Another post on Magic? Yup.

Magic was fun again today. I lost the free for all rounds and did not have much success with pestilence at all this week. I decided to fix a few fundamental flaws in the deck and hopefully the next time I use it, it will work bettter. Last week, another players Gauntlet of Power, greatly boosted the effectiveness of my deck, but this week it was simply shutdown. Deck design is an on-going process and my decks are still in the early stages of development and losing usually provides you with key insights into a deck's shortcomings. Like most players, I occasionally misunderstand the effect of a card and have to tweak a deck. In some cases, I simply scrap the design altogether.

I have some new deck ideas which I am excited to put together.

Many of my cards are older cards. Sometimes older cards are nice, but other times, they feel a bit dated. New cards continue to pile on the abilities making a creature which merely flies or simply infects seem somewhat obsolete. I have been slowly adding to my collection and will continue to do so. As lame as it is, I have been earning gift cards on Swagbucks. One of the reasons I do this, is hopefully, to provide the other players with more competitive rounds. Some of the more valuable cards will probably remain out of reach, but that is okay. There has always been a tension between Magic's Duel nature as a collectors item and a game.

A bright spot in my deck building occurred during a captain's match. Captain's matches are a little like team matches where the teams are defined by damage inflicted to other players. I was not a captain, however, I played with a deck which was designed to support in a very defensive way, whoever claimed me. I was claimed a bit later in the round as most of my cards do not always appear strong at first. Fortunately, I played Gossamer Chains which began to arouse interest in me. My most effective combination was the use of Palace Guard and Guiding Spirit. Palace Guard was able to block all attackers and then when it went to my graveyard, I was able to use Guiding Spirit to put Palace Guard back on top of my library. This allowed me to help my captain in defense. Again, in a one on one situation, this deck would not be nearly as effective, but designed to supplement a team, it seemed to work nicely on defense.

A discussion was held about possibly having another Magic Monday after the last event fell through, but there did not seem to be much interest in holding one this week. Many people who play Magic are very busy with life events as the holidays appproach.

Other players had much more success in putting together extremely powerful combinations which were effective in free-for-all, but nothing I did seemed all that great today. There is always next week.