This past weekend I was able to participate in a fantastic event, Sheldon Menery's nearly fiftieth birthday celebration. While there was less legacy there, there was in fact much more debauchery, with good times had by all. While some might view my inability to play Legacy as a downside, I view it as an upside, as it also let me think quite a bit about EDH, and in particular let me revisit one of my favorite older decks.

My very first EDH deck was back during the dark days of the format when things were not nearly as defined as they are now. It was a three color monstrosity that involved heavy doses of Teneb, the Harvester as my general and usually locked games out with Recurring Nightmare and Yosei, the Morning Star. It was unfun at best. The fact that several of those cards have been banned should speak to the relative power level, especially when other players were not aware of the viciousness that was available at the time.

The problem with a deck like that and a person like me, is the fact that I was still approaching the game as a competitive player. I viewed combo as the way to go (it was one of the dominant decks in standard at the time), I just wanted to win. After building a deck which was essentially as spike as could be I really wanted a change of pace. The game wasn't fun for the people I was playing with and that just didn't seem right. So I decided a new deck was in order. Part of the fun of this new deck was the cost. This deck was extremely cheap at the time. Note that some of the cards have since become highly played legacy staples, but at the time they were mostly bulk rares.

I decided to make a deck that was as chaotic as could be. I decided that I was going to make a deck that consisted of lots of ramp/mana double type effects and as many ways to randomly fork and copy spells as possible. There is nothing quite as fun as forking random things like Wildfire, Prosperity, even Wits End. The more random the better the effect would be. In addition to copy effects I also included a fair number of mana doubling outlets that worked universally. I wanted players to be able to play big things so I can copy the hell out of them!

I'd like to rebuild that list using the nice new technology we have. First, the deck needs a leader. My original build was red/green and I think that's still the way to go. While there are a few copy effects in blue, red really offers the most bang for your buck, so to speak. Green has a fairly natural pairing, giving us the acceleration we need to get things in gear. My original general was Radha, Heir to Keld, but in the time since this deck was constructed I think a more worthy pairing has come up, Wort, the Raidmother. She is like a built in Mirari, everything we want to have happen in a nice color enabling package!

In order to have things be truly effective it's important to hit all of our land drops. We also want to have as much acceleration as possible. There are few things more frustrating than having a deck that is very mana hungry and not being able to do anything, and we want to avoid that. Fortunately, we will also be able to simply find lands and accelerate them into play through other means. Let's take a look at the final hundred:

[cardlist]

[General]

1 Wort, the Raidmother

[/General]

[Copy effects]

1 Mirari

1 Fork

1 Radiate

1 Reiterate

1 Reverberate

1 Reversal of Fortune

1 Wild Ricochet

[/Copy effects]

[Acceleration]

1 Summer Bloom

1 Sol Ring

1 Exploration

1 Cultivate

1 Deep Reconnaissance

1 Edge of Autumn

1 Explosive Vegetation

1 Far Wanderings

1 Growth Spasm

1 Harrow

1 Journey of Discovery

1 Khalni Heart Expedition

1 Kodama's Reach

1 New Frontiers

1 Rampant Growth

1 Sakura Tribe Elder

1 Yavimaya Elder

1 Veteran Explorer

1 Heartbeat of Spring

1 Keeper of Progenitus

1 Mana Flare

1 Overabundance

1 Early Harvest

[/Acceleration]

[Card Drawing and Advantage]

1 Horn of Greed

1 Seer's Sundial

1 Howling Mine

1 Font of Mythos

1 Temple Bell

1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Scroll Rack

1 Planar Portal

1 Wheel of Fortune

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Memory Jar

1 Mind's Eye

1 Mindslaver

1 Scroll of Origins

1 Teferi's Puzzle Box

1 Tower of Fortunes

[/Card Drawing and Advantage]

[Recursion]

1 Eternal Witness

1 Holistic Wisdom

1 Nature's Spiral

1 Nostalgic Dreams

1 Recollect

1 Regrowth

1 Restock

1 Vengeful Rebirth

1 Woodland Guidance

[/Recursion]

[Utility]

1 Primal Command

1 Arashi, the Sky Asunder

1 Jiwari, the Earth Aflame

1 Oracle of Mul Daya

1 Earthquake

1 Hurricane

1 Squall Line

1 Genesis

[/Utility]

[Land]

1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

19 Forest

17 Mountain

[/Land]

[/cardlist]

First off, that has to be by far the cheapest mana base I have ever put in a deck! Early harvest is a big part of our fun and it can only untap basic lands. Mikokoro is just too fun and card advantagey not to have in our final list. Another thing you might have noticed, this deck does not have a lot of kill conditions. I've made this deck to have fun and do silly random things. It's not too uncommon for the game to go very long and be ended by a small creature going the distance, or even forking a direct damage spell.

I look forward to playing the deck this week at EDH league. We will have a special guest in Armada games, Scott Larabee is coming down to join us. Scott will be gunslinging at the regional pre-release in Orlando, Florida. I'll be the head judge and rumor has it that Sheldon Menery may even stop by. Bring your EDH deck and there might just be time for one giant game! Join me next week when I go through some of the details of playing with this list, some of the finer rules interactions especially! Until then this is Benjamin McDole giving you a hundred reasons to play Magic!