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mr.otto
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:13 pm
Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 31 Location:
--- description ---
Let’s look at a very cool common from Planar Chaos and see what can happen.
--- end description ---

I knew the moment that I saw Reality Acid that I wanted to build a deck around it. I believe that it had something to do with the power. The power of choosing any permanent that my opponent had in play and forcing him to sacrifice it. It didn’t matter if it was “indestructible” or had “flying” or “fear” or “shadow” or it was a land or creature or artifact, etc. It didn’t matter; It had to be sacrificed.

The problem with Reality Acid is that on it’s own it takes 3 turns to work, and you can only have 4 of them in a deck. Even the best control player won’t want to wait that long. However thanks to the specific wording on Reality Acid, we can speed up that process and reuse Reality Acid.

I have created two decks that are built around the idea of returning Reality Acid to your hand and thereby forcing the oppenent to sacrifce at least one permant a turn while you lay the beating down.

Deck One: Pickles Soaked in Acid
Land
3 Urza’s Mine
3 Urza’s Tower
3 Urza’s Power Plant.
13 Islands

Creatures
4 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
4 Brine Elemental
3 Riftwing Cloudskate
2 Fathom Seer
2 Drift of Phantasms

Instants
4 Gigadrowse
4 Remand
4 Mana Leak
4 Boomerang

Enchantments
4Reality Acid
2 Paradox Haze

How this deck wins:
This deck wins the same way that the original Soggy Pickles deck wins but with some other nifty tricks.
Once you get a face up Brine Elemental into you play you copy it with Vesuvan Shapeshifter. This connection lets you take infinite turns. For more on this combo see:
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=745435

New tricks:
Combining the Vesuvan Shapeshifter with other cards can give you some nice effects.
Vesuvan Shapeshifter + Fathom Seer = draw extra two cards per turn for 1U
Vesuvan Shapeshifter + Riftwing Cloudskate = return any permanent back to owner’s hand
Vesuvan Shapeshifter + Riftwing Cloudskate + Reality Acid = force player to sacrifice target permanent for 4UU
Any of the previous combos + Paradox Haze = twice of the aforementioned goodness.

Card by card breakdown:

Lands
Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Tower and Urza’s Power Plant - These help with the high mana cost. I chose to include only three of each since getting UU for a boomerang could be difficult.
Islands - Duh.

Creatures
Vesuvan Shapeshifter - The center of all the new and old tricks. Helps you draw cards, remove permanents, and gain infinite turns.

Brine Elemental - a nice beater/blocker and will lock with Vesuvan for the win.

Riftwing Cloudskate - the nice combos listed above + can be suspended + a great card for removing fatties + works well with Reality Acid

Fathom Seer - can slow down an aggro deck, can be used to draw more cards, can be the beater after a lockdown is achieved.

Drift of Phantasms - a very nice card that can be a good blocker and can be transmuted for Reality Acid and Paradox Haze.

Instants
Gigadrowse - Good for stalling a fast aggro deck and tapping out the remaining creatures after combo lock is achieved.

Remand - control + card advantage, what a wonderful card.

Mana Leak - control

Boomerang - control, tempo, works well with reality acid.

Enchantments
Reality Acid - I’ve said enough about this card. You might not need it to win, but it is fun.

Paradox Haze - can double the effectiveness of the combos listed above. Can take off twice as many counters on the Riftwing.

This website has many more ideas about the matchups facing this deck and ideas for a sideboard than I can come up with so check it out: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=745435



The second deck I’ve prepared for you throws out the soggy pickle combinations and focuses on Reality Acid and straight up beating.



Deck Two - An Acid Soaked Beating

Creatures
4- Tidewalker
4- Heidar, Rimewind Master
4- Rimewind Taskmage
4- Dream Stalker
2- Vexing Sphinx
2 -Riftwing Cloudskate

Instants
4- Boomerang
3- Repeal
4- Mana Leak
3- Remand

Enchantments
4 - Reality Acid

Lands:
22 Snow-Covered Island

The cards each have a distinct purpose, but many can be used in a variety of cool ways.

