Skittles

[Cross]

I played and lost to orlove a bunch of times.

I think I am taking a lot instant based creature removal out of my deck and replacing it with flametoungue effects.

Moroii has also been substandstard for me. He's just big and stupid and doesn't do anything if he isn't supported by hosts of removal or disruption. I am for the moment trying out blizzard specter.

Also I didn't have avalanche riders in my deck, but after losing mostly to that card in combination with crossroads or reclmation in the games against orlove I realized that it's completely insane.

[Philatio]

I played and lost to orlove a bunch of times.

I think I am taking a lot instant based creature removal out of my deck and replacing it with flametoungue effects.

Moroii has also been substandstard for me. He's just big and stupid and doesn't do anything if he isn't supported by hosts of removal or disruption. I am for the moment trying out blizzard specter.

Also I didn't have avalanche riders in my deck, but after losing mostly to that card in combination with crossroads or reclmation in the games against orlove I realized that it's completely insane.

I would think that against a deck with a lot of Crystal Shard type things going on, instant speed removal would be great.

Avalanche riders has been and always will be a staple of the format - he is just that insane.  Recurring him is just plain silly.  Man one of these days I actually have to play Jacob instead of just talking theory.

[IceMaster]

Similar to Anusien's list except that I like Top better than Icy. I also took out Memory Lapse for a Steamcore Weird. I'm not sure if that's the right choice. What I'm thinking about doing is taking out Fumarole for Deepfire Elemental because this deck is kind of threat-lite. A 4/4 artifact/creature killer MUST be dealt with by your opponent and having the mana for the 1xx isn't really a problem for this deck.

Ark of Blight
Wayfarer's Bauble
Sensei's Divining Top
Fellwar Stone
Skullclamp
Etched Oracle

Befoul
Nightscape Battlemage
Twisted Abomination
Trench Wurm

Eternal Witness
Kodama's Reach
Thornscape Battlemage
Reap and Sow
Civic Wayfinder

Ogre Arsonist
Avalanche Riders
Ravaging Horde
Dwarven Miner- Until I can find a Goblin Settler

Steamcore Weird
Exclude
Remand
Trinket Mage
Aven Fogbringer

Faith's Fetters
Swords to Plowshares
Orim's Thunder
Benalish Emissary
Seed Spark
Nagao, Bound by Honor

Plague Spores
Moroii
Wrecking Ball
Fumarole
Temporal Spring
Frenzied Tilling

Snow-Covered Forest
Snow-Covered Island
Snow-Covered Mountain
Snow-Covered Plains
Snow-Covered Swamp
Forest
Island
Mountain
Plains
Swamp
Azorius Chancery
Boros Garrison
Dimir Aqueduct
Golgari Rot Farm
Gruul Turf
Izzet Boilerworks
Orzhov Basilica
Rakdos Carnarium
Selesnya Sanctuary
Simic Growth Chamber
Gemstone Mine
Mirrodin's Core
Wasteland
Ghost Quarter

[Cross]

Top is really useless. I'd consider just a good mana fixer there.

Deepfire is interesting, but a bit of a late game only card.

[Anusien]

Top is replacing Icy Manipulator, and there are 8 shuffle effects plus a decent amount of draw.

But yeah, they're interesting and thought-provoking cards, but who knows how good they actually are.

[Nomad]

Top is really useless. I'd consider just a good mana fixer there.

Deepfire is interesting, but a bit of a late game only card.

I'm glad to see that someone else feels the same way about top as I do.  It's just hard to be objective as card after card that buttfucks you comes off the top...  After all, they'd still screw you 2 turns later anyway. 

I think the simple equation is:
1) I play shuffle effects:  Top is good.
2) I don't have many shuffles: Top is a wasted card that taps one mana every upkeep to sway my decision process.

I look forward to trying out a foil Deepfire thing.  It seems very good, like a 7 mana free counterspell for most recursion effects, just hope the first time around it wasn't Avalanche Riders.

[Hi-Val]

I like Top in my deck because my shuffle includes Krosan Verge, Explosive Veggies, Far Wanderings, and a bunch of other acceleration stuff.

I feel like Coldsnap has some awesome stuff in it for Skittles, but I haven't had a great chance to look at it yet past Mouth of Ronom. I haven't been playing Skittles lately though, so once I get back into it I'm sure I'll find other stuff.

Jotun Grunt looks kinda good too, and I think Deathmark is a fine anti-aggro card.

[horse the name]

I like Top in my deck because my shuffle includes Krosan Verge, Explosive Veggies, Far Wanderings, and a bunch of other acceleration stuff.

How have Explosive Veggies and Far Wanderings been for you as opposed to other acceleration such as Kodama's Reach and Civic Wayfinder?

