For those who don't know me, I'm often called a "Pro Player" but I think of myself as an aspiring pro.  I'm a member of the US National Team this year, and I've played in 5 Pro Tours.  I won $20,000 at Worlds last year, and I've won a lot of other tournaments.  I expect a lot of readers to know some of that already.  I'd like to introduce myself as a casual player. I've been playing Magic since 1994, before The Dark was released, when I was 11.  My first games were 4 player games, and I grew up with Magic existing largely as a multiplayer game.  I've always been interested in playing as well as I could, and I started playing in tournaments when I was 12, maybe even when I was still 11.  At the time, I thought I was very good, and it was just that I was a kid and couldn't afford good cards that was holding me back.  Now I think I was probably a little kid at the time.  Regardless, as I continued to play Magic, I still always loved casual and multiplayer formats.  I played 5 color for years, but my friends and I didn't like the format, so we always played Highlander.  I have a cube, and I've put a tremendous amount of time into looking over stacks of cards trying to figure out exactly what should be in, modifying it as I draft with it and tracking what cards people like and don't like.  I'm very proud of my cube.  I was one of the only people at Pro Tour San Diego who was delighted to be playing 2HG.  Multiplayer Magic Online is a guilty pleasure of mine, because I always feel like I should be working on a competitive format.

Even as a casual player, I always play to win.  I can't really understand the game other ways.  If someone isn't playing to win, to me, it throws off the game for people who are, and Magic is most fun when everyone understands the goal.  This article is going to explain how I approach Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) as a multiplayer Free For All (FFA) format, and the reasoning for the choices I make when building a deck for that format, through the lens of my favorite and best EDH deck, Sygg, River Guide.

The deck is a combo deck that disguises itself as a bad aggro-control deck.  In multiplayer, aggro-control is a terrible strategy.  There are too many opponents and they have too much life for aggro to work, and control can't really happen because there's too much stuff going on.  I can play a lot of creatures, but they will inevitably die.  Everyone understands this.  When I play a Tideshaper Mystic on turn one and Sygg, River Guide on turn two, no one cares the plays I've made.  The only way anyone has any reason to kill my creatures is if I attack them.  When someone does nothing, everyone wonders what their plan is, and when someone accelerates, everyone wonders what they're accelerating to.  When I play bad creatures, everyone knows my game, and no one really cares.  The goal is to be written off as soon as possible.

Early creatures serve another function.  They give you a board presence.  Life totals matter very little, and the difference between attacking for one and three with a creature in a four player game when everyone starts at forty is relatively meaningless.  But people don't like to take damage, so they won't attack you if you have creatures, because they know that you'll attack back.  In this way, even evasive creatures can be held off by 1/1s that don't really do anything.  The creatures give you a powerful diplomatic tool.  You cannot attack, indicating that you don't want to pick a fight, or you can attack someone, indicating that you think that person is a threat and that they are your target so that other people are less afraid of you.  When you attack one opponent you make yourself useful to the other opponents.  For this reason, I like to attack decks that look like they have little spot removal when there are decks with a lot of spot removal, to make sure the people with a lot of spot removal don't get bored and start killing my guys.

Sygg himself is an ideal general.  I play him on turn two every game, and no one really cares to kill him because I can just play him again and he doesn't really matter to them.  Once he's in play he's difficult to kill if someone decides they want to for some reason, and me protects my other creatures.  This means people don't use their removal spells on me, which is important because it means they have them to use on other people.  I don't have to play as much removal because I can count on my opponents to trade with each other.  He serves another important, but somewhat counterintuitive function.  He eats two mana a turn.  I don't want to tap out when I have Sygg in play and people understand that.  This means I can develop more slowly or hold mana up for other things without causing any suspicion.  Developing slowly is important to avoid overextending into the inevitable Wrath effect.

The creatures I play are as follows:

Creature Base

 

Creatures 1 Burrenton Forge-Tender 1 Cursecatcher 1 Mothdust Changeling 1 Tidal Visionary 1 Tideshaper Mystic 1 Weathered Wayfarer 1 Amoeboid Changeling 1 Judge of Currents 1 Jushi Apprentice 1 Lord of Atlantis 1 Merfolk Looter 1 Mistmeadow Witch 1 Shapesharer 1 Silvergill Adept 1 Silvergill Douser 1 Stonybrook Angler 1 Stonybrook Banneret 1 Voidmage Prodigy 1 Willbender 1 Aphetto Grifter 1 Drowner of Secrets 1 Harpoon Sniper 1 Merfolk Thaumaturgist 1 Merrow Reejerey 1 Mirror Entity 1 Sage of Fables 1 Sigil Tracer 1 Stonybrook Schoolmaster 1 Trinket Mage 1 Vodalian Illusionist 1 Fallowsage 1 Merrow Harbinger 1 Surgespanner 1 Venser, Shaper Savant 1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls 1 Body Double 1 Mulldrifter 1 Reveillark 1 Sky Hussar 1 Wanderwine Prophets 40 cards Other Spells 0 cards

Lands 0 cards Sideboard 0 cards

These creatures serve all kinds of purposes.  In general, they're reactive, defensive cards that aren't threatening and keep me alive, they replace themselves or help me get through my library in some way, or they have powerful, game ending effects.

