Brainstorming Commanders #6: Tribal-Shenanigans

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Not many decks can compete with the nice flavor of a well built tribal EDH. And even though, Tribal isn't always competitive at heart, some deck still can pack quite some punch. For example I am the proud owner of a Zurgo, Helmsmasher Goblin Tribal EDH, and while I definitely have more than one deck that's better in terms of powerlevel, I just enjoy playing with those little green guys.

Today I want to vent out some ideas I had on Tribal EDHs, one recently, some a little older. As always I will try not to build a whole deck but only lay out a basic idea, a sketch of a kind, for anyone to build on if they so desire. And of course I'm not into building the more "standard" tribes like Goblins or Elves.

Aw yeah! I'm really excited for those three... most of you might have guessed the tribes right after seeing the commanders, at least the first two. Snakes and... ok I'll admit it, Birds were not easy to guess because Wizards like tapping and just from the looks of it Minotaurs might've fit better, but I think Mogis is the best Vampire-Commander even though Olivia Voldaren would be a Vampire herself. And since I want to keep the sweetest of them all for last lets actually start with Mogis right away.

MOGIS, GOD OF VAMPIRES

As with all the Gods of Theros, one of the biggest upsides with playing them as your commander is that, they're not an actual creature for a big portion of the game. Mogis is no exception to that, since seven devotion is quite a lot especially if most of your devotion comes from creatures.  

What I like about Mogis is that he offers a HUGE body if you manage to turn him on, and even when he's not turned on, he will deal fairly large amounts of damage over the course of the game or net you card advantage little by little. Coming back to the Vampire-theme, the fact that you'll most likely be one of the most creature heavy players on the table requires you to be able to connect with those every once a while if you want to win. Mogis does all that, he either deals your opponents damage or they'll loose a precious blocker. Either way, you're happy. Olivia couldn't have offered all that and is actually more expensive to cast and requires you to spend additional mana on her activations.

Now that we've all agreed why Mogis is the best choice, let's see why one should actually play Vampire-tribal (beside it being such a badass-tribe). In black, the main home of vampires accross the magic multiverse, things get as real as they can get. I'm leaving out the normal Lords-type cards since they're boring...

What've we got here? Oh, just our Vampire-specific Gray Merchant of Asphodel (that you can play as a second copy of some sort), a one-sided edict machine, an Uberlord that offers a boost that stays around even when he gets killed, and a lategame-removal-machine-manasink. Not too bad of a start I'd say.

Now why do we want to play red instead of any other color? Well, the mentioned Olivia Voldaren lies in those colors as does one vampire lord. That's already more than most of the other colors can offer. And if you're not sold yet, maybe those can do the trick...

Besides Olivia being that really nice utility-creature in the lategame, we have another lord-like creature in Rakish Heir that will leave something behind even when handled. Falkenrath Marauders can be quite powerful I feel, since once you've connected twice on a player that didn't have a blocker, they can get out of hand quite fast. Both the Heir and the Marauders have the connect-ability that is very common for vampires, which is one of the reasons I like Mogis so much. And last but not least Vein Drinker, being that nice "Utility-Creature-Eater" that will actually become a decent threat if left unchecked.
Once you've settled for the vampires you want to play, it is time to look for sweet non-creature spells to go with our bloodsucking friends. Things to look for are removal obviously, but since you play creature heavy it gains the additional effect of making you able to connect with creatures, and maybe some additonal ways to enlarge your creatures directly or indirectly by allowing them to connect...

...and maybe a Sulfuric Vortex? I guess he other cards are quite self-explanatory, but the Vortex has that nice synergy with Mogis. Since people normally are willing to trade life for cards, most of the time people won't sacrifice a creature to your Mogis, but with a Vortex out that can change pretty fast since 4 damage a turn is A LOT and even if they then do decide to sacrifice a creature, they'll just have prevented 2 damage... bad for them whatever they choose.

Moving on...

SESHIRO, SNAKE ON A PLANE

Beside offering a big boost to all your snakes, Seshiro does one thing no other mono-green general can do: draw a huge pile of cards. Having a source of card draw as your commander in a creature based deck, where you will want to build a board, is insanely strong, since if you manage to connect only once with some amount of snakes, allows you to recover from any mass-removal without too much of a problem while also forcing the issue by putting quite some pressure on the board because of all those snakes getting +2/+2. 

