that in a big way. I've also been a big fan of cheap, large-butted walls, and the 0/8 flying shroud defender is really tempting. Granted, having Terminate back in business will remind folks of just how good it has always been and still is. Ah, all the possibilities, and so little time to play and try them out. I am just hoarding cards, biding my time until Beren (my son, age 3) is old enough to start slinging cards. Then the hour or more per day I have to spend now on parenting will change into an hour or more per day I might be able to make decks and play games. At least work has been helping.

As I stated two posts ago, there is an enrichment hour that has featured a card game session that I am going to. I've got a Padawan and just last week got another young man interested in Magic. Hey Wizards employees, listen up!!!! He said he was going to go out and buy some cards. Yay me!!! I am the king of acquisition!!! Where are my Guru cards????!?!?!

As for the old I had mentioned, I just received what will probably be the last of the older sets that I will be adding to the ULCs. Onslaught. I busted 27 packs to divy up to the ULCs that are either mine or not spoken for yet, and left the rest for the players who have claimed a ULC to bust open. Got two fetch lands (Bloodstained Mire and Flooded Strand) not to mention a Blistering Firecat, Exalted Angel, Goblin Sharpshooter, Jareth - Leoninn Titan, Ravenous Baloth, and Visara. Not bad - only about $16 short of what I paid for the box on just those cards with 9 packs left to bust open. That's a Piledriver or fetch land away from getting more out of the box than I put in just on money rares. But that's it, folks. At this point in time I can't justify going after Odyssey block. Just too pricey. Hopefully things will change. Possibly, I'll look into foreign language options - there seems to be Chinese product available for an average of about $63 per box, which is cheaper than I've ever paid for a non-Kamigawa, non-Unhinged, non-Fallen Empires booster box. In the meantime, it'll be Alara Reborn up next. And then we might actually play with the collections. So far, I think mine is pretty poor, but we'll see.

Keepin' it (Freed From The) Real,
Rodolfo

Why I Now Hate Divine Vs Demonic

So, I got packs of Legions for the ULCs. I had opened up about 9 packs and was thinking that there wasn't much in the way of good stuff busted yet. Busted number 10 - nothing special. Busted number 11 - FOIL AKROMA!!!!!!! Sweet!!!!!!. I was very happy. I finished the set of three by busting pack 12 - A NON-FOIL AKROMA!!!!!! Super sweet!!!!!!!! Then I looked to see that DvD Akromas were pre-selling for about ten bucks on EvilBay. WHAT?!?!??!?! Well crud, that's going to sap the value straight out of what was once a fifty-plus dollar foil. That's all I've got right now.

See ya!

A lot has happened....

....and not much as well. It's been a few weeks and I have been busy. But nothing has really happened except MarsCon, for some multi-player fun, and a fun first - I got paid to play M:tG!

MarsCon was a blast. Not only did I get in to several multi-player free-for-alls, my favorite nerdcore rapper was there - MC Lars! I unfortunately missed mising another second set only draft with some CON-CON-CON action. A nice 5-color domain deck won. I saw good spells and lots of Exploding Borders, always for 5! No wonder he won. I think he also had Ethersworn Adjudicator as well.

At the middle school where I work, there is currently a program to give kids some remedial catch-up opportunities while rewarding those kids who are on task and up to snuff. It's called HOP (short for Hour Of Power). One of the activities this time around is Yugio, Card Games and Other Games. One student I am acquainted with was in this HOP and prompted me to bring my Magic cards in. I did. I sat and played an hour of Magic with him as I helped 'supervise' the classroom. So I actually got paid to do Magic. Am I a professional now? LOLOMGNB! (laugh out loud, oh my God, Nicol Bolas)

On the ULC/Limited EDH front, I am pleased, after a few more acquisitions of product, to list the sets involved as of this date:
Mirrodin
Darksteel
5th Dawn
Champions of Kamigawa
Betrayers of Kamigawa
Saviors of Kamigawa
Ravnica
Guidpact
Dissension
Time Spiral
Planar Chaos
Future Sight
Coldsnap
Lorwyn
Morningtide
Shadowmoor
Eventide
Shards of Alara
Conflux
Unhinged (only one booster, to avoid too much silliness)

That's twenty sets! Woohoo! I only wish I had started the ULCs earlier. I do have a box of Legions on it's way and have been keeping an eye on Scourge and Onslaught. I'm not really sure if I can justify to myself going back any farther with the cost of boxes. Most of the older sets I have acquired have been priced similarly to newer sets, or maybe up to $10.00 a box more. I'm not sure I want to pay much more than that at this point. Alara Reborn comes out soon as well. I am also contemplating whether or not to pick up basic sets, as some of those can be picked up on the cheap. Thoughts? Sound off!

