Basically, you need 9 mana source to start this, with a minimum of 6 - 7 lands, 2 being mountains. Cast Early Harvest, then cast Reiterate with buyback targetting Early Harvest, thus copying it, Reiterate goes into your hand, the copy resolves, you get 6 - 7 lands untapped, cast Reiterate again targetting the first Early Harvest, repeat. With 7 lands out, it's infinite mana, and 6 lands out, it's alot of storm copies for Grapeshot
Then I messed around with it some more, and came up with this decklist, which I basically just took from Heartbeat, and tweaked it such that it would fit post rotation:
We tested it against a bunch of what we think is going to be prevalent type II decks, mainly, Solar Flare without Dragons, but with other random big things, Zoo (which loses just Isamaru, so it was easy to fill in the gap), and Sea Stompy (which loses Ninja, not as easy to fix as Zoo, but close enough).
If played correctly, it usually go off on your turn 6 without disruption, and turn 9-10 if you were holding back stuff with Muddle and Drift (thus, not using them to transmute). It basically plays like a slower Heartbeat. Just wondering whether anyone could give some more suggestion for this deck? Definitely a fun type II deck, with hidden potentials.
Edit: Tweaked the deck some more, added Coiling Oracles and upped the Reiterates to 4.
I fail to agree that Ixidron is as useless and as situational as someone has suggested.
It's more like him being a wrath, and changes the board instantly as soon as he comes into play. He completely swings the board position, most of time in your favor (otherwise you wouldn't cast him). Numerous occasions have I had my opponents chump my 2/2s with his 2/2s so my Ixidron could be reduced in size, AND then use Strangling Soot or some other removal to take care of him. So not only did I take care of higher quality creatures (well, being in blue and all), and I gained advantages both in terms of board and card by having him to 2, or sometimes even 3 for 1 my Ixidron. Which, in almost all cases, means I win. Plus, blue has great interactions with 187 creatures, with Dream Stalker and many other commons that bounce and stall so your come into play and facedown creatures can get another use.
Tokens are not very much of an issue, since all your facedown creatures are 2/2s, with the rest of the saprolings and citizens being 1/1s. The biggest token in TS comes from Wurmcalling or the 2/4 Spider. Considerring the consistency in which they show up in play, large tokens are too sparse to be counted into the failings of Ixidron.
Sudden Death is great and all, but due to the fact that black is the most overdrafted colour (drafting with people unfamiliar with the set, and everyone will take black, because it's removal, samething with red), it's very likely you are going to be cut off in the first pack, which greatly limits your options.
Not saying that was what went through my head when I drafted, but when I look at it now, and through the suggestions people have pointed out to me, I think I would have still picked Ixidron over Akroma, after careful considerations.
Strangling Soot, because not only due to splashable, non-commitmental spot removal, it's also due to the fact there are alot of good playables in red and white, therefore, you are sending a clear signal that white and red are open down the road.
After alot of playtesting on netdraft, here is what I garnered: Tivadar of Thorns wasn't that good, especially in a white/red deck, where quite a few of your 2 drops will actually be goblins. Avalanche Rider is good, but, there is another good red card in this pack, namely: Flamecore Elemental. White has Knight of the Holy Nimbus, which is an annoying critter that is mostly unblockable in the early game. But, you are also passing too many red for a viable W/R weenie strategy.
Black is really deep in creature removal, but not so much in body, so you could try and see whether blue could be passed to you on the next pick, since the weak blue in this pack could be interpreted as a signal that there are no good blue cards coming their way. Or hope for Green for the bigger bodies.
I was drafting with netdraft and an interesting situation came up, and I was just wondering what other people would have done in this situation:
I opened my first pack and had this: an Ixidron, an Akroma, Sudden Death, and other good playables in white and blue, including stuff like the Errant Ephemeron and Think Twice in blue, with Castle Raptors and Duskrider Peregrine in white. I know this is probably won't happen when I open real packs, due to printed runs, but this was the situation.
I personally took the Ixidron, since he was a much more accessible bomb than Akroma, and the blue playables were weaker than the white ones, so I I could potentially put the next couple of guys in white and black, and have blue open for me. But other people have suggested to me for Akroma, simply because, well, it's Akroma. And still others have suggested Sudden Death, since then I can try to cut off and force black, because black is pretty deep. Because of the mana cost (and bad mana fixing) for Akroma and Ixidron, I couldn't just have picked one and splashed for it. I was just wondering what you guys could have done.
