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by Gandalf
Deck Genesis: Gandalf's Strategy from 0 to 60 Whenever a new set is released, I like to single out the cards that seem to have a powerful effect to make a new Type II deck. For Visions, I have singled out Sands of Time, without a doubt the most complicated card in the set and a contender for Most Confusing Card of All Time, right up there with Ice Cauldron and the original Time Vault. Sands of Time reads: "Each player skips his or her untap phase. At the beginning of each player's turn, untap each tapped artifact, creature, and land he or she controls and tap each untapped artifact, creature, and land he or she controls." Errata on this card says that it does not affect itself. Possible uses for Sands of Time:
Undiscovered Paradise is a good land for multicolored decks, but if you take away its return-to-hand effects it becomes a great card. Cards that do not untap normally during your untap phase will untap with a Sands in play. Creatures like Colossus of Sardia and Leviathan have smaller drawbacks, and Mana Vault becomes a zero-drawback Super Sol Ring. I will definitely use at least 2 Vaults to begin with. Creatures with Phasing have a lesser drawback if they are in play when you cast the Sands. Equipoise becomes a super-abusive Balance: it doesn't hurt you and removes your opponent's lands, creatures, and artifacts from the game for as long as Sands of Time is in play. I will plan on using 3x Sands of Time and 3x Equipoise, and flesh out the combination later. So far I have: 2x Mana Vault, 3x Sands of Time, 3x Equipoise. I intend to use phasing creatures and Undiscovered Paradise, and so far the only color I have chosen is white. The only phasing creatures I know about are either blue or have blue mana in their casting cost, so it would seem that I have also chosen blue as a deck color. A good blue offensive phasing force would use Breezekeeper and Sandbar Crocodiles, considerably strong creatures with low casting costs for their Power and Toughness. Both have only 1 blue mana in their casting costs, so Mana Vaults will also be useful here. Taniwha, a 7/7 trampler for 3UU, might also be useful if I decide to work around its downside. That gives me: 4x Breezekeeper, 4x Sandbar Crocodile, 3x Equipoise, 3x Sands of Time, 2x Mana Vault. As I have several Artifacts and Creatures, Equipoise probably will not be too effective at destroying those. Equipoise, then, will be best used to eliminate lands, so I will use Taniwha. Its downside is it phases my lands during my upkeep, and with Sands of Time in play that is decidedly permanent. But with Equipoise, that is a permanent Armageddon lock. At 5 mana I wouldn't want to add more than 2, especially as a Summon Legend. This means I will want to add library-searching effects to grab cards for the combo, and non-land mana sources. I plan on playing blue/white straight so far, so my options are Enlightened Tutor and Mystical Tutor; only Enlightened Tutor will net me a card I can use for my combo, either Equipoise or Sands of Time. As I will be playing without lands after Taniwha hits the table, I will want to use a lot of non-land mana sources, the best choices of which are the Diamonds. I also will want a few cheap Counterspells in the deck, so Arcane Denial will find its way in also. Now is the time for deck comparison, a method I usually use when creating a new deck. Most people call this process templating. I think this deck will act very similarly to many past lock decks I have seen, such as the Weissman deck in Type I and WinterGeddon in Type II. The Deck is far too complex to accurately translate into a Type II environment, and depends upon total control of the playing field to achieve victory. WinterGeddon, aka The Prison, works off of a very similar theory as far as I can remember; the most successful Prison decks work slowly to achieve a Winter Orb/Icy Manipulator lock on an opponent's lands while defending themselves with white anti-permanent spells, eventually winning by damage through a creature or two, and maybe an Outpost or Mishra's Factories. However, both the Outpost and Factory will be useless for this particular deck because my lock requires that I control no lands. So the creatures I choose will be very important, as I will only be using a small number of them in comparison to other popular deck types like Sligh and White Weenie. I will be forced to use some control elements in my deck, slowing it down from an offensive deck to a control/lock deck. I can already plan on using 4 Swords to Plowshares and 4 Arcane Denials, possibly with Force of Will or Counterspell as supplements in a smaller quantity. Unfortunately I can't use the Icy Manipulator, one of the key cards in WinterGeddon, and Amber Prison is much too expensive for the limited effects I will be requiring of it; anything I tap will untap at the beginning of that players next turn because of Sands of Time. So I can also plan to use some Wraths of God, and I would like to use Gossamer Chains except for the problems inherent in re-casting it. Two Wraths should be good for starters, especially since I have to consider that I will lose creatures and possibly part of the lock after using it. I must also keep in mind that this will be my main source of protection from untargetable creatures or creatures with protection from white besides Counterspells. The main differences between this deck and WinterGeddon will be how effectively I can deplete my opponent of mana