One of the most fundamental things I teach early deck builders is the "Rule of Nine". Today I would like to take the Rule a step farther.

What's the Rule of Nine?

I could write a whole piece on just the Rule of Nine itself but I've already done that. So instead I'll give you a brief summary. The Rule of Nine is a process where a deck builder decides to constrain himself to just playing nine cards. Each card is a full playset with 24 lands added in to make the solid 60.

Now I realize that some decks prefer 22 lands. Other decks may only want 3 copies of a card because of the "I don't want to draw into two of these" concept. There is also the crazy "misers" copy of a card and numerous other things that go against the Rule of Nine. Just understand we are talking about a BEGINNING point not a final destination.

By doing the Rule of Nine you maximize your potential of drawing a card you want to test and 24 lands should minimize the number of land light mulligans you would see from the deck. This is the best test environment possible with little effort. After a few rounds if you seem land heavy then you can add some extra cards and remove some land. Vice versa is also true. Say there is a card that having two of meant the second card was "dead" then feel free to back it off to just 3 or 2 copies. Slip in that "mizer" card in its place.

The eventual plan is to slowly make changes and flesh out a deck that is best suited to the environment. The Rule of Nine is the skeleton that holds that flesh together.

Building a Combo

Of all deck archetypes Combo fits the Rule of Nine the best. Most Combo decks are automatically built around running full playsets of a card anyway. The only thing we need to concern ourselves with is how many slots we give to each type of card. By type of card I don't mean Sorcery, Creature, Enchantment etc. Instead I generalize my cards by what function they perform. The categories for a combo deck would be The Core, Draw/Tutor, Utility, and Disruption.

The number of slots dedicated to The Core depends on the combo. When searching for a combo to build around you want to minimize the number of slots taken by it. A two card combo that wins the game is rare. Also a four card combo is just too many pieces to be effective. So I will slot three of our nine to the combo engine. I do feel required to emphasize that four card combo's basically can't work. The two things I see beginners do wrong are build a combo with too many pieces or run a combo that requires a hefty amount of mana to "go off".

Draw/Tutor cards are the next vital piece to any combo. Without consistency a Combo deck can't win. The ability to either draw through you deck to find the pieces or better still just dig it out is critical. Simple cantrips like Preordain or advanced Tutors like Diabolic Tutor can all go in this slot. Green and Red both have a hard time coming up with cards that fit this requirement. That is a major reason why there are far fewer Combos in these colors. Because of the importance of getting the cards we need we will make another three slots go to Draw/Tutor cards.

Utility cards have the most variable description. What is Utility depends greatly on the type of combo you're generating and what decks you may face. In the classic Dredge Deck that was so dominate in Extended a few years ago your utility cards where cards that help fill your graveyard. In a TEPS deck we wanted Utility in the form of mana generating spells. If your combo requires a high life total like a Felidar Sovereign deck then Utility would be Life gainers. Or maybe you're running a Cascade Balance deck where you want no lands in play so you fill your utility slots with Borderposts. Sometimes Utility can overlap with Draw/Tutor. Having a Howling Mine in play helps to draw a lot of cards, combine that with Jace's Erasure and you have a mill deck, mix in some Angel Songs and you got something to play with. As you can see Utility can go a lot of different ways but we are also running out of our nine slots. I usually give 1 or 2 slots to Utility cards depending on how much Disruption I choose to run.

Disruption cards are a lot easier to nail down. They're cards that either get rid of opponent's answers/threats or stop them from seeing play all together. Day of Judgment, Doom Blade, and Mana Leak all fit the bill. I really only have one or two slots left so I'll dedicate any that I have left over here. I might occasionally take a slot from Draw/Tutor, especially if I'm in colors that are just lacking in draw options.

For those of you who are keeping track our shell should look like this.

Core Combo Pieces = 3 slots

Draw/Tutor = 3 slots

Utility = 1 or 2 slots

Disruption = 1 or 2 slots

Doing Time

The Doing Time Combo is designed to take a lot of extra turn via Time Warp. I loved/hated playing Time Sieve decks. I loved taking tons of turns and winning the game incrementally but I hated the effort it took to go through the process. It was just draining, after 4 rounds of FNM I was mentally spent. In Doing Time I was looking for a more intuitive way of getting the same effect. This deck isn't Teir 1 by any means but it is a fun doodler and illustrates the Rule of Nine well.

The Core Combo- The goal of the deck is to get to an active Pyromancer Ascension, Play Time Warp for two extra turns, during those turns play a Call to Mind, repeat Time Warp, and hopefully repeats Call to Mind as well. So our three slots dedicated to the Core are Pyromancer Ascension, Time Warp, and Call to Mind. For this to go Mega turns we need double Call to Mind so it's technically a 4 card combo. But it only takes 3 slots so I am cool with that.

Draw/Tutor -The Draw/Tutor is vital to this deck. While we have time to find Time Warp and Call to Mind we need to play and activate Ascension as soon as possible. To help facilitate this I choose to go with a cheap cantrip/filter route. There are currently two great efficient cantrip/filter cards in Standard. Preordain and Ponder. Which is better? That's a debate worth having but in this case I have slots for both and so I don't have to pick one over the other. The third slot almost went to Foresee but the mana cost precludes it from helping us to Ascend to Pyroville. So instead I stayed with the low mana cost route and used See Beyond. While just digging for one more card it also helps us around mana floods and double Ascension draws.

Utility and Disruption - For the Utility and Disruption I am actually combining cards. For my build I need a way to win once I garner all those extra turns. I also wants cards that can be played early and in duplicate so I can activate the Ascension. The last time I checked doing 6 damage for one red mana is pretty good. Lightning Bolt is in. It helps to hold off the early rush creatures and serves as a means to win. But Bolt isn't enough by itself so I added in Burst Lightning. The last slot has been changed several times currently I am running Staggershock and it works in the High School meta of bash first ask questions later. Probably the better card would be Mana Leak or some other counter. I just didn't have the patience. I did try Surreal Memoir as an attempt for an extra Call to Mind but that randomness didn't pay off. It did produce some serious card advantage with an active Ascension so maybe if we go down to 22 land I might slip a couple Memoirs in.

"Doing Time"

• (60)
• 4 Pyromancer Ascension
• 4 Call to Mind
• 4 Time Warp
• 4 Ponder
• 4 Preordain
• 4 See Beyond
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Burst Lightning
• 4 Staggershock
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Evolving Wilds
• 10 Island
• 6 Mountain

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Homework

Get your fingers on your keyboard and try it yourself. The other day I got hit by a total Haymaker that I didn't see coming. I was playing my W/b life gain deck. I don't want to give the list away but he handled my threats but did very little to deter my life gain. I was up to 42 life and had 3 active Emeria's next upkeep. He played a land, Rest for the Weary, Tainted Sigil and won the game. By the way, he had two Sanguine Bonds in play.

There are your Core three slots. You pick the other six. Don't sweat the land. Just post your list of six. We'll see who gets closest to what he played.

Class Dismissed.