Wincons
Win with Goblin Charbelcher or by stealing turns with Timesifter. The deck's high mana costs mean that without an answer to Timesifter, many opponents will never have a turn again.
Goblin Charbelcher and Timesifter are a natural pairing because they both work well in decks that run very few lands. But Timesifter also favors cards with high mana values, which is not typical for a Charbelcher deck. So, instead of ramping with cheap spells into a one-shot kill, this deck uses expensive but discounted board wipes to buy time to cast its wincons fairly.
Removal
The deck's many deckbuilding restrictions make it difficult to keep up with the opponent's boardstate, so we don't try to. Instead, we wipe the board, over and over again, until we can safely drop a one-card wincon.
When building this kind of deck, look for removal with a high mana cost that can be played early for a discount. Here is the earliest each card can be used for removal:
Some of these options are fast, and some are not, but cards that can't be played yet can be pitched to Solitude and Sunscour. This is also true for most of the manabase.
Lands and "Lands"
Modal double-faced lands are perfect for this deck, and we run three playsets of them.
The rest of the manabase consists of Plainscycling creatures and Flower / Flourish, which all fetch lands for a low cost while having high mana values. This means we do run four Plains. Running any lands at all is usually a cardinal sin in a Goblin Charbelcher deck, but they aren't such a problem in this deck. The lands often get fetched before Charbelcher gets activated, and even if not, we aren't a glass cannon that needs to kill in one shot. And Timeshifter is often totally unaffected by a couple stray lands in the deck.
If that's too cute, Modern Horizons 3 gave more than enough white, high-mana-cost MDF lands for the deck to go landless. I expected that approach to be a straight upgrade, but there are subtle tradeoffs that make me still prefer this plainscycling approach, for now.
Creatures
Last but not least is Squadron Hawk, which fits the deck in a unique way. Despite costing just two mana, it works with Timesifter because it filters itself out of the deck. And it plays a unique role in the deck, making valuable early-game blocks and enabling Solitude and Sunscour.
Any other creatures in the deck were chosen for their other effects. They all have high mana costs, but the gameplan is to survive to later turns, so they do see play fairly often. Here is the earliest each creature can be played.
Stray Points
- If you don't build around it, Timesifter is a five mana artifact that gives your opponents extra turns. It needs a deck to fully support it if it's going to be a one-card wincon.
- This deck is fundamentally different than a typical Goblin Charbelcher deck. It is slower, but it is not a glass cannon. It can defend itself and it can afford to play through multiple Charbelcher activations.
- The deck has a lot of things that could go wrong, but usually don't. You could lose a game because you hit a Plains on a Charbelcher too early, but you usually don't. You could lose a game because a Timesifter hits a Squadron Hawk, but you usually don't. I think that accepting these small risks allows the deck to gain more significant advantage in other areas.
- If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me me know in the comments.