On top of that, having him cost 6 isn't that big of a deal being in mono-green and having access to really good ramping options. And damn he can shoot with two bows in two different directions at once... you can't go wrong with that!



Now you might say: "I've looked for creatures that have "Snake" in their type online, and most of them are pretty bad, isn't that a problem?!" Partially yes, of course I would wish there were more playable snakes, but let's take a look at some of the good ones:

Has anyone actually mentioned that the good ol' Sakura-Tribe Elder is a snake?! And while most of the time you will of course still sacrifice him for a land, drawing one lategame at least makes him a body to potentially draw a card of.
Snakewise that's definitely a start, how about some more snakes I would consider playing?

I have to admit, I've always been in love with those pay (2) or take another 2 damage snakes. And the Ambush Viper is actually not that bad as both attacker and blocker since you can flash her in as a mono-green removal-spell of some kind or attack with her to draw a card since not many people will want to block a 4/3 Deathtouch. On top of that the Kashi-Tribe Elite will do a nice job of protecting your commander and possible other Legendary Snakes while bringing another body to draw cards with.

Talking about bodies to draw cards with...

All those nice tokens will go really nice with our general, and all of them except the Hydra will be reusable. Now since both the Hydra and the Hatchery would be best to play with a huge pile of mana, I would recommend running a not-too-small ramp package, along with some amount of card draw besides your general and a amount of cards to deal with enchantments/etc. that is higher than one.

On to our last commander for the day...

DEREVI, BIRD TACTICIAN

Now Derevi is certainly not a stranger for most of you as being printed specifically for the EDH-Format ensured her a lot of play. But besides being that cutthroat-stay-general that everyone hates, Derevi can actually do nice things too, like leading a huge flock of birds to victory.

At first, one might want to use Kangee as a commander for Bird-Tribal, but then you realize you'll have to pay 8 mana for a +2/+2 effect on all your birds... the first time you cast him. Not too appealing is it? And if that were not enough, with Derevi you'll be allowed to play an additional color, you will always be available through her last ability and she allows for some sweet bird-synergies which you'll see in just a second. If you really want to stay Blue-White for reasons of a cheaper mana base or something else, I could see playing Isperia or the mentioned Kangee but I think Derevi will simply be the strongest of the three.

Now let's see what the mentioned synergies with Derevi are when it comes to Birds:

I guess techincally the Worshippers aren't a Bird but they produce Birds when untapping so I think you can count them as one... kind of. All the other cards work really, really well with Derevi as you might've noticed. Kepper of the Nine Gales + Derevi just needs one other Bird in play for you to allow a line like:

1. Attack with Derevi + Kepper + Random Bird.
2. Untap Derevi + Kepper + Random Bird.
3. End of Turn before your turn, use Keepers ability to either bounce some good permanent of an opponent or bounce a creature of your own that has a "enters the battlefield"-ability for you to reuse.

Crookclaw Elder doesn't even need Derevi to do the same, and every extra two birds draw an additional card, while you still get to attack (given that you're able to connect but since Birds are all flying that shouldn't be too hard). Battle Screech combined with Derevi does something similar, since the two tokens you get the first time + Derevi can attack and untap themselfs to then tap them again for the Flashback costs.

In addition to these synergies with your commander, the Bird-tribe actually offers quite a lot of nice tribal effects like card-draw, recursion or anthem-effects...

Airborne Aid is possibly my favourite Bird-card since there are so many ways to generate a big amount of Bird-tokens (I've shown you two but there are quite a few more), which will then result in drawing 4+ cards for 4 mana. Celestial Gatekeeper is obviously a really strong card for you here, recurring two of your Birds to play again - possibly after a mass removal which then puts you into a really good spot. Oh and did I mention that the Aerie Worshippers are f***ing Clerics!!!!

But the sweetness doesn't stop here. There actually are birds that are playable in a vacuum, meaning they're good on their own but will potentially get better with more birds in play...

Are you not satisfied?! Well, I am for sure! Still there are several other birds and creatures that do something for birds, so I'm pretty sure everyone who wants to ponder with the idea of building a Bird-Tribal-deck will get his fair share of cards to consider. And as always, you'll need to incorporate some amount of general-stuff into the deck like Enchantment-Removal (which actually comes in Bird-form), some more card-draw, etc.