Another great thing that has recently happened: My wife has picked up cards again. I have been stating for some time that she needs to get back to playing some and that I would help her to get up to speed. When it is not competitive, she is more willing. If it's competitive, I don't really give any quarter, so she gets frustrated as my knowledge of the rules and combat tricks, etc. seem like cheating to her. This time I am teaching her. We'll see if it takes enough for her to get in to it. I will try real hard and keep my fingers crossed.

Here's a few neat links:
Neal's blog: Lifegain is bad!
The MTGCast network where Tom does his thang
Starcitygames.com - for all your magic needs (buying and reading)
MTGSalvation.com - where there are good forumns, spoilers, nice card creation contests, and a few good articles wnow and then
Joel's blog - he does a lot more console gaming and shares his thoughts

Until next post,
Rodolfo

Sometimes Magic Is Too Fun

So, yeah, we got together. Me, Neal, Joel and Tom. Tom was a little late thanks to a vet appointment for his feline friend. We played constructed EDH and some constructed multi-player. We lost track of time and when Neal and Tom had to bail, there was not enough time to do anything but randomly assign ULCs to each person and hand out the Mirrodin boosters.

Neal left before opening his Mirrodin boosters. I didn't see much of what Joel got, but I busted an Isochron Scepter and Tom scored big with a Platinum Angel and an Icy Manipulator. Both are auto-includes in the limited EDH decks we are building.

On the plus side - I got the art cover sleeves to use with the LEDH decks yesterday. Kinda nice to have bling bling sleeves for once, even if it's for the experiment. I should be able to lay hold of some more out of print boosters soon. I am trying not to spend more than I do on current sets, meaning that I might not be able to do Invasion block, though I would truly love to. It looks like I will be able to complete the Mirrodin block and Ravnica blocks. We'll have to see about Odyssey. I already have Kamigawa block. I didn't buy much when it came out, but scored on it later when the price deflated. You know, sometimes crappy blocks don't seem as bad when you pay $1.50 to $1.80 per booster for them.

I tried to get my 'abuse a crap mythic card' deck going, but never hit the pieces in a couple games. Essentially it has a combo-style element that is grafted in to another deck that plays like a regular multi-player deck. I didn't want to make it a dedicated combo-deck, though I surely could have, because I like my combos to come out of left field. One nice side-effect of having some combo pieces in a deck they usually wouldn't be in is that I discovered being able to use Spitting Image to make four or five copies of Iridescent Angel with a Wall Of Reverence on the table spells good times. But I still got smushed at least once by Joel's big beefy green deck. Man, I thought I had that thing under control for a while, but Primordial Sage is good card drawing. Pshaw!

Until next time, put your brazos to the cosmos!

Tomorrow Is Always A Day Away

Some rapdid-fire thoughts and updates:

Tomorrow we gather and sling the cardboard for great justice! Take off every Zur! I hope to have a good review of how the LEDH experiment went for the first time out. I will also try to introduce the play group as it currently exists.

Ah, the excitement builds. I just sleeved up a hastily, very unfocused BGW EDH deck. Not sure if I want to go cheesy and run Doran as general or use Teneb. Those are my only general choices for that color combination unless I go with a five color legend. If I do that, I won't be able to resist a redesign to utilize those extra colors.

My next design for a multi-player deck involves casting Conflux on the cheap and then going near-infinite with it. I love breaking crap mythics! I'll let you know how the Mayael deck turns out.

Wall of Reverence seems like a really good multi-player card. And like most cards that work well with Doran, it really works well with Doran. Duh!

I ordered fancy sleeves to use with the LEDH decks and they won't arrive in time. Bummer.

I scored great prices on some Fifth Dawn and Ravnica boosters to add to the ULCs - very cool.

Looks like I'll only get three other folks tomorrow. I was hoping for more, but it should be pretty good with four of us. With one other person who might normally make it, that would make five fairly-regulars to play at least once a month. That will be nice. I may be able to play one or two Thursday or Fridays as well. Thursdays would be casual stuff and Fridays would likely be FNMs. I would kinda like one of those Cryptic Commands but I've got a long way to go.