As for game ending effects, I've mentioned that the creatures are just a distraction, so what is the real win condition?  Well, you may have noticed that the (Revillark), Body Double, Mirror Entity combo is in the deck, and I have a lot of card draw to help set it up.  I also have Wanderwine Prophets, who I can protect with Sygg, who can realistically let me take infinite turns.  The real kill is in the following cards: Opposition, Tunnel Vision, Death or Glory, Mindslaver, Academy Ruins.

Opposition can easily lock one opponent and sometimes two or three out of the game.  Tunnel Vision is a powerful tutor that can find Mindslaver/Academy Ruins or find Death or Glory while putting about half of my creatures into the Graveyard.  Resolved Death or Glory will draw a lot of cards and give me something like many creatures backed by Voidmage Prodigy or Aphetto Grifter and (Glen_Elandra Archmage).  Often at the end of the game I can cast it and make one pile the Reveillark combo and the other pile every other creature.

Mindslaver is the best win condition in the format and I strongly believe it should be banned.  It doesn't really matter what's going on in a game, if you Mindslaver the person who's winning and you have Academy Ruins, it's very hard to lose, since you can recklessly attack the other players using the resources of whoever has the most.  Even without Academy Ruins, the effect is often completely game breaking.

Tunnel Vision has an alternate use as a player removal spell.  If someone clashes and puts something on the bottom, or if you Condemn or Spin into Myth someone, you can just kill them later.

The rest of the deck is: Condemn, Disrupt, Telepathy, Sensei's Divining Top, Skullclamp, Springleaf Drum, Dream Fracture, Sage's Dousing, Summon the School, Cryptic Command, Spin into Myth, Austere Command, and lands.

The only one for one spells in the deck are the completely unfair in the format Condemn and Spin into Myth, with Hinder existing as a reasonable card that I'm not playing at the moment that does something similar.

Some small number of counterspells is extremely important in protecting a winning play, but all the counters in this deck can be used earlier and will draw cards.

Summon the School is basically just another creature, but it helps enable the Wanderwine Prophets, Opposition, and Mirror Entity wins.

Telepathy is a card I added after laughing at someone who played it in a game I was in, and then realizing exactly what it did.  When it's in play you know everything that's going on.  You know who you need to worry about and when it's safe to try to win.  No one else has this information, because they don't know what you have.  This should make you the obvious threat, but it doesn't because people play very powerful cards in this format.  When everyone's tricks are exposed, inevitably someone's hand will make them extremely threatening.  It's easy for people to ignore your unknown hand.  They have more obvious threats to deal with.

Sensei's Divining Top and Skullclamp are upsettingly powerful cards that should probably be banned in the format, especially Sensei's Divining Top given how boring it is for everyone else in multiplayer.  They're in because of their power level, but the deck honestly might be better without them.  When you play them, people generally notice that you've done something that makes you a threat, and for that reason it's possible that these cards will lose you more games than they win you.  This is the reason I'm not played Umezawa's Jitte.  At the moment, I feel it's safe to play these as long as I don't cast them until someone else has done something even scarier.

Springleaf Drum is an awesome accelerator because it lets me justify not doing anything with a creature.

I'm playing 42 lands, and I think that number is on the low side.  I can "get away with it" because my cards cost very little and draw more cards.  In general, I think you never want to miss a land drop in this format, and playing more lands is almost always better than playing fewer.  Lands are also extremely powerful because people almost never play land destruction.  I'm running basic lands, dual lands, fetch lands, (Azorious Chancery), Calciform Pools, and the following lands with non mana producing abilities: (Mikikoro, Center of the Sea), Minamo, School at Water's Edge, Mishra's Factory, Mutavault, Riptide Laboratory, Shelldock Isle, which is a little ambitious, but it comes at very little cost, Thawing Glaciers, Tolaria West, Urza's Factory, Vesuva, and Windbrisk Heights.  I should possibly be playing Prahv, Spires of Order.

If you’re interested in this kind of treatment of EDH and you’d like to see more articles like this, please stop by the forums and send a link on to your friends, as both reader feedback and hits are likely to influence whether there are more articles like this.  Also, I’m always more than happy to answer any questions you might have about the article, so please ask in the forums, and you can expect a quick reply.  I sincerely hope I’ve been able to offer and interesting perspective on the format.

Thanks for Reading,

Sam Black