sources (my method is more combination-oriented, but is a faster lock once I get the appropriate cards) and how quickly I win after I have succeeded in doing so. As I will only be using 2 Taniwhas it might be best to use an Armageddon also; if worst comes to worst I can just cast the Geddon and not play lands for a Land Equilibrium-style lock; while I will still be able to attack with my fast Crocodiles and Breezekeepers, which are hard for an opponent to laugh off when there is nothing they can do to break my lock. So, by templating my deck against the very successful WinterGeddon lock deck, I have so far: 3x Sands of Time, 3x Equipoise, 2x Mana Vault, 4x=Breezekeeper, 4x Sandbar Crocodiles, 2x Taniwha, 1x Armageddon, 4x Swords to Plowshares, 4x Arcane Denials, 2x Wrath of God. 29 cards. I also want Diamonds and additional Counterspells, and at least 2x Enlightened Tutors. I will add 4x Sky Diamond, 2x Marble Diamond, 2x Enlightened Tutors, and 2x Counterspells. That makes 39 cards before lands, which means I will have to cut at least 2 cards before I can make my deck for playtesting. I can drop 1 Counterspell and a Marble Diamond as long as I provide for plenty of white mana sources to accommodate for my 12 white spells. As only the Counterspell and Taniwhas require 2 blue mana in the casting cost, I can get away with having a higher amount of Plains than might be necessary as well as 3 Undiscovered Paradise, which are a great combo with Sands of Time. I will also use Mishra's Factories as a mana sponge for before I can get my lock out, allowing me to maximize my mana supply each turn by making sure there are no untapped lands for Sands of Time to tap; it will make it as if I had a normal untap phase. The lands I will want, then, are 3x Mishra's Factory, 3x Undiscovered Paradise, 10x Islands, 7x Plains to give me an adequate mana supply in the correct colors and fulfill the other requirements of my deck. The deck, then, looks like:
At the moment I feel that the Wraths of God might be better placed as additional Counterspells, and that is one of the nuances that playtesting will decide. I have already played around with two similar decks; I used a 3-color deck that accomplished the same thing with Vampiric Tutors and a 2-color deck that was essentially the same with less prominent control elements and more white destruction spells, including Disenchants. The three-color deck had a tendency to run itself out of life because it wouldn't work without City of Brass, and City of Brass makes a very ugly combo with Sands of Time. Whenever won a game with this deck, it was always close. The deck similar to this one often got the Sands of Time/Equipoise lock down by fourth or fifth turn and began hitting, but I ran into problems occasionally with an inability to deal with the Deadly Insects as well as problems finding Taniwha at the right time. The Wraths and Armageddon used here should alleviate those problems, as well as provide for better mass-control elements. The deck statistics look like this:
The mana supply is high, which will help to increase the deck's overall speed and versatility to mana-denial situations, as well as get the lock out more quickly. Most importantly, the high artifact mana quantity will allow me to work at casting creatures and Counterspells once Taniwha is in play or the Armageddon has been cast. The large, fast creatures will also allow me to jump slower decks in their tracks by pouring the damage on early and often, since I have a good probability of having drawn 2 or 3 creatures by the time I will be able to cast them, hopefully Taniwha. The Phasing effect that all of my creatures share is supposed to be a downside to their cheap casting cost, but with Sands of Time these creatures are exceptional for their cost in comparison to most other creatures as I have negated the downside of their cheap cost. With only a Mana Vault and a Sky Diamond, I can get out a 4/4 Flier after I have used Taniwha or Armageddon to off my own land supply, and not even be forced to take damage from a tapped-out Vault. This deck contains a lot of mediocre- to light-weight spells that, in combination with each other and Sands of Time, create a situation the card's designers failed to anticipate. Several spells here would not be considered for other decks, like Mana Vault, because while they allow some quick advantage to be taken over the opponent, they often punish you for playing with them. Equipoise is another example of this style of card, as it will only benefit you sometimes and for a very short time, but with Sands of Time the disadvantage is drawn out over a longer period of time because the spells lost do not return until Sands of Time has been negated. As to the deck's weaknesses, there is the obvious weakness that it may not win with certainty or consistency based upon how good the hand is; you need to get Sands of Time out early to have the greatest effect over your opponent; probability that it can be usually be successfully drawn within your first 12 cards, which translates into having the card in hand by turn 5, after compensating for the Tutors. The chances of having both in that same 5 turns is almost half the time, with some minor manipulations to the probability that you will have to use a Tutor to find one and the fact that you only have 2 Tutors. In most cases, then, it would be safe to assume that you should be able to have both Sands of Time and Equipoise in play by the end of turn five. In playtesting with the Counter-heavy