U/W Shape Control

The spoiling of Blightsteel Colossus made Shape Anew a much more interesting card. Emrakul was already out there sure, but there's something satisfying about killing someone with one combat phase. I think the combo has the potential to make it into a number of decks that play blue cards, but I chose to start tinkering with a control build:

Spells:
4 Shape Anew
4 Master's Call

4 Mana Leak
4 Cancel
3 Stoic Rebuttal
4 Condemn
4 Preordain

Creatures:
3 Blightsteel Colossus

Planeswalkers:
4 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Land:
4 Halimar Depths
3 Celestial Colonnade
3 Seachrome Coast
3 Glacial Fortress
4 Inkmoth Nexus
9 Island

I left the sideboard out for now. Really just wanting to tweak the core build before anything else. I've only had a chance to test it once against a G/W Quest deck. Lost the 1st game, but was able to get the combo out in short order in games 2 and 3. With the right draw the deck can have BSC out and ready to rock on turn 4. Really looking forward to testing more against Tier 1 competition.

Condemn fits well in the deck. It's cheap removal and who cares about the lifegain when your plan is to kill with poison? I will say it feels negligible in many aggro matchups. Condemn isn't going to do much to slow down All In Goblins or other hyper aggressive strategies, and to be honest I almost feel like Day of Judgement might be too slow.  Maybe a mix of 3 Condemn and 3 Days in the main with Choking Fumes in the sideboard for our goblin friends. 11 counters almost feels like too much, maybe this is where cuts would be made. Speaking of counters, I feel like Negate might be a better card than Stoic Rebuttal. This is something that only further playtesting will resolve. I felt there were a few times I was lamenting the need to keep 3 mana open.

I'm very happy with the deck in terms of being able to dig through and find the combo pieces. Jace, Preordain, and Halimar depths function very well in this regard. Even if I don't find the combo pieces I'm looking for, I will often find the cards I need to deal with any situation.

I think the deck can definitely be better. There is a lot of tweaking to be done, but I'm pleased with the initial build and looking forward to sleeving up the finished product soon and taking it out for a spin on Friday night.

Coming Full Circle

I can trace nearly everything that has ever been good in my life back to Magic: The Gathering. Maybe that sounds sad to you. For me it's anything but. Perhaps one day I will bore you with the details, but for now suffice to say that everything I have - friends, family, and home - is due in large part to my picking up a starter deck of Ice Age as a teenager.

After this purchase I was totally immersed in Magic. Deck building, trading, and competing was a daily practice for me. At around age 20 other interests began to make their way to the fore of my priorities and Magic began to fade into the background. I was never totally removed from it, but I ended up selling my collection over time and very rarely played the game anymore.

Now - 10 years, 1 marriage, and a 4 year old son later - I have decided to get back into the game for good. I have so much to catch up on! 35 expansions have been released (not counting core sets) since I last played Magic seriously. To put that into perspective; there were only 16 sets released when I previously stopped playing. There is a lot of cardboard out there I have never seen. Mechanics and rules changes I have never heard of. Forget about everything I knew regarding card prices, anything that was good back in my day is valuable. Now we have $90 type 2 cards, a new format called legacy, changes to extended, mythic rares, and somehow highlander is a format supported by WOTC!?!

It's a huge amount of info for this magic veteran to absorb. Fortunately, the game seems to be more popular than ever. There are tons of resources for information out there on a variety of topics: deckbuilding, play, finance, you name it. I'm eager to learn and glad to be back. It's a great time to be a magic player.