Commander League Preseason Recap (3rd)

Southern California is blessed with a fairly large contingent of Commander players, enough to support a league format. The season was scheduled to start this week before a few issues pushed the official start backwards, meaning no points towards the Finals could be earned this weekend. However, that didn't stop sixteen players from turning up at San Diego Games & Comics to throw down. Two pods of five and a pod of six each played, with the pod winners moving on to the final pod of the night, joined by the player or players with the most player kills. Players get a 10 card sideboard where they can make changes before each round

My Pet Project: The Iron Deck-Builder Challenge

When I was first cutting my teeth in Magic I spent a lot of time on the Wizards forums, especially in Standard General. You can find me over there as ReleasetheAnts. Since 2008, I’ve become a bit of a fixture there. I’m not the type who posts endlessly in every thread, on average I have maybe two or three posts per day, but I tend to stay involved around Standard discussions, and the occasional forum contest.

This summer I wanted to try my hand at starting a competition on the forums. One of my favorite televisions shows (forgive me for nerding out) is Iron Chef, both the original Japanese series and the American revival. I enjoy how chefs can come in, be handed a random ingredient, and still produce amazing things. Of course later in life I discovered my romanticized view wasn’t really accurate, but I wanted to carry the same concept over to Magic deckbuilding. I wanted players to stretch their skills building decks by adding different variables to construction. And so, Iron Deck-Builder was born.

Talking Politics: Overhauling Zedruu EDH

It was a cool summer night last week, full of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. Two of my friends and I beat the archenemy campaign start to finish, then I proceeded to unlock Kiora Atua’s entire deck (It’s insane, but that’s another post), taking me through the wee hours of the morning. We had each purchased the game, and the time came to head to our local game store to retrieve our Titans. I, however, had a secret motive. It was Friday, the 17th: Commander Launch Day.

I was still going back and forth which deck I would get the entire car ride. Everyone else I knew who played in the EDH League here was raving about blue. Animar, Damia, Riku, almost every general with a teardrop in the corner was getting loved on. Except one. Zedruu had not had a single mention on other people’s priority list, and I couldn’t tell why. The deck seemed solid, maybe not the value cards of Riku or Damia’s decks. Still it seemed like it’d be easy to pass up, and sure enough, there it was. I traded a few rares and a twenty for the deck, passing on a Japanese version at the last second. After getting it home, the next trick was adding to it until it would at least stand a chance against the other league decks around.

A Modest Introduction

And away we go, into the ever-expanding pool of Magic Player blogs. I like to think I come at it from a slightly different perspective. But before we get into that, a confession:

My name is David, and I play terrible Magic decks.