Decklist: URG Shenanigans' Path

Settle down children, and let me take you on a journey. Not only do I have a decklist for you today, but I thought I'd give you some insight into my deck building process. It was an interesting journey, and hopefully someone out there will be able to gleam a little deckbuilding knowledge from it.

Now, today's deck is an odd one. Every once in a while I'll stumble across a card from Magic's past that had somehow eluded me for all these years. Some cards, like Surprise Deployment or Saprazzan Heir, are nice additions to my Johnny arsenal and beg to be built around. On the flip side, others are so bad that they stick with me and taunt me until I put their spirits to rest by building a deck around them.

The lynchpin for today's deck is one such card. Often called the worst Magic card in existence, this card gives a mediocre effect for such a steep cost that it's ridiculous by today's standards. Can you guess which card I'm getting at? Hailing all the way from 1994's The Dark, it's...

Decklist: URG Zada, Hedron Grinder

Today's BFZ spoilers gave us quite the Johnny tool. A friend and I had challenged each other to build a deck around an RTR gem; unfortunately we never really got any traction, and the deck fell onto the backburners. That is, of course, until this card was spoiled today. Can you guess what the RTR card was?

Top 5 Under-the-Radar Draft Cards in Fate Reforged

Here's a quick Top 5 of cards that may not have looked like much at first glance, but once you get to playing with (or against) them in draft, you quickly start to see their power. As it turns out, each color is represented here, so you'll know what to look out for no matter what you're drafting.

Drafting the Mechanics of Fate Reforged

Well, after a bit of a hiatus, it's time to get things back into high gear with the release of Fate Reforged. I sat down with some buddies on release weekend and got three drafts in my system, and if there's one thing I noticed it's that its a slow set to draft. While there are obviously some fast and powerful cards in the set, the environment tends to favor stand-off situations, making it almost a game of inches.

With that said, I figured I'd do a quick breakdown of what to look for while drafting the set. Let's take a look at the mechanics, shall we?

Commander 2014: Top 10 New (non-Planeswalker) Cards

The new Commander deck has been out for almost a week now, and I've had the good fortune to be able to play the decks in a Sealed environment. I highly recommend doing so if you can get 4 buddies together for a full day.

There are a number of exciting new cards released that are having me chomp at the bit to play them in a Constructed setting. I've drummed up a list of the most interesting new cards in the set. I've deliberately left the Planeswalkers off the list as they're in a bit of a category of their own, and fit great in specific decks. The cards in this list are ranked not only for power, but also for their versatility, potential Johnny usefulness (this is a Johnny blog, after all), as well as their long-term monetary value. I try to keep a keen eye on the ebb and flow of card values, and that's something I'd like to integrate into this blog. Essentially, these are cards that I suggest everyone add to their collection.

Decklist: WUBRG Elementals

Before wrapping up the mission I started with my post on building tribal decks, I had one last deck to share in that respect. This one's a bit more of a gimme, as Elementals are not without their innate support cards. I wanted to post a Commander tribal deck before capping things off however, and despite cheating on my part (this isn't that off-brand, as even the commander explicitly helps the tribe) the deck does have its own theme.

Decklist: WURG Tribal Changelings

Come on. Don't look at me like that. Changelings are a tribe too! Sure, they're every tribe, and technically I should be calling this a Tribal Shapeshifter deck. But aren't tribal decks so much fun when you can include tribal cues from any tribe??