Main Deck - 95 cards, 38 distinct
Sideboard - 131 cards, 76 distinct
Notes
This is reminiscent of the old days playing fun 60's with Zach and Fredo on the pool deck. I made a deck that was terrible and awesome. It revolved around isochron scpeter and silence, using a manland as a win con. I played arcane denial as interaction with remand. I would just lock my opponent out of playing spells. It was just awesome. Fredo tried to revive it in modern with fog's as I did, but it's to easy to get blown out in modern. It also played a lot of mutual card draw, I was big into that effect at the time.
I'm a little older, a little wiser now. I certainly know how to cut my darlings, I did a good job with that at the last 5k. Maybe I can build this now, it's got a lot of new tools. There are several options for "one spell a turn" effects, better fogs, ischron lock but also redundancy with erayo and starfield of nyx. There are lot of "play spells on your turn only" and ways to give all my cards flash. And there are still plenty of both player card draw, and even Jace, the mind sculptor is available. There are ton's of functional passive win con's, as well as a pre-game action suite that reduce variance and protect the combo. This deck has serious legs, but it will very difficult to build.
I'm current building around the idea that I can play 6 one spell a turn effects, 4 Ischron scepter with a bunch of ideal targets and control instants (Which together make the traditional lock), and then a redundant enchantment package featuring lunar force and strafield of nyx with looting effects that should over time I set up the lock, one way or another. This might be to big of an engine, but it might not! So far, I've got a list 0f 120 cards, so just 60 cuts... A few things I notice off the bat. There are way to many cards I'm trying cast at sorcery speed. Eidolon is covered by Teferi, but spellskite and sphinx of foresight not so much. Planeswalkers will be very good in this deck, and all three have there merit's, but I likely will have 2-3 planeswalker slots tops, not 9. My thinking is that Jace is just to awesome for the deck, so he probably wins, but it is hard to say no to Teferi. My sorceries are too many, but not too bad. A few sweepers, and a redundancy of draw/discard effete. This can be narrowed down once I know what package we want and how many slots we can leave for variance reduction. Enchantments are similarly sized, but can be nehated with enough looting and banking on starfield of nyx, which is the backbone of the deck. Then there's 40 Instants. I want as many things to be at instant speed as possible, and this is the full arsenal of cards I'd want. It breaks down into isochron pairs, general control and removal, and lock protection.
Although a lot of these cards are very popular, they have some interesting differences when played in a rule of law game. A lot of disadvantages turn into neutral or actual advantage, such as remand, path to exile, settle the wreckage, azorius charm, cyclonic rift. Cryptic command is insane. Sorcery speed card draw is both ok and kinda bad, depending on what kind of instant speed tricks they have. I think it might be best to build in such a way where there is ome filtering, but due to continous card draw and rule of law effects, I will end up discarding to handsize a good amount of time. Ancestral vision is probably the best as we can suspend it after playing another spell, and it's a free spell to start the turn with which fills our hand with a lot of cards. It does creat a small window where our opponent can resolve something on our turn. Censor is another card I need to lump in with the card selection, as it will be great in the early game, but will be un useable in a rule of law game, so it's primary role needs to be variance reduction with a high ceiling.
Now at 91, feels a lot more trim. Core of 2 planeswalker's, 6 creatures (2 Teferi's, 4 Eidolon), 4 artifact, 7 sorceries (verdict, terminus, and ancestral visions), and 10 Enchantments ( 3 star field, 2 curse, 2 sear, 3 lunar force). That's still too many, but it feel's better. The Instants are a little less than 40, but narrowed down to all the spell's that both in and outside rule of law, and help transition the game to that state. Remand, Unsubstantiate, cyclonic rift, azorius charm will round out the two drop slot for answers. One mana is opt, path, snare, silence, angel's grace. 4 mana is cryptic command and settle the wreckage. There are some one of's that round out, including negate, dawn charm, hindering light, blessed alliance, pact of negation and noxious revival, which fill the role of covering holes and protecting the lock. A small number of these cards might see some play, and this spot will largely need to be adapted to each tournament. Plumes of peace, cycling, transmute, and other activated ability cards are very interesting, as a game built around resolving rule of law means all these cards function as spells when locked.
