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La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2006 4:33 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

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Meet some new decks the rotation into Time Spiral has to offer in standard!
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With the full Time Spiral Spoiler released today (the 22nd), I found myself able to finally have all the tools I needed to create Time Spiral decks! With the rotation of K-block, we lose a lot of power, most notably the blue finishers, jitte, and Isamaru.

Because Jitte and Isamaru bowed out, I found that agro decks needed a whole new, or rather old tone. With Jitte and isamaru, agro was playing less creatures and more jitte/burn/removal. Without those old tools in the format, effective agro needs to be able to dump creatures on the board. And, of course, without flames of the blood hand, red becomes less necessary. With flames and char available, red was the obvious splash for agro. Now, blue has char (psionic blast), but it also has the counterspell power to support agro.

4 Azorious First-Wing
3 Azorious Guildmage
4 Knight of the Holy Nimbus
4 Glorious Anthem
4 Savannah Lions
4 Suntail Hawk
3 Fortify
4 Celestial Crusader
4 Psionic Blast
4 Remand

4 Hallowed Fountain
6 Island
12 Plains

Sideboard- 4 Sidewinder Sliver
4 Benalish Cavalry
4 Mana Leak
3 Hinder

Azorious First-Wing- 2 for a 2/2 with flying and a positive ability is plenty powerful enough to make a weenie Deck.

Azorious guildmage- This guy is a great way to deal with annoying opposing finishers. Tapping down late game combined with a 2 power body early is a powerful combo for any time in the game.

Knight of the Holy Nimbus- Pyroclasm defense anybody? And he’s a two drop that can kill a scab-clan mauler. This guy is a godsend in opposing agro matchups- they just don’t want to burn their mana making sure they trade creatures.

Glorious Anthem- A white weenie staple of the ages. Hopefully you’ll throw down somewhere in the ballpark of 3-4 creatures a game, and this way pyroclasm can’t touch you, you get to push some extra damage, and you win a topdeck war against agro.

Savannah Lions- Aggressive, powerful, and cheap. That’s what defines savannah lions and what defines white weenie.

Suntail Hawk- I was debating here between hawk and sidewinder sliver, but as it turns out, the flying is more useful than the flanking. This deck strives to deal damage as quickly as possible, and flanking is less condusive to that than is flying.

Fortify- This is a finisher of choice for this deck because of the extra six to eight damage pushed over. Usually this is not going to be down until turn 4-5, but this can finish with the best of them.

Celestial Crusader- Instant speed, uncounterable, a glorious anthem, and a 2/2 flyer, all on a mana cost that it’s reasonable to play. This is an amazing card for white weenie.

Psionic Blast- With the new addition of psionic blast, I can splash blue for burn. That allows this deck to not play red, giving me the chance to add in remand.

Remand- All experienced agro players know this feeling. Your opponent is at 5-6 life and they just wogged. You invariably have one point of burn left less than their life total, and you know they’ll start dumping some huge creatures to lock the board. It’s good to prevent such negative feelings as wanting to rip your opponent limb from limb. You can do it, remand can help.

Sideboard- Sidewinder Sliver- Against agro decks, sidewinder sliver is a killer one-drop. He can take out savannah lions without dying, even trade with guildmages. This fellow is unfortunately too slow to be played against control, where he’s basically just 1 for a 1/1.

Benalish Cavalry- Agro’s sworn enemy #2 is here. If holy nimbus isn’t enough agro-hate for you, try out this guy to shut down kird apes, guildmages, and so much more.

Mana Leak- The anti- agro tech is above, and mana leak provides anti-combo and some more stalling against control.

Hinder- A permanent solution when a hardcounter is needed against any control deck, this is simply too slow to be maindecked. While this can put the hurt on control, agro will run under it’s fingers.

Now, I’m sure by now, you’re wondering about the hippie powers part of this article. Of course, that’s going to be rainbow!! And what better reason to go rainbow than slivers??

4 Might Sliver
4 Bonesplitter Sliver
4 Shadow Sliver
4 Telekinetic Sliver
4 Fury Sliver
4 Essence Sliver
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Farseek
2 Azorious Signet
2 Izzet Signet
2 Boros Signet

4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple Garden
4 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Forest
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains

Sideboard- 4 Remand
3 Mana Leak
4 Watcher Sliver
4 Pyroclasm

Might Sliver- If this guy is in play, you should be capable of putting a major beating on whatever comes your way.

Bonesplitter Sliver- This combined with might sliver gives enough damage it’s not even funny. With just one of each and nothing else, you can swing for lethal in two turns

Shadow Sliver- This annoying critter makes sure you can swing with your beefy slivers and actually connect.

Telekinetic Sliver- Because slivers in this deck aren’t the fastest, you can now stop opposing win cinditions by tapping them down before you swing with your shadow, buffed slivers.

