One General to Rule them All: An EDH Blog

Category: Learning the Game

  • Patterns I’ve noticed after several months of Commander Cubing:

    1. If I’m in green, I snap up any and all land ramp spells. Especially spells that toss lands onto my battlefield (and only my battlefield). Yes, even over the bombs.  How many ramp spells am I going to stumble over? [card]Cultivate[/card], [card]Kodama’s Reach[/card], [card]Hunting Wilds[/card], [card]Ranger’s Path[/card], [card]Skyshroud Claim[/card], [card]Explosive Vegetation[/card], [card]Oracle of Mul…

  • EDH Deckbuilding Fundamentals: Too Much Good Stuff

    Most seasoned EDH deckbuilders know the feeling. You’ve got this great idea for a deck, say for instance a crazy BUG spirit tribal deck. Your mind whirls with the possibilities as you feverishly pick out all the cards that would go in the deck. [card]Mirror-Mad Phantasm[/card]! [card]Conspiracy[/card]! [card]Promised Kannushi[/card]! Then, of course, you need to…

  • EDH Deckbuilding Fundamentals: Creature Theory and the Problem of Aggro

    I was listening to Limited Resources the other day when Marshall, the host, posed an interesting question: “How much life would a 1 drop sorcery have to give you before you’d pick it over a Serra Angel?”  It’s an interesting question.  Lifegain cards are often bandied about in Limited drafting circles as “newbie traps.”  Gaining…

  • EDH Deckbuilding Fundamentals: Building to the Format

    One of the most common mistakes I see new EDH players make is taking cards that are good in other formats, say Standard, Legacy, or even Vintage, and assuming that they’re going to be good at the big tables.  In some cases that’s true: [card]Sol Ring[/card] is broken no matter how you look at it…

  • Coda’s Big Guide to Big Mana

    It’s no secret: I love making ridiculously huge amounts of mana.  Back when I played Standard I was known to hardcast Iona and the occasional 15-mana [card]Martial Coup[/card], but it’s only here in the heady atmosphere of EDH that I’ve really been able to let my freak flag fly.  I mean, Worldwake-era Tapout Control was…

  • EDH Deckbuilding Fundamentals: Charity

    When I first started playing EDH, I was like most Spikes new to the format: pure, unadulterated evil.  My decks read like “top 100 most hated EDH cards” lists: [card]Sundering Titan[/card], [card]Myojin of Night’s Reach[/card], [card]Identity Crisis[/card], [card]Desolation Angel[/card], [card]Magister Sphinx[/card], [card]Sorin Markov[/card], it goes on and on.  Even worse, in my Spikish naiveté, I…

  • EDH Deckbuilding Fundamentals: A Tutor Primer

    Variance is the enemy of every deckbuilder.  Most 60 card Constructed decks attempt to be as consistent as possible by running 4 copies of each of their most important cards, but in a 99 card singleton format like EDH, we have to get a bit more creative in order to have any kind of consistency. …

  • EDH Deckbuilding Fundamentals: The Five Things Every Deck Needs

    Deckbuilding for EDH is a far cry from the hyperspecialized, metagamed world of Constructed, but for some reason I keep seeing players applying the rules they learned at tournaments to the big table.  Sure, some of the tricks that work there fit right in to the world of EDH, but when games go long and…

  • On the Value of Haste, or, How to Win More Often When You’re a Timmy with a Token Deck

    If you look at my Magic player psychographic profile, you’ll find me pretty squarely in the Timmy camp: I love big spells, I love big creatures, I love big effects, and my primary motivation when playing Magic is to have fun while turning cards sideways with my friends. But I have a Spike streak as…