Happy new year. I obviously didn't make a resolution to blog more this year what with it being the twelfth and this is my first post of the year. Such is life. Anyway lets see what's been going on.

I played some magic last night, first games fo the new year. Picked 6 decks from the Commander Project at random to take to the pub and then a final random selection gave me Vorel. If there's something that deck is good at it's making big dumb monsters. Lots of them. Winning... not as much. Oh well. I'm holding off on building any new decks this month as I need to get more sleeves and deck boxes and it's the post holiday money drought.

Also I'm currently working on Trevallis knocking up a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy sandbox that I hope to run over Roll 20. Expect more there soon. Assuming anyone is reading this.

That's always my biggest problem with creating anything, the deep dark yawning pit that asks "What's the point?".... Sigh. 40+ years on this planet and I still don't believe in myself. So that's one thing that I might change, I might start writing my thoughts here. I used to, when I first started writing a blog I wrote all about my life and my feelings and stuff. And then my ex wife got angry at my for sharing that our relationship wasn't super perfect with the world. So I started hiding, again.

Anyway, the rambling shall stop for now. At lunchtime I aim to explain wo the last two PC playable races fit into the Trevallis setting. So that'll be cool.

So my Wednesday night Commander game last left my try out my new Sidisi deck which performed well. I managed to fight my way to a victory with 3 life to spare. Sheoldred is a stand out in this deck and I was lucky enough to draw her, play her and reanimate her at least twice. Having played the deck now I think I need some non creature recursion to really make it horrible Eternal Witness and Archaeomancer will probably be useful and Regrowth to get back my various reamination.

Meanwhile at work it's that weird period. We're REALLY busy (Christmas is our busiest time, why not buy a canvas?) but I'm not doing much as we go into code freeze for a few weeks. Lots of planning though. Yay?

So on Sunday I met up with my regular Commander group for breakfast and Commander, which is a great way for me to start the day (beats my previous Sundys of sleeping int until midday). As part of the ongoing craziness that is The Commander Project. I took 10 decks (all I currently have boxed) and randomly rolled for what I was going to play. This gave me Vorel.

I will admit I did not start the game with high hopes. I was playing against a Breya deck which was slightly updated, an Atraxa deck that was more updated and a partnered Tana and Ravos deck whose owner had decided Saskia is too dangerous to play in multiplayer. Not sure he's wrong.

The game started going crazy early on as Breya got Daretti into play and managed to keep him alive to ulitmate him. Things were looking worrying, after I failed to steal Atraxa for more than a turn I cloned here which meant we had two people proliferating my Otherworld Atlas. Ahh group hugs. Then the young man running Breya decideds to Alhpa strike and take out Atraxa (who was not managing to get board presence). I sat there behind a small but solid wall ticking up Jace and trying to come up with a plan.

Next turn Breya turns on me, leaving his father for last, a shocking turn of events. I manage to stay alive but my board was seriously depleted. Things did not look well, not only was Breya preapring to do it again but I was pretty sure I was about to be repaid for my card drawing largesse with a Saskia to the face. Luckily Jace had been hiding at the back being ignored and making all attacking creatures a bit smaller, so one ultimate later I have Grave Upheaval and Ring of Three Wishes on the stack (and something else... I cannot remember what). This lets me put Pili-Pala from my graveyard into play with haste. This combined with the Grand Architect in my hand give me near infinite mana. The Ring lets me search up Biomass Mutation and then this, the millions of mana Pili-Pala and the Grand Architect gave me plus the two Beast tokens I had in play after my Thragtusk and it's token copy died last turn and Thassa who had been sitting giving me a bit of scry every turn meant I swung with 2 2,000,000/2,000,000 unblockable creatures.

Which was I felt a lovely way to spend the morning. I'd love to say I had it planned but it was mostly luck and deck synergy. I got home to then continue the 22,000 light year trek to Colonia in Elite Dangerous where I plan on spending some time. As each 2K part of the journey take a couple of hours it's going to take a while. It's relaxing though and I can listen to a podcast while I travel.

So, I've been playing Magic the Gathering on and off since it launched in 1993. Recently I got back into it playing a format called Commander (or Elder Dragon Highlander) which I enjoy because it's generally less competetive and generally played multiplayer. One of the things I love about Magic is the card interactions and the way that the sum effect of having a selection in play far outstrips anyone of them. One of the things I love about Commander is the restrictions brought on by the colours you can use in a deck. Restrictions based on the Commander you use to play it.

I've long had an idea to build one of every possible colour combination of deck for Commander but have been put off by the fact that there are no valid 4 colour Commanders. Never in the history of Magic has there been a four colour Legendary Creature printed. Until now this year sees the release of a set of pre made Commander decks featuring not just 5 four colour Legendary Cretures but also 15 two colour creatures who can be played as partners for your commander.

So now I've got no excuse to not start The Commander Project and build all 32 possible Commander decks. My goal being to build and document each deck and make them fun to play and balanced. As is my way when I build decks for the format I will be focussing on decks which have a strong theme and lots of card interactions. Winning is a secondary goal, doing crazy stuff and then winning is the goal. Preferably winning by werid win cons or buy defeating every other player at once.

Should be fun.