A Little Tidiness

Here's 20 decks that I've built, some of which I've even written about on the blog. And I'm going to retire them. 

I've been reading 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and in an attempt to enable better focus on my part, as well as get things done, I've realized that I just have too many decks. I still do, but you have to start somewhere, right?

I'm starting here. I have gone through all of my 60 card builds and decided that there were decks that just weren't fun for me to play. So instead of trying to force myself into playing them, why not eliminate these decks and utilize the resources elsewhere? 

When I started playing Magic, there was no mechanism to build and test decks without physically building and testing that deck. But that was 27 years ago! I just kept doing things that way because that was they way I learned to do them.

Time to find a better way. I'll still use these decks for The Retired series, and I'll keep digital versions of them in Cockatrice. I'll always have the template, and I don't have to actually store and maintain something in my brain that isn't helping me. 

The Task At Hand

Tooling about the Reddit MtG forum, I said that I had 160 decks. Pretty close to the truth: 163, according to the tally in Cockatrice, where I re-build all my decks. That may seem silly but it helps with testing and functions as a 'backup' if you will to my meatspace decks, in case I lose or fuck up something.

Point being: I was asked for a picture of that and I thought that
it might be something to share. After all, this is the basis for the blog. Plus, it's a chance to get some pictures in and this blog isn't very photo-riffic. So here we go:

I put the beer bottle in for scale and the decks on top are Commander decks. Unfortunately, the bottom row of those are obscured by the top of the boxes.

But yes, every single deck in that photo can be played. They aren't all good mind you but they are playable decks. Making them more playable is why I'm doing this: re-evaluating these decks, even as casual fun, in front of an audience forces me to think through my decisions better.

Anyway, that's the stack. Let's keep going, shall we?