Magic: The Gathering

Hello Community,

      My name is Michael Hutchison and I am relatively new to the blogging and article areas of the internet but I believe in my writing ability enough to feel that I can make a difference in the lives of others. I have a huge interest in the game of Magic: The Gathering and I desire to learn every aspect of the game. I am a quick learner and I have come a long way from when I began playing in January of 2010. I am a 20 year old student who attends the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, MO. I enjoy sports and anything competitive. I am extremely interested in becoming a better player of Magic as I have a part of me who longs for card games and Magic seems like the best fit for me as it offers a competitive environment. Its a game that also does not require a large up front investment, much like professional Texas hold'em.

      I would love to be able to document the good and the bad of my matches by also being able to report on how my tournaments and Friday Night Magic events I attend. I have a fairly competitive environment to learn in as many of the kids i play travel around the nation to play in the starcitygames opens and do fairly well. I also attend a few places located in the Kansas City area where even more competitive play is being offered. I have done fairly well in the past month and a half as I have gone 21-3 piloting a Kuldotha Red Deck. I have moved on from the deck as it is consistently inconsistent and is extremely vulnerable to any deck that can outlast the beginning three to four turns. I do recommend this deck to any beginning magic player as it has the capability to be competitive at a local level almost instantly. Wizards has released two event decks, one of which consists of the basic framework for Kuldotha Red. I would recommend this deck only to those that are beginning as it is fairly simple to run as your toughest decisions are knowing the deck in and out and when to mulligan. The decks are worth the investment as the cards you get back are worth more then the 20-25 dollar price tag.
 Here is a link to the event decks and their contents: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/648

      I am the middle child of my siblings which number in the two digit region, 10 to be exact. =) I love having such a large family and I would never trade them for anything. The downside to having such a large family is that my parents can not help me with paying for college and all of my university costs come from me. This tends to take a toll on the checkbook and thus Magic gets affected. I have never bought a booster box in my life and I have pre-ordered my very first booster box which will be New Phyrexia which will released May 13th, 2011. I have bought fat packs, booster packs, and individual cards or play-sets off ebay. The latter is a rare commodity when i have an extra 20-30 dollars and need a play set of a dual land or such. As I have not had the benefit of being able to buy a lot of cards my deck choices are limited in what I can run effectively at a fairly competitive level.

       This coming weekend I will be attending a convention the St. Louis Area with my fiance in which I will also be participating in my first serious competition as 80 people have signed up, The previous most I have played with in a tournament was 36. The tournament will run all day saturday and I am looking forward to this tournament. I am not quite sure what I will be running at it as my kuldotha red self-brewed deck has had the best win percentage of any of my decks but as most people are starting to board in such cards as Day of Judgement or Pyroclasm my deck is becoming more and more vulnerable. The problem otherwise is that I can not field a consistent deck as I have a bunch of great cards such as Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Sword of Feast and Famine.

       The deck I will be playtesting the next couple days in preparation of the tournament is an artifact based deck composed of white, blue, and black. So here is the decklist of my self-brew at the moment:

Lands:
5 Islands
5 Plains
5 Swamp
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Seachrome Coast
2 Glacier Fortress

Planeswalkers:
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Jace Beleren

Spells:
4 Mana Leak
4 Stoic Rebuttal
4 Preordain
2 Tumble Magnet
2 Doom Blade
2 Go for the Throat
1 Black Sun Zenith
1 Contagion Engine

Creatures:
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Myr Battlesphere
3 Treasure Mage
1 Frost Titan
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Sun Titan

Obviously there are some aspects of this deck I would love to change. The fact that I have a ton of 1-of cards  kills my belief in the deck. I believe if the deck was tuned properly that this thing could do some damage at even a fairly competitive level. I would like to add a few more Tezzerets, Wurmcoils, and Vensers I believe this deck could become quite devastating. These are my thoughts for this time and I look forward to reporting tomorrow night on how the deck runs during play testing tomorrow.

Farewell,
Hutch