You know what's great about being a wizard? Living alone in a tower with unimaginable cosmic power.
You know what ELSE is great about being a wizard? Telling people to leave you alone. And then disappearing in a time rift.
This deck is about being that wizard.
What this deck lets you do is skip all your own turns for value. That's right. Who needs mortal concepts like time and space when the fabric of the game itself is your plaything? Who needs to participate in silly rituals like untapping and main phases when you can ignore them entirely and laugh while your opponents scream in fear, ground down by the weight of their own upkeep steps?
You certainly don't. And you're about to skip all your own turns to prove it.
Inspired by Kerrus's excellent Brago's Vacation deck and deep-seated personal trauma.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: PICKING YOUR POD
This deck does a very weird thing to the game of Magic, which some players won't like. To them, skipping all your own turns will seem like you're not playing the game at all.
If you have players in your pod that prefer heavy battlefield interaction, or whom are prone to Analysis Paralysis, I would consider leaving this deck in the box. It may result in a poor time for at least one player at the table.
But if you don't (or if you do and you want to rib them for an hour or two!), bring it out and have a blast!
Let's get to it!
YOUR GAMEPLAN
You're going to set up some pillowfort effects and some punisher effects, and then start skipping your own turns for value. Then you'll laugh like the god-creature of arcane might that you are.
PILLOWFORT EFFECTS—
These include all-stars
Solitary Confinement
and
Glacial Chasm
(who cares about upkeep costs when you don't have upkeeps?) along with usual suspects like
Ghostly Prison
and
Propaganda
. Most of these are tutorable by Zur, so if you don't have one in your opening hand, hit someone else and go get it.
PUNISHER EFFECTS—
You've got a medium-sized discard package (
Necrogen Mists
,
Bottomless Pit
,
Oppression
and friends), a light mill package (
Dreamborn Muse
,
Mesmeric Orb
,
Mindcrank
, and friends), and some real kicks in the teeth (hello
Smokestack
, hello Mindcrank's eternal lover and combo partner
Bloodchief Ascension
), most of which you can capitalize upon with
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
and
Mimic Vat
. Again, many of these are tutorable by Zur, so use him to get one if you need to.
(This is also the place where you've got the most freedom to tune for your specific meta, so feel free to find and replace as needed!)
SKIPPING YOUR OWN TURNS—
Lethal Vapors
is the absolute nuts here, letting you skip an arbitrarily large number of turns by repeatedly activating its ability and holding priority each time. You've also got
Chronatog
and
Chronatog Totem
, along with some one-shot effects like
Eater of Days
and
Meditate
.
(There are two time-skipping effects in Esper colours that aren't here -- I have found
Chronosavant
and
Wormfang Manta
to be a little hard to use. But if you want to try, feel free to swap them in!)
LAUGH—
Do your best Chronatog impression, then exhale all the air from your lungs at once. It is best to do this as rapidly as possible.
PLAYING IT OUT
This is a deck that rewards knowledge of your playgroup or local meta extremely well -- but it can also punish you badly if you misjudge your opponents and the threats they present.
An ideal opening hand includes 3-4 lands and a turn-skipping effect. (You can get anything else you need with Zur.)
In your first few turns, you'll want to read the table, carefully judge the pillowfort and punisher effects you'll need, then go get them with Zur. He can tutor almost a quarter of the deck to the battlefield, but you'll only have so many turns in which to do it, so use him and his toolbox wisely.
For example: if you suspect an opponent is packing an Eldrazi Titan/Worldline/Colossus as a fun-of anti-mill effect, tutor
Rest in Peace
to catch them before they go to the graveyard. If you suspect a
Laboratory Maniac
win, tutor up
Forsaken Wastes
(and start digging for
Extract
!).
In some ways, you're a lot like a combo player -- the most important decision you're going to make is when to take your combo... uh, "turn". (Mortal concepts like time and language are so limiting.) So choose well.
The trick with this deck is to skip just the right amount of turns. You can often skip a very large number of turns, but sometimes that'll come back and bite you right in the Chronatog. There will be times you want to untap your lands, or drop down an additional punisher effect --
Windfall
s do happen!
IMPROVING THE DECK
The mana base is left largely blank in order to provide space for your own improvements. I have enjoyed the gameplay value of the Temples -- card filtering helps a great deal when you only have so many draw steps! -- but your mileage may vary.
As mentioned above, the "punisher" effects should be tuned to your local meta. I have found the effects in the maindeck to be the most generally applicable, but swap in and out as you please. Here is a list of every enchantment in the game that Zur can tutor -- have fun!
Finally, depending on how consistent you wish to be, you may want to add additional tutors. I like a lot of variety, but sometimes those Chronatogs have an annoying habit of skipping the top of the library... !
NOTES ON SPECIFIC CARDS
-
Hope of Ghirapur
: Perhaps the most evil card in this deck. Attack control player, sac Hope, never take a turn again, profit. (This can ruin someone's day, so be careful!)
-
Jeering Homunculus
: Goad threatening creature, never take a turn again, profit.
-
Lavinia of the Tenth
and
Inaction Injunction
: Detain permanents, never take a turn again, profit.
-
Season of the Witch
: Make everyone else attack each other, never take a turn again, profit. (Assumes you have appropriate pillowfort cards in place.)
-
Sundial of the Infinite
: Use Sundial on your upkeep to exile all those painful triggers, functionally never take a turn again, profit.
-
Teferi's Protection
: Leave the game entirely, never take a turn again, profit.
A FINAL NOTE
Have fun. Seriously, have fun with it. You're going to turn the game of Magic on its head, and it's going to be a completely new experience for the vast majority of players. Relish that. Celebrate it. Ham it up, laugh it up, and enjoy the experience. People will only play against this deck for the first time once -- make the most of it!
And once again, thanks to Kerrus for creating Brago's Vacation, the inspiration for this deck! I couldn't have put my friends through this cruel, horrifying torture without you.
