{"ops":[{"insert":"Hi, I'm Blake! \n\nI'm new-ish (2-3 years) to commander and post my decks because I would love feedback and suggestions. I'm not very involved in the meta - though, I do watch the more popular gameplay channels - so I always feel there are obvious easy tweaks I'm missing. Plus, I have a gap of knowledge between Urza's Saga and Wilds of Eldraine (see my history below).\n\nI tend to neglect adding wincons and sometimes my decks pop off but don't leave me in a winning position after a turn. I like low salt cards and love dropping in random, preferably thematic, fun additions (think Battlebond). I will put in 2-5 color spells in decks that won't go elsewhere, even if it's sub-optimal. There's not a Saga created that I haven't loved.\n\nSo, if you have the time and love brewing, hit me up with some comments. I've upgraded all my decks with the cards I have and don't know how much brewing new decks is in my future. But, I want my decks to be living documents and I want to play the hell out of them. Commander rules!\n\n"},{"attributes":{"underline":true},"insert":"My history with MTG"},{"insert":"\n\nI was lucky enough to be a child during the card game explosion of the '90s. Overpower, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Magic the Gathering were all over my Christmas and birthday wish lists. I realized quickly that Star Wars was a shitty game and Overpower died pretty quick and I had nobody to play with. Star Trek, I think, was better than those two, but I couldn't crack the game as a child and only had one friend to play with. Magic, on the other hand, I could find a few folks to play with.*\n\nAs a child, I thought "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Serra Angel"}},{"insert":" was the most beautiful card I had ever seen and I was lucky to have one. I overvalued lifegain in a time where it was mostly in green. The most exciting time was when the Urza's Saga set came out - so many powerful cards game out - and there was Unglued craziness happening at the same time. Unfortunately, I was being outpaced by my friends with more money than me who would always kick my ass (and I should not have been spending my limited money on Unglued), so I stopped buying cards. Oh yeah, and my house burned down. Were this desk a time desk, I would go back and see what was in my collection!\n\nYears later, COVID got me bored as hell. I hopped back on Arena and it was amazing how much gameplay I remembered. It was fun to play again and, even though I didn't get the meta, there was still so much to do and the rewards were actually good .** I love(d) playing 200+ decks that make each game feel different and only have the energy to hit really low mythic. No great stories here, but it helped keep me sane and it kept Magic fresh in my mind.\n\nAfter COVID, my friend Michael invited me to a commander night. I printed off cards on my black and white only printer and spent way too much time coloring them and sleeving them on top of lands.*** But, somebody at that game was annoying about some of the cards I was using (pulled from a decklist) so I was like... this is not a fun format. But, Michael invited me again to an at-home prerelease of Wilds of Eldraine and it was very fun (even if I didn't and don't know shit about drafting - my favorite way to play on Arena, RIP).\n\nSo, I started getting into Magic again and commander was the hot format. I doubled-down for a bit on Arena and really loved playing Wilds of Eldraine (my dream is to build a WOE enchantment cube). In paper, I got really into MKM, Clue,**** and Dr. Who***** just based on the timing (you'll see my decks are heavy on these three). In retrospect, I'm sad I missed Kamigawa and New Capenna, both of which have some of the best art and design I've ever seen. I also kept spending money on MH3 because Amazon kept throwing huge discounts at me.\n\nSince then, I try to do one prerelease per set and try not to get hyper-fixated on any set. My current goal is to perfect my 25+ commander decks, sell everything else, and to only save cards that I might put in the cube of my dreams. Hopefully, moving forward, I'll immediately pull prerelease cards to add to my decks and ditch the rest. \n\nI've been lucky enough to find a regular pod with good vibes. But, I also go out enough and get to play with strangers - it's a lot of energy! It's challenging, but it's making me a better person and I like that I have a little community to meet new folks. It's annoying sometimes, but my other Magic goal is to play Magic as much or as more as I spend the time watching Magic content, thinking about Magic, writing about Magic, and playing with my Magic deck. Hope to see you at my LGS!\n\n------\n\n*Including one traumatic incident where some strangers called me, a child, out for not knowing you could only have four of one card in a deck. OK, shit all over my "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Benalish Hero"}},{"insert":" deck, why don't you?!\n\n**I promised myself I would never spend money and you could do that then and get all the cards you want. Now, you have to grind the dailies to get to prerelease once a week. Please note, my Arena has not worked on my Mac for the past 7 months, am in no rush to figure out why. This will bite me in the ass when I go back and have no idea what the ersatz Spiderman cards are.\n\n***In the '90s, in my limited childhood experience, you proxied by sharpie-ing on top of lands. And you could go into a game store and buy 100 lands for cheap as hell. When I went to an LGS to get 100 lands for this \"proxy\" deck in the 2020s, they looked at me like I was crazy. Their only stash of lands was for prerelease events and they would only sell me ones that they had the most of. There also used to be aisles of loose dice; now you're lucky if there's a box of random dice by the register. Oh, also, the first pack I bought when I returned to Magic was Commander Masters. The sticker shock was crazy and it was not a good pack of cards. How little I knew then...\n\n****Loved Clue growing up - there was even a book series that I devoured voraciously. My coolest opinion is that I think this set is better than people gave it credit for, outside of the weapons and maybe the lands. Though, maybe it's the beginning of the end when it comes to Hasbro shrillery.\n\n*****I play so many Dr. Who cards in my commander decks. I don't even like the IP - more of an Inspector Spacetime guy, myself - but the precons were so fun. This is also another reason why I don't care enough to fix my Arena application - can't even import my commander decks into brawl!\n"}]}