Looking for help to speed this deck up, please!
This deck has been relatively effective but could stand to be sped up. It's biggest weakness is that it's not uncommon to have no defense on the battlefield and no offensive plays for 4 or 5 turns. I recently pulled
Archmage Ascension
as it's ineffective for 9-10 rounds. In it's place I added the 2x Deadly Recluse for some quick creature defense. I'm not married to the spiders if someone has a better suggestion to address the speed issue.
Designed to mill, self-mill and win with Laboratory Maniac or win through multiple back-to-back turns/attack phases against a tapped out opponent. The goal is to essentially be playing an open library from my hand with no land or discard restrictions.
My favorite combo in this deck is the emblem from Tamiyo, the Moon Sage with a Time Warp and a Counterspell or, even better Rewind. Unlimited turns and spell countering until I win one way or another.
Font of Mythos and Howling Mine increase the number of cards drawn each turn.
While Library of Leng, Spellbook, Reliquary Tower, and the emblem from Tamiyo, the Moon Sage make it so I have no maximum hand size.
They also combine nicely with the milling from Jace, Memory Adept. The emblem from Tamiyo makes Jace's 0 ability put 10 cards into my unlimited hand. His -7, 20 cards.
Ral Zarek and Time Warp allow me to take multiple, back-to-back turns while tapping out my opponent for defenseless attack phases and/or drawing out my deck with additional help from the -2 of Tamiyo, the Moon Sage.
Ral Zarek also combines with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage to either self-mill or mill my opponent and provides a little bit of direct damage if needed. The two also help in tapping out my opponent,
It's a given, I'll end up with more cards in my hand than I can afford to cast. Rampant Growth, Oracle of Mul Daya and
Exploration
allow me to quickly and limitlessly put land into play.
A little bit of true-to-design creature defense or offense from Sturmgeist and Drift of Phantasms rounds this deck out a bit and also provides a quick route to....
Laboratory Maniac is the instant "I win" card. Combined with a fizzle from Mirror of Fate or the appearance of
Leveler
, it gets to the "I win" part of the game more quickly.
Laboratory Maniac will, of course, only be cast when I have multiple in my hand or a Counterspell to protect him.
My thinking with the sideboard is to turn my self-mill deck into an opponent mill deck if, for whatever reason, the Laboratory Maniac combos are ineffective. The addition of Traumatize, Mesmeric Orb and
Barbed Shocker
help with this while Psychic Spiral helps to reverse the self-milling.
Ral Zarek pairs nicely with Mesmeric Orb and Oracle of Mul Daya as I am able to decide whether I want to untap one of my cards or one of my opponents based on the card on top of my library.
Filigree Fracture
just provides a little insurance against a couple nasty artifacts or enchantments.
The deck originally had more red, but a bunch of tweaks later I'm left with only Ral Zarek and the side-boarded Barbed Shockers. Even though it's just a splash, I don't think this deck is the same without Ral.
Suggestions or comments?
+1's are always nice as well.