Fury Sliver- This guy is the icing on the cake. Doublestrike means you’ll deal boatloads of damage, but also that your slivers will be very tough to kill.

Essensce Sliver- The anti-agro sliver. An essence sliver turn three really puts a hurt on agro because they can’t swing with all their creatures. This followed by a turn four might sliver eats agro for lunch.

Birds of Paradise- Bops are enough to make almost every sliver in your deck playable color wise. As opposed to many decks where they are used mainly for acceleration, here their important function is color fixing.

Farseek- Farseek with ravduals is amazing, and with sakura-tribe elder leaving standard, I expect this to become the primary method of fixing form the decks who used to play STE. Here, you should start with a green Ravdual and be able to farseek for one of the remaining two colors.

Signets- I’m playing on of each signet that isn’t green because with twelve ravduals, you should be able to get green easily, and in case you can’t just pull a farseek, this can help fix the remaining colors.

Sideboard-

Remand/mana leak- great against control to stop wraths from wiping your slivers out.

Watcher Sliver/Pyroclasm- This really hurts against skies, white weenie, and any sort of spam tokens (like thallids, if they get good, or selesnya/thallid)

Sir- Burns-a-lot

3 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
4 Char
4 Browbeat
4 Demonfire
4 Stone Rain
4 Giant Solifuge
4 Avalanche Riders
3 Cryoclasm
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Utopia Sprawl

4 Stomping Ground
3 Karplusan Forest
9 Mountain
6 Forest

Sir Burns-a-lot is characterized by putting down mana acceleration turn one into a deck that looks like “8 stone-rain” that made an impact on MTGO. However, this deck can throw Jaya Ballard into the mix, now, allowing yourself an outlet for what would otherwise be dead topdecked cards late game, like birds and sprawl. Hopefully you can hold your opponent off the board with landkilling turns two and three, followed by sending damage to their face until they die.

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage- The only creature in this deck without haste is here for the uncanny ability of turning anything she sees into an incinerate. She’s also here to stop decks in which cryoclasm won’t hit (Gruul beats) for a 2-drop.

Char- Char is an obviously powerful burn spell, capable of killing most creatures and hitting your opponent for a nice bundle. Once your opponent has land problems from the dozen land-killing spells, your life total shouldn’t be too big a problem.

Browbeat- This is most likely the best card for any red deck in the format now. At three for a 5-damage burn spell, or three for a ton of gas, this is going to hurt with either option.

Demonfire- Demonfire is the manner of choice for finishing blue decks. Usually, you’ll be firing for only about five damage, but uncounterable, unpreventable damage is pretty nice.

Stone Rain- Yay for messing with people! Stone rain keeps gruul beats off their shamans and burns, keeps flare from doing just about anything, and even messes with hand in hand. Because this comes turn two, it comes with obscene power.

Giant Solifuge- After a turn or two of killing your opponents lands, now you can throw down a large, enraged spidery thing to beat some face. Fuge is basically burn because it’s hasty and tramply.

Avalanche Riders- This would be one of the most efficient ways I’ve seen to kill lands in a long time. Riders are a shock to face, a stone rain, and an option of keeping a 2/2 around. At four mana, that’s a deal that’s tough to beat.

Cryoclasm- Clasm is playable against every top 15 deck by the most recent week’s rankings except the fifth deck, satanic sligh. In about 90% of matches, that means, cryoclasm will be a stone rain with three free bonus damage.

Birds of Paradise/Utopia Sprawl- Mana acceleration lets this deck really get clicking in time to make a hurt happen.

These, of course, are a mere few of the many decks Time Spiral will offer. Perhaps selesnya-thallids will dominate the format, or Mono-white tron with akroma and adarkar valkyrie. Only one thing is for sure. Time Spiral offers a door connecting the past and the present that will yield some crazy changes in standard.

r2d2quino

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 4:47 pm

Joined: 29 Aug 2006 Posts: 49 Location:

Cool article. A lot of cards are not linked (ones that should be, I don’t know about the new cards), and you could use a better formatting. That article on Standard is cool in this fashion. Now, to the decks:
The first one looks cool, but I think it could pack Court Hussar, or some card drawing, or you will run out of power. Bathe in Light should be in there somewhere.
The second one is neat! I liked it, although it may be a bit hard to play. Maybe adding that Sliver that turns Slivers into Birds of Pardise?
The third one is cool, but I like Savage Twister better than Jaya Ballard, you don’t have an awful lot of Madness cards to use with her anyway... It’s also missing a sideboard.

c3poquino

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:40 pm

Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 47 Location:

