Hello folks! I hope that your day is going well.

Have you ever wanted to build a deck but you didn't know where to start? Feel a little overwhelmed by the massive number of cards that exist and the more that are coming out all the time?

I get it!

This year, alone, we've had a new Core Set, all of the normal expansion sets, tons of new cards in Modern Horizons rather than the reprints you might expect in a Master set. We've had new cards in Commander decks as well as Brawl decks that just arrived. Tons of planeswalker decks with new cards have been printed as well as new cards like Buy-a-Box promos, or the boxed sets.

For example, these three 5/5 cards were never released in a Booster pack, but they are newly printed. And that's in addition to the epic amount of cards from sets, Brawl and Commander decks, etc. So, I get it.

There are a ton of cards out there. There are more than 19,400 cards out there that are legal in Vintage not counting cards banned like silver-bordered ones or Ante cards. That means that we are likely to be at 20,000 very soon

Think about that. We are playing a game with almost 20,000 unique game pieces.

How could you ever do that?

I can't imagine starting this game new. I've been playing since 1994 and all of my adult life and I still have at least 1,000 cards out there I've likely never played. And I have a draft with at least one of every card ever printed, save for silver-bordered cards, so I own them all! (I'm only missing a handful of cards like Zodiac Dragon)

So I get it! Where do you start?

How about allowing fate (or luck if you prefer) to do it instead?

Today I want to try something I've never done before, and I call it a "Random Pyramid Challenge"

I was inspired by my Tenth Random Top Ten that I wrote for this Friday. Several of the cards in a row had a cool theme.

What I want to do is to hit the random button over at Gatherer on the Wizards home-page. Then I will build a deck around the first card I get.

But here's where things will get tricky.

After my first deck is built, I'll hit the random button again, but rather than build a second deck around the new card, I must build a deck around both, no matter how crazy they may be together.

And then, no matter how crazy that is, I am going to keep hitting random Gatherer for as long as I can, and add more and more cards like pyramids on the previous ones. And each new deck must include all of the previous cards.

I'll keep doing it as long as I feel I have a cohesive structure and then organically, call it.

Ready?

Let's do it!

Here's where I am going:

Here's my first hit. Sage of Lat-Nam.

I'll need to build a deck around it. Sounds good. How about Mono-Blue Clues?

I'll be adding in some Clue makers or cards that care about Clues like these.

Sages of Clues | Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (14)
• 2 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 4 Daring Sleuth
• 4 Drownyard Explorers
• 4 Sage of Lat-Nam

• Instants (6)
• 2 Jace's Scrutiny
• 4 Confirm Suspicions

• Sorceries (4)
• 2 Gone Missing
• 2 Press for Answers

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Fleeting Memories
• 4 Ongoing Investigation

• Artifacts (4)
• 2 Magnifying Glass
• 2 Tamiyo's Journal

• Lands (24)
• 24 Island

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There you are! The goal of the deck is to make Clues and sacrifice them to various effects. We also have Emry, Lurker of the Loch from your most recent set as a way to recast artifacts you sacrifice to the Sage. Note that you could push actual artifacts like the Glass or Journal as well.

Now, what card will I get next? What if it's an enchantment enabler like Enchantress's Presence? That'd be really funny.

All right, my next card is Durkwood Boars!

Great. I have Simic in my deck. Let's do it!

What if I just added Green to my Clues deck?

Sages of Ages | Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (20)
• 2 Birds of Paradise
• 3 Durkwood Boars
• 3 Graf Mole
• 4 Daring Sleuth
• 4 Sage of Lat-Nam
• 4 Tireless Tracker

• Instants (4)
• 4 Confirm Suspicions

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Root Out

• Enchantments (6)
• 2 Fleeting Memories
• 4 Ongoing Investigation

• Artifacts (4)
• 2 Magnifying Glass
• 2 Tamiyo's Journal

• Lands (24)
• 10 Forest
• 10 Island
• 4 Simic Growth Chamber

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And there you are! I added in cards like Tireless Tracker and Graf Mole and such as well as Durkwood Boars to give me a fun dork to ramp out. Lots of fun for everyone!

Now what?

Uh oh.

This is going to be weird...

Can I think of an artifact-matters Vraska build?

I sure can!

