So, I'm a pretty typical college student who's been bitten by the EDH bug. I've been playing magic for about 10 years, off and on, mostly casual stuff until the last four years or so. So what qualifies me to write about magic on the internet? Nothing at all. All I have to bring to the table is a real interest in magic, particularly Elder Dragon Highlander, and interesting and unique challenge that the format presents in deckbuilding.
On the off chance some of you are unfamiliar with the format, here's how it works. You choose a legendary creature to be your general. Now, you choose 99 other cards which are in your general's colors, and you're ready to go. Okay, that isn't exactly true. You have to choose 99 cards (including lands) which only include mana symbols in your general's casting cost. Now, here's the key thing: you will, typically, always have the ability to cast your general, regardless of how many times it dies.
Think about that for a second. You will always have access to your general. That's crazy good! Can you imagine how good standard decks would be if they always had Jace, the Mindsculptor in their hand? What about always having Vengevine or Bloodbraid Elf, or anything else like that? The ability to always have access to your general is absurdly powerful, and takes the concept of building your deck around a card to a whole Next Level, if you'll pardon the pun. There are two ways I like to think about building around a general.
1. You can build your deck in such a way to maximize the effectiveness of your general. Okay, so what does this mean? It means a deck where the general is something of a combo piece. Think of, say, Arcum Dagsson. Most of an Arcum deck is designed in such a way to maximize his ability, so that you have a repeatable Tinker effect. So you run a lot of high cc, powerful artifacts, and a lot of small artifact creatures that ramp you up to a turn 2 or 3 Arcum.
2. You can choose a general such that it provides an effect that your deck needs to have access to at all times. Think of a mono-black control, with a general like Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief or Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed. The deck can pretty much stand on its own, with the general only providing continuous access to a win condition, spot removal, or recursion as necessary.
3. Yes, I know I said there were two ways to build around a general. There is a third, but its one that I'm not really a fan of, johnny that I am. You can choose your general such that it gives you access to the colors you want to play, and provides a generic, powerful effect. These are decks like five color control, which just uses its general for a combo finish (Sliver Queen), or a Rafiq of the Many deck that's really just U/G/W tempo or control with Rafiq thrown is as the best available legend in those colors.
So, I guess the better question is: what do I plan to accomplish with this blog? Really I just want to be able to discuss different ideas for decks I have. I hope that, by doing that, it'll provide points of discussion and critique to further develop different ideas I have for the format, and hopefully provide inspiration and advice to other people who are as interested in the format as I am.
So, with that said, if you've got any ideas you'd like to share or see discussed, or any decks you want critiqued, shoot me an email; I'd be glad for the opportunity.
-Carlos
carlos.edhblog@gmail.com
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