I'm building an EDH deck.

Wizards of the Coast, in their vast wisdom, realized a while ago that there were all these people who weren't playing Magic: The Gathering by the official rules. They were doing this crazy format that involved having a general, and playing with a deck that had almost twice as many cards, but you couldn't have any doubles. More over, the format they were using had a strong multiplayer bent to it.

So, being a good business, they decided to capitalize on it.

EDH, or Elder Dragon Highlander, was the old name of the now-officially sanctioned Commander format. It's got a few rules, which you can read about HERE. Next weekend, the new official Commander preconstructed decks are being released, and I've been following the spoiler season pretty aggressively.

For those of you who don't know, I go down to Pennsylvania once a month for a Magic: The Gathering weeked. We chill and play cards, and DnD, and occasionally catch a movie and get drunk, and have singalongs, and it's generally a great time. My group of friends is planning, among other things for next weekend, to pick up the Commander preconstructed decks (2 of each, for the ~10 of us, depending on who can get off work and everything.) In addition, a bunch of us are working on building actual EDH decks of our own.

My first idea was a BW build involving Teysa, Orzov Scion. Unfortunately, one of my other friends informed me that not only had he already had the idea, he'd already built it.

What a loser. Stealing my ideas before I have them...

So I went to my general (pun intended!) fallback option. Knights.

I've always loved knights as a tribe. Ever since I saw Knight Exemplar and realized “This is the coolest Lord since...well...Vampire Nocturnus.” (That card only became cool when people around me started flipping their top card and going “It's night time.”) I've got Standard Knights. I've got a list made up for extended knights. I'm planning on building Knights again after Zendikar rotates, and I can stick a creature without it being bounced and taunted endlessly by some people. (but yes, I will miss you, Student of Warfare.)

So, step 1 of building an EDH deck – get a concept. Cool. Got that. Next step is a general. I headed over to Gatherer, typed in the relevant information. (Subtype: Knight. Legendary. Creature. Contains White.)

Rafiq of the Many.

Well, that was easy. And he's pretty damn cool to boot. I like Bant Colors, ideologically. It's actually my favorite shard on Alara, so it was a pretty easy sell for me to pick that general as soon as I saw it. I've started writing a couple of things down in a notebook, as general guidelines and principles to help me build this deck. I've never done the EDH thing, so this is pretty much a collection of knowledge based on what I know of my multiplayer games, and how they would change if the decks were twice as big, less consistant, and all had big splashy generals, but twice as much health.

Well this should be fun.

Observation 1: We've got a lot more health.

Life Totals only matter at the start of games, in my experience. After a little while, the things being thrown around with a dozen mana on the table start to get stupid. Three Coat of Arms plus a Strata Scythe in a game where 5 people are playing white generally makes sure that no matter how much life you have, getting hit WILL kill you. That said, it takes the game a long time to ramp to those levels, and it's very very possible to be burst down early if you don't have any board presence (Especially if those who do have board presence think you've got a Wrath effect in hand.)

As a result of this, I'm thinking that early game should be focused primarily on establishing a solid position for the late game, either with recurring creatures, indestructible creatures, or enchantments and artifacts that will bolster your later creatures significantly. Actually trying to go for the kill early probably isn't a winning strategy, especially in the 4+ player games we're going to be doing. No aggro deck is going to be able to burst down 160+ life points before it runs out of steam.

Observation 2: That's a lot of people who don't want me to win.

It's a rule of multiplayer that there are generally more options being played with. There's a card drawn (or more than one) for each player, each turn. Single player, you get one draw, they get one draw. In multiplayer, you get one draw, and they get N, where N is the number of people who eventually want you dead. If you drop a 9/9 murderwyrm on the field (no, that's not a real card, relax.) and start pointing it at people, chances are that someone is going to object, and of those objecting parties, someone will have an answer to it.

As a result of this, I'm going to have to do some work to assure that my big guys stick on the field, or can try again if they don't stick the first time. Counter-counterspells are an option, since I'm in blue. (and there are some delicious GU and UW options for those) Green and white have a fair amount of graveyard play involved in them, so I'll probably play with those. Also, I'll probably throw in a healthy dose of card draw that will be a major advantage late in the game when I'm in need of more gas.

Observation 3: Some of the people I play with are assholes.

I don't mean this as a judgment, but it's true. At times, there are people who follow simple logic and play the game in as close to an ideal sense as possible. That said, there are also vindictive sons-of-bitches who play decks that maindeck 45 counterspells, or run 4 knowledge pools with the express purpose of making everyone want to kill themselves, not him. There are people who roll dice to decide attacks, and people who metagame our friendly gatherings into 8v1's that they intend to win via more table wiping than is found in even the most sanitary of places.

As a result, this deck is going to need to be fun to play, regardless of the nonsense happening elsewhere. Making sure I always have plays is an important part of that, and making my board as resistant as possible to “Oops, a bad thing just happened” is a significant step towards that. Counterspells and card draw are again, solid options here. Making sure that every creature I play is a threat also strikes me as important. No vanilla creatures here. They should all be worth something more to my overall board position.

Observation 4: That's a big card pool...

I don't play Legacy. I've only seriously played 5-6 sets. I do not have most of the cards that I am planning on using. As a result, crowd sourcing is going to be a good part of this deck building process. I've looked at some Rafiq builds, and I'm looking at more. EDH Knights decks, tribal decks in general, gatherer, EDH websites for deck building guidelines. Things like that. It's helping. I've got a 40-card list so far, and it's expanding rapidly.

But that's beyond the pall of this article. This was more of an intro. Next time, we're going to get into the nitty-gritty of the actual deck itself.

Suggestions for cards? Want to talk about your awesome deck? Interested about EDH? Drop em in the comments below! I'd be happy to hear from you all.

~AR