<h1>Writer's Block, Meet Brewer's Block</h1>
<p>Welcome to <em>Superior Numbers,</em> where I try to do numerical analysis on cards and deckbuilding trends using a little bit of math.</p>
<p>Except in the case of this particular article, where I'm going to be doing none of those things. This instead will be entirely abstract; specifically, addressing the concept of brewing block. There's no data that I can really cite here that's going to help you blast past brewing block. Instead, I'm going to attempt to talk it out.</p>
<p>I had brewer's block in 2019, though I really didn't recognize it as such until the end of the year when I realized that I had only kept one deck I built over the previous 365 days, and it was one that I built in January. That means that the other 11 months added nothing to my library.</p>
<p>It wasn't just that though; sometimes you're going to have a streak where brews just don't work, or don't captivate you, etc. The problem wasn't that I was building decks and not keeping them. No, what I realized after looking back was that I wasn't building decks in 2019 at all, or at least not getting far enough in the process to try them out at a table. Aside from the <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kresh the Bloodbraided" href="#" target="_blank">Kresh the Bloodbraided</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Fling" href="#" target="_blank">Fling</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck that I kept, the only two decks I really tried in 2019 were <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arvad the Cursed" href="#" target="_blank">Arvad the Cursed</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts" href="#" target="_blank">Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Anything else that I built never made it past the virtual sandbox stage.</p>
<p>We're now halfway through the nightmare year that is 2020 and I have two finished decks added to the arsenal: a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tymaret the Murder King" href="#" target="_blank">Tymaret the Murder King</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> <em>Infect</em> build, and an <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Athreos, Shroud-Veiled" href="#" target="_blank">Athreos, Shroud-Veiled</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pestilence" href="#" target="_blank">Pestilence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck. So what's the difference between 2019 and 2020, other than we're clearly living in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POT3plx0vBs">Darkest Timeline</a>? Well, in looking back, I can see a couple of things that were issues....</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Arvad the Cursed"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts"></div></div>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good</h2>
<p>My decks rarely show up fully formed. Maybe yours do, but mine don't. Goldfishing only goes so far for me. A deck requires reps to actually smooth off the rough edges. Take my <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Vela the Night-Clad" href="#" target="_blank">Vela the Night-Clad</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck. It started with nothing more than the notion that a commander who grants intimidate would render a field of colorless creatures unblockable. That was the entire plan. So I slapped it together, initially using Eldrazi, then artifact creatures, and played some games. Over the course of playing them, I found out quite a few things:</p>
<ul>
<li>Since Vela deals damage when a creature leaves my battlefield, things that made artifact creature tokens were useful, so I added cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Myr Battlesphere" href="#" target="_blank">Myr Battlesphere</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hangarback Walker" href="#" target="_blank">Hangarback Walker</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</li>
<li>At that point, since I was making artifact creature tokens, I would, by definition, have a lot of artifact creatures in play. There are multiple 'walkers, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas" href="#" target="_blank">Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, who deal damage based on the number of artifacts I have in play, so why not run some of those?</li>
<li>What if I turn my other artifacts, like my rocks, into creatures? They'll also get unblockable, and I can sacrifice them afterward and Vela will generate even more damage.</li>
</ul>
<p>The important part here is that I found those things over the course of playing the deck. Would I have found them out had I abandoned the deck in the goldfishing phase, or even after 2-3 games like I did Teysa and Arvad? No. And who knows what other synergies I would have found that would have made Teysa or Arvad if I didn't give up so early? But I let the perfect be the enemy of the good; I let two decks that played fine go because they didn't play as well as a deck that had significantly evolved over the course of multiple years and a significant number of reps.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kenrith, the Returned King"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Talrand, Sky Summoner"></div></div>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Don't Get Hung Up on Your Hangups</h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/bluemander.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-51764" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/bluemander-1024x462.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="462" srcset="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/bluemander-1024x462.jpg 1024w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/bluemander-300x135.jpg 300w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/bluemander-768x347.jpg 768w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/bluemander-1536x694.jpg 1536w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/bluemander.jpg 2031w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a></p>
<p>I'm someone who doesn't like to build popular commanders for a multitude of reasons, almost all of which can in some way be traced back to ego. Yet I have a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Talrand, Sky Summoner" href="#" target="_blank">Talrand, Sky Summoner</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck, the second-most-popular mono-blue commander by a margin of 400+ decks. How is that?</p>
