Wow, I was wondering where all my cards were. I have spent my early Sunday morning sifting through plastic storage crates of Magic cards, Pro Tour detritus, and random crap in an effort to make my space at home a tiny bit less cluttered and possibly even just a tiny bit less disorganized.

I have found enough Seat of the Synod to fill an auditorium, more Lonely Sandbars than — well at least as many of those — and the remains of countless decks. I barely remember some of these and none of them are fully intact, with empty sleeves marking the graves of rares that moved onto a better place.

The quality of the decks range from tournament staples like Mono Black Control with Visara from that Block season to long forgotten experiments that no doubt would have brought out pitchfork wielding villagers had they come to light. Witness the monstrosity that is Chromeshell Ramp.

The remains of some of my all-time favorite decks were also among the ruins. Paper was a Masques Block deck that generated card advantage and selection with Brainstorm and Credit Voucher in tandem with the Howling Wolf cycle of creatures. Natural Affinity and Ensnare was the kill. I absolutely LOVED this deck.

Black Thumb and Threshold are both well documented love affairs for me. My fave version of the latter was during Block season when I played it with Grizzly Fate and Centaur Chieftain. The Big Chief never quite stuck but he was a fine stalemate breaker that would have gotten me into the Top 8 of at least one PTQ if I just tapped my Werebears for mana.

Some decks are just chock full of favorite cards. I have always loved Trinity Green for any number of the cards pictured below but none more than Yavimaya Elder.

One of the problems I found early on playing with Solitary Comfinement was how to win in time if your opponent did not scoop. Spirit Cairn provided a steady source of beaters if you were willing to pay 1UW to activate Compulsion.

Jolting Merfolk/Cowardice was one of my favorite combos in a blue deck that also used the Rishadan Cutpurse (a card I liked so much I bought the original artwork to it) cycle of creatures, Glowing Anemone, and Hoodwink to blue Stone Rain my opponents into oblivion. The deck is not pictured but I still have the white long box of cards I sketched the original list onto during a flight back from GP Cannes.

My first Astral Slide deck tried to take advantage of the CIP and LIP effects on Faceless Butcher and Mesmeric Fiend to permanantly remove cards from the game over and over again with Slide. I loved the deck but it never quite got there. My Eternal Slide deck fared better once we got the Witness.

More posts to follow as I continue to rummage through my stuff including a box full of beads, dice, and counters that puts the Royal Crown Dice Bag to shame.