List #773: How to Build 100 EDH / Commander Decks

How to Build 100 EDH/Commander Decks*

1. Don't Be Hung Up on Perfection:   Not every deck is going to be an hyper-optimized pile of staples

2. Play "Bad" Cards:  your decks will get boring if every deck has the same staples.  Use this opportunity to try out "less good' cards

3. Proxy (fairly) --  Some cards that are good enough for a lot of decks are big $, and you might not have stacks of them.  To me, fairly means you can proxy something as long as you own at least one copy of it, but no more than 3 non-dual-land proxies per deck.

4. Restrictions = Creativity:  not every green deck need be "Ramp to Fatties". Giving yourself restrictions can lead to more ideas for decks...  Mono-blue beat-down,  creature-less green,  all one-drops, Samurai tribal, Ice Age Block Constructed etc.   

5. Sleeves are for Wimps:  or people with extra time and money to keep decks in the right sleeves.  I'd rather spend money on more cards, than on 10,000 sleeves, but your mileage may vary.

6. Play for Funsies:  see #1.  If you are tournament-hustler Spikey McSpikerson, you're probably only going to optimize one deck to KILL and win all of the prizes and money and glory.  Building in bulk, not all of your decks are going to be optimized to win, (or at least not win in the same old way).  Be happy to play for the game to pull off an awesome play, or be part of epic games, or just to sling cardboard with your friends.

7. Build for Art Sometimes:  an extension of #4.  Some of your decks might be exercises more than anything else. Try building a Rainbow Stairwell, or Tag-Team decks, or 'drafting' out of your deckless-cards (see #9), keeping a few "teaching" decks is a good idea too.

8. Have a Lot of Cards:  it helps if you've already got a ton of cards to build from. any card that isn't in a deck should make you want to put it into a deck or make a deck for it.

9. Play Favorites:  some decks are worth going back and tweaking with the newest cards, others can be built and finished. Keeping all of the decks up to date would be foolish, costly, and time-consuming. On the other hand, keeping a few favorite decks as fresh as possible, is also important.

10. Don't Go Bankrupt Trying to Do it All at Once:  My initial goal was just to have one of each possible combination (including no-color and 4-color). Once that happened I thought about going for two of each legal combination.  The idea of shooting for 100 didn't come up until about #65.

*As of this posting, I have about 80 complete, with 5 more in the works (and 5 more Guild Wars waiting for Gatecrash)

List #100: 100 Things to be Happy About

100 things to be happy about (only 13,900 to go!)

1. Banjos
2. Fruit Soups
3. Carleton College
4. Lake Superior
5. Glow-in-the-Dark
6. Green Lantern Comics
7. Comfortable pants
8. Family (even dysfunctional ones)
9. Good Neigbors
10. Stolen Bases
11. Friends that aren't boring
12. Joss Whedon
13. The first 110 Summers of YMCA Camp Miller (1898-2008)
14. The patio at the Hacienda del Sol
15. Heroclix
16. Neil Gaiman
17. Alphabet Books
18. Suzzallo Library, UW (Seattle)
19. Tuna
20. Pond Hockey
21. Night Games
22. Strongbad Emails
23. Brunettes
24. Rerun van Pelt
25. Heroic Couplets
26. un-heroic Couplets
28. Google Earth
29. The Music of Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius and John McGlaughlin
30. Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches
31. Pontoon Boats
32. Blankets (especially as gifts)
33. Cinnamon Ice Cream (and Cinnamon in general)
34. Centerfielders
35. Reading a good book on the back porch
36. Good Students
37. Kevin Smith Movies
38. Cool breezes, shady trees
39. Crocs
40. The Girls in their Summer Dresses
41. Eybrows! (I wish mine worked better)
42. Sesame Street
43. The Fleaflicker
44. Mojitos, Margharitas and Summer Beers
43. Mbaqanga, Kwela, and Marabi
44. Neil Patrick Harris
45. Great luck when it comes to finding places to live
46. Public Libraries
47. Starman (Jack Knight)
48. Boy-Girl harmony
49. Iceland
50. Memorizing international capital cities
51. Lake swimming
52. Otters
53. Little Baby Ducks
54. Old Pick-up Trucks
55. Having a Job you don't hate
56. High School Band
57. Amazing Grace Bakery
58. The name Emily
59. Anne Hathaway
60. Good Comic Shops
61. Baths
62. Shoulder-rubs and head-massages
63. Live Music
64. Freshly-mowed lawn
65. Brainteasers, riddles and puzzles
66. Hockey Tournaments
67. Debate teams
68. slightly-absurd humor
69. Pinstripes (except on the yankees)
70. Nicknames
71. Hand-made books
72. The sewing room at grandpa's house
73. Des Moines
74. Fighter Jets made of Biceps
75. Duluth Packs
76. Walking lunges
77. Creative people
78. Quality TV shows
79. Being Born (thanks Mom!) (Thanks Dad!)
80. Grandparents and Great Grandparents
81. Bass solos
82. "Peanuts"
83. Bone folders
84. Legal pads
85. Rosy cheeks, Runny noses, fogged lenses and beard-icicles coming in after xc-skiing
86. Peepers
87. The Aerial Lift Bridge
88. One-way screws
89. Remote islands
90. Choco-tacos
91. The smell of lemons, peaches, lilacs or bleach
92. Open-source software
93. YouTube
94. Afternoon naps
95. Saturday Night Live
96. Anything and any one within 2 degrees of Judd Apatow
97. Old friends
98. Mix-tapes
99. Wayne Gretzky
100. Lists