[Cross]

I think, and I have said it before, that top doing anything is just an illusion.

In typer 1, you have a ton of  "free" shuffle effects via fetchlands, and I question if that even does anything.

[Jacob Orlove]

Yeah, Top did nothing for me ever, so I'm cutting it.

Avalanche Riders are obviously amazing, but I also transmuted a ton vs Crossman, and that helped a lot.

[Hi-Val]

I like Top in my deck because my shuffle includes Krosan Verge, Explosive Veggies, Far Wanderings, and a bunch of other acceleration stuff.

How have Explosive Veggies and Far Wanderings been for you as opposed to other acceleration such as Kodama's Reach and Civic Wayfinder?

I run Reach and Harrow too. My deck is basically based on stalling the early game while developing mana and then resolving bombs (Hondens, Illuminate, probably the new Deepfire, etc). I can also count reasonably on kicking Dblow and stuff, so my deck is a little different from the recursion-based stuff or aggro-control.

Top is kind of meh and is cuttable. I need to look at newer sets like Snap because I am in search of a good artifact to put in Top's place. Right now I think I have Fellwar Stone, Etched Oracle, Wayfarer's Bauble, Icy Manipulator and Sun Droplet.

I have a Fireball in right now because it's a board clearer and I can burn people straight out later in the game, but it might go for Orcish Settlers.

[Gekoratel]

Hello I've begun tuning a control deck for skittles.  My original plan was to try to have a lot of counterspells and mass removal effects.  The counterspell suite is to improve the LD and combo matchups and the high amount of removal is for aggro decks.  It's hard to build a deck for skittles that has good matchups against a lot of decks but here is my current list.

White
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Orim's Thunder
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Nagao, Bound by Honor
1 Azorious Herald
1 Seed Spark

Blue
1 Condescend
1 Exclude
1 Remand
1 Drift of Phantasms

Black
1 Ribbons of the Night
1 Bone Shredder
1 Dimir House Guard

Red
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Slice and Dice
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Flametongue Kavu

Green
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Sakura Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Civic Wayfinder
1 Thornscape Battlemage

Artifact
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Crystal Shard
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Etched Oracle
1 Sun Droplet

Multi
1 Putrefy
1 Savage Twister
1 Terminate
1 Dimir Guildmage
1 Moroii
1 Perplex
1 Blizzard Specter

Land
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Gruul Turf
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Dimir Acqueduct
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Wasteland
1 Mirrodin's Core
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Treetop Village
1 Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
1 Mishra's Factory

Symbols + Mana Base
W = 6    4 Sources 23%
U = 9     6 Sources 35%
B = 9     6 Sources 35%
R = 8     5 Sources 31%
G = 8     6 Sources 31%
             26 Total Colored Sources

In this format its really tough to make your mana base correctly with all of the Kicker effects and bounce lands so if anyone sees an oversight in my numbers let me know.  I did count some of the important CIP costs like the U part of Azorious Herald.

I've just begun work on a sideboard so its far from optimal but I think there are some slots that nearly every skittles deck needs to have.

1 Equinox
1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
1 Honden of Seeing Winds
1 Probe
1 Famine
1 Honden of Night's Reach
1 Nightscape Battlemage
1 Nightmare Void
1 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Steam Blast
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Ghost-Lit Raider
1 Skyshroud Blessing
1 Harrow
1 Infused Arrows

Most of the cards in the sideboard are pretty self-explanatory Hondens come in against Honden.dec, there are the 3 anti-LD cards, and lastly some stuff for the aggro matchup.  The Nightmare Void and Pyrostatic Pillar are for the combo matchup and everything else in the SB are really just placeholders.

EDIT: Credit goes to horse the name for showing me Equinox, Skyshroud Blessing, and Harrow in his quest to drive LD out of the format.

[Anusien]

Infused Arrows are a good sideboard card, as is Isochron Scepter.  You could even run something like the artifact wizard from Mirrodin who could counter spells, or Darksteel Ingot.

Grunt seems questionable to me.  It's a very slow format, and Nagao is almost strictly better.  There is a possibility of cutting off recursion, but I don't think you can justify the cost, since it's going to take a lot of turns for him to do it.  One of the reasons why I run stuff like Nagao or Moroii is because they can seal the deal on their own, but I'm not confident Grunt can do that, especially in a format without fetchlands.

[Philatio]

    Wow, a great secondary win condition and creature removal for my Tendrils combo deck, compliments of Time Spiral:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=29183&d=1156277173

Not to mention a Kobold producing land, too!

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=29184&d=1156277181

In general, mtgsalvation.com has some more, interesting cards up.


I love you, Wizards.

