Let’s play name that Tune.

“I live for the Sun

Because it is fun

Making pies in the sand

Walk the beach holding hands

Baby , baby

We all live for the sun, sun, sun,

Wooohooohooooooo

(voice 1) would you please stop blocking my sun

(voice 1) get outta my way, I need more rays

(voice 2) shut up

(voice 1) your gonna get a fat lip if you don’t watch it

(voice 2) and you gonna get skin cancer”

I think most of those words are right. It's such an obscure tune that I can't find its lyrics. I'm just curious if any of my readers are fringe enough to know it. Not that I'm that fringe but I dated a girl in high school who dubbed the tape for me. Post it if you know it.

The idea is this song has been stuck in my head for days. Why? Because of the "please stop blocking my Sun" line. It's just so Magic.

Last week I shared the evolution of my Soul Sisters deck. The title for the deck came from an opponents chat on MTGO. Turns out that he/she must have got it from Conley Woods who posted a different list (4 or 5 cards match) about that same time. I will have you notice that I posted my first deck using the Soul Sisters about a month before Conley shared his list with the net community. I just didn't have a catchy title. "Livin' the Life" was all I came up with at that time.

Aside from that you may have noticed that my evolution went from adding Sun Titan, falling in love with it, and then removing it in the final product. So now I'm trying to build a deck for my favorite Titan.

Small Talk in a Sweaty Truck

During the summer I work the Fireworks biz. As a manager I get to hire a couple of people to help me load and unload the massive amount a boxes and supplies needed. I always try to hire guys who play Magic so we can talk game to keep our minds off the heat. This year I hired a great player named Isaac. On one of our loading/unloading we began discussing FNM cards and trying to build decks around them. Tidehollow Sculler came up early because I love the artwork on it. There is something cool about the way the foil causes the eyes to glow. It's eerie!

The goal was to break the FNM card. To be honest all we came up with was a discard minded deck. The Sculler is basically Duress on a stick. Well, not exactly, since it can grab critters and they can get the card back. The ‘get the card back' is the bummer part. We talked about trying to put a Whispersilk Cloak on him and other shroud goodies. That made him live longer but ultimately he's just a 2/2. We needed to face facts and realize that they're probably gonna get the card back. Also the deck needed a finisher. I said "Megrim?" and Isaac laughed and pointed out that the Sculler doesn't discard it exiles.

That's where I remembered a little trick. Tidehollow Sculler has two triggered abilities. One ability triggers when he enters the battlefield and another when he leaves the battlefield. It's possible to make these go on the stack together in such a way to make your opponent exile a card AND never get it back. Here's how it works. First you need some way to instantly destroy your Tidehollow Sculler. I'm going to use Bloodthrone Vampire. When you play Tidehollow it first trigger goes on the stack. Immediately sac the Sculler to the Vamp and put its second trigger on the stack. The leaves the battlefield trigger is on top of the enters trigger so it resolves first giving them the card removed back. The trick is you haven't removed the card yet so there is nothing to give. Now the enters the battlefield trigger resolves and you exile a nonland card. They can never get that card back since Sculler can't be removed twice.

It's a cute trick but is it worth all the effort it would take to set up? Probably not until…..

Enter the Titan.

Sun Titan can make this trick sizzle. Now I can build a deck that uses Tidehollow early to delay my opponents development with straight play, allows me to completely remove their best cards with my sac trick, and brings the aforementioned Sculler back from the grave over and over again. It also has flavor since Charon himself is returning from the grave only to see the Sun and return to his morbid job. But on the way he drags an opponent's card with him never to be seen again.

While going enemy colors would normally seem antiproductive it's not hard to see that the current mana gives us Marsh Flats, Terramorphic Expanse, and Evolving Wilds. With 12 cards that can eventually produce either color we are pretty solid.

The rest of the deck would focus around cards with 3 cmc or less and control cards that help us survive until Sun Titan can get online.

Building the deck

As is my norm I'll be building with the Rule of Nine concept. For those of you who haven't heard of this I basically use 9 playsets of cards and 24 land as a skeletal beginning.

Cards looked at

1. Sun Titan – Can't "Live for the Sun" without him.
2. Tidehollow Sculler – Even though he's almost out of Standard I really want to play him.
3. Viscera Seer – The Seer is one of many cards that allow for the Tidehollow trick. With him in play we can pay BW to Scry 1 and discard a nonland from my opponent's hand. It may sound funny but if Wizards were to print a card that did just that many people would play it.
4. Bloodthrone Vampire – Like the Seer. Now imagine the text on Vamp reading: BW: Discard a card. Look at target players hand and choose a nonland card. Remove it from the game. Vamp gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Would you play that card? That's how it reads with a Sculler in hand.
5. Duress – Basic discard. It can't hit creatures though so it depends on how the rest of the deck fleshes out.
6. Wall of Omens – Once our Sculler trick has maxed out (i.e. hellbent opponent) we can use this with Sun Titan attacks to still gain card advantage.
7. Gatekeeper of Malakir – a nice gain when kicked. Triple black is a bother though.
8. Vampire Hexmage – Reoccurring Planeswalker death. Probably sideboard. Here I have a rules question. If Gideon is in play and has activated his "attack me" ability. Sun Titan attacks. Where does the declaration of who to attack fit in with the stack. Can I bring in Hexmage, sac it to remove Gideon, and then attack the player? I'm guessing no. I think you need to declare attack target as you are attacking but wouldn't be cool if I'm wrong?
9. Vampire Nighthawk – He's a Mananation spoiler so I have to at least consider him in the deck.
10. Kor Firewalker – Same gig though not as useful in this deck idea. Maybe sideboard.
11. Oblivion Ring – A solid pick. Useful for so many things and can be brought back with Titan if needed for repeat duty.
12. Otherworldly Journey – This and O-ring make me wish their was Auratog type of creature or enchantment out there. I would love to see a card like this: 1W [Cardname] Enchantment- Sacrifice an enchantment. Draw a card.
13. Fleshbag Marauder- Cruel Edict that can happen over and over again with Sun Titan. Might make the list.
14. Doomblade – Because everything dies to Doomblade. Also you can use it to do the Sculler trick. Its two cards and 4 mana to get rid of one of theirs so I wouldn't advise it.
15. Day of Judgment – If you play white and you play control this is a must.
16. Path to Exile – While it's in Standard it's the most efficient removal around. If your Sculler is doing his job the extra mana won't matter because they won't have cards to play.
17. Executioner's Capsule – Doom Blade with the repeat option. Also effective for the pesky manlands that survive the DoJ's.
18. Sign in Blood – Netting extra cards could be useful. Especially when hunting a Titan.

That's quite a list. It should probably be longer. Feel free to mention any additions in the comments. Remember the Rule though. We must choose just nine as a starting point. I do want to add a couple of contenders in the land selection as well. Tectonic Edge and Gargoyle Castle both have Synergy with Sun Titan as well. I'm not putting either in the Rule of Nine version but they deserve mentioning.

"Nine for Sculler"

• Creatures (24)
• 4 Sun Titan
• 4 Tidehollow Sculler
• 4 Viscera Seer
• 4 Bloodthrone Vampire
• 4 Wall of Omens
• 4 Fleshbag Marauder

• Spells (12)
• 4 Oblivion Ring
• 4 Day of Judgment
• 4 Executioner’s Capsule

• Lands (24)
• 4 Marsh Flats
• 4 Terramorphic Expanse
• 4 Evolving Wilds
• 7 Plains
• 5 Swamp

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No catchy title for this one yet. Feel free to post away. Any additional suggestions for the potential list would also be appreciated.