Tuesday, January 26th – The Armada Games EDH League is back on! For the first week of this iteration of the League, I wanted to play Kresh, since he’s my signature guy. As you’ll see, the deck came through a little, and let me down a little, but as usual, he sometimes comes out of nowhere to deal a pile of damage.
Thursday, January 21st – I started writing about Magic again last year, with the intention of exploding the myth that judges are bad players. It was intended mostly light-heartedly, but with the message that Judge-as-Player shouldn’t be so lightly discounted. It morphed into the mostly-EDH column that’s become Embracing the Chaos, but I’d like to return occasionally to the roots of the idea…
Thursday, January 14th – I love all colors in EDH, although clearly not equally, since last week’s list was mostly Jund. Jund strategies, which involve mostly savage aggression, are definitely my style, but more subtle and tricksy strategies aren’t lost on me. My original Generals, however, were WUG: first Arcades Sabboth and then Phelddagrif.
Thursday, January 7th – I’d like to start 2010 on a positive note, talking about some of my favorite cards for the format, about some of the things I like instead of some of the things I don’t. These are not necessarily the most powerful individual cards, but the ones that I really like playing with, or the ones that fit best into the strategies that I like.
Thursday, December 17th – There are three elements to the play of any game of Magic: Strategic, Tactical, and Social. They exist in different proportions based on the event that you’re attending, and the format you’re playing. I’d like to talk about the differences between them in competitive events versus EDH events.
Thursday, December 3rd – When Pete asked me to come back to StarCityGames.com to write this column, it was clear that it was primarily to be about EDH. I asked him what I could write about, and he said “anything.†I’ll stay Magic-related, and tell you about what it’s like to be the Head Judge of a World Championships.
Thursday, November 26th – It started as a tiny little format in a small community in the largest state in the union, and now we’re in the Comp Rules. Since all but one of us were in Rome for the World Championships (a bit of serendipity, certainly unplanned), it occurred to me that you might like to meet some of the folks that are the caretakers of your favorite format.
Thursday, November 19th – I’ve been cruising the Mediterranean on my way to Worlds in Rome. Somewhere around Athens, I realized that it would only be fitting that I talked about philosophy while in the Greek isles, the birthplace of much of modern thought. With apologies to Rousseau, John Locke, and Thomas Hobbes (not to mention Socrates and Plato), here’s my shot at the Social Contract as it applies to EDH.
Friday, November 6th – The rotation of decks continued through the Armada Games EDH League, this time with the original, Phelddagrif. The purple hippo deck originally started because of how bad the card is. It was a concession to the fact that I had a giant collection and my group consisted of casual players who didn’t have four copies of everything cool.
Thursday, October 29th – The wide-open nature of the EDH format means that there are cards that aren’t quite ban-worthy, since they’re not exactly broken, which are still not fun to play against or seriously challenge the format’s social nature.
Thursday, October 22nd – It’s the best format you’ve ever seen played. You’ve watched all the wackiness, you’ve heard all the stories. You’ve even borrowed someone’s 100 card pile and participated in the madness. Now you want to build your own deck. Where to start?
Friday, October 16th – In this week’s Embracing the Chaos, Sheldon Menery rounds two excellent games from his local EDH league, with broken plays and turns that highlight why this format is expanding at an alarming rate!
Friday, October 9th – I decided to play Kresh for week one of the league. I’ll probably rotate each week to keep things fresh and hopefully avoid getting metagamed (although it’s difficult for me to avoid using creature recursion from the graveyard – it’s just one of my favorite things to do).
Thursday, October 1st – Zendikar is chock-full of treasures for your EDH deck. In fact, I might say that it’s the single best set for EDH ever. There are so many crazy things to do, so many strategic nooks and crannies to explore, that it was tough to even get down to 20, and that’s not even counting the fetchlands…
Thursday, September 24th – When the Armada Games Tampa $3k tournament came around, and Director of R&D Aaron Forsythe, DCI Tournament Manager Scott Larabee, and former Vice President of Organized Play Chris Galvin all ended up here, it seemed like opportunity knocking; opportunity to play Magic with some of the most influential persons in the game’s history. All I had to do is fling open the door.
