The Planeswalker's Stronghold

This month I had the unexpected opportunity to travel to Roanoke for a Legacy GPT. Recent set releases had a lot of new ideas floating around my head, but I really hadn't played enough over the last few months to evaluate such changes. I ended this small tournament day with a 2-3 record, having scooped a team member into the top8 in the last round. (Congrats to Jeff to winning the GPT!, good luck in the GP.) It became really clear that even my possible 3-2 finish for the day, my deck had become under-matched, and really needed to be brought up to date. Let the work begin! My prior list can be found here , the only difference being that a fourth Goyf replaced the fourth Lavamancer. I began by pulling the Grave package, and replacing it with a more traditional Zoo utility lineup. I'm not sure this is the correct call, but the surprise value of the Grove Package has run it's course on the local level, so it's time to at least test other options. -4 Grove of the Burnwill...

Well the long sought day has finally come. I have found my signature 5color card, and it is none other then Warp World. I have been in the process of retooling my deck to accommodate this adjustment. The current deck list can be found here . DoMT has now become a story of three decks. There is two fully functional EDH/Commander decks shuffled with 100 fill in cards. Each of the stand alone decks has it's own sleeve color, to allow for easy pull out and separate play. The final 100 is split into two sleeve groups, one for "non-EDH consideration" cards, and the other for everything else. My hope is, this will make the EDH fine tuning process easier, so I don't have to look up card legality on the fly. Items removed since my last posting: Not all of these are gone forever. Many simply represent their current usage in a more vital deck, or have been bumped to test new interactions. Arid Mesa Benediction of Moons Berserk Brawn Brion Stoutarm Civic Wayfinder Co...

I can't believe it took as long as it did, but it was well worth the work. After nearly 4 months of sorting, I now find myself a little over 40,000 Magic cards lighter. This bulk of excess cards has become a $200 store credit with CFB, a finished Legacy Merfolk deck, a fourth Goyf, 4 blue Onslaught fetches, several restricted Vintage cards, most of the cards I wanted from the current Scars block to date, and a handful of casual cards. Most importantly, all this bulk of under utilized cards is gone, and the room it took up is now empty. Not only can I actually find what I'm looking for far easier, even when a card has been misplaced. I also have discovered that the two bookcases in my office, are now empty, their sole purpose in life having been to house my massive Magic collection. They have found a better home else where. Before the Purge It was really amazing, not to mention startling, to discover just how much good stuff I had that I really and truly didn't even kno...

That's right folks, no typo there. I used a $25 store credit to pay my entry, and despite not opening any super chase cards, I still managed to open or trade for $32 in cards specifically on my shopping list. Of course, that is in addition to the $11 in trade-bait rares I added to my binder, and the more then 70 un/commons for my personal collection. This was a definitive win value wise, unfortunately that did not translate to match results. It has long ago come to my attention that Sealed is not my format, having not produced a winning record since the release of Xth edition. Yes really , it's been that long. My seemingly limitless lack of skill, coupled with my need to maximize my value/cost relationship of my Magic efforts, I tend to not play in these events unless there is a clear value added. This most often comes in the form of the special foil promo card distributed for participation. The card of this event, Hero of Bladehold, having a $10 value and already being on my...

No more waiting. Here’s my decklist at last: 91 Creature/Equivalents 1 Academy Rector 1 Avenger en-Dal 1 Kazandu Blademaster 1 Meadowboon 1 Mother of Runes 1 Phantom Flock 1 Shinewend 1 Sun Titan 1 Transcendent Master 1 Wall of Omens 4 Enclave Cryptologist 4 Sphinx of the Magosi 4 Thrumming Bird 1 Bribery 1 Bringer of the Blue Dawn 1 Helium Squirter 1 Lighthouse Chronologist 1 Master Transmuter 1 Mulldrifter 1 Myojin of the Seeing Wind 1 Sage of Fables 1 Sphinx of Lost Truths 1 Animate Dead 1 Carnifex Demon 1 Dusk Urchins 1 Guul Draz Assassin 1 Mirri, the Cursed 1 Necroskitter 1 Skeleton Ship 1 Skinrender 1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon 1 Spirit Monger 1 Vorosh the Hunter 1 Vulturous Zombie 1 Witch Maw Nephilim 1 Apocalypse Hydra 1 Kulrath Knight 1 Lightning Reaver 1 Lord of Shatterskull Pass 1 Rakavolver 1 Spitting Hydra 1 Stigma Lasher 1 Taurean Mauler 1 Avenger of Zendikar 1 Birds of Paradise 1 Bloom Tender 1 Cytoplast Root-kin 1 Eternal Witness 1 Fangren Firstborn 1 Fauna Shaman 1 F...

Most everyone understands that when it comes to eternal formats the original Dual Lands are about the best investment you can make. Which ones you get first, and how many repeaters you want really is a function of what decks you want to play. I really feel that you can't go wrong with having at least one copy of each. The Ravnica Shocklands play an acceptable role as cheap substitutes, while you are filling in your collection of originals. At some point in your collecting days, you will need to turn your attention to the power of fetchlands, and here is why. Lets say you luck up and find a Bayou on the street, so you decide to begin turning your Legacy Mono Black Control list into Eva Green. That Bayou is a great start, but is only going to show up in your opening hand about 12% of the time. Not Bad, but not very consistent to say the least, so you want more. Naturally you decide to bust your hump on you paper route and in no time you have saved up the $50 needed to get a Bayou a...

5C Proliferate, Part III – Mana Fixing Fixing the mana problems for my 5-Color Proliferate should be pretty easy. Minor Problems The best way with any deck to figure out what adjustments you need to make is to just play it and see how it does. I’ve done that a lot over the past month, and I’ve thankfully taken notes of what types of problems I’ve had as the deck evolved. My current decklist is predominantly Blue and Green. Through my tuning process, I’ve whittled down the White, Black and Red components so they are minimized (for the most part). I’ve had some problems though in the last few weeks having enough (any) red and black mana online, as well as getting enough acceleration to start casting spells a turn or two earlier. As I normally do, I started off with a standard 110 land manabase, with a bunch of additional artifacts/creatures. Why 110? I don’t know. I’ve played this game for a long time and that is what it seems to take. I dumped in a bunch of the dual lands, shock lands, ...