Down to 64. It seems apparent now that we are just trying to establish a rule of law game and then counter everything forever. I think 10 two mana "tempo" counterspells and 3 isochron to be the ticket. Delay even sets up turns for us to Teferi and cyclonic rift. We don't ever expose ourselves this way. Silence is used proactively to time walk or resolve rule of law. Providence and rift with elixir offer true inevitably as does card draw.
I'm a little older, a little wiser now. I certainly know how to cut my darlings, I did a good job with that at the last 5k. Maybe I can build this now, it's got a lot of new tools. There are several options for "one spell a turn" effects, better fogs, ischron lock but also redundancy with erayo and starfield of nyx. There are lot of "play spells on your turn only" and ways to give all my cards flash. And there are still plenty of both player card draw, and even Jace, the mind sculptor is available. There are ton's of functional passive win con's, as well as a pre-game action suite that reduce variance and protect the combo. This deck has serious legs, but it will very difficult to build.
I'm current building around the idea that I can play 6 one spell a turn effects, 4 Ischron scepter with a bunch of ideal targets and control instants (Which together make the traditional lock), and then a redundant enchantment package featuring lunar force and strafield of nyx with looting effects that should over time I set up the lock, one way or another. This might be to big of an engine, but it might not! So far, I've got a list 0f 120 cards, so just 60 cuts... A few things I notice off the bat. There are way to many cards I'm trying cast at sorcery speed. Eidolon is covered by Teferi, but spellskite and sphinx of foresight not so much. Planeswalkers will be very good in this deck, and all three have there merit's, but I likely will have 2-3 planeswalker slots tops, not 9. My thinking is that Jace is just to awesome for the deck, so he probably wins, but it is hard to say no to Teferi. My sorceries are too many, but not too bad. A few sweepers, and a redundancy of draw/discard effete. This can be narrowed down once I know what package we want and how many slots we can leave for variance reduction. Enchantments are similarly sized, but can be nehated with enough looting and banking on starfield of nyx, which is the backbone of the deck. Then there's 40 Instants. I want as many things to be at instant speed as possible, and this is the full arsenal of cards I'd want. It breaks down into isochron pairs, general control and removal, and lock protection.
Although a lot of these cards are very popular, they have some interesting differences when played in a rule of law game. A lot of disadvantages turn into neutral or actual advantage, such as remand, path to exile, settle the wreckage, azorius charm, cyclonic rift. Cryptic command is insane. Sorcery speed card draw is both ok and kinda bad, depending on what kind of instant speed tricks they have. I think it might be best to build in such a way where there is ome filtering, but due to continous card draw and rule of law effects, I will end up discarding to handsize a good amount of time. Ancestral vision is probably the best as we can suspend it after playing another spell, and it's a free spell to start the turn with which fills our hand with a lot of cards. It does creat a small window where our opponent can resolve something on our turn. Censor is another card I need to lump in with the card selection, as it will be great in the early game, but will be un useable in a rule of law game, so it's primary role needs to be variance reduction with a high ceiling.
Now at 91, feels a lot more trim. Core of 2 planeswalker's, 6 creatures (2 Teferi's, 4 Eidolon), 4 artifact, 7 sorceries (verdict, terminus, and ancestral visions), and 10 Enchantments ( 3 star field, 2 curse, 2 sear, 3 lunar force). That's still too many, but it feel's better. The Instants are a little less than 40, but narrowed down to all the spell's that both in and outside rule of law, and help transition the game to that state. Remand, Unsubstantiate, cyclonic rift, azorius charm will round out the two drop slot for answers. One mana is opt, path, snare, silence, angel's grace. 4 mana is cryptic command and settle the wreckage. There are some one of's that round out, including negate, dawn charm, hindering light, blessed alliance, pact of negation and noxious revival, which fill the role of covering holes and protecting the lock. A small number of these cards might see some play, and this spot will largely need to be adapted to each tournament. Plumes of peace, cycling, transmute, and other activated ability cards are very interesting, as a game built around resolving rule of law means all these cards function as spells when locked.
Down to 64. It seems apparent now that we are just trying to establish a rule of law game and then counter everything forever. I think 10 two mana "tempo" counterspells and 3 isochron to be the ticket. Delay even sets up turns for us to Teferi and cyclonic rift. We don't ever expose ourselves this way. Silence is used proactively to time walk or resolve rule of law. Providence and rift with elixir offer true inevitably as does card draw.
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