I like many other nerds have gone through phases of gaming, one of these phases (a long time ago) was during the golden age of TCG.  That special phase that you look back on and cringe at either the amount of money you invested or the value of the cards that you ONCE had.  I during my golden age (Grade 7) I cracked open my first package of Pokemon cards and stumbled across:

A foil Charizard, back in the day only worth a couple hundred dollars back then, now worth a COUPLE THOUSAND.  However, my foil Charizard was like all good things, destined to come to and end. It was traded away in a rather one sided deal for a lot of things that were nowhere near the value of the card (but I REALLY REALLY wanted), one can only hope it went to a good home and continues to be in good shape today.  😀

My Pokemon phase was the death throes of my youth TCG phase, before all that I was heavily into Magic: The Gathering, which a great deal of my classmates played.  Even though Pokemon was the CRAZE at the time, Magic continues to be my favourite TCG game to date.  I really enjoy the play-style the fact that it’s have had so much history, there’s so many cards from so many sets, with the many cards one can do pretty much anything they desire!

With that all being said, this episode of Nerdy Jobs is completely selfish, I want to take a bit to talk about my favourite M:tG format: Commander.

For those not familiar with this particular format, Commander bases it’s rules on a good deal of the canon that M:tG players know quite well.  You’re still trying to get the best of your opponents by using a myriad of spells and creatures to crush your opponents into oblivion, drawing cards into your hard, playing land which you tap for mana to cast those epic spells of epicitiude.  Though there are some differences from a regular game of M:tG, these differences are:

• Every deck is based off a legendary creature.  This creature is called your General or Commander and determines the colours that your deck can be, meaning that the cards of your deck can only ever cost or produce colours that match the ones on your Commander’s card.
• Your Commander is kept separate from all the other cards in your deck.  He/She resides in your Command Zone, they can be played from said zone at any time you can play them normally.  If ever they would be removed from the game they go back to the Command Zone and cost is increased by a cumulative (2) (2 colourless mana).
• As opposed to starting at 20 life, all players start at 40.
• Decks consist of 100 cards (including Commander), no more, no less!
• Decks can also only have a single copy of each card in them (except for basic lands, AS ALWAYS).
• There is no set limitation, you can play any cards from pretty much anywhere (though there still is a banned list, because some things are just RIDICULOUS).

With all those rules, the WORLD is your oyster.  Though my experience dictates that finding a Commander that you enjoy can be difficult to do.  One of the best parts of the format was the ability to leaf through my piles and piles of cards, fishing for an idea, which I would then later form into a deck.  So much nostalgia was drawn from those long forgotten cards, the ones that Wizards would never reprint because they were mediocre at first and had no reason to ever be seen again?  These nostalgic items gave me a general idea of what kind of direction that I wanted to go into for play-style.

When I was leafing through my cards I stumbled across large amounts of scarecrows..  I realize it isn’t that interesting, especially since the scarecrows themselves weren’t particularly scary..  that was until I got introduced with the legendary creature that was associated with them!  That would be this little fella:

He’s all 5 different colours..  Which would mean that his deck could be difficult to assemble, HOWEVER.  He makes his scarecrow brethren scarier and when more come into play..  They deal with his pesky enemies?  OMG. OMG.  OMG..  SO EXCITING.  It took some digging, but this is what I cooked up! <– Link.  <_<

The deck is completely artifacts and non-basic lands.  The entire point is to beat down your opponent with the scarecrows!  When I first explained the idea to some friends, they were a bit flabbergasted..  Why would I not just use the over-powered cards that everyone else does?  THAT WOULD BE BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT SCARECROWS, I would retort.  I’d love to go into much more detail, but I think that may be something that I can use for later.  I think my next entry dealing with Commander may be me talking with more detail about the monster that I’ve created.  Until next time…  IT’S ALIVE!?!???!??!?!!?!!!?!