I have been netdrafting for a while, just to test out TS, and stuffy doll is indeed quite the bomb. Not only is it a clock, but it buys you time to sets you up for bigger and badder things.
The main thing about dealing with it is, there are not alot of QUALITY removal for stuffy doll. If you didn't know your opponent was running it (and you can't count on him running it, being a rare and all), then you most likely won't run any of those Flowstone Channeller or the Crookclaw Transmuter. Sudden Death is likely your 1st or 2nd pick in pack 1, and not likely you'll get more than 1. So the argument for "Oh I can kill Stuffy Doll with this and this and this and this" is flawed, because, let's face it, most of those are bad picks that you usually DON'T want to end up with in your deck. Besides, those cards won't deal with your other quality creatures which you can smash face with.
Good, aggressive and big fat creatures gets shut down easily (except the trample ones, but there aren't alot of those), and that's what stuffy doll did the best in.
I remember single handedly beating someone with a stuffy doll, simply the ground is clumped up, I pinged for like 7 turns, and finished him off with a psionic blast (which I drew, thanks to the 7 turns I had). I could have killed with my multiple other evasion creatures too, but they were small, and the stuffy doll bought me time, and that's all I needed.
Can't we just play Enduring Renewal with Wild Cantor, and then use the red storm card to finish? Provided, you have 2 more extra mana.
But then again, we are missing the broken-ist of all time card drawing engine: Necro.
If I remember correctly, the original coco pebbles ran necro and demonic consultation to setup all the pieces (as well as running tutors). We don't really have that drawing engine, so I somehow can't see it get out of hand like it did in extended.
As much as I hate to admit it, the Lightning Angel deck will be at best a tier 2 deck in Standard.
Simply because we are missing efficient creatures in these colours: Meddling Mages, Lavamancer, Flametongue Kavu and efficient mana fixing: fetchlands and Chrome Mox, in which we can pitch the Angel to, to fix mana early on. Most of the time I found Angel to be a pitch fodder, and never really saw more than 1 in play at the same time.
And since there aren't any pitch spells worth running (Kamigawa rotates out, bye bye Shoals), it will just be a fun deck.
But never the less, not all of us are standard whores, so it's still a cool deck to run, simply for the nostalgic memories it brings. Especially since this set is Timespiral, the most nostalgic set of all times.
I had an extended RUW Stars and Stripes deck, and I always wanted to turn into a Standard one.
So naturally, I loved it when they reprinted Lightning Angel.
I would have tried to run a more aggro version though. Just another point of view.
Not sure about the exact numbers, haven't worked that out yet but something like this:
4 Savannah Lion
4 Lightning Angel
4 Soltari Priests
Some other random creatures that I haven't figured out yet (I ran Meddling Mages, Goblin Legionnaires and Grim Lavamancers in the extended version, don't know what to replace these guys with, should try to find some more utility guys, instead of simple beatsticks).
4 Lightning Helix
3 Psionic Blast (However, they will be pretty pricy, so switch up for Chars, if the supply of these cards aren't high enough)
3 Electrolyze
4 Remand
2 Trickbind (Stifle was always really great, slows your opponent down, and prevents you from dying to random things. Though this is a maybe, since fetchlands aren't played in Standard, we'll see)
4 Mana Leak (I still think these are better than Rune Snag, simply because you usually get to see about 2, or 3 max copies of them before the game is over, and I'd rather not factor that chance into deckbuilding)
Also, this way Browbeat will be more effective, especially if they are under pressure from your burn, so basically, Browbeat will either take them down a nothc, or get you some more burns backed up by counters or threats.
3-4 Sudden Shock if there are alot of Husks, especially since Nether Traitors are rotating in.
4x Icatian Javlineers if I think Rock will be prevalent when Kamigawa rotates out (and they always do), just to ping birds and elves.
Vesuvan and Flagstones of Trokairs will probably be run in multiples, most likely 4 each, since they can fix your manabase nicely, especially with all the WW or Lightning Angel's 1RUW cost.
Anyway, I just popped in because I tried to rework the manabase by a little bit (only because I hate using orchards and citadels). See if this manabase works out ok.