Sages of Snakes | Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Durkwood Boars
• 2 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 2 Glissa, the Traitor
• 2 Memnarch
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine
• 4 Myr Retriever
• 4 Sage of Lat-Nam
• 4 Solemn Simulacrum

• Planeswalkers (7)
• 1 Vraska, Scheming Gorgon
• 3 Vraska, Golgari Queen
• 3 Vraska, Relic Seeker

• Sorceries (6)
• 2 Cultivate
• 2 Vraska's Scorn
• 2 Darksteel Ingot

• Lands (26)
• 6 Forest
• 6 Island
• 6 Swamp
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 City of Brass
• 2 Inventors' Fair
• 4 Mana Confluence

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Here we go! This is really cool. The goal of this deck is to use Vraskas as engines to make the deck work. Here, let me show you:

We have these three Vraskas in our deck. The Golgari Queen can sacrifice artifacts for life and cards. Use the Relic Seeker to make a Treasure token and destroy something at the same time. That's great! The Treasure is an artifact you can use for other effects. You also can use the other Vraska's to destroy a dork or cheaper permanent. Now you have two ways to use these destruction effects. Can you see them?

The first is normally. You destroy a target artifact, dork, enchantment or something similar to deal with stuff your foes are tossing at you. The second? You can destroy one of your artifacts for a death trigger.

These three bodies are all in my deck. You could destroy one with Relic Seeker, draw a card with the Simulacrum or get an artifact back with the Retriever, while also making a Treasure token for more fuel. There are many of these effects running around in our build. They'll also love jumping in front of a Sage for a card.

Did you see Glissa, the Traitor here as well? Her first strike and deathtouch is a powerful combo already. And then, as your Vraskas kill opposing dorks, (or they die via other methods) you can get free recursions of your artifacts that are sitting in your graveyard. Emry makes a return appearance

Memarch is great. You can turn any of your cards into an artifact to send it to a Sage. You can also steal opposing artifacts permanently, or turn an opposing card into an artifact, and do the same. It's brilliant here. You'll see stuff out here like Inventors' Fair or Academy Ruins.

All right now that was a fun and unexpected turn.

Now what?

Infect?

Let's see what I can assemble now...

Sages of Poisons | Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (21)
• 2 Durkwood Boars
• 2 Grim Poppet
• 2 Kulrath Knight
• 2 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
• 2 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
• 3 Sage of Lat-Nam
• 4 Core Prowler
• 4 Rot Wolf

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Vraska, Scheming Gorgon
• 2 Vraska, Golgari Queen

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Vraska's Scorn
• 2 Cultivate

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Blowfly Infestation

• Artifacts (11)
• 1 Contagion Engine
• 2 Darksteel Ingot
• 2 Serrated Arrows
• 2 Sword of Truth and Justice
• 4 Contagion Clasp

• Lands (26)
• 6 Forest
• 6 Island
• 6 Swamp
• 2 City of Brass
• 2 Karn's Bastion
• 4 Mana Confluence

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This is a -1/-1 counter deck that uses artifact-based ways of handing out counters plus proliferate.

Core Prowler is great to sacrifice to Sage of Lat-Nam and other effects here for the proliferate that'll happen afterwards. It teams up with Rot Wolf and Skittles for infecting fun-times.

As creatures with counters on them die, you can farm out counters to other dorks as well! This is a brilliant way to keep stuff moving in your direction.

Did you see Yawgmoth here? He can sacrifice stuff for effects, toss out counters and proliferate. It's amazing in here, as is the synergy of forcing your foe's dorks with counters to be unable to participate at all in combat!

And there we are! You can sacrifice stuff like Grim Poppet, I tossed in Serrated Arrows and other cards to be fuel for your sacrifices. Enjoy!

Now I feel like I have reached the end of this journey right? This feels like an organic end of the challenge right?

So let's do one more. I have to, right?

Well that's weird. My next card was a Sheep token.

Here's the next card. And that's not bad. It's in color!

However, it would preclude me from running legendary dorks as one would die if I had this. Now my goal is to run the same infect build, but to drop this on turn two, a d then swing with vital stuff the next turn, like Rot Wolf.

Example, what if I had a way to drop a Blightsteel Colossus on the next turn?

How? Tinker. It's restricted though, so I just tossed in the one.

Flash works too. You drop the dork, and then sacrifice it, and it will head back to your library and you have one likely to swing for game that turn!

I've also added in Wurmcoil Engine again as well as other big artifact dorks that'll have usefuldeath triggers for you.

Sages of Tricks | Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (25)
• 2 Durkwood Boars
• 2 Scuttling Doom Engine
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine
• 3 Sage of Lat-Nam
• 4 Blightsteel Colossus
• 4 Core Prowler
• 4 Renegade Doppelganger
• 4 Rot Wolf

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Vraska, Golgari Queen
• 1 Vraska, Scheming Gorgon

• Instants (4)
• 4 Flash

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Tinker
• 1 Vraska's Scorn
• 2 Cultivate

• Lands (25)
• 6 Forest
• 6 Island
• 6 Swamp
• 1 Karn's Bastion
• 2 City of Brass
• 4 Mana Confluence

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Now I really have finished this thing. I hope you enjoyed my Random Pyramid challenge! My goal is to inspire you to get past the card count and find inspiration in the most unlikely of places!