Timeshifted Blues

Okay, so for some bizarre reason I was doing some Standard testing last night.

It turns out that the Simic Mutology precon from Dissension would not be very good in Standard. I’m not even sure if it has individual cards that would be good in Standard.

Okay, it does.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that if you avoid most of the cards in the Simic Mutology precon, blue and green are completely busted right now. Like Joe Theisman busted. If they had a slightly better draw engine, they might actually be utterly broken, like James Caan from Misery.

I’m sorry I’m mixing my metaphor themes, but the point remains.

Psionic Blast is really good, right? I mean, Char is really good, and Psionic Blast is the same thing only in a better color.

Blue is the best color.

4x Psionic Blast
4x Flying Men
4x Unstable Mutation
4x Looter il-Kor

With six Islands or so, that list already goldfishes on turn three or so. It’s amazing.

4x Remand
4x Cancel
4x Mana Leak

Honestly, I’m not even sure why I need green at this point. Green doesn’t do broken things. Green swings for three.

4x Call of the Herd
4x Gaea’s Blessing
4x Thallid

Green is relentless. That’s what green does.

Smack that puppy and give it some lands, eh? We’re going to the movies!

I remember playing UG Aggro back in the day. Tim Aten designed my deck for me, and of course the first thing I did was mess it up and namedrop all over the place. I really don’t remember what was in it. It was probably something like this:

4x Counterspell
4x Power Sink (this was back when Power Sink didn’t suck)
2x Air Elemental
1x Mahamoti Djinn
3x Hungry Mist (you can tell that this deck was all about redundancy)
2x Deadly Insect
2x Ghost Ship (it’s blue and regenerates and is broken)
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Fyndhorn Elves
2x Fyndhron Elder
3x Mana Vault (not restricted!)
2x Fellwar Stone
1x Moss Diamond
1x Sky Diamond

How many cards is that?

“Turty-tree, chief!”

Sounds good.

7x Relentless Rats
10x Islands
9x Forests
1x Swamp

Yeah, that’s good to go.

Honestly, though, that was about twelve years ago, so I don’t remember what else was in the deck beyond those first few. There might have been a few more Air Elementals and Fat Moti Djinns (back when the art was still cool, no less), and there might actually have been one less Counterspell because I’m not sure I ever owned four.

I think you can see that the whole idea was to ramp up to a beater and then try desperately to protect it.

The Time Spiral Standard deck is somewhat different. Wizards has tried to slow down the game by not printing broken acceleration (e.g. Mana Vault, Crystal Vein) anymore, so I’m going full-on mutagen-ooze-fueled aggro. The concept is similar to one found in the old Microprose Magic game Shandalar, where an opponent’s first turns would be something like:

Will o’ the Wisp, go.

Unstable Mutation, swing for three, go.

Unstable Mutation, Unstable Mutation, swing for eight, go.

That’s pretty rough. That’s what made me build PaleoStax, with the ability to play a first turn Icy Manipulator and use my opponent’s Unstable Mutations as creature removal.

Another one of my favorite first few turns is like this:

Bird of Paradise, go.

Miss land drop, Unstable Mutation, go.

Miss land drop, swing for two, go.

I can definitely see where Birds of Paradise would fit in my deck. Namely, right in the slot that Thallid occupies now. Unfortunately, Thallid is completely underrated, and I traded all of my Birds away because they’re completely unusable in Vintage. As it is, though, the deck I presented is plenty cheap enough to not require avian acceleration. Your most expensive card, Call of the Herd, can be discarded early to Looter il-Kor and played again for the same cost, or recouped with Gaea’s Blessing.

Another card I really wanted to find room for is Prodigal Sorcerer. Do you realize that if he was just a bit more aggressively costed (i.e. 1U or UU) that he’d probably be played in almost every blue control deck? As it is, he’s more suited to trading with a 2/2 or helping a 2/2 trade with a 3/3 than he is to wipe out a horde of 1/1s and kill your opponent. Still, his benefit is pretty good: recurring damage without attacking is pretty sweet.

Voidmage Prodigy (now officially showing Kai in his more svelte promo form rather than his pudgy, girdled original) and Willbender also wanted to make an appearance in this deck. They’re creatures and they disrupt. That automatically makes them playable creatures. The Prodigy is also aggressively costed, and the Willbender also can sacrifice to the Prodigy.

Avoid Fate is back too, and a lot of people don’t even know to expect that. It’s really good against control (mostly blue and red) because it’s so much more efficient than most of the control cards out there.

Plus – I have a playset.

Minus – It’s strictly a sideboard card.

Oh, and I love being reminded of this because I keep forgetting it, Scragnoth was Timeshifted as well. Scragnoth! Scrag-freaking-noth. If only, Scragnoth. If only Scragnoth was untargetable instead of protection from blue. Scragnoth is still amazing, though, and will destroy a blue deck without remorse or ruth.

None! No remorse or ruth at all!

Of course, there is still Simic Sky-Swallower. He’s pretty good, I hear, and he’s completely playable in Vintage Oath.

Really, though, I think that blue is incredibly strong in Time Spiral Standard. You have multiple solid counters at all points in the game, right now, and some good protectable finishers and disrupting weenies.

Disrupting Weenies would be a good name for a band. Or a brand of phasing hot dog.

Anyway, Spell Snare leads to Remand and Mana Leak which lead to Cancel. After a while, you draw some win condition like Ghost Ship and win the game over the course of the next ten turns. That’s completely worthwhile and not at all annoying to play against. Right?

Time Spiral is still a set in which randomness and disparity abounds, but who cares? You can’t timeshift blue cards without having broken things, and that’s what Standard will be about.

Also, you know, you guys can use the comments feature. It's way easier than on the other blog.