Hey, my bro’s really learning! Me too, I liked the format of your other article better, a more clear read-through. No major issues, though.
"The first one looks cool, but I think it could pack Court Hussar, or some card drawing, or you will run out of power. Bathe in Light should be in there somewhere."
Hinder is out of Standard, isn’t it? Why is it on the side-board? Use Bathe in Light instead. Card-drawing is not that necessary, but that 1/1 for a blue-mana that sorts 4 cards on top could be cool.
"The second one is neat! I liked it, although it may be a bit hard to play. Maybe adding that Sliver that turns Slivers into Birds of Pardise?"
That enchantment that "turns everything white" might be cooler for the same purpose. However, I think that a Sliver deck is virtually unplayable, just good to get good trades out of noobies trying to build one.
"The third one is cool, but I like Savage Twister better than Jaya Ballard, you don’t have an awful lot of Madness cards to use with her anyway... It’s also missing a sideboard."
Jaya is better in a red-black deck, since a lot of madness and graveyard manipulation are there. I think red-black reanimate could be cool, since Browbeat and Phyrexian Arena are good card-drawing engines. But this is off-topic, the deck is cool (but it IS missing a SB). Loved the multiple decklists! Lacking match-ups, however.

La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 7:11 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

As the article stated, I can’t really write match-up things because what would I write about? Yosei-based flare? Heartbeat combo? everything good is aging out, really... Ghost husk without promise of bunrei? It’ll take time before the format has decks to test against.

Sorry about hinder, cancel should be there, it works the same way. I wasn’t thinking about that.

I think slivers may work, but for me, they’re the fun deck I’ll bring to school every day to play against my friends. Nobody likes playing a deck with an auto-win, after all.

Good point with Jaya... I play her so that late game I can cycle those pesky lands or anything else as incinerates. Twister would mean I’d need at least 5 mana to get a good effect out of it, and in a burn deck, I’m not looking to draw that much. And, twister is better at killing a lot of creatures, Jaya at fewer. If I’m killing their lands, I’ll assume they can’t really swarm me enough that I need to deck in a card that’s useless against control, at least in the maindeck.

Felipe Musco

Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:33 am

Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil

I actually think you both have very good points. Jaya is great turning Lands into incinerates, and that’s what you’ll be needing to kill whatever gets past your LD’ing. She is also a powerhouse in Black

Madness decks, in Extended she’s a win condition without even swinging. I think Magus of the Scroll would be a nice sidekick with her, at least you’d get 5 damage out of a pesky Land late game. Wink

How ’bout Feldon’s Cane (or something like it), to simply shuffle all your landkilling back in the deck for more stalling/burning?!?!? Could be cool.

I don't like YOU.

inresponse

Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:06 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 162 Location:

utopia sprawl is not a good card right now because stone rain is in almost every red deck, and getting 2 ferred on a card that already takes away tempo strongly is a bad, bad thing.

fortify is not constructed worthy. If you are going to be casting it, it is almost always as a pump spell for the front end, and if you look back to very similar agro decks, you will see that there is a lack of rally the righteous. The reason for this is that usually only 1-2 creatures are getting through, and more copies of psionic blast are less than optimal when they are that much worse than the blast.

I don’t think big countermagic like cancel should be in the sideboard because against control decks you lose a lot tempo when you draw a hand full of counterspells and against agro decks you become too slow to deal with their creatures. In the control on agro match, most control decks side out their hinders for more busy spells.

and stone rain is so awful versus gruul, an archetype which no longer exists.

La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 4:03 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

The only deck stone rain is in is 8-stone rain, dude... unless you’re playing more than four copies, it’s not worth playing LD.

I thought about playing Magus of the scroll, but it turns out that 3 mana/turn hurts in the long run. I want to burn people out, not play a control game, at least in this deck.

inresponse

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:12 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 162 Location:

stone rain is in 8 stone rain and more importantly, Mike Flores snow deck. Here’s that list, which is, according Jeoren Remie and the whole Flores gang, going to be one of the top tier decks post rotation:

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Boreal Druid
4 Into the North
4 Ohran Viper
2 Stalking Yeti
4 Demonfire
4 Sensei’s Divining Top (changes after rotation)
4 Stone Rain
4 Cryoclasm
4 Skred

4 Scrying Sheets
1 Mouth of Ronom
4 Highland Weald
8 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Mountain

Also there is the mono red deck I posted last week, which didn’t drop a single game at the toughest fnm in our area. Word has actually gotten out about that deck and it is getting play in multiple areas now.

also, from the sideboard many aggresive decks are running a set of cryoclasms and stone rains for the control match ups, but at least the stone rains would be sideboarded in against a deck with utopia sprawl. I would just play an elf in it’s slot.

Felipe Musco

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:17 pm

Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil

Yeah, Utopia Sprawl hurts a lot, but it’s more common to see removal than LD’ing, at least in my area. So, if Ihad to choosebetween Utopia Sprawl and Llanowar Elves, I’d stick with the Sprawl. Depends on the meta, though.

I don't like YOU.

inresponse

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:09 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 162 Location:

I would still rather play elves because you don’t get 2 for 1’d by spells. Also, creatures attack, and if your opponent removes elves that means your other guys aren’t going to get targetted.

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