I've been enjoying writing about Final Fantasy for the past month or so, but this week I'd like to bring you something a little different. Over the years I've shared the occasional "road trip story" where I related various trips I took that included stops at game stores along the way. I love talking about Magic and EDH, swapping stories and playing with new people. Any trip I take on my own is likely to see me packing a few decks to play at local game stores.

Aside from a few trips out to Rochester since COVID initially hit, I haven't traveled much in recent years. A while back, both of my parents passed and my siblings and I subsequently needed to plan a trip to Upper Michigan, a place we hadn't visited in decades. My grandparents had lived up there and in my childhood we would visit about every other year, so I was excited to have a chance to go back up to the U.P. (Upper Peninsula).

My grandparents' home was in Skandia, which is a short drive south of Marquette, the largest city in the U.P., and I decided to book a hotel in town. I might have looked up game stores in Marquette even before I looked up hotels, and I was pleased to find two right on the same street, remarkably close to each other. Taiga Games and Iron Golem Games on Washington Street. I gravitated towards the latter and saw that they had commander on the schedule for several of the nights I'd be in town, including a Thursday game night at a local brewery!

I reached out to them through Facebook to get a feel for the level of EDH folks were playing. I didn't want to travel with any expensive decks, and I wanted to try to match the power level so games would be fun. They let me know they had a range from precon up to cEDH, though the cEDH crew is in the minority at their shop.

Picking My Decks

Having entrenched myself in this format for many years, my deck collection has gotten a little out of hand. I ended up deciding to pick six decks, out of roughly 40 or so, that I would bring with me. I was going to fly out to the midwest from Boston so I decided I'd put the two most expensive in my carry-on and the other four in my checked suitcase.

I wanted to avoid combo decks because combos aren't always appreciated in casual play. I knew I wanted to bring decks I'd enjoy and that were capable of winning games. I also wanted at least one or two newer decks because I enjoy playing new decks. Traveling or even going to a Magic con always results in some degree of decision making if you have a large library of EDH decks. I've brought over a dozen decks on trips in the past, but flying was going to limit my options a bit.

I ended up picking the following decks.

Eligeth, Crossroads Augur / Siani, Eye of the Storm: This is a new brew I haven't shared with you yet. It's meant to be a lower powered "scrying and flying" deck, with Eligeth turning my scry directly into card draw. It has exceeded my expectations, but has felt like a lower powered option that I can "play nice" with if I have to play in a bracket 1 or 2 game.

Ms. Bumbleflower: I brought Bumbleflower because it's fun and has consistently surprised me with how well it performs. I built it before the bracket system was introduced and haven't gone back and updated it. I plan to pull all the game changers out of it, but technically right now it's at least a bracket 3.

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa and Tana, the Bloodsower: This is a partners deck focused on Saprolings and combat tricks. It can be very explosive but rarely oppressive to play against. If it wins, it will be after blockers are declared and thanks to an army of 1/1s suddenly becoming much bigger.

Radagast, the Brown: My favorite Lord of the Rings deck has a vast assortment of different creature types and the ability to make lots of mana and flood the board with a ton of weird creatures. It's surprisingly strong and resilient but presents a very fair game plan. Play green creatures. Attack. Hope for the best.

Lathliss, Dragon Queen: Red Dragons are my go-to deck if I want to just shut off my brain entirely. It's not subtle. I play red Dragons. I attack with them. It's surprisingly effective and I love that I'm not even leaning on the nonsense that Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm or The Ur-Dragon can bring to a game. I've got other decks for funky Dragon shenanigans, but Lathliss is all about keeping things simple. Play red Dragons. Attack in the air. Hope for the best.

Shiko and Narset, Unified: This is a newer deck that I've enjoyed a lot. It has also outperformed my expectations. It's not wall to wall mind control / treason effects, but it's got a little bit of everything and has been entertaining to pilot.

The only list with game changers is BumbLeflower and none of the decks are cEDH level. I didn't actually know what the players at Iron Golem Games consider to be cEDH, but that's another matter entirely. After taking roughly half of the dice out of my dice bag, I was all set to pack it all up and head west.

