Repeat after me: “Synergy is not the same thing as having a game plan.” No. No. Don’t just read it. Say it out loud with me. For real. Let’s say it again: “Synergy is not the same thing as having a game plan.” Good! Now that we’ve got that in your head, we can really…
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When we moved house a few months ago, Himself wanted to call our new house ‘the house of cards’ as we own so many. Often we have piles of cards all over the house, until I get around to sorting them all out again. Himself has been playing Magic off and on since he was…
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You may have noticed that the further we’ve progressed into the Unified Theory’s MDTAS system, the more we’ve discussed the “character” of your deck. This isn’t a coincidence. Every deck needs mana sources, and the rules that help players improve their mana base can be broadly applied. Every deck wants card draw, so resource acquisition…
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Up through this point in the Unified Theory of Commander, we’ve been primarily concerned with what our own decks want to do. Threats define the goals of the deck, while Draw and Mana give us access to those threats and the ability to cast them. As we move into the fourth element in our theory,…
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Imagine for a moment that your commander is an actual living being someplace out in the Magic multiverse. He, she, or it wants something. Can you say what that something is? Does she want to grab a sword and slice someone open? Does he want to make it impossible for his enemies to cast a…
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What kind of deck do you really want to build? This question is at the starting point of every Commander deck, isn’t it? There’s no sense in building a deck that won’t be fun to pilot. So EDH players need to start with this question and then continually revisit it to make sure that the…
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We’ve already spilled quite a bit of digital ink discussing the first two elements of the Unified Theory of Commander: mana and draw. Over the last four articles in this series, we learned why to make mana production a priority during deck construction and how to utilize card draw to create options that help our decks succeed….
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There are ways around just about every rule ever made by mankind. We’ve all learned to push the boundaries and discover which rules really apply and which ones are not fully enforced. Kids learn which parent to ask to get that extra TV show before bed. Students figure out which teachers are pushovers that let…
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Let’s continue our discussion of the Unified Theory of Commander with a simple question. Would you generally rather be the player at the table with zero cards in hand or the player with a full hand of seven cards? No, this isn’t a trick question. It’s a thought exercise to make sure you are in…
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I advised my readers in my previous article that acquiring mana was a big deal in Commander. As it turns out, it’s such a big deal that I wasn’t able to contain it all in one post. After we published the first piece, so many comments, questions, and (gasp!) criticisms came pouring in that I felt like…
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Commander is a complicated game. Despite being a “casual” format, the massive pool of playable cards, multiplayer politics, and varied expectations of what constitutes the “Spirit of Commander” can make trying EDH for the first time quite intimidating. The trouble finding sound advice on how to build and play a deck online doesn’t help the…
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