Source: Inquest #23 (Mar 1997), pp.30-31; author: Alex Shvartsman

"Unleash the fury of nature's two most powerful elements: fire and water.  Though red and blue is not the most common of colour combinations, playing this deck will show you that combining the destructive power of red and the treacherous control of blue makes for a fun and potent strategy.

This deck is designed for people who don't like to rush.  Take your time building up mana with a little help from Thawing Glaciers while playing heavy permission.  Eventually summon a huge, hard-to-kill monster and watch your opponent's life total rapidly disappear.  As an alternative, you can do your opponent in by hitting them enough times with the Hammer of Bogardan.

This may sound nice in theory, but there is a minor annoyance - all the meanwhile, your opponent is trying to kill you.  Of course, for a mage of your calibre that should be no problem at all.  With an assortment of small, cheap direct-damage you can take out the weenie creatures as fast as they hit the table.  Ran out of Bolts?  Just go ahead and pay to get the Hammer back into your hand and the fun continues.  A bigger creature comes into play?  Claim it for your own with Control Magic or Mind Harness.  An enchantment accidentally sneaks past your counterspells?  Blow it away with a Nevinyrral's Disk.  Pillages give you additional control as the means to get rid of special lands like Kjeldoran Outpost or destroy a bothersome artifact.

The tricky part of this deck is to play patiently and use your damage and counter magic at the right time.  For example, if you draw a Pyrokinesis in your opening hand, do not use it right away.  Let the opponent cast two or three creatures, even if that may cost you a few life, then get rid of all of them in one shot.

'Fire and Ice' packs 10 direct-damage spells, which should be enough to slow down decks which rely on fast and cheap creatures to win.  By the time you run out of firepower, you should be able to either summon a bigger creature to act as a blocker, return the Hammer from the graveyard or Control Magic the largest creature your opponent has.

Do not use direct damage spells on your opponent early in the game - they are there primarily to stop creature threats.  In time, you will have enough mana to bring back the Hammer each turn and then you can start using it to deal damage whenever there are no creatures to worry about.  If the Hammer gets counterspelled, no worries - after all, it will return and your opponent's card will not.  Dissipate is the spell to watch out for, though - if your opponent uses those, be prepared to defend the Hammer with counter magic of your own.

While 12 counterspells is a lot of control, there are probably at least three times as many spells in your opponent's deck.  Choose your targets carefully.  For example, do not counterspell a creature you can easily bolt.  Try to always leave one or two counterspells for really annoying things like Armageddon or Winter Orb - you need your mana and global effects such as those are the bane of this deck.

Your army of creatures is quite small so you should take good care of them.  Do not cast one until you have enough mana to protect it with counterspells.  Once the creature is in play, make sure to always leave enough mana untapped to stop a Fireball or Dark Banishing.

With so few creatures to work with in this deck, they have been chosen with great care.  Let's examine the troops.

Wildfire Emissary is a 2/4 with protection from white.  While its strength is relatively low, the ability to pump it up makes it a fearsome creature.  Protection from white is helpful as Swords to Plowshares is the creature-removal spell of choice in many decks.  The Emissary single-handedly shuts down most white-weenie decks and acts as a great blocker against many other creature decks.

Mahamoti Djinn is just big - one of the biggest monsters in the game.  Few creatures can survive in combat against it.  Though it has no special abilities, Mahamoti can finish the game quickly once it has been summoned.

Finally, Mist Dragon's ability makes it virtually indestructible.  You can simply phase it out whenever it's in danger or use its ability to instantly gain or lose flying to protect it from spells like Earthquake or Hurricane.  This allows you to save up the counterspells to protect other, less versatile creatures.

Recall is a great spell in the late- to mid-game.  It will allow you to swap some of the less useful cards in your hand for the much needed spells in your graveyard.  To get what you need you can throw out some extra land or even a Hammer - it comes back anyway!

The sideboard lets you adjust even better to dealing with multiple deck types you might encounter out there.  Pyrokinesis and Mind Harness take care of different types of creature decks.  So does Tidal Wave - a really good, though underused spell.  For only three mana it lets you drown anything as big as a Jungle Wurm.

Extra Nevinyrral's Disks will let you get rid of all non-land permanents on the table.  They are your best weapon against enchantments - one type of spell blue and red aren't capable of dealing with.  Energy Flux will hose down decks playing with too many Diamonds and Fellwar Stones as well as any other decks that use artifacts heavily. Disrupting Scepters do wonders against other reactionary decks - simply force them to drop all their counterspells before trying to cast anything yourself.

If you're a control freak with a slight trace of pyromaniac tendencies, you'll definitely want to give 'Fire and Ice' a shot."