EDH – An Introduction
by Peers Ulmann Appel
Let me start of by saying that EDH is my favourite format of all the formats I have ever played, and is up there with cube and team drafting in fun levels.
Elder Dragon Highlander, or EDH as it is more commonly known, is a casual format which began as a multiplayer format invented by judges. It was created as a side event which they would be able to play all of their awesome cards in. These days anyone and everyone plays this crazy format, and in places like France the EDH community mainly deal in 1-vs-1 duels. I enjoy multiplayer a lot however I tend to play 1-vs-1 a lot, and due to this deck construction is very different.
Deck Construction
As the name suggest, this is a highlander format and so when building your deck you may only have 1 of each card in your deck bar basic lands. Unlike other highlander formats which sometimes consist of a hundred cards Edh decks have 99 and one General – A legendary creature.
The General
Now the General is the most important part of your deck as dictates what colours you may play in your deck. Take Uril, the Miststalker, a very popular new Legend. His mana cost has wgr in it and in his card text there are no mana symbols therefore you may only play White, Green, or Red cards in your deck and the same goes for land. This rule also extends to generals who have off colours in their text eg. Memnarch, cant be used as a general because he is colourless but has blue mana symbols in his activation costs.
Game Play
The other important rule about the general and what makes EDH unique is that at the beginning of the game each player place their general in the removed from game or General zone. During the game you may play your General you could play him as if he were in your hand. When a general is removed from the game or dies you may choose to either let him go to the graveyard or remove him from the game into the General zone. Don’t fret, you can play him/her again however each time you cast him it will cost you 2 more.
For example, if Yosei, The Morning Star is your general and you sacrifice him to your Spawning Pit, you can choose whether he is going to the graveyard or if he’s being removed, not both. Next turn, if you want to cast him again you can, however instead of costing 4WW he now costs 6WW, and the next time 8WW, and so on.
Other Differences
In EDH each player starts off with 40 life and as in normal magic you can win via life totals going to zero or failure to draw, however in EDH you can also win or lose the game due to 21 points of combat damage from a general. This is only combat damage otherwise cards like Brion Stoutarm would be a little too good not to mention Hitetsugo.
EDH also allows for a free 7 card mulligan if you have 1 land or 6 which you must reveal.
Other than that it’ just a matter of having fun and cramming as many silly good cards into your deck as possible.
I’ll leave you with one of my funnier decks and next week we will be talking about Deck construction specifics with pros and cons for certain cards. Until next week, happy gaming.
Jhoira – Warpstorm
General: 1
Lands: 36
17 Island
16 Mountain
Vivid Crag
Keldon Megaliths
Acadamy Ruins
Planeswakers: 2
Creatures: 26
Aeon Chronicler
Arcanis the Omnipotent
Benthicore
Bloodfire Colossus
Clone
Crackleburr
Deep-sea Kraken
Detritivore
Draining Whelk
Epochrasite
Flametongue Kavu
Goblin Flectomancer
Greater Gargadon
Guile
Hamletback Goliath
Ingot Chewer
Man-o-war
Mulldrifter
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Nucklavee
Rakdos Pit Dragon
Rift Elemental
Slithermuse
Spitebellows
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Vulshock Battle-master
Soceries: 20
Call the Skybreaker
Concentrate
Decree of Annihilation
Demonfire
Flow of Ideas
Innundate
Invoke the Firemind
Mindspring
Knowledge Exploitation
Obliterate
Reality Strobe
Serum Visions
Shatterstorm
Stitch in Time
Telemin Performance
Time Stretch
Twist Allegiances
Walk the Aeons
Warp World
Wheel of Fate
Instants: 6
Cerebral Vortex
Condescend
Counterspell
Fact or Fiction
Flame Javelin
Wild Ricochet
Enchantments: 3
Confusion in the Ranks
Eye of the Storm
Followed Footsteps
Artifacts: 6
Coalition Relic
Deathrender
Mindstone
Mirari
Relic of Progenitus
Sculpting Steel