I have to bug Tom to get a mention on Monday Night Magic this week, seeing as it didn't get in last week. It would be nice if some people were reading this. Which reminds me, I have to email Bennie Smith, he might be interested and might give it a mention. I think he has some readership.

High five on the fly-by!

A Trip Back to Mirrodin

The Mirrodin packs arrived today. Hooray! Was very nice to bust a few. Hopefully it will be nicer for those playing Saturday to bust a few. All the new sets I get I bust, because they're still my cards. I pilfer rares out of the collections if I need them. I have plenty of Mirrodin from back in the day, so I 't feel the need to know what's in there yet.

I also have a line on a good deal for some Fifth Dawn and some Ravnica from a gaming store doing a sale. Hopefully I can add some of those to the collection.

One last, quick idea. I could always use a random generation program to build boosters from older sets and then I could assemble them from my collection and filter them into the ULCs. I own a lot of cards and this could work out. Just hope I don't randomly generate too many cards of high value that I don't have, I'd be inclined to get them on the secondary market if that happened. But how many Reflecting Pools, Sliver Queens, Serra Avatars, and fetchlands could I possibly randomly generate? Probably three times as many as I busted, no doubt.

Feliz nieve (Happy snow - the weather outside, not Ice Age Block)

Writing About Magic

Writing about Magic can get tough at times. Seriously! Those folks who consistently put out good content and easy to read articles deserve big kudos. I am trying to write up a post about how Magic players manage their collections and how that is related to alternate formats and, of course, my own personal biases. It's not terribly easy. My thoughts tend to get chugging along and then I side track out of the zone, realize it, and get a little frustrated. I bet those really good writers either A) have more practice or B) do something crazy like outline their thoughts ahead of time to keep them on track. Maybe I'll try that. Tomorrow.

Chicka-Chicka-Bang-Boom and I'm outta here!

¡Viva los generales!

So, here's the rub. Generals are what EDH revolves around. The general is the lynch-pin of EDH deck design. You are either looking at ways to abuse a general or the general is just along for the ride as you make a deck of your preferred colors. Either way, the general is essential. In limited EDH you have a very limited pool of generals to choose from. General selection (both the noun and the verb) is the one area that having a limited card pool really, really messes with the underlying fun of EDH. How to solve this problem (and yes, I call it a problem)? Here are the options I have brainstormed so far:

Shut up and live with it. Surely an option that has the most Limited appeal. Hey, build with what you got. Sealed luck, dude. If I were looking at this experiment primarily for it's limited nature, this would be the way to go. But I decided to try Limited EDH because I had these ULCs and THEN I got a bug for EDH. Someone put the chocolate in my peanut butter and that is why I went down the EDH road. It certainly could be done this way, but I would prefer to focus on the fun aspects of EDH, and that means having more options in the generals, especially because the pool of cards is limited.

BYOG. Just let people plumb their own collections for their general choice and use the limited pool to make it. This would certainly deal with the issue of general selection coming from a limited pool, and there are a couple of variations of this option that could allow for some great fun in deck building. Option A would be to bring a general and match up a random card pool to it and build from there. I could see a lot of people bringing five color legends to have the most flexibility, but a few might try to force an archetype or build to support their general. Option B would be to have folks bring a selection of three to five generals and then choose once the assigned ULC has been reviewed. Finally, and moving forward with the experiment, would be to bring a general after having reviewed the ULC. The only problem with this is that it will offer better options to those who have large card pools to delve in for those generals. One key part of this grand experiment is to keep folks on a level playing field. Of course, I could consider proxied generals for those who have smaller collections of their own.

Joint Chiefs. By this I mean a system of having multiple cards serve as general, hence 'joint chiefs'. Since roughly half of the available generals in the ULCs are mono-colored (yes, I have looked because I feared this issue), allowing multiple generals would allow for a greater range of colors. There would be a few additional guidelines and clarifications with this option. Such as:

You may not play a general if you have one in play.
You may have up to three generals. Reduce this number by one for each color beyond the first that a general has in its casting cost (minimum of one, of course).
Whenever you cast a general, you pay 2 for each time a general has been in play previously.