Also, when I tried this deck with the Shred Memories, It seemed a bit too slow, but I couldn't find any better substitutes. Maybe there are better tutors out there?
about the Seal of Cleaning - right, I am an idiot, thanks for pointing that out. So now for that sub-par disenchant.
about the angel - This is one of th initial problems I had with this deck. Whether or not to include a bigger beater. The original decklist looks very much like Boros aggro, and carried Jittes/Sword of Fire and Ice. But due to the environmental artifact hate, I decided to not go with Jitte or Sword, since they don't really activate until turn 3 or 4 (same turn the angel hits play), and most of the times, it takes a turn of commitment for Jitte/Sword and then it gets blown up without use.
Pithing needle for Jitte as soon as they see your Lion is also annoying (which is why I ran Swords for a while).
The angel is kinda clunky, I should take it down to 2 or 3, but it's like "tech", lol, against maindecked artifact hate, and surprises alot of players when they get hit for 3 out of nowhere and leaves to block with a medium sized butt that can't be easily burned.
About the fetchlands - yeah, I'm gonna up that one, it makes sense, since I can gain alot of life back from helix anyway.
So big problem is still in angels vs quicker creatures with forks. And some minor problems in tweaking manabase and copies of spells.
Hi, I'm a new user here, nice to meet you all. I recently made and tested (not extensively) a decklist which I hope I can take to the local tournament. Here it is:
As you can see, it's very unrefined. I tried to add a flare to the existing Boros Aggro, and this is what I came up with.
I personally think the number of spells could be changed around (during one time, I actually had 1 copy of Urza's Rage in there, because I had no idea what to put for the 60th card, I ended up putting another Fire // Ice). So any suggestions would be very welcome.
During playtesting, I found that this is surprisingly resilient to Goblins (could have just been luck though, since I had Meddling Mage with counter backup really early most of the game), I thought it was going to roll over and die, but it actually hung on there.
Also, the creature base and the mana base could also use some work. The side board I just threw together, basically because there are alot of Affinity and Rock in my area.
Like I said, it's not very refined, and I was hoping for suggestions from everyone. Thanks in advance :).
Early Harvest + Reiterate + Grapeshot or Invoke the Firemind
Basically, you need 9 mana source to start this, with a minimum of 6 - 7 lands, 2 being mountains. Cast Early Harvest, then cast Reiterate with buyback targetting Early Harvest, thus copying it, Reiterate goes into your hand, the copy resolves, you get 6 - 7 lands untapped, cast Reiterate again targetting the first Early Harvest, repeat. With 7 lands out, it's infinite mana, and 6 lands out, it's alot of storm copies for Grapeshot
Then I messed around with it some more, and came up with this decklist, which I basically just took from Heartbeat, and tweaked it such that it would fit post rotation:
9 Forest
7 Island
3 Mountain
4 Terramorphic Expanse
Creatures:
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Wood Elves
4 Drift of Phantasm
1 Rampant Growth
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Weird Harvest
4 Muddle the Mixture
4 Remand
4 Early Harvest
4 Reiterate
1 Grapeshot
1 Invoke the Firemind
We tested it against a bunch of what we think is going to be prevalent type II decks, mainly, Solar Flare without Dragons, but with other random big things, Zoo (which loses just Isamaru, so it was easy to fill in the gap), and Sea Stompy (which loses Ninja, not as easy to fix as Zoo, but close enough).
If played correctly, it usually go off on your turn 6 without disruption, and turn 9-10 if you were holding back stuff with Muddle and Drift (thus, not using them to transmute). It basically plays like a slower Heartbeat. Just wondering whether anyone could give some more suggestion for this deck? Definitely a fun type II deck, with hidden potentials.
Edit: Tweaked the deck some more, added Coiling Oracles and upped the Reiterates to 4.
It's more like him being a wrath, and changes the board instantly as soon as he comes into play. He completely swings the board position, most of time in your favor (otherwise you wouldn't cast him). Numerous occasions have I had my opponents chump my 2/2s with his 2/2s so my Ixidron could be reduced in size, AND then use Strangling Soot or some other removal to take care of him. So not only did I take care of higher quality creatures (well, being in blue and all), and I gained advantages both in terms of board and card by having him to 2, or sometimes even 3 for 1 my Ixidron. Which, in almost all cases, means I win. Plus, blue has great interactions with 187 creatures, with Dream Stalker and many other commons that bounce and stall so your come into play and facedown creatures can get another use.
