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I'm a very aggressive player. By that I don't mean I play aggro decks exclusively, and I don't mean I'm aggressive with my opponent in terms of interaction. What I mean is that I am prone to overextending, doing things too quickly, and missing important facets of the game state. All of which have cost me numerous matches in my career. Thus, playing control and combo decks is very... well.. awkward for me. If I try to play control, I might play too many cards such that I lose my card advantage. If I try to play combo, I might sell out too quickly to win early, and lose because of a miscalculation. Even playing aggro can be a problem. I can tell my opponent is ready to cast a backbreaker such as Wrath of God and I'll still walk right into it and get nothing in return. So this week, I'd like to present to you my recent personal experience of learning patience as a Magic player.
Last Friday at the Hampshire Mall in Hadley, Mass., I met up with my friend Malcolm Medina. He and his roommate bought a box of Zendikar, and I helped them crack Nissa Revane, Lotus Cobra, and two fetchlands, among other goodies. Between conversations about Malcolm's aspirations to open a game store next year and my aspirations to get out of my current living situation (which came to fruition yesterday), I tossed around the idea of Time Sieve still being viable in Standard, seeing as I just bought some of the pieces for the deck the week before from our friends at CoolStuffInc.com. Others I talked to had varying opinions, from "lol, ur joken rite?" to "It's plausible." Malcolm liked the idea, and we put together this little number.
[deck title="Time Sieve Combo" author="Sam Feeley and Malcolm Medina" align="right"]
Main Deck
8 Island
4 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Etherium Sculptor
4 Glassdust Hulk
2 Master of Etherium
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
2 Font of Mythos
4 Howling Mine
2 Jace Beleren
4 Kaleidostone
4 Mistvein Borderpost
4 Open the Vaults
4 Ponder
4 Time Sieve
4 Time Warp
Sideboard
3 Celestial Purge
4 Day of Judgment
3 Dispeller's Capsule
2 Pithing Needle
3 Silence[/deck]Card draw, ramping, and win conditions. That's all there is here. Rather than relying on a potentially overcosted and slower win condition such as Tezzeret, this version wins with, of all things, Glassdust Hulk. Cycle the Hulk(s) early, activate Time Sieve, and make Glassdust Hulk huge and unblockable via Open the Vaults. Repeat if necessary.
The combo is very consistent. On the play, you can rely on your opponent only having four turns to win the game before you go off. Another friend of mine has a super-aggressive mono-red deck with every good hasty guy in the format that can get there turn four, but how frequently will I play him? (I'll see if I can get his list for a future article.) In some situations, though, your opponent might only have three turns to get there. Yes, given the god draw this deck can win turn four, and with the amount of extra draw involved in the sequence it's not impossible to get. Yeah, I know that stringing together two Sculptors, Howling Mines, and Kaleidostones seems a little suspect, but it can be done. But for heaven's sake, don't do it against Jund, or Malestrom Pulse will punch you in the face and you'll cry like an NFL wide receiver at a postgame press conference after an early playoff exit.
Now on to the sideboard. In this list is the most basic, well-rounded sideboard Malcolm and I could think of given the current meta dominated by Jund and Vampires, with a little splash of everything else here and there. Depending on how Standard plays out, I'll consider these other cards for the main deck or the sideboard:
Need I go further? Ten-point life swings are hard to deal with unless they're in your favor.
In a Jund/Vampires metagame, this card does not belong at all. Putrid Leech, Broodmate Dragon, and Sprouting Thrinax are all immune, and it's completely dead against Sorin Markov's army.
This wouldn't be used so much for the "draw two cards" as it would for the "you discard the two cards in hand after you draw" and the "destroy your Ascension du jour." Speaking of Ascensions, next week, Pyromancer's Ascension!
This or Silence can do the trick against Cascade, but of course Silence never gets Lighting Bolted into obscurity.
Kicked, this does what Cryptic Command frequently did in the LRW-ALA-M10 version of Time Sieve. But you don't have to kick it (i.e., spend four mana as opposed to two) to buy you valuable time. Tempo, kids, tempo.
More spot removal that can actually deal with Jund and Vampires. Gotta be wary with this one if they have cards in hand though, I never like the idea of ramping my opponent into threats.
What? This thing? What's that doing there? Well, it's just a thought as a way to recycle Time Warp and Open the Vaults, or to prevent me from decking myself, and it can do so after one Time Sieve activation.
So what did goldfishing and playing this deck teach me about patience? When you're playing combo, you can never go off if you don't have the pieces in place. Too often I tried to go off by sacrificing Howling Mines and Borderposts to Time Sieve hoping for a miracle. Not only did I lose card draw and mana, I lost momentum, I lost tempo, I lost any hope of rebounding, and I lost hard. But as I continued to practice on my own and against decks of varying viability, I learned three very important lessons about this deck that hopefully you can translate to whatever project you're working on.
- Ponder is an extremely vital card, as it gives you three additional cards in "hand", allowing you more information to decide if you can go off or have to wait a turn.
- Hardcasting Borderposts is completely acceptable, whether to ramp or if it's just a "waste" artifact for Time Sieve.
- Finally, and most importantly, I learned that Time Sieve and Open the Vaults go hand in hand, and you can't separate them if you want to win with this deck.
Remember, kids, a Magic deck is like a car. If it's not working as you hoped it would, take it to the garage rather than trying to force things.
I'm still waiting for your decklists, concepts, and challenges in Standard. Shoot 'em my way at samuraientertainment@gmail.com.
Until then, take your time.
-Sam