I should note now that I don't generally include names when I write about casual matches, so if you read this and were one of my tablemates - thank you for letting me join you and please don't be offended that I'm not including you by name in any recounts of the games I played.

Welcome to Marquette

My flight was on a Monday and once I had checked in to the lovely Landmark Inn at the top of a hill in downtown Marquette, I immediately headed over to the LGS to check it out. I met one of the owners, who was working on a "EDH Mystery Deck" project. I introduced myself, chatted a bit and then headed over to a local pizza place for my first meal since the Dunkies I'd had in Boston that morning.

Before heading over to Third Coast Pizza, I bought a gift certificate as a belated birthday gift for my nephew, along with a couple of cards for one of the decks I had with me and three Final Fantasy booster packs. Over dinner I was delighted to open them and find both a Starting Town and a Vivi Ornitier! Apparently a Vivi deck is in my future after all.

I love when "buy a few packs to support the store" turns into "zowie - look what I got!"

After eating, I hoofed it back to the hotel, grabbed all of my decks and supplies, and headed back to the LGS to get in a few games with two of the locals who had been hanging out playing a bit of 1v1. I was exhausted, but it seemed like more fun than sitting in the hotel room reading, scrolling on my phone or watching TV.

The guys were locals who had gone to Northern Michigan University and still lived in the area. They were playing fairly low powered decks. One was on a recently opened Ms. Bumbleflower precon and we were joined by a fourth player so we even had a proper pod.

In the first game I played my mono-blue "Scrying and Flying" deck and ended up with the win after a pretty enjoyable match. We chatted, talked about EDH, compared decks and had a really good time. While I won, I tried not to play "sweaty" (as competitively as possible) because that's not what I was there for. The company and the experience were way more important than the win.

In the second game I suggested that the Bumbleflower player borrow my Bumbleflower deck as it'd be a chance to see how an upgraded version might look and feel. Most players eventually upgrade their precons so I figured he might get something out of it, and it was an odd bit of luck that I had brought her along. I switched decks to play Radagast, the Brown. The other player switched to a Phenax, God of Deception Zombies deck.

The most memorable thing about the game was that our fourth player was on a Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy deck. This Simic commander has an Adventure mode that lets you investigate and play an additional land. For the entire game he just kept playing his commander that way, paying the extra tax (of course) and ramping incredibly fast. He ended up playing a bunch of big spells including a huge Genesis Wave, but I was able to knock him out with a bunch of green creatures. He had been milling us all with landfall triggers and my library was getting way too small for my comfort level.

That second match ended up going to the Bumbleflower deck, who had been drawing off a Rhystic Study. He had drawn into a Fog and after I had fogged his alpha strike with an Obscuring Haze, he then dodged my own attempt to win with his Fog. At the end the Phenax player forced me to mill a bunch of cards before he got knocked out. I had so few cards left in my library that the Bumbleflower player was able to just cast spells and force me to draw from an empty library.

I was happy to see someone else win, and it felt like everyone had a really good time. It was the perfect end to the first day of my trip, and I was looking forward to meeting more of the Iron Golem community.

Meet the J's

The next day I spent some time checking out downtown Marquette. It was fun to poke around in the local tourist traps but my most valuable stop was back at Iron Golem Games, where I sat down with the owners to learn more about the store and its history.

Joseph Baker, Jordan Gokey, and a third partner named Seth founded Iron Golem Games back in 2022, at the tail end of COVID. Taiga Games had been just down the street and supporting the local gaming community for 10 years, but another store in the area had been shut down during the pandemic. Folks were itching to get back to playing Magic in person and Joseph, Jordan and Seth stepped in to try to fill the gap left behind when The Game Well had closed.

I was surprised to see two gaming shops so close to each other. Marquette is not a big town by my own East Coast standards. It is the biggest city in upper Michigan, but the distance one has to travel to get to another major city has them somewhat isolated. You can't just drive a half hour or 45 minutes to spend a weeknight or a Saturday afternoon at another store.

