I'm bored, and sick, and full of fever delusions, so ...

[BrokenDeck]

I'm bored, and sick, and full of fever delusions, so I got a wonderful idea to fix the type one metagame.  Unrestrict channel! Right about now half of you are saying: NEVER! and the other half are thinking: HOW WOULD THAT HELP?!?!   Let me  explain.

By unrestricting channel, you get another fast combo deck with fireball.  Easy to kill with by turn two or three, and pretty consistent.  Able to get turn one kills also while we are at it.  It therefore can handle long and dragon head to head.

Now you are thinking: great, another combo deck. Just what we need.  But this combo deck is special.  Force of will leaves it at one life, FORCE SPIKE leaves it at one life sometimes for crying out loud, a lightning bolt will singlehandedly kill it, and misdirection kills it.  Extremely vulnerable to most decks.  So I was thinking that perhaps the threat of a faster combo deck could help keep the amount of long and dragon decks down, but at the same time the new combo deck would not be played that often.  Does anyone think this would work, or am I being crazy?

P.S.: Channel decks would be just as vulnerable in type 1.5

[Misemaster]

You are being crazy in a format that has long and dragon who the hell is going to play the easily disrupted channel.dec? I supposed it could be a combo deck for the budget player but to say that unrestricting channel would somehow balance the format is ridiculous. I wouldnt necessarliy say the format is unbalanced either however it appears to be leaning that way. Second turn 2 or 3 isnt even faster than long and dragon simply will run over this deck considering it has force of will. Sorry for the negative tone but think before posting something like this.

[IllusionX]

Man, where to begin?

Channel-Fireball is a very old idea, and more of a cliche thought than a powerful idea.  Channel being unrestricted has been discussed before many of times, but I don't think it would help improve the metagame.

Another note:  No one would use Fireball as the kill when the option to use Kaervek's Torch is around.  It prevents someone from using Force of Will or Misdirection if you went first.

[BrokenDeck]

fireball, kaervek's torch, the idea is that it burns for x damage.  And if you use this combo, you could quite easily make it B/R/G, for duress and cabal therapy.  Long uses less protection than that for its combo, and they would both be able to kill on the same turn.  Also the duress and therapy would further increase the chances of beating long via disruption, and would not hurt in disrupting dragon by stripping reanimator spells.

[thefram]

Yeah, but long is a better deck as its uncounterable and faster, and dragon is better because its resilient, only needs to cast one spell, and also Faster

Channel is old school and not great combo.

[BrokenDeck]

Like I said before, while I agree that a channel deck would be much more vulnerable to disruption, the effect it could have on the metagame would be that it is not really any slower than most combo decks.  I could easily imagine an unpowered version pulling out turn two wins consistently.  This would basically make control more powerful with a new good matchup, and with a little bit of luck, upping the fundamental turn

[Smash]

This was discussed about 6 months ago. Here is the test.

Make a deck with unrestricted channel that doesn't suck. I dare you. The thing is, channel is too old and outdated to make a decent combo deck out of. If you go anything but the burn route, you need to add in tons of mana filters to get the right color mana.

NO ONE was able to make a deck the last time around. You are welcome to here

My best deck ended up being a stax type deck, which used a channel for 12 or so for a really big turn. Still was rather pathetic. I am all for unrestricted channel as it would not hurt a thing.

[jpmeyer]

No one thought of one, but that seemed really weird to me since basically Channel says "Add 19 mana to your mana pool."

[kakeboy07]

long could utilize channel... especially after the restriction of led and movement towards elvish spirit guide. actually it would be kinda sick imho... Id def work on tweaking something like:


4 channel (only need 1 really, actually why doesnt long run channel???)
4 elvish spirit guide
memory jar
4 welding jar
4 sunbeam spellbomb
4 cromatic sphere
5 moxen
1 lotus
1 sol ring
1 mana vault
1 led
1 lotus petal
1 mana crypt

add draw / protection (blue in a word)

You could even try and utilize Vedalken Archmage to make use of all the artifacts or something like that. It might also use 1-2 anger and hunting pack for the kill, or else brain freeze & minds desire. You could also just stick to tendrils. Basically its (channel) at least 19 mana (as stated before) (possibly 39 with a god hand) that you could easliy pop out first turn with 4 spirit guides and all that artifact acceleration. Im going to work on looking into it more today, and get back to you after testing it head-2-head against long and other decks (specifically dragon and fish) that are currently in the meta. I dunno if its going to turn out to be as good as im thinking, but I think its at least looking into if somehow on tuesday we end up with unrestricted channel. (OR maybe fork... heheheh)


Running u/g would also make for an easy to develop sideboard against chalices and what not (crumble, h recall, etc etc). H recall could actually provide additional fuel... but these are all things that have been said before

[Cpkrug]

that would be a fun deck for budget players.  since COTV hammered a lot of current budget decks, that would be fun.  Around here no kids will enter type one for fear of powered decks, maybe that would help their confidence.  At least it would be a fun deck to play.

[Smash]

Quote (jpmeyer @ Nov. 29 2003,09:30)No one thought of one, but that seemed really weird to me since basically Channel says "Add 19 mana to your mana pool."

Don't start throwing crap like welding jar in....

Obviously you want to go to some form of long with elvish spirit guide. With dark ritual and guide, do you ever really NEED more colorless mana? In long if I ever have a mana issue, it is the crazy mana requirements it can have... colorless is trivial to get.

[BrokenDeck]

Ok, here is a possible channel deck:

4 channel
4 kaervek's torch
4 fireball
4 exploration
1 mystic tutor
1 timetwister (proxy no. one)
1 demonic tutor
1 demonic consultation
1 wheel of fortune
4 duress
4 brainstorm
4 chromatic sphere
2 cabal therapy

(25)
4 chrome mox
1 black lotus (proxy no. two)
1 mox jet (proxy no. three)
1 mox emerald (proxy no. four)
1 mox ruby (proxy no. five)
1 mox diamond
4 bayou
4 tropical island
4 taiga
4 gemstone mine
1 Tolarian academy
and the dual lands can become basic lands/fetchlands as needed.

While it is a bit janky and akward, it looks like it could work to me.

[BreathWeapon]

Hmm, Channel ... I haven't heard anyone mention that card in a long time. It might be fun to throw in budget Rector/Long. Thanks for the idea!

[TimeBeing]

well channel with mindslaver, and mirror universe could be fun. you can put both out and activate the slaver turn one and sack the mirror on your next turn, and get them to one life. (well i guess or 2 life if you had nothing else to use the mana with)

[Jacob Orlove]

Quote (jpmeyer @ Nov. 29 2003,12:30)No one thought of one, but that seemed really weird to me since basically Channel says "Add 19 mana to your mana pool."

Yeah, because Mindslaver hadn't been printed yet. Let's leave Channel where it is.