Tokens are not very much of an issue, since all your facedown creatures are 2/2s, with the rest of the saprolings and citizens being 1/1s. The biggest token in TS comes from Wurmcalling or the 2/4 Spider. Considerring the consistency in which they show up in play, large tokens are too sparse to be counted into the failings of Ixidron.
Sudden Death is great and all, but due to the fact that black is the most overdrafted colour (drafting with people unfamiliar with the set, and everyone will take black, because it's removal, samething with red), it's very likely you are going to be cut off in the first pack, which greatly limits your options.
Not saying that was what went through my head when I drafted, but when I look at it now, and through the suggestions people have pointed out to me, I think I would have still picked Ixidron over Akroma, after careful considerations.
After alot of playtesting on netdraft, here is what I garnered: Tivadar of Thorns wasn't that good, especially in a white/red deck, where quite a few of your 2 drops will actually be goblins. Avalanche Rider is good, but, there is another good red card in this pack, namely: Flamecore Elemental. White has Knight of the Holy Nimbus, which is an annoying critter that is mostly unblockable in the early game. But, you are also passing too many red for a viable W/R weenie strategy.
Black is really deep in creature removal, but not so much in body, so you could try and see whether blue could be passed to you on the next pick, since the weak blue in this pack could be interpreted as a signal that there are no good blue cards coming their way. Or hope for Green for the bigger bodies.
I opened my first pack and had this: an Ixidron, an Akroma, Sudden Death, and other good playables in white and blue, including stuff like the Errant Ephemeron and Think Twice in blue, with Castle Raptors and Duskrider Peregrine in white. I know this is probably won't happen when I open real packs, due to printed runs, but this was the situation.
I personally took the Ixidron, since he was a much more accessible bomb than Akroma, and the blue playables were weaker than the white ones, so I I could potentially put the next couple of guys in white and black, and have blue open for me. But other people have suggested to me for Akroma, simply because, well, it's Akroma. And still others have suggested Sudden Death, since then I can try to cut off and force black, because black is pretty deep. Because of the mana cost (and bad mana fixing) for Akroma and Ixidron, I couldn't just have picked one and splashed for it. I was just wondering what you guys could have done.
The main thing about dealing with it is, there are not alot of QUALITY removal for stuffy doll. If you didn't know your opponent was running it (and you can't count on him running it, being a rare and all), then you most likely won't run any of those Flowstone Channeller or the Crookclaw Transmuter. Sudden Death is likely your 1st or 2nd pick in pack 1, and not likely you'll get more than 1. So the argument for "Oh I can kill Stuffy Doll with this and this and this and this" is flawed, because, let's face it, most of those are bad picks that you usually DON'T want to end up with in your deck. Besides, those cards won't deal with your other quality creatures which you can smash face with.
Good, aggressive and big fat creatures gets shut down easily (except the trample ones, but there aren't alot of those), and that's what stuffy doll did the best in.
I remember single handedly beating someone with a stuffy doll, simply the ground is clumped up, I pinged for like 7 turns, and finished him off with a psionic blast (which I drew, thanks to the 7 turns I had). I could have killed with my multiple other evasion creatures too, but they were small, and the stuffy doll bought me time, and that's all I needed.
But then again, we are missing the broken-ist of all time card drawing engine: Necro.
If I remember correctly, the original coco pebbles ran necro and demonic consultation to setup all the pieces (as well as running tutors). We don't really have that drawing engine, so I somehow can't see it get out of hand like it did in extended.
Simply because we are missing efficient creatures in these colours: Meddling Mages, Lavamancer, Flametongue Kavu and efficient mana fixing: fetchlands and Chrome Mox, in which we can pitch the Angel to, to fix mana early on. Most of the time I found Angel to be a pitch fodder, and never really saw more than 1 in play at the same time.
And since there aren't any pitch spells worth running (Kamigawa rotates out, bye bye Shoals), it will just be a fun deck.
But never the less, not all of us are standard whores, so it's still a cool deck to run, simply for the nostalgic memories it brings. Especially since this set is Timespiral, the most nostalgic set of all times.
So naturally, I loved it when they reprinted Lightning Angel.
I would have tried to run a more aggro version though. Just another point of view.