Cards that can return Reality Acid to hand:
Boomerang
Repeal
Riftwing Cloudskate
Heidar, Rimewind Master
Dream Stalker

Stall/counters/bounce:
Rimewind Taskmage
Boomerang
Repeal
Mana Leak
Remand

Blockers:
Dream Stalker
Riftwing Cloudskate
Vexing Sphinx

Damage:
Tidewalker

Card Draw:
Vexing Sphinx

This deck wins by countering and stalling. Get out a couple of the blockers, deny your opponent creatures, get out your Rimewind Taskmages and start tapping any creatures that got through. Then get Heidar in play and use Reality Acid to start removing permanants. When you have a clear path, use Tidewalker to finish them off.

Well, thanks for reading. Any ratings, comments, or suggestions are appreciated and welcome.

I’d especially like to thank Felipe Musco for his suggestions and point everyone to his very cool extended deck that uses Reality Acid. It can be found here:
http://lotrtcgdb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=3297
He also suggests an idea for a standard deck that splashes white and uses WOG for control.
Last edited by mr.otto on Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:45 pm; edited 7 times in total
Felipe Musco
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:55 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
If you’re using Cloudpost, it’s Extended, right? Use Isochron Scepter and something to fetch it, instead of Paradox Haze. Isochron Scepter + Boomnerang using Reality Acid is COOL! I posted a decklist (I think) about this in the deck clinic a while ago, check it out.
I don't like YOU.
mr.otto
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:17 pm
Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 31 Location:
Felipe Musco wrote:
If you’re using Cloudpost, it’s Extended, right? Use Isochron Scepter and something to fetch it, instead of Paradox Haze. Isochron Scepter + Boomnerang using Reality Acid is COOL! I posted a decklist (I think) about this in the deck clinic a while ago, check it out.


EEK! I was trying to work on a Std. format deck and overlooked that cloudpost was only ext. legal. I’ll have to change that.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:25 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Well, in that case, use the UrzaTron: Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Tower and Urza’s Power Plant. But even though, I think you may be mixing too much into this deck (or maybe I’m just jealous, I was writing an article on it for next month! Wink Laughing ), I mean, with, say, 12 Urza Lands and about 10 Islands, getting UU for Boomerang may not be very easy. You could also get back to the Snow Land plan, and use what I tried for a Standard deck: Rimewind Taskmage, for stalling, and Heidar, Rimewind Master, to bounce Acid for 2 each turn, almost free. You could even get back to the Rimefeather Owl plan ( Wink )! But I’ll tell you in advance, this is a fun, casual deck (specially fun in multiplayer, since most players will leave you alone anyway), but so far it’s not looking that good for competitive play (my versions, I mean, since you still didn’t fix yours). But it’s still a very fun idea, kudos for trying it! Waiting to see the "Revised" version!
I don't like YOU.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:37 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
First of all, hit the "Edit" buttonand edit the article’s body itself, so your thread doesn’t become a mess. Then, a few pointers about the deck:
- Cool point with Dream Stalker, It’s been used in MOL for quite a while now, I forgot to point it out;
- Great measure on the proportion of Riftwing Cloudskate, it really IS too expensive to be used in great numbers, unless you canmess with suspend;
- Vexing Sphinx AND Tolarian Sentinel is overdoing it, you’ll lose too many cards and you don’t have card-drawing in the deck at all;
- Tolarian Sentinel’s cost is OBSCENE! I’d keep ONE of him, TOPS (you can bounce him back to your hand with his own ability anyway, if your opponent tries to kill it);
- Reality Acid is an Enchantment (an Aura, to be more precise), not a Sorcery;
- The lands are Snow-Covered Islands, not only Snow Islands, otherwise there’s no link to the card;
- If you’re using 22 lands with a snowbase, cut 4 for 4 Scrying Sheets. If you have mana to spare at the end of your opponent’s turn, you can try to accelerate the deck a little;
- Martyr of Frost is not that good without card-drawing, your hand will be mostly empty. Since you’ll be denying permanents anyway, try Remand. Goes nicely with the whole "setting back" theme, AND draws you a card. Also, add in Mana Leak and/or Rune Snag, you’ll be killing some lands (most likely), so they’ll not have THAT much mana to spare;
- Heidar is legendary, and way too expensive, use 2 copies of him, 3 tops (if you use card-drawing, 2 is enough);
- Tidewalker is a cool finisher, you could try 4 copies of him;
- Rimefeather Owl is INSANELY expensive, and you already have Tidewalker as a finisher, so you could try 4 Tidewalkers, and keep only, say, ONE Owl as a HUGE finisher;
- Repeal is a GREAT bounce, too, since you can stall a beating OR return Reality Acid to your hand (late game, when mana is abundant), WHILE drawing a card, check it out;
- Blue is at its best when you abuse countermagic and card-drawing, since it’s blue’s best abilities. If you are playing blue, specially in a control build, always remember to look at these aspects of the color.

