In this experiment, we slow time, chill the battlefield with Freyalise’s magic, and push for the win with Phyrexian techniques until our Birds—both Mutant and Horror—can seal our victory.

One of my favorite planeswalkers, especially of the old-school variety, is Freyalise. Maybe I just like her name. Or maybe I just like her storyline interactions with my favorite Magic character Jodah. Either way, Freyalise—as pictured on Planeswalker's Favor, among other cards—has always appealed to me, and therefore so too have her named cards. In this case, we’ll be discussing Ice Age’s Freyalise's Winds.

Temporal Distortion is a very similar card for those of you who prefer Teferi to Freyalise. These two cards provide virtually the same result and don’t effectively stack with each other, but the fact that they both exist allows us to play up to eight copies. Though I think I’ll have my list today only include a total of five, it’s good to know that possibility exists. And for Commander decks, the limit is doubled there—to two—as well.

The goal with this deck will be to keep our opponents slowed down to half speed while we use proliferate to pump our creatures and ready our planeswalkers for their ultimates. Prophet of Kruphix—or Seedborn Muse if you haven’t had a chance to pick up a bunch of Prophets—will loosen the restrictions time and wind will have on our permanents.

Proliferate

Tezzeret's Gambit – This sweet Divination doesn’t offer the same proliferation superpower as Thrummingbird, but extra counters here and there will be great. And we’re able to pull off Tamiyo, the Moon Sage’s −8, we’ll have 3- or 4-mana proliferation and card-draw available continually.

Fuel for the Cause – While our opponents are at half-speed, they’ll prioritize the important spells, so the occasional counterspell will be all the more potent. Not only will the player’s lands be tapped for two turns instead of one, but he or she will still not even gain any benefit. And this particular counterspell will give us the few more counters (of the other type) we want as well.

The disappointing aspect of our proliferate spells, especially in this deck full of wind counters and time counters, is that proliferating with Freyalise's Winds and/or Temporal Distortion doesn’t really help. In either case, an affected permanent will skip untapping once and then lose all its wind and/or time counters.

Counters

Vigean Hydropon – The ol’ Simic hat rack sits on the battlefield, not attacking or blocking, but passing out its five hats. We can proliferate hats, though, letting the Hydropon potentially sit around forever, granting that unlimited proliferate ceiling too all our creatures that enter afterward.

Llanowar Reborn – This is part of the Time Spiral lands-with-unexpected-keywords cycle. It has most of the upside of a Forest and a fraction of the upside of a Vigean Hydropon, but it sits in a nice middle ground. It’s a great turn-one play in lieu of a Cloudfin Raptor.

Tapping

Blustersquall and Turnabout – Both of these spells can tap a significant portion of the opposing permanents at once. With Freyalise's Winds or Temporal Distortion active, the opponent or opponents will be carefully regulating their mana expenditure, attacks, and creature activations. One of these spells can waste all of that careful management or just clear the way for a victory.

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage – When building a deck full of proliferation, one of the things I wanted to do was ensure we had plenty of useful counters. Planeswalker loyalty counters serve as a great choice, as they build up to an ultimate. Tamiyo’s ultimate provides great inevitability, and her +1 will tap opponents’ permanents that they didn’t want tapped, playing into the theme of the deck. The time and wind will be irrelevant, as Tamiyo’s Frost Breath–like effect has the does-not-untap element built in, but that just means the Moon Sage fits in all the more cleanly.

Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor and Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger – Vorinclex is a virtual third version of the Winds and Distortion. He’s expensive and only works against lands, but he also doubles our mana, and he’s a massive trampler. Aboshan can tap huge numbers of creatures at once, and we can use his first ability to tap Aboshan to tap any permanent. Though Temporal Distortion only works against creatures and lands, Freyalise's Winds works on all opposing permanents, so we can use Aboshan in conjunction with that to lock up opposing artifacts when needed.

Untapping

Garruk Wildspeaker – Garruk provides an additional untap effect for accelerating and for working under the Stasis-like enchantments. Garruk has a great ultimate in the form of Overrun, and it isn’t even too expensive in terms of loyalty. With proliferate, we can probably use any of his abilities without fear of Garruk hitting the ’yard.

"Freyalise’s Win"

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Pygmy Hippo
• 2 Vigean Hydropon
• 4 Cloudfin Raptor
• 4 Prophet of Kruphix
• 4 Thrummingbird
• 1 Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor
• 1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 2 Garruk Wildspeaker
• 2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

• Spells (14)
• 2 Blustersquall
• 2 Fuel for the Cause
• 2 Turnabout
• 3 Tezzeret's Gambit
• 2 Temporal Distortion
• 3 Freyalise's Winds

• Lands (24)
• 5 Forest
• 8 Island
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 2 Llanowar Reborn
• 4 Simic Growth Chamber
• 4 Simic Guildgate

Buy This Deck

I like to include a good number of one- and two-ofs in these experiment decks to let you have a chance to see what looks good to you and to see what matches your collection. Nimbus Swimmer would be a fine choice to flash in under a Prophet and then proliferate, and Thoughtweft Gambit could be an interesting thing to try out in a version with a lot of creatures. It might even be fun to throw in Living Lands or the like with the Gambit for huge swings at instant speed.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com