Now there is only one thing left to do: Start up your prefered database-website like Gatherer or magiccards.info, and start digging for more birds, snakes and vampires to play. And if you're not building a tribal-deck after reading this, fine with me too, I'm glad you stayed with me 'till the end of todays post.

See y'all 'round!

Archetyping #2.5: Voltron (Part 2)

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

My last post was all about killing people in a single turn either through Poison or Commander damage. And while that's completely viable, sometimes whittling away your opponents over a couple of turns is way safer. Especially because if you threaten to kill people every moment they'll most likely try everything they can to do the same to you, which is a problem since One-Shot-Voltron decks aren't good at defending themselfs by any stretch.

The advantages of Slow-and-Resilient over One-Shot are:

• You're better at defense
• You're safer when it comes to blowouts
• You don't have to rely that much on drawing a good mix of cards
• It's more fun in a more casual playgroup

The disadvantages of Slow-and-Resilient when compared to One-Shot are:

• Your offense is weaker
• Your opponents are able to prepare themselfs against what's coming
• Being slower leaves your opponents with time to recover
• Combo-decks are your nightmare since they can kill in one turn and you can't

As you can see it's mainly a preference and metagame choice. Alright, moving on...

SLOW-AND-RESILIENT VOLTRON

Let's start where we left last time: Infect & Poison counters. One of the funny things about a slower approach on infect is that it offers a form of "Multiple-player-Burn" in Proliferate:

When a player proliferates, he or she chooses any number of players and/or permanents with a counter on them, then puts another of those counters on these players or permanents.

Ok, I'll admit, one point of "damage" doesn't sound much, but hey 1 poison counter is 10% still. That's equal to 4 damage to each opponent and I'll take that all day every day if its source is a permanent.

But that's the top of the iceberg. Let's start from the... start......?

Again I think those three bad boys are the perfect choice for what we're trying to do. Rafiq and Shu Yun, again, are shining because they provide our beloved double strike, and especially in the Rafiq deck any random 1/x dork will at least swing for 4 poison with your commander out. Shu Yun on the other hand offers the great opportunity to go crazy with Equipment because of his colors.

And both are in Blue which has the best colored proliferate cards (in addition to those already mentioned):

It's pretty simple, get that 1/x Infect Creature equiped with a random equipment like a Darksteel Axe, give it double strike and swing for a chunk of poison counters. Usually that will put your opponents at a pretty bad spot since they're halfway dead but you didn't commit too much to the board at all. See what I mean by "resilient"? And still you'll be what I would define as a Voltron deck, riding one creature to victory by supporting it.


Now for Commander-damage based, our options increase drastically. Especially commanders that give themselfs protection are desired, since you can then desgin deck to cover the one spot at which the commander might still be attackable from and use the rest of the deck to boost his combatability to a point at which a few swing will end the game for a player.

Since there are not many commanders out there that are Indestructible and can take up Enchantments/Equipments, Hexproof is the kind of thing to look out for. Once they're not going to die against a Path to Exile or something similar, you're only worried for two things: "Sacrifice a creature" and "Destroy all creatures". While there's not much you can do against the first problem besides playing a second creature or playing Sigarda, Indestructibility is a thing that you can get via both Equipments and Enchantments:

Simply play a bunch of tutors to have access to these cards almost always and your opponents might find themselfs caught between "a rock and a hard place".

Once you've settled on a commander and the type of enhancement you want to run, try to figure out a Plan B if you get into any trouble. For example, while Geist of Saint Traft is nearly unkillable once he hits play, what if he gets countered two or more times and now you don't want to play him for the next few turns because he's so expensive to cast. You could then, according to wether you're Equipment of Enchantment based, play cards along the lines of ...

...these bad boys. Similar to Geist you can win games on the back of just supporting them, they are pretty strong in both defense and offense and offer a lot of flexibility. But that's only what I would do, you could of course incorporate a bunch of mana rocks into the deck and ramp your way into big creatures, or use some amount of combos to win the game if your commander doesn't get there. As long as you don't put all your money on one horse its fine.