These mods should allow for some flexibility in using the generals as color-choosers. And the greatest thing that could happen would be for a general chosen for its color only becoming desirable to have in play. That would be neat.

What do you think about generals and Limited EDH? Sound off in comments. I'm open to different ideas, that's for sure.

Oh - a big shout out to Tom Gustafson of Monday Night Magic who has said he'd mention this humble project on the show. Now someone other than me might just read this!

Hasta la carne (or, until we meat again?)

Need More Gas

SCORE! Just got some Mirrodin for the ULCs off (not-so-in-this-instance) EvilBay. Someone had put together 36 loose boosters and was selling them at a really nice price as a not-quite-a-real-booster-box booster box. I am really happy to get some Mirrodin because it offers some great cards without having too much color-commitment, which will obviously help out in the ULCs.

Speaking of this, I still want to collect out-of-print sets that aren't in the pile yet. I really want to get a-hold of Ravnica block because of the presence of a decent amount of multi-colored legends. I think my next post will be about the limited nature of the card pools and the availability of Generals. For now I just have one request - if you read this blog and know know of or see any good deals on Magic sets not in the ULC, please let me know so I can grab them up. There are ten ULCs and so a booster box works great (with a little left over for me to paw at).

I'm also excited because my playsets of commons and uncommons from Conflux just came in. For about $30 you just can't go wrong, especially with such high-priced uncommons in the set. Just Path To Exile is worth nearly half of my outlay for the playsets. This way I don't have to dig into the ULCs when I NEED four of a certain common or uncommon. Just Rares if I really have to. I don't really want to, but will do so if needed. Yes, I made a catalog of the rares in case I ever need to pilfer from them. And while this might give me a smidge of an idea what any given ULC made deck might be packing rare-wise, I really am not trying to remember too heavily, just to keep things interesting for me.

Happy Friday and all that. We are out and over!

What's in a name?

Part of the mystique I am trying to build with the ULC is an atmosphere of fun. Will there be competition? Is this Magic the Gathering? Of course! In the spirit of having fun with it, I am working on names for the collections so it's not just 'box1' or 'collection a' and such. So I brainstormed last night for a while and came up with some names. Here is a list of possibilities:

Rome
'57 Chevy
Letters to Iwo Jima (yes, that's on purpose)
Albatross
Buckminsterfullerene (Bucky Ball for short)
Pumpernickel
Fester
Radiohead
Denim
Thor
Big Hammer
Little Hammer
Sanskrit
Spatula
Purple Haze
Space 1999

Yeah, just fun words. Who knows, maybe the random names on the boxes will inspire deck design. A the least, we can have a contest to see who can best capture the spirit of the name with a deck design. In that case, I think the hammer names, fester, and Thor should be removed - they might be a little too easy. Not to mention Albatross with it's popularly know connotations. But spatula? I really want to see a deck that evokes spatula. Don't you?

Hasta la Titania's Chosen!

In The Beginning...

...there was a newbie blogger, the amazing Rodolfo, Planeswalker. Rodolfo had a mission, a vision, and a blog. The mission? Blog about his Magic the Gathering exploits. The vision? Kinda blurry. Rodolfo may not have exactly 20/20 vision. At least not yet. The blog? Right here my friend.

Rodolfo is the alter ego (newly created and yet to be explored at this early stage) of Steve, a 40 year old Magic the Gathering player who resides in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul). Rodolfo may regularly talk about himself in the third-person, in case you hadn't noticed.

Rodolfo's first experiment will be to gather a group of players and use his long-in-the-making Uber Limited Collections (henceforth known as ULCs) . Rodolfo has been hoarding cards for the past few years and has put ten collections of cards together that are random and have the equivalent of three booster packs per released expansion. This started with Time Spiral block (and all expansions since) and Rodolfo has since added Kamigawa block (because you can get them dirt cheap, mi amigo) a singular unhinged booster (kinda like adding a hint of cayenne to your brownies), and some commons from stripped out Ravnica starters. The quest continues to add older sets if deals can be found on them.

One fun thing about adding Conflux sets - one of the ten sets got the following conflux cards from one booster pack: Noble Hierarch, Path to Exile, Foil Path to Exile! Nice pull, huh?

The ultimate goal with theULCs is to lure players who can't keep up monetarily to still play and to run a few experiments. The first experiment? Limited EDH. That will be the subject of Rodolfo's next post.

Announce end of turn, any response?