Now that the Mayan Apocalypse didn't happen, I can happily report on how I'm going to head into 2013, at least EDH-wise. We'll talk about what I currently have and what I'm looking forward to putting together, as well as Those We Lost in 2012.

One of the things that came up on my wish list last week was the idea of an EDH Invitational. I think I'm going to put some actual thought into this instead of just dreaming about it. I know I won't be able to get everyone that I want here at the same time, but I'm sure there's a time of year that's better for getting most of them here. Working out how to house and feed everyone and put together play space is actually minor compared to the logistics of actually getting them here. Updates as they come.

In Memoriam

I've had the same Sol'Kanar the Swamp King deck together since before it got reprinted in Time Spiral. It's basically just a Grixis Good Stuff deck with no real coherence or cohesion. I created the document on January 7th this year and have opened it just once. It started as a graveyard deck—hence the Millikin in it—to go with Doomed Necromancer, Living Death, and the like, but it ended up as kind of the Island of Misfit Toys for cards that could be cool, like Galvanoth, Infernal Genesis, Rapacious One, and Blood Tyrant. Maybe I'll pick it up one more time to see if it's worth working on before stripping it down for parts for other decks.

The gang over on MTGS built an Isperia the Inscrutable deck for me a few years ago now. I played it a few times, and it was good. It was exactly the right power level. It had some fun times built in (Storm Herd + Gravitational Shift!), nice playability, and good stand up against slightly Spikier decks. After playing it a dozen times or so, I realized that it was just wasn't my style. I let it sit for a while thinking that maybe I had just played it too much. After a year or more of it never being a deck I picked up, I retired it. I'm still really appreciative of the effort that went into it.

Vorosh, the Hunter got put together as a "+1/+1 counters matter" deck when it hit the streets. It managed to be a slave to theme without being well focused. It had some foils in it that I wanted for new decks, so it got cannibalized. The sweetest part was finding the foil Spike Feeder in it.

I also finally took apart the Cromat deck that I had gotten some help with from the folks online. The idea was cool: exactly one card from every expansion and core set. The problem became updating it. Eventually, we would have run out of nonland slots. I suppose we could go back and rebuild it, thinking first of the mana base (both Ravnica blocks could give us some flexibility) and then filling in the pieces. The problem was it was kind of "coolest card from each set" without so much focus. When it did well, it was always because of being able to resolve and keep Survival of the Fittest in play. Most of the rest of the time, it struggled with mana and threat density. Again, maybe it's worth a look.

What's Coming

I'd like to complete the One of Every Color Combination Project in 2013. There are still thirteen combinations which I don't have: five-color, Orzhov, Boros, Dimir, Izzet, Simic, Rakdos, Gruul, and all the mono-colors, including colorless, except for white—which I have but don't think I've ever written down. I'd like to tackle putting together the Return to Ravnica guilds (Izzet and Rakdos) before Gatecrash comes out, which will take care of seven holes once we get the cool Gatecrash guild leaders, leaving us only with five-color and the remaining mono-colors. Should be easy, right?

What's Here

It looks like only a few of the decks are currently in the database. For those that are there and unchanged, I'll link them. For those that aren't in the database or those which have changed, I'll include them. It's going to make it kind of long, but the decklists should be easy to scroll past if you need to.

Adun Oakenshield and His Beasts

This is one of my favorite decks to play because it stays pretty true to the theme while having the kind of cohesion that a deck needs to play well. As new Beasts come out in sets (I'm definitely expecting something from Gatecrash and Gruul), some of the non-Beasts will get replaced. The deck started as Darigaaz and His Beasts as a landfall deck, switched to Karrthus because I wanted to play the Tyrant of Jund, and then became Adun when I decided to build a Karrthus/Dragons deck. There are still landfall elements, like Azusa, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Lotus Cobra, which will probably be the things on the chopping block.

Animar, Soul of Elements

I love playing this deck because it can get really wild. The downside is that it usually sputters out once Animar gets too expensive to recast. It doesn't have any board sweepers to help get back to parity, so it's very much a one-trick pony. It's nonetheless ridiculously fun to play. There are now only six nonpermanents other than Primal Surge, so that's a bit of a Plan B.

Geist of Saint Traft

I built this not so long ago and then changed out about a dozen cards when it just wasn't doing so well. The most interesting card choice so far has been Portcullis, which doesn't seem like it works well with Geist attacking (it doesn't) but has otherwise created crazy game states. I've definitely had more fun playing this deck the last half dozen times compared to the first. I've gotten a few requests from Monday Night Gamer Keith Bogart to play it when he hasn't brought along a deck, so I know it's doing something right.

Isamaru, Hound of Konda

I stripped out some cards to put into new decks that got built, so this one isn't actually listed. I'll fill the blanks back in and let you know what I came up with. Mono-white is the most interesting of the mono colors to me and seems the most playable.

Intet, the Dreamer

This is easily the strongest of my decks, although I'm still not sure how it would do in a truly competitive environment. It's also somewhat difficult to play, so I'll usually only pull it out when I know my mind is fresh. The version in the database is the most up to date.

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord

I tried this as an old-school deck, and it fell flat on its face a few times. It turns out that creatures are way better these days than they were in the ancient times, so when I'd cast Natural Order, I kept being disappointed there was no Worldspine Wurm to grab. For some reason, there's still no Worldspine Wurm in there, but that's probably because I didn't have one lying around.