Seth wasn't around, but I chatted for a while with Joseph and Jordan. Joseph started playing Magic during Coldsnap, Jordan during Ice Age. Both were mostly "kitchen table" players, never seriously getting into competitive play, but developing a love of the game nonetheless. Joseph's first EDH deck was a Rubinia, Soulslinger clones deck and Jordan's first real foray into Commander was with a casual Prossh, Skyraider of Kher (no Food Chain) deck. They've dabbled in higher-powered play, but are mostly interested in matching the power level of folks playing at the store if they ever jump in to help fill out a pod.

I was pleased to hear that they don't have any weird house rules or or changes from the format's core tenets. I was also happy to see a code of conduct and got the impression that the store works hard to foster a welcoming environment for LGBTQ players and anyone else that wants to come shuffle up a deck and play Magic. The store's Magic community plays mostly EDH with a subset that likes cEDH, and with set prereleases and occasional drafts helping to fill out the schedule.

In the early years they set up commander "seasons" with point systems and goals for players to try to achieve, but in recent years they've found folks are happy to just come in to jam Commander games.

I made sure to buy a t-shirt, as I wanted a souvenir of my trip. The Iron Golem name was inspired by Seth's love of Bosh, Iron Golem, along with the fact that the region has a long history of iron ore mining and smelting.

Joseph had been working on sorting cards while I talked with him, as he had a "Mystery EDH Deck" project in the works. He was building EDH decks for casual play with the idea that the deck box would be marked with the commander's colors but you would not know what commander you were getting until you opened it up.

While that might sound like an online scam, in this case the store was running each deck through an automated card sorter/scanner to make sure every deck was worth at least a certain amount so the purchaser wasn't getting swindled. They were of course also doing their due diligence to make sure they didn't accidentally sell a deck worth many times more (in card value) than what they were charging for it.

The "Mystery Deck" project was new, and they had built and sold 40 of the decks in the first wave a few weeks earlier, and then 25-30 more a week later. It seemed like a great way to get new decks out into the community at a fair price, and the fact that they keep selling out seems like confirmation that they're doing something right.

Jordan was good enough to show me the scanner/sorter they use and I was definitely impressed. It was very cool, and if they had the next batch ready for purchase I might have bought one for myself. I assume they range a bit in power level but are generally lower powered and represent a good starting point for a brewer to upgrade and build from. Any time you are churning out dozens and dozens of EDH decks en masse, it's safe to assume they won't be highly tuned or optimized, but for many casual players that's really not a show-stopper. They just want to shuffle up and have fun playing casual EDH.

Joseph and Jordan both went to Northern Michigan University in Marquette, and I was happy to hear that they had been working to help support the "Magicats," a student club at the school. Any time an LGS is in a college town I'm always happy to hear when they have done outreach into the student body to help support gaming clubs.

Game Night at Kognisjon Brewery

My hope to get an extra night of EDH fell through when family plans got more convoluted than I had expected, but we were able to get my nephew over to Iron Golem Games where he used his belated birthday gift to pick up a bunch of cards for a deck. Wednesday night didn't end up having much in the way of casual EDH that week, so we hung out a bit and my next chance to play was the night before I was to head home.

Iron Golem Games had partnered with Kognisjon Brewery to put on a weekly game night on Thursdays where patrons gather to play EDH. Kognisjon has an impressive offering of beers and ciders, and partners with the Third Street Grill to provide food.

I got their "Oblivion" Milk Stout (it was excellent, was #13 on the tap list, and made me think of the video game), and a burger and fries, and proceeded to find a table with local EDH players to chat with while eating.

The burger and fries were fantastic, as was the company. I happened to find a group of cEDH players and got to hear all about the local cEDH scene. It sounded like they've got a robust group of players who enjoy playing at the top end of our format. It seemed like they were proxy friendly, though plenty of them were rocking decks with Dual lands, Moxes, and other expensive cards.

Traveling down to cons and Magic Fests in Chicago, Milwaukee, and other nearby cities was their chance to play in a larger setting, but it was nice to hear that regular games of cEDH were happening in Marquette. They knew their stuff, and with my own lack of knowledge of cEDH I won't embarrass myself by trying to get into the details. I hadn't brought any cEDH decks and after eating I watched the start of their first game before getting distracted by another one of the guys.