I think because of the nature of slower Voltron decks it is always a good idea to at least play a few creatures that will pick up any enhancements if you don't have access to your commander. Your general will always be the first choice of course but since you can still win through putting your opponents to 0 why not play some other creatures to jump in when Thrun needs a nap.

And most importantly, what people seem to forget sometimes is that a slower Voltron deck can also play a higher amount of removal and get away with it since you won't need all your cards to kill someone in one big swing.

Personally I definitely enjoy playing Voltron from time to time, since it kind of feels like an aggressive creature deck and a combo deck had a baby. Every turn has its mini-combos, your attacks deal a bunch of damage all while you sit back and try to protect your threat and disrupt your opponents.

That's it for Voltron, I hope you learned something, see y'all 'round!

Archetyping #2: Voltron (Part 1)

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Since we discussed Aggro the last time around, I figured that so-called Voltron should be the next archetype to look at since it has similar strengths and weaknesses.
For those who are not familiar with that archetype let me copy and paste something that I found extremely useful for understanding:

"Voltron is a deck archetype with the goal of casting one creature, then using other cards such as Auras and Equipment to enhance that creature and making it a true threat to the opponent. The archetype's name derives from the Japanese animated series Voltron which features several small robots that combine into one large robot." (taken from http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/)

In commander in particullar that "one creature" is most often your general since you have access to him/her/it every game and is therefor the most reliable creature to build around - in basically every meaning of the word, because robots and stuff... weeeeell and commander damage is basically un-"healable" damage that kills at half the starting-life-total.

Nonetheless I think Voltron-strategies are viable that don't involve your commander suiting up if built correctly, but more on that later. The main steps to go through when advancing your game plan are:

1. Get a threat on board
2. Suit it up on way or another (if needed)
3. Attack people
4. Protect it
5. Repeat steps 3) & 4) until you see need of step 6)
6. In case of failing at step 4) don't break glass but start from step 1)

I will go into detail on options fo each of those steps later but first of all let me divide the whole contingent of Voltron-decks into 2 main categories. I'll go through both of them - always considering if it's a commander-based deck or not - and provide some ideas and cards I like in those decks.

As I see it Voltron-strategies come in two ways i you reduce them to the core:
- One-Shot Voltron
- Slow-but-Resilient Voltron

ONE-SHOT VOLTRON

As the name implies, you'll try to attack people exactly one time for either their whole life-total, 21 commander damage or 10 poison counters. Since "their whole life-total" can range from best case 1 to worst case 100000+ I don't consider that as an option so let's focus on command and poison damage.

Commander damage should - of course - involve a commander that is good at getting bigger and meaner. Usually you get something in between something that has built in protection so you'll mainly have to worry about getting enough damage pumped onto him/her/it and something that is hard hitting on its own and will be thankful for some protection. 

But how can we provide any of those things you ask (maybe) ?

Mostly through Auras/Enchantments and Equipments. Going with only one of these card types is highly recommended since that will have the extra benefit of being able to incorporate special tutors and synergies and as you might have seen the above mentioned Uril and Bruna don't really go too well with Equipment.

Whatever way you choose you'll find damage, protection and card draw/other utilities on both card types so if it doesn't matter because of your commander you can go with whatever you like more. Bear in mind though that Enchantments are more vulnerable since Equipments will stay in play when your creature dies and Auras don't. On the other hand Enchantments are a tad bit more powerful.

While something like Mythic Proportions will offer a huge boost in damage output,, you'll still need a commander that's a 13/13 to deal 21 damage at once. So most often than not you'll need a way to double/triple/... your damage. Well, magic doesn't offer triple strike (unfortunately) but:

Of course you could simply stop there, get your commander go 11 power and double strike for 22. But where's the fun in that?!

On top of simply providing additional cards with "Double Strike" combing those with actual double strike cards can result in some pretty nasty turns as suddenly 6 power is enough => 6 x 2 (doublestrike) x 2 (double damage / attacking a second time) = 24


Poison damage on the other hand, is all about that one keyword: Infect.

"This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters. A player with 10 or more Poison counters loses the game." 

Now commander based Voltron with Infect has only one option:

I mean, yeah Mono-Black can still play equipment and if you manage to get +1/+0 and a doubling effect you can one-shot people, but I think I can do better than that as only having access to black will decrease the efficiency of your equipment package to a point where you might want to consider going for a more slow and steady route. Here's what I can see working:

You can play Rafiq and Shu Yun as simple support creatures for the actual threat which will have Infect. Then it's only a matter of getting your poison carrier to 5 power and we're good to go.

