The Planeswalker's Stronghold

I skipped a set review (actually two) over the summer as I took a break from Grim Tidings. Now that I’m thinking about Magic again, I’ll insert my thoughts on the latest big expansion, Scars of Mirrodin, and its impact on Casual 5-Color. What is 5-Color Again? For those who have forgotten, 5-color Magic is a format that requires you to build a deck of at least 300 cards, with a minimum of 25 cards from each color. I encourage everyone to go to the actual www.5-color.com link, but basically All cards are legal, except for the Unglued/Unhinged expansions, and there is a special Banned/Restricted list specific to this format. Highlander is optional, but extremely fun. When I consider a card in this discussion, it’s in terms of a “big-deck” format. There will be a lot of cards out there that are better for Standard or Legacy or whatever 60-card format, but for this review, I’m really just looking at the best cards and their impact for 5-Color (and to a lesser extent EDH). Also remember, I...

At the beginning of the year, I drew what I felt at the time was a bold new line in the sand, setting a $0 budget for my Magic activities for the year. I am very proud to say that so far so good. Not only have I not spent a dime on my Magic collection this year, but I am still projected to be at zero for the end of the year. Now that doesn't mean I have not been able to expand my Magic collection, grow my deck options, and have a lot of fun in the doing. In addition to a play set of all the released un/commons this year, I've managed to collect a number of meaningful cards for my collection. 3 Arid Mesa +1 foil 4 other enemy fetches one of each of the M11 titan 16 other rare/mythic cards for my casual deck 7 foils for my casual deck 4 signed rare/mythics for my casual decl 2 signed foils for my casual deck 1 each of the aligned fetchlands +a second Wooded Foothills 2 Taiga 3 Plateau Savannah Underground Sea 2 other Dual-lands, but I can't remember which ones...

With the rebirth of Second Reminder (See GT #21), I am brought back to a long-standing debate of a very specific card selection. It was reinforced again during my last Cube draft, when I selected none other than my old buddy, Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. To give you a brief history, "8.5" has been on my internal “watch list” for quite some time. 8.5 appeared in the original Grim Reminder 750, and then in both incarnations of Second Reminder as well. It has been a favorite pet-card of mine since Kamigawa block, due to both its flavorful name, and clever game-warping abilities. Last night was no exception. I drafted a WG weenie deck, packed with a plethora of great cards, including Academy Rector, Mirari’s Wake, and Debtor’s Knell. Eight-and-a-Half was a third or fourth pick for me, perhaps based on his relative obscurity in the common Magic vernacular. What transpired next drove me to write this article. We played two group games with our decks. (8.5 fortunately is the lightest car...

Magic players are ridiculous when it comes wasting money. Myself included, I am totally addicted to getting the most pimped out version of each card I can, especially for my 5C First Reminder deck. It gets so expensive in some cases, I’m embarrassed to admit what I’m spending my money on. I’ve been working on foils for this particular deck for over two years now, and of the 300 cards, I am just over 75% complete. Of the remaining 25%, about half of those cards are not available in premium form. This leaves me with about 40 cards (or so) to upgrade. I have no idea what I will do next when I reach this milestone, but it will likely be retirement. As I continue to bling it up, I consider a rating classification of which version is better than the previous. There are so many options out there, it helps to develop a hierarchy criteria of which version may or may not be better than another. Caution: You’re probably about to read one of the nerdiest columns you may ever seen on the internet. ...

Okay, I admit it, I didn't try very hard on the title, but really what more could I say there? If you have spent anytime reading about this deck, or 5color in general, you know that's the long and the short of it. For what ever reason, the red portion of the color pie has spent more time in the shallow end of the creativity pool then any other. All red consistently has going for it is Haste, Land Destruction, Direct Damage, and temporary creatures. In my mind, the best thing to do for your deck, is keep red to a minimal amount, so on each review I cut it back to 25 cards. Here we go, bolded cards are new for this year. Anger Arc-Slogger Blood Tyrant Bringer of the Red Dawn Conquering Manticore Dwarven Miner Godsire Inferno Titan Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs Meglonoth Electrolyze Fire // Ice Jund Charm Order // Chaos Burning Wish Conflux Pure // Simple Splinter Twin Wild Research Briorn Stoutarm Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Rith, the Awakener Sarkhan Vol ...

Well, a summer has passed, and the Indianapolis Colts are gearing up for another run to NFL glory. Sadly, Grim Tidings has been absent from this webpage since the Superbowl (Too much crying in my beer, I suppose.) Regardless, as Aegis continues to document the latest updates to his DoMT, I thought it might be nice to reshare my “other” H5C deck on the blog. I previously discussed way back in Grim Tiding #16, that I reassembled my Second Reminder H5C deck when Zenikar debuted. As it turned out, I only ended up playing it for just a few months. My focus drifted away, and I ended up needing too many cards for other decks. I learned to abuse Kiki Jiki in far too many ways, much to the chagrin of my poor EDH opponents. Second Reminder was ultimately dissembled in this wake and transformed into 4-5 other unique 300-card decks, including my completely Standard legal 5C deck I played over this past summer. Enter August 2010: M11 has debuted, with a big influx of great cards into the Magic univ...

Each year, after the core set release, and before the Fall rotation, I like to take a minute and document where the Deck of Many Things is, and how it has evolved. This year I plan to break this documentation up into several smaller documents, each focused on a specific portion of the deck. Now for those that may not know, this deck is made up of 300 cards, in a highlander style. 5color dictates the size of the deck, and that there must be atl east 25 cards of each of the five colors. I have been playing this deck very heavily for a full 2 years now, and still love it. Today, I'm going to begin by talking about he manabase of the deck. The most basic of deck construction principles, is that a deck should be about 40% mana, which would put the decks manabase to 120 cards. The common line of thought in the 5color world, is that this is too much, putting the correct number to roughly 110. With today's revision I am going to push down to a daring 105. I think this number is achie...