[Jacob Orlove]

Note: the land that fetches any basic appears to be nonrare. If so, best land for Skittles since Gemstone Mine!

[Anusien]

I hate that it comes into play tapped though; that can be a significant disadvantage topdecking.  Although, I suppose the bouncelands can too.

By the way, the general consensus is to play first, to maximize bouncelands, right?

[Philatio]

I hate that it comes into play tapped though; that can be a significant disadvantage topdecking.  Although, I suppose the bouncelands can too.

By the way, the general consensus is to play first, to maximize bouncelands, right?

In a format dominated by either creature and/or land drops I'd always go first.  I'll always want to hit 3 mana for my Reach before the other guy hits 3 for his Stone Rain effect; likewise I'd rather have the first creature out.  I think the only deck I go second with is my combo deck, since another card is so much better than laying a land first if you are going to try to goldfish the guy anyway.

But yeah, having a few bouncelands on the draw is the suck.

[Cross]

If you are going to scg boston bring your skittles deck. I am planning on being there day 2 to scrub and then own people in skittles.

[Jacob Orlove]

So, Gemstone Mine is getting reprinted in Time Spiral, but as one of those weird throwback cards with a purple expansion symbol. Does that make it a rare? How does the format handle promotional cards in general (if that's what these are)?

[Cross]

I think avalanche riders is getting printed that way also, which would be another big blow to the format.

[Hi-Val]

They are distributed 1-per pack, which I consider to be rare. I think a format shakeup is fine!

[Cross]

Well, also remember that wasteland, gemstone mine and avalanche riders have been printed as premium cards already. I think we should wait to see what wizards says about these if they have not already.

[LordHomerCat]

All the cards are the same rarity, and are 1 per pack.  In addition, they are technically (at least in TS packs) more rare than regular rares, since there are 121 Timeshifted (purple) cards and only 80 rares, and with the new foil rules, you can get two TS rares but never two purples.  As such, if you want to go with a basic definition of rarity (how many per pack), they are like an extra-rare compared to normal TS rares.

[Jacob Orlove]

Gatherer lists them as

Set & Rarity: Time Spiral "Timeshifted" special

and sorts them separately from the rares; it sorts out as commons, lands, rares, these, uncommons when sorted by rarity, which (since those are alphabetical) confirms that the official rarity is "special".

So, again, how does the format handle promotional cards?

[Anusien]

I would be inclined to consider them promotional reprints.  After all, through Orb and whatnot it's fairly clear that they aren't actually a part of Time Spiral, and therefore aren't Rare versus Common.  After all, a foil Gemstone Caverns can replace a common slot, but it's still Rare.

[Polynomial P]

Did everyone read Mark Rosewater's latest article, found here http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr247?

So what have the founders of skittles decided for the Timeshifted cards? Clearly they are not Rares, not part of time spiral, but are actually more rare in TS than even the Rares. I'd like to keep them at their original rarity since purple is like an absence of rarity, but thats my opinion.

[Philatio]

     In my opinion, since they take up a common slot in a pack, they're just common.  You get the same result if you consider them this way as if you say they have no rarity; after all if they have EVER been rare, you can't use them (so no purple symbol akroma).
     If they reprint pretty much any ex-rare as a common, it won't change the legality in skittles.
     I guess the problem is with respect to gemstone mine and avalanche riders, as pointed out, is that these are the rarest prints in the set - this comes up in some sets like Arabian Nights where some uncommons are actually rare (U2 vs U1 vs U3 etc) and hence not legal.
     Maro's article seems to indicate they are and aren't part of the set - they have sort of broken the rules.  They've done this before with colors (hybrid mana), and we chose to interpret that as half one color and half the other.  It seems as though we can do whatever we want since this is the only purple colored set.
     My personal feeling is that it would suck to take out 2 staples of the format.  I mean, we could live without riders, but what about the best 5 color land in the format?  I doubt it, even if it is getting replaced by another powerhouse land in this set.  The "no rarity" seems to have a legit argument, and it causes the least disruption, so I'd be in favor of that.
     Simon's out of the country until oct 4th or something, so he might not weigh in all that soon.

[Jacob Orlove]

I think I agree with that; these are listed as a separate set, not as part of Time Spiral, so their relative rarity in a TS booster is irrelevant. Just counting them as whatever they were before makes sense.

[Polynomial P]

I'd be really happy with this decision. Go go foil pendelhaven.

[Ultima]

I think I agree with that; these are listed as a separate set, not as part of Time Spiral, so their relative rarity in a TS booster is irrelevant. Just counting them as whatever they were before makes sense.

Pretty much what I think.  Although maybe Avalanche Riders is stupid enough to take the out here to ban it...