The Planeswalker's Stronghold

My recent Building my Legacy articles have brought about several out of market questions, focused on why I would suddenly be building a Legacy deck, when I have not even made the jump to Extended. I sometimes forget that this blog isn't just read by local, and that some of you have no idea what is going on in the background. Today's article is an attempt to fill in some of that background . It is primarily a composite of several threads from the SciFiGenre.com forums, regarding the emergence of Legacy in our local community. Most of this content is not my own, but is repeated here for educational purposes. Most of what has been ported over is from Jeff aka "Crispy" (fdiv_bug on SciFi ) and Mike (darturus on SciFi). Background First, a brief overview of the format. Legacy is one of two Eternal formats, meaning cards that are printed never rotate out, unlike Standard and Extended. It's most often succinctly described as "Vintage without the Power 9" b...

So, I finally figured out how to share my deck list with everyone, without having to post the whole thing here. Without further bluster and flash, I give you the Deck of Many Things: 2010 . I think the spreadsheet speaks for itself, so just a couple of quick notes on the Quantity column; an X is used for cards recently added, and a Blank is used for a card recently removed. Please review my recent posting, regarding the reasons for these changes. For those who may not know, this deck is built for the 5color format. It contains a minimum of 300 cards, with at least 25 of each color. I prefer to build the deck in the highlander style, so every card other then basic land is a unique one of copy for the deck. The highlander is simply something my local play group prefers, and is not a requirement of the 5color format.

So I've decided to go with the following land base. I know it really is not optimal, but it is the best thing I can do with my budget at the moment. Arid Mesa Ghost Quarter x3 Grove of the Burnwillows x4 Horizon Canopy Plateau Reflecting Pool Sacred Foundry Savannah Stomping Ground Temple Garden Tiaga Wasteland Windswept Heath Wooded Foothills Forest, Mountain, Plains 1 each. Now it's time to reality check the other contents of the decks. First off, I can't field Goys, they are simply not in the budget this year, and probably not next year either, I'm just going to have to do with out them. Secondly, I don't own Sylvan Library, but I don have Sesei's Divining top, so I'm going to give that a try. Next, I only own one Jitte, but I am planning on getting a second next year, but in the interim, I'm going to have to try something else. SInce I have put a land destruction suite in my manabase, I am going to up my Knight of the Reliquary...

About once a year I like to take a good hard look at my pet deck, see how it's developing, document the deck contents, and set goals for moving forward. In order to save space, I'm not going to post the whole deck here. If you would like the complete list, just email me for DoMT _2010, and I will send the file to you. Barren Moor Brainstorm Coastal Tower Cruel Edict Elfhame Palace Forest x2 Galepowder Mage Guardian of the Guildpact Hammerheim Highway Robber Island Isochron Scepter Merchant Scroll Momentary Blink Plains x2 Recollect Salt Marsh Secluded Steppe Sylvan Scrying Tolaria West Urborg Watchwolf Worldheart Phoenix The list above is the cards that were removed from DoMT over the course of the last three months. Of these, there is really only one I will continue to consider, Brainstorm, which could easily find it’s way back in. The rest are pretty clear upgrades of lands, or overly flashy effects. Isochron Scepter for example, was a great card, but had few valid tar...

(Contributed by John Kozlowski) Can your Deck easily respond to these six cards? If not, you might have a serious problem. Roadblocks Over the last few weeks, I’ve taken it upon myself to build a second Highlander 5-Color deck to add variety to my group’s gaming experience. I think I’ve succeeded in a small part with an influx of new cards and interactions. Aside this project though, I’ve tried to pay attention to the cards that most frequently seem to clog up the tempo of our multi-player efforts, and come to this conclusion: Lands are hard to deal with. In the overall hierarchy of permanents and how easy it is to remove them from play, I generally assign an order from easiest to hardest of permanents to deal with, based on the number and versatility of regular spells I play with in everyday games. Artifact Creatures (Easiest) Creatures Planeswalkers Artifacts Enchantments Lands (Hardest) I base this hierarchy on the fact that people generally play more dedicated creature removal in t...

(Contributed by John Kozlowski) As promised last week, I played my Second 5C decklist a little more, and I’ve decided its quite playable and fun. I’ll cut to the chase and just publish the entire thing and just comment on a few highlights. Sorry if it just appears as a long rambling list, but hopefully this might give you some ideas for your own H5C (or EDH) deck if you are looking for midrange inspiration for variety or enjoyment. (I sorted it first by color and then by creature/spells. Multicolor spells are mixed in where they are accounted for.) Second Reminder, 11/5/09 31 WHITE 1 Angus Mackenzie 1 Augury Adept 1 Avenger en-Dal 1 Battlegrace Angel 1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails 1 Irridiescent Angel 1 Lieutenant Kirtar 1 Mageta the Lion 1 Magus of the Disk 1 Pristine Angel 1 Questing Pheldagrif 1 Rafiq of the Many 1 Reya Dawnbringer 1 Rubinia Soulsinger 1 Valor 1 Wall of Denial 1 Wall of Reverence 1 Aura of Silence 1 Condemn 1 Decree of Justice 1 Dismantling Blow 1 Kirtar's Wrath 1 Mar...

A couple of quick record keeping issues. First off, I'm proud to announce that our little community effort here, continues to push forward, with just under 1000 unique hits per month, for the 3rd month running. While Grimjack continues his perspective on 5-color as a format, and Zendikar joins the card pool, I took a slightly different roads with a couple of comedic entries this month. All of of these efforts well received. Repack continues to be well received as a format, with many new and returning folks being drawn to this wildly unique alternative. The repack card pool continues to grow, and we are on the verge of bringing the repack process entirely under local control. Our communities EDH obsession seems to have been abated for the moment, with a new interest in the Legacy format. I contribute this shift to 3 primary factors. First, Jedi Jed's preparations for Gencon, have run their course. Secondly, Blake's relocation to ECU, and the local Judge community's socia...