In fact I personally play a Rafiq-EDH that relies on cheap creatures and pump spells that give +3/+3 until end of turn. That way every creature with power 1 can be lethal since it will get +1/+1 from the Exalted Trigger and the remaining +3/+3 to reach 5 power from the spell while getting Double Strike from Rafiq (or other sources, but then you'll need an additional 1 power from somehwere). Backed up with protection spells and counters it's a force to be reckoned with each turn even with an empty board as long as you manage your card properly and don't overextend too much. 

The same could be done with Shu Yun I suppose but I since you'll loose the green pump spells maybe Equipments/Enchantments are the better choice. And if they can't find an infect-critter to do the dirty work, Shu Yun and Rafiq can pick up this bad boy and do it themselfs:

And then there is Doran the Explorer... At first that might seem an odd choice but if you thinkcarefully you'll slowly realize.............

Throw some doubling effect on those and you've got yourself some serious critters. Actually the printing of this card...

...has helped that deck quite a lot since now you have another way to provide the Doran-effect while it actually has the additional use of being able to pump your creatures.

Speaking of pump, you might even be able to do something like this:

Or when every other option has let you down there are rumors that those three cards can end games as well:

CONCLUSION

Whatever you choose to do, the most important word when using a Voltron-strategy is: PROTECTION. These decks can generate absurd amounts of pressure and damage out of nowhere, but at the price of being vulnerable to removal. Therefor you should do two things when playing any Voltron-deck, first of all always calculate carefully so you don't play any unnecessary cards. This means if you have one creature to suit up, don't play the second until someone got rid of the first one. Unless the situation needs you to of course. And secondly you should always incorporate a way to protect your cards that are in play into your deck.

Not only am I talking of the creature that gets pumped but of the stuff you pump it with, since, for example, if you loose your precious Enchantments on Uril he will be a 5/5 Hexproof... not too exciting is it? Keeping a good balance between the power cards (creatures, enchantments/equipments/pump spells) and supportive cards (utility, protection) is the key to unlocking the full potential of a Voltron-deck along with playing correctly, which involves playing patiently sometimes.

I hope I've provided enough for you to get a few ideas and maybe even start to build a Voltron-deck right now because that's it for now.

See y'all 'round!

Archetyping #1: Aggro

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Let's get straight to the topic:

AGGRO IN EDH

When you're talking to someone who plays a lot of tournament magic, the word "aggro" will most likely make him/her think of card like this:

And while there is definitely a place for Knight of the Reliquary in EDH, the other cards are "MEH" at most. So is aggro bad? God no, it is simply ... different.

The main reasons why the Aggro-Decks we're used to play against in Standrad or Modern are so impossible to port to EDH are that those decks are designed to kill ONE player that sits at 20 life as fast a possible. Well how about double the life and triple the opponents?

Weeeeelll, but here's the thing, being the Aggro-Deck means nothing more than being the most aggressive deck on the table, and since everyone is playing decks that are so slow why not also calm down a little and go with the "slow and steady" approach rather than "bllllllllaaarrrggwwhw in your face... oh you have more than one removal, I die".

There are two things that you will want from a Aggro-Deck in any format:
1) Ways to deal tons of damage
2) Ways to prevent your opponents from getting back once you stumble for a turn or two

In 60-card formats there is sometimes that point where your creatures have brought them down to 6 Life (1) but now they have bigger creatures than you or destroyed yours. That's why Red is the most popular color for Aggro-Decks since you can point Lightning Bolts, etc to their face (2) and win anyway before they kill you or gain some life.
The problem here is that you trade one card for 15% of ALL the lifetotal you have to get rid of while in EDH that would be a misely 2,5% (4 player game). "Slow and steady" remember?

All those cards are a perfect example of cards that you should play in your Aggro-EDH. They prevent lifegain, deal damage to several people rather than only one, scale very well into lategame or are a consistent source of damage without having a power and toughness. The trick is while in Standard or Modern a Aggro-Deck will most likely loose to the 6+ life a Wurmcoil Engine will get them, EDH is a format where you have the time to play cards like Sulfuric Vortex or Havoc Festival to prevent that from happening.