List #75: Things I am really really going to miss this summer

List #75: Things I am really really going to miss because they wouldn't hire us back at YMCA Camp Miller in Sturgeon Lake, Minnesota. (in no particular order, and not all-inclusive)

1. The Bell
2. The Old Fireplace
3. Daycampers (Mark, Logan, Aedan, Landon, Mason,... the whole lot of them)
4. Seeing another great group of CiLTs grow up to be coworkers
5. C(ampers) i(n) L(eadership) T(raining): and teaching what it means
6. The Four Core Values (wait, nope, we took those with us when we left)
7. Roadrunner plus Polar Bear (95% of the time, for the last 10 years)
8. The Chapel
9. ILAC
10. forgetting to water my mom's donated plants
11. Bernie (and even Sammy)
12. Little Baby Ducks, Old Pick Up Trucks
13. Tradition
14. Spruce Cabin
15. Garber Lodge
16. The "Colonel" card
17. "Chippy" (my canoe paddle)
18. The "Voyeur" pack from tripping
19. (N^2)^3 Every friday at 6:15
20. The Pinewoods
21. Just Dirt, Piracy, Sock Puppet PEGs
22. Oh-penniiiiiiiiiiiing CAMP Fiiiiire
23. Jello Cake
24. Shelley and the Kitchen Staff
25. The smell of the buildings on the first day back
26. The little bench at the Chapel
27. The full moon off the end of the dock
28. Paddling around the Island
29. Prisoner's Base
30. Making up new names for Run Til You Puke night games
31. RtyP in the Green Section (Rabbit, Rabbit, cross my field)
32. Explaining the Rules to CH to the kids
33. Explaining the Rules to CH to the staff (thanks Justin D)
34. Feeling like I'm giving back to somewhere that's given me almost everything
35. Being at a place where I can actually be myself
36. Helping kids learn archery
37. Helping kids learn in an environment based on fun and joy
38. Playing Mafia with the CiLTs
39. Playing Bocce with the CiLTs
40. Playing FOTAY with the CiLTs
41. The 3.X "C"s of Teamwork
42. The "No" rule of initiatives
43. Leading Initiatives in general
44. Toobeez
45. Parachute games
46. Creepy
47. Chops
48. Gumball
49. GNails
50. The rest of the dedicated and committed staff
51. Hop-errrrrrrrrrrs Oooooooout ofthewater
52. THEME DAYS
53. Working for a boss that listens (nope, I have that out here in MD too)
54. Getting a cool free T-shirt to wear with pride
55. Breakfast Pizza
56. The Rocking Chairs (because I'm a good person and never stole one from McCleod)
57. Closing Campfire Song
58. Leading off "If I Weren't A..."
59. The Bee Skit (though we retired from it)
60. Every other good skit
61. Creative Cabin Skits
62. Re-telling stories at Campfire from way back when Scott was the director
63. Hiding in-bounds for Counselor Hunt
64. All of the wonderful people I worked with through the past 14 years
65. Preserving Old Traditions (an unintentionally creating new ones)
66. Arrowheads and Dragonflies (and not adding 19 to my headboard this year (even though I think I pre-made one last year...))
67. Writing my name in the Spruce Cabin Cabinet another time
68. Working with people I've known since they were Pathfinders
69. The Glorious Exhaustion that hits you at 7 p.m. on a Friday Night
70. The Energy of Getting Ready on Sunday Morning
71. Sunday Morning Table Duty and leftovers
72. The Special "Mid-summer" meeting
73. Water Baseball
74. The Rubber Chicken (he might still be in the Initiatives Bag)
75. Using My Initiatives bag (I hope I didn't foolishly leave it last summer thinking it would be waiting for me next year, because that is my stuff and _not_ being donated)
76. Donating 1 paycheck's worth of stuff back to Camp each year (tables, markers, whiteboards, lacrosse gear, etc.)
77. Finally making my time capsule
78. All the things I learned from working with so many different people
79. Shooting a Gun, Riding a Horse
78. The Siesta Song
79. Alive Awake Alert Enthusiastic ! (the Exclamation point is key)
80. The feeling of the new (even after 18 years) on the very first day of staff training
81. Putting in the Dock
82. Setting up the boats
83. Koob
84. Kickball
85. Clark and Bruce
86. Standing in the office doorjamb
87. Ron Ball
88. Telling stories of the past to teach the next generation
89. Realizing that I was, to very, very many people, what my great counselors were to me (and not even feeling worthy to be put in the same category as people like Ashley, Jamie, Jal, Jeremy, Josh, etc.)
90. Making the "This is why we wear shoes" announcement
91. Boys-side Check-in
92. Working with my Sister and Brother (and Mom on the committee)-- I doubt I'll ever work side by side with both siblings again. Camp used to be about Family. (even more than Home was about family).
93. Feeling valued and appreciated (and almost believing it)
94. Singing a different song (not sung yet that summer by anyone) song at each campfire.
95. Fun Limit Infinity
96. Joining different cabins for meals
97. Teaching Styles of Leadership
98. Paper golf, musical chairs, counselor magic
99. Jesus on one end, Norm on the other
100. "The Final Countdown"

okay, I'm going to stop there for now. I may fire off another hundred or so the next time I have 20 minutes to spare.