version of this deck, I had some great hands that locked up the game in the first 3 or 4 turns, and some bad draws where I couldn't get the combination out any time before turn 12, in which case I was probably dead already. Chance will factor heavily in this case, which is why I have chosen to strictly limit myself to the 60-card minimum for a Type II deck. Any card over that limit will be a randomizing factor that dilutes my chances of drawing the key cards early on, and since the deck focuses pretty narrowly on retrieving its necessary albeit powerful combinations there is little room for the utility spells that often help a control deck; the prime reasons I am not using Thawing Glaciers or Disenchants is because I lack the room, as well as the fact that my playtesting deck only made use of the Glaciers once in ten duels. This means that the sideboard I create will have to be prepared to face all the types of decks that are not compensated for in the main deck, specifically the control-type decks (although I did beat Turbo-Stasis almost every game). Unfortunately for me, sideboarding is a weakness as I sideboard ideally, not necessarily based on what my local tournament pool looks like. Feel free to alter this sideboard in any way you wish to suit your personal situation, if you are going to play with this deck unaltered. The key card to have in quantity will be Disenchant, followed by additional Counterspells. I could laugh off a Wintergeddon deck, and weenies won't hit me often with both Equipoise and Wrath of God controlling their numbers, and 4x Swords to Plowshares. Another problem would be creatures that are untargetable or have protection from white, the main reasons I decided to use Wraths of God. With the speed I am already packing in my mana development, the expensive Wrath of God should also be found in my sideboard. Next would be to locate my main weaknesses, and identify the types of cards which could shut down my defenses. My weaknesses towards red could be seen in both Lightning Bolt and Fireblast; Bolts can be hurled at me despite their one-land limit due to Equipoise, and Fireblasts would be hurled my way in response to an Armageddon or Taniwha. So COP: Red or Honorable Passage should be in this sideboard, at least 2 considering how popular decks with burn are now. Graveyard-based decks might give me difficulty, since my opponent will only need to hit me once with a Stairwell in a weenie deck or find the Hammer before I get up my defenses and the permanent Armageddon lock. A Tormod's Crypt will help remove possible threats when used with caution and wise Counterspelling. Most decks need their mana, and I need less of it than many I have seen, especially the ones that try to use Archangel {ick}. Another Armageddon in the sideboard will help me prey upon those who like to keep their lands in play, as well as increase the chances I will get the Armageddon lock, in one form or another, into place successfully. Another good card to include would be Relic Ward, since if my opponent has a Disenchant in hand and I just used up a C-spell, then my Sands of Time is a bright red bull's eye, while I can stand to lose an Equipoise. However, it is only useful against decks actively using artifact destruction spells that will be cheap enough to dependably target my Sands of Time, such as Crumble, Shatter, Primitive Justice, or Disenchants, so I will only keep one copy in my sideboard. So, my sideboard would be:
I have seen the Fifth Edition list, and there are two cards that will have to be cut by the end of April; Mishra's Factory and Swords to Plowshares will be rotated out in Fifth Edition, which removes one of my prime creature-removal spells as well as my mana sponges, the Factories. At the moment I am uncertain what could possibly replace the Factories; losing the Swords will just give me a little more room for Counterspells and other things that will help me deal with untargetable or Prot. White creatures. Possible replacements for the 4 StPs would be another Wrath of God, a Reality Ripple, and two more Counterspells. Without my mana sponges, however, the deck will be lacking in a clear-cut tactical advantage, as I will be affected similarly to my opponent, while with the Factories I would be able to use as much or as little mana as I chose each and every turn without ramifications. Adarkar Wastes is coming back in Fifth Edition, as was commonly suspected, so those will definitely be added, but the deck will be lacking something in the total control area. Also, my main deck and sideboard must reflect the fact that Jester's Cap will return to neuter my deck, which probably means more Armageddons and Counterspells. I will have a definitive updated deck for you all next month, until then feel free to email me at the address above with any questions, comments, or possible changes for the deck.
As to the matter of my final Erhnamgedon sideboard for the Paris PTQ (see Deck Genesis #1), I ended up using:
I went heavy anti-Necro/Black after I saw several black weenie Necrodecks at the Qualifiers. I only ended up playing one, and I was almost destined to lose by the fact that my opponent was packing 4 Dystopias in his SB. I was made to pay for removing the extra Divine Offering and Winter Orb, however, when I was paired against a Turbo-Stasis and a Jokulhaups deck, the main reasons I included them in the first place. D'oh. I went through the Swiss-style pairings at a measly 2-4-0.
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