I ended up starting a conversation about cEDH with someone who showed up after that first game started, and then getting sidetracked into a long chat about LARPing of all things. He had spent recent years running an annual LARP in Marquette, up on Sugarloaf Mountain just north of town. I spent over two decades running around in costume, fighting with foam swords, after college, so it was fun to hear about how they did things up there.

My Tummy Hurts and My Hand is Bad

I ended up getting into a pod of casual EDH players that included Joseph, one of the store owners. My tummy didn't actually hurt, but my tokens box has that sticker from CoolStuffInc on it, and one of the guys found it pretty amusing. As it turned out, the second part of that quote would be more relevant than I'd have liked. I ended up getting in three games before heading back to the hotel for the night. I won't give you a play by play, but they were enjoyable and worth recounting.

In the first game Joseph played a deck led by The Collector, a 2024 prize card for the Unknown events at MagicCon Chicago. It's a five-color 5/5 legendary Human Gamer that lets you copy any signed spell or land when you play it. I think the deck was entirely or almost completely full of signed cards, and with access to every color, there was no limit on what kinds of shenanigans he might get up to.

I was on Shiko and Narset, Unified, and the other two players were on Orca Siege Demon and Orah, the Hierophant. I foolishly kept a hand with two lands but no way to produce white and was rewarded for my bad mulligan decision by having a very long early game where I did little of any significance and drew into a hand I couldn't play. It happens. "My hand is bad" held true, at least for one game. Joseph's deck went crazy, he was able to put an Epic Experiment on the stack for 30, but the other two players were able to combine their efforts to kill him before it resolved.

Orah took the win in the end, and I was able to get white late in the game and do a little, but I was never a serious problem for them. That deck had surprised me in previous games, so I guess it was time for it to give me a less impressive showing.

I only had two decks with me that hadn't seen play, so I switched to Tana & Sidar and was hoping to put in a better showing. Joseph had moved to another table and we were able to grab Jordan, the other owner, for the rest of our games that night. Jordan loaned his Bristly Bill deck to the Orah player and he shuffled up his Feather, the Redeemed deck. The Orca player powered up to play Riyonya, Fire Dancer.

I've played against Riyonya decks in the past and remembered them as explosive and hard to beat. I didn't assume this deck was as finely tuned, but Riyonya did what Riyonya does and she took down the table relatively easily. My Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa helped a bit, making her attackers harder to block. She killed my tablemates but I was sitting with a full board of creatures and a group pump combat trick in hand.

I attacked with less than what I'd need to kill her and win. She declared no blocks, even though she had a Terror of the Peaks in play. Unfortunately my last hurrah was a Pack Attack, which gives my creatures +X/+0 where X is the number of players being attacked. It drew me a card, but I drew into Camaraderie, which I didn't have the mana to play, and that was that.

It was nice to see that EDH up north wasn't some diluted version of the format with weak decks and shaky gameplay. They were bringing their A game, even at lower power levels, and it would be a challenge to get a win on the night. Again, I was really there to meet people and play EDH, but my competitive streak is always lurking in the background and I notice when I get shut out over the course of an evening.

For the last game I switched to Lathliss, Dragon Queen. I was exhausted, not sleeping well and had been getting a ton of exercise walking around Marquette and up and down the hill that the Landmark Inn was on top of. The Riyonya player switched to Drana, Liberator of Malakir. The Bristly Bill player switched to Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. The Feather player switched to a new Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER deck.

I was keen to have a simpler game, and was happy to start with a hand that included my newly altered Descent into Avernus. I painted the "This is Fine" meme of a dog in a room that's on fire onto the card and was happy to get it into play for the first time.

I am not a huge fan of force-sacrifice effects in casual EDH. I'll defend to my dying breath your right to play them, but I'll never pretend to enjoy the experience of constantly having to bin my creatures. It's just not a lot of fun and I play the game to have fun. That last game wasn't dominated by such things, but in the end it was decided by them.

I was able to get my Dragons rolling along, losing an early Dragon to a Fleshbag Marauder from the Drana player. Descent put in work, and when I drew into Dracogenesis I was hopeful that maybe I'd be able to both play it for the first time in that deck and maybe just maybe threaten a win.

