A Quest: Magic the Gathering

I have always enjoyed adventure stories where a hero or heroes are charged with completing some Quest. Since I was a kid I have come up with quests for myself. I set myself a Quest to read the Bible cover to cover. I set myself a quest to play all of the Mario Brothers games (play not complete). I set myself a quest to see all of the endings to the game Chronotrigger. I set myself a quest to read all of the work of Robert Howard. I set myself a quest to beat all of the Final Fantasy games in order (I have repeated this one several times). I set myself a quest to complete all of the Legend of Zelda games. I set myself a quest to play all of the printed adventures for Dungeons and Dragons (OE and AD&D).
A lot of my quests center around reading or playing games. I did set myself a quest to collect all of the X-men titles ever printed (counting reprints as valid). I also have quested to grow out my hair. I have quested to run complete a 5k. Quests are fun. Normally, I do not share my quests with other people. I also recognize that my quests are probably fairly geeky.
My newest quest is worth sharing. I am embarking on a deck building quest for Magic the Gathering. It isn’t enough to generally say you are going to do something. There must also be parameters. The decks I build must be functional in that they must hold their own against other decks of the same type (Standard vs Standard etc.). At the end of the Quest, I want to have at least one each of standard, modern, legacy, and commander decks. To be fair I can already check this off my list.
This is where the quest becomes a challenge. I am going to build one deck of each of the following type:
One each for the clans of Tarkir which are:
The Abzan Houses – WBG- Khan- Anafenza the Foremost “Outlast” 
The Jeskai Way- WUR- Khan- Narset, Enlightened Master “Prowess” 
The Sultai Brood- UBG- Khan- Sidisi Brood Tyrant “Delve” 
The Mardu Horde- WBR- Khan- Zurgo Helmsmasher “Raid” 

The Temur Frontier – BRG- Khan- Surrak Dragonclaw “Ferocious”
 
One each for the Guilds of Ravnica which are: 
Azorius – WU 
Dimir- UB 
Rakdos- BR 
Gruul- RG 
Selesnya- GW 
Simic- GU 
Orzhov- WB 
Izzet- RU 
Golgari- BG 
 
Boros – RW
 
One for each of the Shards of Alara which are: 
Jund- BRG
Naya- RGW
Bant- GWB
Esper- WUB
 
Grixis- UBR
 
That makes 20 decks. I will also build one functioning 5 color deck (technically I already have one named Taste the Rainbow). Then I am going to get fancy and make workable decks for the following 26 win condition cards:
 
Amulet of Quoz  
Approach of the Second Sun  
Azor’s Elocutors  
Barren Glory  
Battle of Wits 
Biovisionary 
 
Celestial Convergence 
Chance Encounter  
Coalition Victory  
Darksteel Reactor  
Demonic Pact  
Door to Nothingness 
Epic Struggle  
Felidar Sovereign 
Hedron Alignment 
Helix Pinnacle  
Hellkite Tyrant 
Laboratory Maniac 
Mayael’s Aria  
Maze’s End  
Mechanized Production 
Mortal Combat  
Near-Death Experience  
Test of Endurance  
Triskaidekaphobia  
Vraska the Unseen  
 
To be fair, there are win conditions here that will work in the same deck. A proliferate deck will ramp out Azor’s Electors and Darksteel Reactor equally well. I can build Vraska into Golgari. I will very likely build Naya around Mayael’s Aria. Still, the task is quite daunting. I look forward to reporting in when I have completed the Quest.
 
The real fun of this Quest though is going to be all the playtesting and polishing. Message me if you want to join in on the fun.

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