Here’s a quick recap of Let’s Build a Magic Deck – Parts One and Two:
Someone introduced me to Magic. Someone taught me how to play the wrong way. I sucked. Someone taught me the right rules and how to build a deck. I got good. I went broke. I got out. Then, Commander arrived. I got inspired by a Commander deck my wife bought me for Christmas and decided to build a deck of my own. I identified a potential commander amongst my plethora of cards. I made a few suppositions about what types of cards I might need in my deck. I realized the state of my card collection was in total disarray. So, I decided to get organized.
To that end, the first thing I did was to hop onto Amazon to pick up a few trading card storage boxes. Examining the myriad plastic baggies full of cards that were in my bin of cards, I gauged that I had around 2,000 loose cards that needed a home. After looking over multiple options, I finally settled upon these storage boxes.
I liked these because they looked rugged and durable. Plus, they’re reasonably priced. 800 cards per box seemed like it should be sufficient. I mean, if my guesstimate was correct, that was going to be more than I needed. Surely these would be enough, right?
Part Three: Breaking Eggs
The Part Where I Learn That 3 Boxes Is Not Enough
Let’s get this right out there: I have a LOT of cards. I’ve been playing Magic off and on since 1996. When I was fully in the throes of Magic, I was buying around 10 boosters a week. Sometimes I was buying entire boxes of them. One time, in the early 2000s, when I was hanging out at the Cafe Apocalypse (a now defunct cybercafe in Memphis, TN), a random person saw me and my friend Kevin playing Magic together and offered to sell us his entire collection for pennies on the dollar. Of course, we jumped at the opportunity. That was another 1,000 cards or so right there. And, this doesn’t even include when another person sold me their entire collection, along with a Playstation and some games, or when one of my dearest friends decided she was done with Magic and gifted me everything she had as a birthday present.
There was once a time where I had the capacity to sit down, go through each and every card, and arrange them all by set, color, and name. At least two of the long boxes I have bear witness to this. All the other boxes are filled with random cards, and also trash. There are literally boxes stuffed with booster pack wrappers and old deck boxes. I’m not sure why I held onto them, but I suspect I stuck them in there to try to keep things from sliding around. So, into the trash it goes. Post trash-removal, I’ve freed up another storage box worth of space across the other boxes.
And, now comes the hard part. How am I going to sort these cards?
I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I’ve realized that what I want to do and what I actually have time to do aren’t the same things. My desire would be to continue what I’d begun in the past, separating cards into their specific sets and arranging them by color and name. That’s a very time-consuming task, and I just don’t have that kind of time anymore. And, if I’m being honest, I don’t really have the desire to do it either.
I want to get things into a manageable state quickly, and that means a quick sort is my best bet. I’m going to have to remove every card from every box, separate things by color, basic land, non-basic land, artifact, and multi-colored and then pack them back up. It’s going to be like tearing up the house to do spring cleaning. Sure, it’s going to be messy at first, but the end product is going to make the effort worth it.
You’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
As I sorted through the cards, I pulled out every rare and mythic rare that I came across and set them in a separate pile. I immediately identified a few that would also make good candidates for my deck.
Sphinx of Magosi’s ability to allow me to draw cards while pumping it up (making it stronger by adding counters that increase its power and toughness) makes it extremely appealing. Akroma, Angel of Fury’s another beefy, pumpable creature with a whole host of keywords:
Flying – can only be blocked by other flying creatures
Trample – Any damage it deals in excess of whatever it takes to kill any creatures that blocks it is deducted from my opponent’s health
Protection from white and blue – it cannot be targeted by white or blue spells. Nor can it be blocked by or take damage from white or blue creatures
Morph – Akroma comes into play as a face down 2/2 creature for 3 and can be flipped over at another time for a reduced casting cost.
Both of these creatures are viable threats and fall under the umbrella of my commander’s color identity. I’m already getting excited to start building the deck.
After stacking up all these cards, I’m beginning to realize something. I have far more white, green, and blue cards than I do any other colors. The height of each of these stacks far exceeds the length of the boxes that I have at hand, and I don’t have enough to accommodate every color in its own box. Black cards get their own box. Red cards get their own box. I have so many basic lands that, after arranging them by type, they all get their own box. That box is stuffed with 30-40 plains cards slotted in there sideways where there’s a bit of a gap between the other cards and the lid.
I’ve got four boxes left, and I’ve got enough of each of the remaining colors to fill about one and a third boxes each. So, I opt to fill out one box with each color and put the overflow from each of the stacks into the fourth box, which now contains some blue, some, green, and some white. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.
Now that I’ve tamed this card monster, it feels like a weight has been taken off my shoulders. An omelette has been made.
I can finally start building.
