Thank you BenTim,

The deck exists in paper, the only thing left to do is sit down and make a nice Primer for it. I've had a blast playing this deck as once the Eldrazi start hitting the battlefield things get scary - for my opponents. I routinely cast Emrakul, the Promised End/Mindslaver targeting a good friend of mine in games as he always has devious spells in hand or in deck. We've played against each other plenty of times so I can remember a few of the more devious spells in his deck. One game, I Promised Ended him, permanently by getting him to cast Toxic Deluge and paying all 32 of his life. I didn't come out of that unharmed as it definitely killed my boardstate as well...but it was so glorious.

What's a bracket 11 deck?

+1, Because Vampires :)

pinecone2k3, It's been sometime since your comment - I was more focused on trying to get the deck and deck page in a good place. For the longest time since I bought the precon I always treated the deck as a sort of afterthought, never putting it front and center - until now. The previously mentioned Cliffhaven Vampire and Marauding Blight-Priest seem irrelevant in the face of the new Vampire BFFs Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Bloodthirsty Conqueror. And Hall of Heliod's Generosity feels a bit too specific to really make an impact. What do you think of the updated list?

I agree with the sentiment that EDH/Commander is popular, but possibly doesn't fit - it is the most popular format by a wide margin. This feels the case anecdotally as from my observations the majority of products made by WOTC are marketed toward Commander players. But in terms of raw numbers, the best I could do was search various terms in google trends. Specifically, "mtg commander", "mtg modern", "mtg legacy", and "mtg standard".

MTG Trends 2004 - Present Show

If someone else has numbers to suggest otherwise, i'd love to see what they bring and discuss. For me, Commander became a thing around 2009 - 2010 as that's where I saw it start as a niche "grass roots" format. But it really started to pick up steam around 2011 when the first Commander decks were released. That's when I started to frequent LGSes to try and learn the game.

I can only speak for myself when it comes to why interest in standard was waning - having to lose tens if not hundreds of dollars because of a format rotation gets old after a period of time. When I was paying attention to standard (circa 2002) it was called "Type 2" and I was dealing with Affinity and the ol' Arcbound Ravager. That thing pretty much dominated the format and made games samey and downright boring sometimes. After that I took a break and picked the game back up when Llorywn dropped, but even then I only played draft.

Thinking about Commander it has everything going for it - all the good stuff of magic: expression of creativity, power (and the curation of it) and diversity minus all of the annoying problems such as meta (if we're excluding cEDH), set rotations, and budgetary constraints (remember: Proxying is Officially Endorsed by Wizards!). It was the professor of Tolarian Community College who opened my eyes to true potential of the format. Deck building can be so much more than cobbling together a pile of draft chaff, or a half baked Slivers deck that you can barely pilot - it can be a form of expression. The embodiment of your fantasy army of which you are the mastermind and your commander is your champion. Once that clicked for me I was hooked; fortunately and unfortunately I know I will be a life long player. Given how greedy Hasbro and by extension WOTC have been in recent years I've been working to try and balance my budget and make careful decisions on when to even think of buying.

lhetrick13,

It's all about committing to the bit. The insane deck box also has a matching Dinosaur themed Playmat and Sleeves. When the bit is this good the only option is to go all in. Do you have a deck you feel "all-in" about? What would that look like for you? Would it be a fancy deck box and sleeves or just getting fancier cards?

The Deathwalker

The Epic of Anikthea

The Hero and the Divine

The Hero of Dark Divinity

The Shadow's Slayer

The Champion in Shadow

The Hero in Shadow The Hero of Light, Slayer in Shadow The Underworld's Champion