As for generals I recommend something that can either deal a ton of damage themselves, prevent your opponents from doing certain things that might stop you or help you recover.

All those generals either provide consistent damage via effect or attacking or both, cards (= damage), prevent your opponents from handling your stuff (= cards = damage), let you go bigger (= damage) or a combination of those things.

And since slow and steady doesn`t make as much of a splash than bashing face as hard as possible, the political side of things gets way easier. People will of course notice you're dealing them some amount of damage every now and then, "but that other guy has...

... we've got bigger problems" and since you could help them kill the flicker-guy you will be their best buddy. Until the flicker-guy looses his two cards and somebody else becomes the Enemy #1. And as long as you built your deck correctly, once they're all at a low enough life total, you can kill them quick and clean and they won't have enough time to react. Loosing 2 life each turn while not being able to get some of it back can add up incredibly quickly (we've had games where Sulfuric Vortex has dealt over 80 damage total) let me tell you that.

All the things you've ever wanted to play in an aggressive deck you can now play and still be the aggressor like card draw, ramp or very specific punisher effects. As long as you're the one who makes people afraid to attack because they might need that creature to block you're the Aggro-Deck.

Aside from specific cards to support your strategy you also need the mindset of being "the aggro". Don't deploy all your forces at once unless you have ways to protect them really well or know you can reload your board really fast. Measure cards like removal, ramp and card draw in amounts of of damage, e.g. if a removal allows me to connect with a 9/x it was basically dealt 9+ damage. And most importantly pressure people into thinking about survival rather than winning. And as always in Multiplayer-EDH: Think "big".

I think a very good example of a aggro-deck would be my Prossh.dec that tries to utilize the dash-mechanic. It is by no means a hyper-fast-kill-everyone deck, but a really consistent source of damage that can still end the game in a matter of one well-set-up turn. I've even wrote about the possibilty of such a deck before the easter holidays and ended up convincing myself to build it after I finished writing.
Here is the link to my post! If you want a more detailed list of the cards I play leave a comment :)

That's it for today, I hope I helped some of you build a aggro-deck themselves or at least understand the basics of it. As always I tried to stay very general because I feel like building a deck yourself is very important and since EDH offers so much variety in which cards you can play who would I be if I told you "play this" or "play that", so I'm just giving you some examples and ideas.

See y'all 'round!

When Elder Dragons met the Archetypes

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!

Easter break is over, so how about a new post-series? The title my have let some of you think of something like this:

*Random Tekken Battlemusic starts*

VS

While that might be an interessting thing to watch, it is not the topic of todays (and other days) post(s). The things I want to talk about are the so-called archetypes a deck gets categorized in like "Aggro", "Control", "Combo",... the list goes on and on.

When I started playing Multiplayer-EDH after a time of very competitive Standard and Legacy play, my deckbuilding was kind of wierd, since I tried to mimic strategies from those 60-card formats and port them to a 100-card-singleton format. When that didn't work with all archetypes I said to myself: "Archetype XY simply doesn't work in a format like that." And while there are definitely some more favored Archetypes in EDH, I was forgetting one thing:
The definition of anything is only applicable on the environment it is defined on/for, just like a really good NVidia graphics driver won't work for a ATI card.

What I am trying to say is that in order to build a deck of a certain archetype in any format, the first thing you need to do is to reduce it to its main characteristics rather than a set of cards or a ceratin number of turns in which you need to establish a certain board/game-state. For example while in Standard a Combo-deck that can go off consistantly on turn 6 is probably a big meta-game factor, in Legacy that same speed would be about 3-4 turns too slow (= unplayable), even if it had a 100% rate of going off by then.

Our beloved EDH-format is no exception to that, and still people seem to ignore that, playing mainly archetypes that are portable to a certain degree or even get better because of the format being slower than any other format. On the bright side, people also seem to enjoy EDH-specific strategies, but those people are mainly long-time generals rather than those retired Legacy-privates that want to put their Force of Wills to some good use. In this series I want to adress people who are eager to try out new ways of EDH like getting more aggressive or play more spells rather than creatures but don't have the experience or knowledge to do that sucessfully.

Enough with the blabbering, lets start with the first archetype I want to get more detailed on...

...next post (simply to keep thing organized)