MTG Salvation

A group of EDH players, myself included, at my local shop have been struggling with our decks recently. Not in the build sense, but in the "where do we go from here" sense. Last Monday, it occurred to us that a weekly build challenge could add some fun and, as the name suggest, challenge our deckbuilding skills. So, that being said the four of us, Brugan, Dollars, Pete, and I (thewookiee23), put down some ground rules and issued the first challenge.

Here are the rules:
- Every (or every other) Monday will be the reveal of the previous week's challenge and the issuance of the new challenge.
- As a group we pick either a general or a mechanic for each other. For each player, the other three decide the challenge.
- In addition, each player gets to pick one card to be in the other's decks.
- We get the rest of the week (or 2) to build and playtest.
- The reveal is done via a four-player match.
- After the match, we will discuss and issue the next challenge

Supplemental Rules are:
- If we pick a general for one challenge, the next challenge will be a mechanic.
- Cards picked must be legal for the color identity of the general.
- If the challenge is mechanic-based, there is a two week build period and cards will not be picked because we will not know which general we will be using at the time we decide the challenge.

After the challenge as been decided, I will post a new thread similar to this thread describing the new challenge. I will reserve the first five reply spots, one for each of the deck lists and the last for the results of the challenge and match, So with the idea explained, let's get to the challenge.

For our first challenge, we decided to go with generals. We also wanted to do generals with a color identity that was outside of each player's wheelhouse. The assignments were as followed.

Dollars - Red/White
General - Brion Stoutarm
Brugan's Card - Sword of the Ages
thewookiee23's Card - Zodiac Dog
Pete's Card - Figure of Destiny

Brugan - Red/Green
General - Xenagos, God of Revels
Dollars' Card - Sorrow's Path
thewookiee23's Card - Valleymaker
Pete's Card - Sangrite Surge

thewookiee23 - Blue
General - Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Dollars' Card - Psychic Battle
Brugan's Card - Stifle
Pete's Card - Misthollow Griffin

Pete - Red/White/Green
General - Rith, the Awakener
Dollars' Card - Endless Wurm
Brugan's Card - City of Shadows
thewookiee23's Card - Kinsbaile Balloonist

Edits
Now that we have done one challenge, we have determined that mechanic is very limiting and sometimes overpowering. So instead of mechanic, we will be using the word theme. We believe this allows us more freedom and creativity with the decks and does not pigeon-hole any one player.

Brugan ran an aggressive build centered around large creatures punching you in the face. He had some removal spells and creatures that had destruction as an ETB trigger. After playing the match, Brugan determined that more play testing was needed and he would have run more creatures and he would have removed the swords.

Reserved for Dollars' Deck List.

This deck does what a mono-blue deck is supposed to do...control the board. It has a wealth of counterspells and plenty of means to get them back. The deck is designed to have multiple win conditions. It can go infinite with turns by casting Time Stretch and getting the card back by bouncing Archaeomancer with either Crystal Shard or Erratic Portal. By utilizing Elite Arcanist and Time Stop, it can stop an opponent's turn before it even starts. Combine that with enchantments and creatures that untap creatures and the combo works great at a multi-player table. Copy effects such as Clone, Phyrexian Metamorph, etc allow for multiple Elite Arcanist's or artifacts depending on what win the pilot is going for.

Pete put together an interesting Birthing Pod combo deck with Rith, the Awakener as his general. The deck protects itself by running some vicious creatures and preventing opponents from searching and tutoring for responses to his board. Because of the combo with Birthing Pod, his creatures ramp well from one to the next and he uses some key cards to put creatures back into to his deck, in case he needs to start the process over again.

Reserved for Challenge Results.

These challenges have been a blast so far

@Tombas: We have access to every card and more spare time than we'd like to admit to. I look forward to the next challenge being posted.