Elder Dragon Highlander

I played Magic again last night, although there weren't enough players present to hold an official tournament. I played a bunch of games with Hans, some using one of my decks, but mostly using one of his. This introduced me to a very popular and powerful style of deck called Affinity. Affinity decks use artifact land and cheap artifact creatures such as Ornithopter, then play spells that have the affinity ability for cheap. Affinity reduces the casting cost of a given spell by one for each artifact that is in play. For instance, there was one blue spell Hans played that had affinity, a cost of 4U, and allows the caster to draw two cards. When he had at least four artifacts in play he only had to play one blue to cast the spell. Anyway, interesting deck type.

I'm not going to rush out and buy the cards for an Affinity deck anytime soon, however, since I'm guessing that would be an expensive undertaking. There was a format that people were playing last night that is absolutely something I intend to play right away, however. The format is called Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH for short. Each player's deck consists of exactly 100 cards, none of which can have the same name (except for basic lands). One of those hundred cards is a legendary creature which acts as the deck's general. An EDH deck may only contain cards who's casting costs are present in the general's casting cost. Thus a general with a cost of 4UGB would limit the deck to only blue, green, and black spells and abilities. I remember some version of this variant was played back in the Kingdom when I used to play magic, although that version only restricted construction by the one of each card rule, and there was no general involved.

Anyway, this seems like a viable variant for me to play as I bet I have enough cards that I'll be able to put together a decent Elder Dragon Highlander deck. I'll keep you posted!