Not sure about the exact numbers, haven't worked that out yet but something like this:
4 Savannah Lion
4 Lightning Angel
4 Soltari Priests
Some other random creatures that I haven't figured out yet (I ran Meddling Mages, Goblin Legionnaires and Grim Lavamancers in the extended version, don't know what to replace these guys with, should try to find some more utility guys, instead of simple beatsticks).
4 Lightning Helix
3 Psionic Blast (However, they will be pretty pricy, so switch up for Chars, if the supply of these cards aren't high enough)
3 Electrolyze
4 Remand
2 Trickbind (Stifle was always really great, slows your opponent down, and prevents you from dying to random things. Though this is a maybe, since fetchlands aren't played in Standard, we'll see)
4 Mana Leak (I still think these are better than Rune Snag, simply because you usually get to see about 2, or 3 max copies of them before the game is over, and I'd rather not factor that chance into deckbuilding)
Also, this way Browbeat will be more effective, especially if they are under pressure from your burn, so basically, Browbeat will either take them down a nothc, or get you some more burns backed up by counters or threats.
3-4 Sudden Shock if there are alot of Husks, especially since Nether Traitors are rotating in.
4x Icatian Javlineers if I think Rock will be prevalent when Kamigawa rotates out (and they always do), just to ping birds and elves.
Vesuvan and Flagstones of Trokairs will probably be run in multiples, most likely 4 each, since they can fix your manabase nicely, especially with all the WW or Lightning Angel's 1RUW cost.
Just my two cents.
Hivestone + 2 Nether Traitors + Basal Sliver for infinite mana.
Not constructed worthy, but good for casual.
Nether Traitor will be played in constructed for recursive advantages purely.
Now I can cut the City of Brass too, and play a little lower land count, great idea.
I think I'm gonna end up with the Angels, simply because artifact hate is too abundant here, just metagaming choices.
Now I'm gonna try to tune the spell count by a bit.
Anyway, I just popped in because I tried to rework the manabase by a little bit (only because I hate using orchards and citadels). See if this manabase works out ok.
4 City of Brass
3 Flooded Strand
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Windswept Heath
1 Island
2 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
3 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine
Also, when I tried this deck with the Shred Memories, It seemed a bit too slow, but I couldn't find any better substitutes. Maybe there are better tutors out there?
about the angel - This is one of th initial problems I had with this deck. Whether or not to include a bigger beater. The original decklist looks very much like Boros aggro, and carried Jittes/Sword of Fire and Ice. But due to the environmental artifact hate, I decided to not go with Jitte or Sword, since they don't really activate until turn 3 or 4 (same turn the angel hits play), and most of the times, it takes a turn of commitment for Jitte/Sword and then it gets blown up without use.
Pithing needle for Jitte as soon as they see your Lion is also annoying (which is why I ran Swords for a while).
The angel is kinda clunky, I should take it down to 2 or 3, but it's like "tech", lol, against maindecked artifact hate, and surprises alot of players when they get hit for 3 out of nowhere and leaves to block with a medium sized butt that can't be easily burned.
About the fetchlands - yeah, I'm gonna up that one, it makes sense, since I can gain alot of life back from helix anyway.
So big problem is still in angels vs quicker creatures with forks. And some minor problems in tweaking manabase and copies of spells.
4 Flooded Strand
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Steam Vents
3 Sacred Foundry
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 City of Brass
Creatures
4 Grim Lavamancer
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
2 Savannah Lions
4 Goblin Legionnaire
4 Meddling Mage
4 Lightning Angel
3 Stifle
4 Fire // Ice
4 Remand
4 Lightning Helix
3 Electrolyze
4 Pithing Needle
3 Seal of Cleansing
4 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Flametongue Kavu
As you can see, it's very unrefined. I tried to add a flare to the existing Boros Aggro, and this is what I came up with.
I personally think the number of spells could be changed around (during one time, I actually had 1 copy of Urza's Rage in there, because I had no idea what to put for the 60th card, I ended up putting another Fire // Ice). So any suggestions would be very welcome.
During playtesting, I found that this is surprisingly resilient to Goblins (could have just been luck though, since I had Meddling Mage with counter backup really early most of the game), I thought it was going to roll over and die, but it actually hung on there.
Also, the creature base and the mana base could also use some work. The side board I just threw together, basically because there are alot of Affinity and Rock in my area.
Like I said, it's not very refined, and I was hoping for suggestions from everyone. Thanks in advance :).