I have a couple of neat deck ideas I would like to share. I was waiting until the release of Alara Reborn to add all those juicy gold cards into the mix. I like GOLD! 

One of these decks has some interesting lifegain potential, the other has none, but just seemed too fun to pass up. On to the decks!

Deck 1

Ooooooooooooo, Zombies... (Standard U/B/W)

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Creatures: (16)

Lich Lord of Unx x4

Fleshbag Maurauder x4

Death Baron x4

Tidehollow Sculler x4

Spells: (20)

Path to Exile x4

Wrath of God x4

Cruel Edict x4

Negate x4

Necromancer's Covenant x4

Lands: (24)

Reflecting Pool x3

Adarkar Wastes x4

Arcane Sanctum x4

Plains x4

Swamp x8

Island x1

The decks purpose is pretty straightforward. Blow stuff up, blow it up again, then do it again, then get alot of zombies and watch them die. It should do well against many decks and several decks will really hate it, hello Revilark Control. I like stealing your graveyard for my hungry dead. Muwhahahaha. 

Once I play it a few times against some different decks I will make a post about how it performs.

Deck 2

Punch to the Face! (Standard G/R)

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Creatures: (24)

Bloodbraid Elf x4

Rip-Clan Crasher x4

Hellpsark Elemental x4

Boggart Ram-Gang x4

Jund Hackblade x4

Blitz Hellion x4

Spells: (12)

Violent Outburst x4

Colossal Might x4

Incinerate x4

Lands: (24)

Ancient Ziggurat x4

Reflecting Pool x4

Karplusan Forest x4

Forest x5

Mountain x7

No, you did not read it incorrectly, ever creature has Haste and every spell is an instant. No hidden agenda here, I plan to smash you in the face. The worst part about this deck is that it probably isn't fast enough for Standard. How sad is that. I will play some games and let everyone know how it does. If I get the nuts draw/cascade, you die on 4. Seems fast enough, but so many cheap fast removal effects, we will have to see. It looks like a blast to play anyway.

This deck also features one the coolest effects to come from Wizards in quite awhile. I am very excited about Cascade. I think it is an awesome mechanic and I hope they use it again and don't just leave it to languish in this one set.

Until next time, Lordwraith out...

Some conclusions.

Friday night I piloted the G/W/B re-animater EDH against some skilled opponents. The results were pretty good, even though I was eliminated first. It was a 4-player game featuring friends, Sean, Greg, Aaron and myself. I was facing the following decks, a R/B Malfegor, a R/B Karevek, and a G/W/U cycle/slide/exalted Rafiq. 

I busted out Doran on 3, dropped a Mirari's wake on 4 and then a Grave Pact on turn 5. The next hour and 45 minutes I effectively held off all three decks, but finally succumbed to damage. Everyone else, sans Sean, with his Rafiq deck was down to about 15 health by that time though and pretty much nothing lived for too long. Grave Shell Sacrab and Grave Pact is like cheating. :)

I made some play errors that might have cost me. I kept returning The Scarab instead of my Yavimaya Elder to the top of my deck via Volrath's Stronghold. Drawing extra cards and fetching lands seems like a sure-fire plan. I also wasted too many resources going after Karevek and cost myself about 19 damage by being hasty. I also foolishly mana-burned for about 6-8 extra damage too. I know, bad magic player alert!

One very interesting thing is that I quickly became the focus of everyone's ire, the Wake and the Grave Pact seemed to make people unhappy, go figure...

I am happy how the deck performed, even with Sean removing most all of my recursion engine from the game, jerk! He did help me refine and shape the deck into the monster it is, so he had some insider knowledge. I still call no fair though. LOL

After I died, it was pretty much a beating from Malfegor to most everyone else left, with a Banefire for 12 going to Aaron's head from Greg to finish the game. Sadly, I died from a Demonfire to the face from Aaron for 13, so what comes around goes around I guess in the multi-player madness of EDH.

A quick side-note, sorry Sean, Grave Pact and Exalted not a great combo for you. Your deck never got anything going and it was all my fault. hehehehehehe

I should update this more often.

I have been exploring lots of EDH lately. I now have 2 decks complete. 

One is B/G/W with Doran as the general. It is a re-animator style deck and all I can say it is brutal to duel against. I have not played it against multiple opponents yet, but it should hold it's own nicely.

The second is a R/G/W with Rith, the Awakener as it's General. It is a pretty straightforward beatdown deck that tries to generate so many tokens that it just wins.

Both of these decks have good amounts of lifegain, from the necessary Exalted Angel to the truly beastly, Divinity of Pride, which rumor has it in EDH is a 8/8, flying, lifelink for 5, hmmmm...

I will be posting some more frequent updates, so until then, keep gaining that life!

And so it begins....

Well I decided to blog about something I like to do but never have enough time for, Magic: The Gathering. For those of you who don't know what that is, let me be your guide.

Way back in 1993 a math nerd named Richard Garfield created a "genre" of games now ubiquitously called Collectible Card Games, or CCG's for short. There have been many of these types of games that have come and gone, but Magic has endured, proving, that it pays to be first. I have included the Wikipedia page for further exploration, if you so choose: Magic: the Gathering

The name of my blog is quite humorous for me as I have heard this cry so many times during matches, in articles, and from friends, so I figured why not write about and explore ideas and decks that might disprove, "Lifegain is bad!"

Enjoy the ride.