how do you chose?

Hi, my name is Phil, and I have a problem with picking a deck to play.

       I get easily distracted between various cool things. New decks show up all the time, and some number of them seem interesting to me, and a few of them are something I wouldn’t mind trying out. Here are my current limiting factors:

• I only play paper decks
• Limited budget to slowly build out decks to make them paper legal
• NUMEROUS proxies to help enable my deck building non-focus, not limiting but rather enabling my choices
• Time to play paper magic, usually once a week at a local store. Maybe once every other months with friends

      I read about decks, I listen to podcasts to understand things, watch legacy play videos, I play when I can… and yet, I cannot focus. I cannot convince myself to just buckle down and play one deck, to master it, to tweak it, to really just work out it out.

       Yes, I know I could play on-line. However my other limitations really bite me in the butt- money and time. I’ve got elementary aged kids, and thus I have limited time and money to throw at my current hobby of choice. I’d rather go someplace and play than just sit at home scraping out some time to play a couple rounds if possible. I can’t do both, no chance.

       Since I got back in to play, my first focus was on Death and Taxes. I liked the tool box approach it had. It wasn’t super swingy, and was just resilient. It remains my only fully paper-legal deck I fully own outright. I’ve even got a large pile of ‘for consideration’ cards which seems to grow every time I turn around. It’s nice to always have that go to deck, and to stay on top of the tech. However, I just don’t play it enough.

       I also like Sneak and Show, which is a problem. I like doing Timmy things- big stupid things. It is something I don’t have to have a galaxy brain to play, and it can win from literally no-where. I am short the biggest pieces, 2 Volcanic Islands and the Scalding Tarns. Something like $1,000 in cards currently. I have everything else paper legal at this time. It’s a swingy deck. Often I say, “live by the combo, die by the combo.”

       And recently I got in to Eldrazi stompy. My recent deck of choice because of Chalice and Thorns. I never said they were amazing or soul crushing, just that they were well placed. They still seem to be. I like causing havoc with stupid cards. However the problems are plenty with this deck, without a turn one play it has an almost impossible time coming from behind. I am two Cavern of Souls from a completely paper legal deck. Feels good.

      What is missing in all of this? A real blue deck, one that makes you actually think. I play magic, generally, so I don’t have to think TOOO much. I do enough of that at work.

So I have the question of- do I just play one deck for the forseeable future, master it, ride it out and learn. Or do I just find interesting decks I like and be a wishy washy “hot deck of the month” fan-boi?

Pardon me, I have to go scour for value in order to build up my library of possible. Damn you collectible cards.

     Note to self- if the next set is a good draft set, I may take a break from regular Legacy play and get my draft on for a bit. Stop paying attention to Legacy as much, and just focus on limited for a while to take a short break. Not stop playing all together, or looking for deals... just draft instead of Legacy. Then again, I didn't try for Core 2020 at all... but really enjoyed War of the Spark draft tremendously..