<p>Well, I built the deck in 2014 before EDHREC was really a thing, so what was popular or not wasn't really a known quantity beyond what I saw pop up at my local tables. It's a deck I really enjoy, too. It's interactive, making tokens for all the mediocre one- and two-mana cantrips that I cast before winning with a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gravitational Shift" href="#" target="_blank">Gravitational Shift</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>- or <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Coat of Arms" href="#" target="_blank">Coat of Arms</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>-enabled alpha strike. I like playing it a lot. And you know what? If Talrand was released today and raced to the top of the popularity charts, I'd never have built the deck. I'd have let my own hangup get in the way of brewing up something I really enjoy.</p>
<p>Going into this year, <a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/author/joseph-schultz/">Dr. Joseph Schultz, Jr. III</a>, my podcast co-host and editor, challenged me to build a deck with a popular commander. I had been debating building a deck around the <em>Exalted</em> mechanic, and freed from my own weird hipster tendencies I picked <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kenrith, the Returned King" href="#" target="_blank">Kenrith, the Returned King</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Kenrith as a commander is fairly strong, but, in a deck with all <em>Exalted</em> bodies, it makes for a playable deck against decks operating at just above the precon level.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Pestilence"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Karma"></div></div>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">Look for Ideas by Looking for Ideas</h2>
<p>After having not built a deck for well over a year, I started getting restless. I knew that I didn't want a combat damage deck, but I also detest combo as a win condition. Nothing immediately caught my attention as an idea, so I went back to the beginning and just started going through cards from <em>Alpha</em>. Two cards jumped out at me as something that one could build a deck around while not reliant on the combat phase: <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Karma" href="#" target="_blank">Karma</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pestilence" href="#" target="_blank">Pestilence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. I couldn't really find anything else that felt like it would work well enough to make a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Karma" href="#" target="_blank">Karma</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck in doing a search for similar effects, but I knew <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Withering Wisps" href="#" target="_blank">Withering Wisps</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> existed as a card, and a search quickly found me <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Crypt Rats" href="#" target="_blank">Crypt Rats</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pestilence Demon" href="#" target="_blank">Pestilence Demon</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thrashing Wumpus" href="#" target="_blank">Thrashing Wumpus</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. That seemed like enough redundant effects to build a deck around.</p>
<p>On top of all of that, a deck filled with effects to prevent damage to me on my turns and from my sources like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pestilence" href="#" target="_blank">Pestilence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> works pretty well with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="" href="#" target="_blank"></a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>Karma<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="" href="#" target="_blank"></a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, too.</p>
<p>The lesson here is that inspiration doesn't always come to you. Sometimes you need to come to inspiration. That may take the form of just reading through cards on old sets, or it may entail looking through decks on your favorite deckbuilding site, or watching gameplay videos or streams. Whatever method you choose, sometimes you just need to go looking for the lightning instead of waiting for the strike.</p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Fitter, Happier, More Productive, Comfortable</h2>
<p>Hopefully all of this is at least a little helpful if you're currently going through a brewing block. I'd love to hear from readers about what things worked for you when it comes to fighting threw the doldrums of deckbuilding. Sound off below with any tips or techniques.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading, and, as always, may your numbers be superior.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="Athreos, Shroud-Veiled: Down with the Sickness" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Commander]
*1 Athreos, Shroud-Veiled
[/Commander]
[Creatures]
*1 Academy Rector
*1 Crypt Rats
*1 Pestilence Demon
*1 Stuffy Doll
*1 Thrashing Wumpus
[/Creatures]
[Enchantments]
*1 Black Market
*1 Blessed Sanctuary
*1 Blind Obedience
*1 Darksteel Mutation
*1 Death Pits of Rath
*1 Exquisite Blood
*1 Ghostly Prison
*1 Karma
*1 Land Tax
*1 Lashknife Barrier
*1 Leyline of the Void
*1 Mark of Asylum
*1 Pariah
*1 Personal Sanctuary
*1 Pestilence
*1 Phyrexian Arena
*1 Protective Sphere
*1 Revel in Riches
*1 Smothering Tithe
*1 Sphere of Grace
*1 Sphere of Safety
*1 Withering Wisps
*1 Wound Reflection
[/Enchantments]
[Sorceries]
*1 Ambition&#039;s Cost
*1 Ancient Craving
*1 Austere Command
*1 Cleansing Nova
*1 Council&#039;s Judgment
*1 Demonic Tutor
*1 Merciless Eviction
*1 Night&#039;s Whisper
*1 Obzedat&#039;s Aid
*1 Read the Bones
*1 Replenish
*1 Sevinne&#039;s Reclamation
*1 Sign in Blood
*1 Vindicate
[/Sorceries]
[Instants]
*1 Anguished Unmaking
*1 Equal Treatment
*1 Generous Gift
*1 Kaya&#039;s Guile
*1 Path to Exile
*1 Sudden Spoiling
*1 Swords to Plowshares
*1 Teferi&#039;s Protection
*1 Utter End
*1 Vampiric Tutor
[/Instants]
[Artifacts]
*1 Arcane Signet
*1 Chromatic Lantern
*1 Fellwar Stone
*1 Mind Stone
*1 Orzhov Signet
*1 Sol Ring
*1 Soul-Guide Lantern
*1 Talisman of Hierarchy
*1 Thought Vessel
[/Artifacts]
[Planeswalkers]
*1 The Wanderer
[/Planeswalkers]
[Lands]
*1 Ancient Tomb
*1 Bojuka Bog
*1 Cabal Coffers
*1 Caves of Koilos
*1 Command Tower
*1 Fetid Heath
*1 Glacial Chasm
*1 Godless Shrine
*1 Hall of Heliod&#039;s Generosity
*1 Isolated Chapel
*1 Marsh Flats
*1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
*1 Reliquary Tower
*1 Scavenger Grounds
*1 Scrubland
*1 Serra&#039;s Sanctum
*1 Silent Clearing
*5 Snow-Covered Plains
*10 Snow-Covered Swamp
*1 Strip Mine
*1 Tainted Field
*1 Tectonic Edge
*1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
*1 Vault of the Archangel
[/Lands]"></span></div>



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