Karador, Ghost Chieftain

This is the deck that I want to play as much as possible. It's my kind of toolbox deck. I like being active all the time, and this deck always has stuff to do. It'll continue to be one of my go-to decks. There's been a single change from the linked list: Ghostway came out and Faith's Reward went in.

Karrthus and His Dragons

This deck is really representative of the format for me: huge, swingy things and Dragons raining fire from the sky. It takes a while to get going, even with a little ramp, so it's not going to hold up to an environment that's really fast. Once it gets rolling, it can deal large piles of damage pretty quickly. The deck is at critical mass on Dragons, so if there are any cool new ones coming out in Gatecrash, I might have to make some difficult choices.

Kresh the Bloodbraided

One of my signature decks and one I always like to carry when I go to events. Again, it's big and splashy, but at an appropriate time. It can't do anything outlandish on turn 5, but on turn 15, all bets are off. The decklist is exactly as linked, although I've obtained a few new versions of cards for it in my long-term goal of turning the whole deck into the sexiest of all languages. Currently, Kokusho, Tangle, Garruk, Bayou, Graven Cairns, Savage Lands, and Taiga are all in Italian (and foil where possible).

Lord of Tresserhorn

I always enjoy playing this, but find that it's one that gets left behind pretty often. I guess it suffers from being one of the oldest decks I have, so old, in fact, that it's not in the database. It is almost all on-theme, with Solemn Simulacrum and Grave Titan being the only non-Zombies. I can justify Grave Titan being in there since it creates Zombies, but I think Jens just might have to go.

Merieke Ri Berit

I built the first version of Merieke when I got a Time-Shifted one. She's been through at least three iterations. It's my one stab at a classic control deck. The card that I'm most fond of in this deck is Chronomantic Escape. It's been a lifesaver more times than I can count.

The Mimeoplasm

I wanted this to be a "mill some of your stuff so that I can Reanimate it" deck, but the straight mill strategy has worked out a number of times, which was a total surprise. Early turn Mesmeric Orb helps. I finally added an Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre (when Primeval Titan went away) to keep from milling myself out—plus it's just awesome.

I play Withered Wretch in so many other decks that I didn't want to also put it in this one, but some selective graveyard hate is probably a good idea because graveyard strategies are good in this format and I'm just helping them along. Wretch is also one of the few ways to deal with someone else's Eldrazi hitting the graveyard. Chains of Mephistopheles is easily my favorite card in this deck. If you're not going crazy with card draw, it won't hurt you. If you are, watch out.

Nath of the Gilt-Leaf

I built this to be a budget deck then streamlined it to be even more budget, taking out things like Volrath's Stronghold—which, by the way, is a card that I've put into a fair number of decks and never seems to be worth using.

Oros, the Avenger

Coming on the heels of Ruhan as a vehicle for a Sunforger package, Oros has been unexciting to play. It suffers from being the worst of the wedges for getting a few extra lands into play, so it has to rely more on mana rocks, which are going to get blown up at some point. It's a deck that's going to get some work done on it in the new year. I'm still waiting for the awesome blowout of Spike Cannibal.

Phelddagrif

The first of my signature decks, this has gone through more changes than I can count. I put together a new version in May 2011, and it's remained consistent since. It's now all about the Maro-Sorcerers and drawing cards. The card I sometimes feel bad about playing is Psychosis Crawler. Comboing with Greater Good feels just dirty.

Rith, the Awakener

This is another one that's been together a good long time. It's a Soldier-themed deck, and as Soldiers and Soldier-based cards, like Hero of Bladehold, get better and better, we'll certainly see more and more adherence to theme in this one. It's interesting to me that I really like Naya colors but have never been tempted to build other Naya-colored decks, like Mayael or Uril.

Ruhan of the Fomori

Oh, the LOLZ that this deck creates. It's mostly reactive, meaning not necessarily my preferred style, but I love sitting back waiting to do bad things to people when THEY try to do bad things. Full credit for the genesis of this deck goes to Armada Games' Todd Palmer, who called me up to the computer one day and asked, "Have you ever seen this card?" It was Parallectric Feedback, and a deck was born.

Thraximundar

I ran a contest a while back to build this deck. The Thraximundar deck that I play right now is actually the second place deck in that contest. The winner was a Thrax-Sliver thing that I thought was pretty clever, but this version suits my play style a little better. It's certainly gone through some updates since then while keeping the "take advantage of sacrifice" theme. My favorite recent addition to the deck has been Sneak Attack, which has been an even cheaper way to take advantage of the evoke creatures in the deck.

Trostani, Selesnya's Voice (and Her Angels)

Born from wanting to make an Angel deck after taking them all out of Karador to go a different way with it, this has been a blast to play. I've died multiple times to commander damage while at extreme life, but that's to be expected. My favorite ever was getting killed by Zedruu (Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and Elspeth, Knight-Errant were involved). I've even survived multiple times after being dropped to ten by Sorin Markov by just getting the engines rolling again. In just the last game I played with this, Serra Avatar, Restoration Angel, and Conjurer's Closet made me need to pull out a calculator.

There are three changes from the linked list. Terminus, Cavern of Souls, and Garruk's Packleader came in, and Mass Calcify, Tranquil Thicket, and Sundering Growth came out.

That's how I'll be Embracing the Chaos in 2013. When the project is complete, I'll end up with 32 decks, which might mean adding a second night of the week to play (to make sure none of them feel left out). We'll see how that turns out. Until then, have a safe and happy New Year.