At this time, I’ll rate this first article a 2 (and give you a gp to compensate for the loss of one). Don’t be discouraged, though, this is your first article, so I’ll explain my reasons (aside from the ones above) It’s written ok and it’s a nice idea, but formatting is still very poor (although I’m sure it’ll only improve), which is understandable since you’re new ’round here. Also, the deck is still VERY inconsistent, perhaps for little knowledge of all the options available, or perhaps for lack of research, I can’t tell. For now, I’d recommend you do all the research you might want, build the deck you’ll be working with and playtest it so you can fine-tune it before posting the article itself, so any given criticism here will be direct to the point and make the deck better, or it’ll be something you already tried, so you’ll be ready to answer that "it won’t work because of this or that".
Don’t give up writing, though, I hope to read more from you in the imediate future. Applause
I don't like YOU.
The First
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:16 am
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
Dream Stalker is cool. I added him to me Izzet deck from last month’s contest.

It is cool to return the Sage of Epityr or the Marauders.

I also added the Sages obviously Wink It is nice to have some manipulation and walls in my deck instead of the Wolverines and Slivers. But now my deck is a bit too dependant of the Wee Dragonauts Sad
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:54 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Splash in Gelectrode so you can clear a path and ping at will; or add in counter-magic to protect the Dragonauts; or add in Drift of Phantasms to be your wall (as it can transmute for Dragonauts); or add in Errant Ephemeron (you can suspend him for a relatively low cost). Or, well, leave it as it is, if you’re kicking ass ’round there! Wink
I don't like YOU.
The First
Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 7:17 pm
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
Reality Acid is one of those cards that in fact immediately grasped my attention. Very powerful card in an enchantment crazy set.

Gigadrowse - Why not Exhaustion instead? What does the Gigadrowse has to offer more than the Exhaustion?

Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Tower and Urza’s Power Plant - These help with the high mana cost. I chose to include only three of each since getting UU for a boomerang could be difficult.
Islands - Duh.


Making it hard to BOTH get UU and your cycle out... sadly enough.

Remand - control + card advantage, what a wonderful card. Huh? Card advantage? Opponent gets to keep his card and you draw another one. Rather a mini Time Walk than a control card with card advantage to me.

Mana Leak - control Rune Snag is better.

Why not use Cloudstone Curio and a few Flash enchantments? Or really cheap ones like Pacifism or Vampiric Link?

For example: Cloudstone Curio out, Simic Guildmage out, the Acid out (on anything) and a flash enchantment in your hand? Basically draw go untill everything is gone. Guildmage is not necessary and both Curio and Acid can be fetched with the Wall.

Your second list seems to need a good finisher. It does not get turns for free as easily as the first list. It could use a beatstick to finish the game in 3-4 turns once that you have control over the board.
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.
Felipe Musco
Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 11:25 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Nopw, you just game me one of the best ideas I’ve seen so far for Acid! AMAZING thinking, The First! I’ll HAVE to try and build around it now, and really, with the Curio being so cheap, a UG build is really possible! I mean, c’mon, Harmonize, Tidings, Compulsive Research, Sleight of Hand, and control tools like Voidflime against a D-Storm? Count me in!
I don't like YOU.
The First
Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 7:46 am
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium
Personally, I had a GU or WU deck in mind with the Curio. I do not get the interaction between the Curio and Harmonize, Tidings etc but I’m glad to have given you a good idea Wink
Great minds bleed alike.
Do not copy media. Support creativity.

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