Hello ladies and gentlemen, I am able to safely include "ladies" in my introduction because I know my wife reads this column every week. At least she says she does. It seems that a lot of people enjoyed my last two articles, "$50 EDH Deck?" and "Getting Messy With Paint", so I'm going to turn those articles into a regular thing, every 4-6 weeks I'm going to go through painting a card, and attempt to build a fun $50 EDH deck. And cheers were heard throughout the masses!!!

Speaking of getting messy with paint, Dominic Martinelli from Carson City, Nevada sent in this:

So that's awesome Dominic, I just love to see people doing something with their cards other than turning them sideways. If you do something cool with one my articles, I would love to hear about it and relay it to the Magic world here on ManaNation.com. Write me anytime at dalelovelace@gmail.com!

I am just getting back from judging the Star City 5K Standard in Orlando. Congratulations to Charles Gindy for getting there with Boss Naya. I was happy to see several EDH side events during the day. Most biggish events are glad to host EDH side events now, and that's a good thing! If you ever want to check out a big event, but don't want to play in the main event, there are always plenty of great side events to get involved in, including EDH.

I got in a few EDH games the night before the 5K. Judges love EDH, so if you're ever around the night before a big event and want to get in some EDH, find a judge, chances are he'll know where the EDH is. I was fortunate enough to get in a 5 player game with Ben "I'm not doing anything" McDole, Todd "Why does everyone pick on me" Palmer, Justin "The Golden Child" Turner, and Joseph "Why am I here Again" Klopchic.

I let Justin borrow my Thraximundar deck, while I pulled out the $50 Mayael, the Anima deck from last week's article. Ben played his Progenitus deck, and Todd played Wrexial, the Risen Deep. I told everyone to go really easy on me, as I was playing a $50 deck. It seemed that everyone had read my article, so they all had my list. To my surprise, asking for everyone to go easy didn't make me target number one, which was what I had actually expected. I don't think they actually did go easy on me though.

Ben is an L2 judge and the rest of us are all L1's, so for some reason we think we need to follow his lead, even in an EDH game. I don't think a real play by play account is warranted here, but this is the way the game with Ben goes:

Any Player: "hmm, who should I attack?"

Ben: "I'm not doing anything, I only have Maelstrom Nexus and 4 Planeswalkers out, with Progenitus mana next turn, and you should attack someone else"

Any Player: "Yeah, you're right, I will attack whoever is mana screwed and doesn't have anything on the board, there take that!"

Ben: "Everyone get that guy"

Everyone except that guy: "ha, yeah, take that!!!"

Ben: "Let me top, um yeah that looks good, I play Progenitus, cascade from Maelstrom Nexus, into Obliterate, good game!"

And this EDH game was much the same. So let me give you all a tip, when Playing EDH with judges, always attack the highest level judge at the table, before his advanced knowledge of politics blows you all out of the game.

The $50 Mayael Deck did work out pretty well that night, even though it didn't blow out the table. I had a nice streak of activating Mayael while she was suited up with Whispersilk Cloak and also had Elfhame Sanctuary on the board. Unfortunately, using Elfhame Sanctuary for many turns lead to me having a large percentage of my lands on the board when Obliterate put them all in the yard!

Some things I learned about playing the $50 Mayael deck, you are the number one Bribery/Control Magic/Sower of Temptation target, period, paragraph, get used to it. It would be nice to put cards back in the library, like a Scroll Rack, because you will often end up with a hand full of fatties and Mayael on the board, so you have to choose between casting a fattie from your hand, or taking a chance on a Mayael activation. You just can't seem to get more than one fattie a turn, it takes so long to get to the fourteen plus mana you need to cast multiples. It could probably use a bit more spot removal, but I don't know what to pull for it. But hey, for $50 the deck plays pretty well and was a lot of fun!

I'll be heading to the great state of Texas to judge Grand Prix Houston this weekend, April 2-4. If you're there stop by and say hi! I'll be wearing one of those cool black DCI judge shirts, and we all have name tags, so you'll be able to spot me. There should be plenty of judge EDH going on, and EDH side events galore during the event. If you've never been to a Grand Prix, they are HUGE, I mean really big, and even a bit bigger than that. I highly recommend checking one out if you ever have the chance.

So that's it for this week. I'll be back next week with tales of GP Houston, I hope to see some of you there! As always, this is Dale Lovelace, telling you there is more than one way to play!