With four treasures from my Descent on my upkeep, I was able to play Dracogenesis and then play my commander and all of the Dragons in my hand for free. I already had a Roaming Throne in play, so my Lathliss triggers would get doubled. Unfortunately, the two Dragons in hand were Firespitter Whelp and Fledgling Dragon, but with each of them putting two 5/5 token Dragons into play, I was clearly in a very good position.

I'd be able to pump my team by +5/+5 on my next turn, but I had a bad feeling that my luck was not going to hold. It might have been that I hadn't been sleeping well and just feeling exhausted, but my gut told me things were not going to work out. I was right.

I don't recall if there was any removal sent at me before the Sephiroth player's turn. There might have been, but it was Jordan's turn that was backbreaking. The biggest blow to my chances was a spell that forced us all to sacrifice half of our creatures, and I think there was both incremental life loss (for us) and life gain (for him) that was enough to put the win well out of reach for me.

I might have been the last one to get knocked out, but that was cold comfort when the deciding moment was having to sacrifice half of my creatures. I wasn't the only one who didn't really enjoy that play pattern, and when I conceded the win Jordan seemed to realize that the deck might not be a lot of fun for his tablemates to play against.

You genuinely don't have to play decks that are fun for anyone but yourself - even in lower-powered EDH. As I said, I'll defend to my dying breath your right to be a nuisance or a jerk to the people you play with. I made sure to apologize for any grumpiness on my part and I did explain that I was just dead tired and running on fumes at that point. Like anyone else, exhaustion doesn't help my moods one bit.

We had a chance to chat a bit before I headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for an early morning flight. Even if I didn't get a win, I was happy that the night wasn't dominated by a single player (including myself). I like to see the wins get spread out when playing casual games so more than one player gets a moment in the winner's circle.

While my games on Thursday night were underwhelming for me, I was able to mount a threat in two of them, and I couldn't have asked for better tablemates. The company was great, the cEDH crew I chatted with earlier was welcoming, and both the beer and the food was spectacular. I'd be there every Thursday if I lived in the area.

Final Thoughts

Looking back on the week I spent in Marquette, beyond the family stuff that was my reason for making the trip, I'm really happy that I decided to call Iron Golem Games my home store for a week. It's just as likely I would have been welcomed with open arms at Taiga Games, and if you are in that area you should check out both stores. I just knew I'd only have time for one of them.

I think my single best memory from the trip was having one of my tablemates say during one of our games that he hadn't had so much fun playing EDH in ages. A good attitude is infectious, and it's always nice to be able to bring one and see how it impacts a game.

I'm as human as anyone else, so it was also a sobering reminder on Thursday night that a moment of crabbiness (about having to sacrifice my creatures) can put a shadow over a table in a way that's not great. I always try to say I'm sorry for my moments of grumpiness. I did and I was. By and large I had a lot of fun in those Thursday night games.

In my travels I did note that having EDH decks in your checked bag or your carry-on can get extra attention from TSA. On both trips my checked bag ended up with a note in it that it had been opened and looked through. On the flight home I packed all of my Magic stuff in my carry-on, and the TSA agent checking me through took it aside and looked at each deckbox.

I somehow kept myself from telling him that they were good decks but only a few of them were truly explosive.

The purpose of today's column, beyond just setting up that last line, is really to convey to you how much fun it is to bring a deck or two along when you travel.

You never know what you're going to get when you set foot in a new LGS, but I've always had good experiences doing so. Sometimes you'll overshoot the power level of a pod, or you'll get a good butt-kicking, but it's almost always a great time. You get to tell stories about your own decks and your best (and worst) games, and you get to see decks and play styles that you might not see in your playgroup back home.

In an age where you can order any card online, it might not seem like a big deal to pick up a card at an LGS while on a trip, but I definitely think it's worth it. Not only are you supporting a LGS, but if you pick a memorable one you'll probably always remember where you got it. If I traveled a lot I might even be tempted to build a "travel deck" with cards from all of the game stores I'd visited.

If I'm ever down in Florida I know I'll probably head straight to a CoolStuffInc brick and mortar store. If I'm ever back up in the U.P of Michigan, you know I'll plan to spend at least an evening at Iron Golem Games. Wherever you travel, I encourage you to check out the local game stores.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!