Skittles

[Cross]

In my experience transmute spells are not. I have tested a lot with kowal, and it seems like in a format based on two for ones, the transmute ability is meh. Every now and then it gets you that resolved bomb. But if your opponent is able to deal with what you transmuted for, they have taken one or two time walks based on how long it took you to play out the card that was tutored for.

[Philatio]

Oh, I've rocked the vial with it as well.  I actually cut Haunted Crossroads from my list, but I agree, transmute is insane.  Particularly the Infiltrator, as he is a dude, and nasty tricks ensue with him and recursion, as well.  Etched Oracle is the best creature in this format.  Clamping him makes me wet myself.  I'd really like to fit some flying fat in though, so I'm considering cutting Lim Dul's Vault for Morii.  I've been particularly underwhelmed with LDV lately.

I don't know about FAT, but a big power beater with flying I see people overlooking a lot is Phantasmal Forces.

[Jacob Orlove]

In my experience transmute spells are not. I have tested a lot with kowal, and it seems like in a format based on two for ones, the transmute ability is meh. Every now and then it gets you that resolved bomb. But if your opponent is able to deal with what you transmuted for, they have taken one or two time walks based on how long it took you to play out the card that was tutored for.

Well, generally I'm transmuting for either an answer or my engine. If I'm tutoring up an answer (especially postboard), I don't mind spending 6-7 mana to deal with a major threat or, often, with a tableful of cards.

The real power of transmute cards, though, is that they let you set up pure insanity. Transmuting for Witness, Witnessing back the Transmute spell, Transmuting for Haunted Crossroads, playing it with B open once Witness has died, and then going crazy is just awesome. Granted, that is a fairly extreme example, but with all the removal in this format, games often devolve to topdecking when both players have a ton of mana, and having that transmute sequence can be amazing. In fact, my deck is build specifically to encourage those kinds of attrition wars, with 6 cards that can kill artifacts, 5 that can kill enchantments, 8 that can kill creatures (plus lots of guys that trade), and a Faith's Fetters that can trade with anything, as well as Avalanche Riders and Radiant's Dragoons and tons of tutoring and recursion to get it all and get it all back. I even have two discard effects MD (Thunderscape Battlemage and Nightmare Void) to further push both players into a topdeck war, where transmute and recursion are insane.

Also, even if all I do is tutor up witness and then get back some useful spell out of the yard, I now have Witness in a zone I can work with, which is crucial. Having Witness available makes Reclamation, Crossroads, Gravedigger and several other cards much more potent than they would otherwise be.

[Philatio]

Simon (Nomad) tossed out the idea of a 2 headed giant skittles event at Day 2 Waterbury (when the date gets set, and provided Ray is down).  Is this something people might have an interest in? 

Clearly we'll be bringing skittles decks and would easily be able to have a normal event if we wanted, but would an alternate format be something people would build for, too?

I guess the only tricky part is figuring out if you have to have 2 decks that meet the deckbuilding criteria on their own, or if the shared decks have to meet it (ie - do both decks get a flametongue kavu? - do multicolor cards across the two decks have to balance out?).  I think the latter would be cool, but the former would allow people the option of just bringing skittles decks they already have and play them together as a team in the event.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh man, team skittles deck construction would be insanely insane. I do not think that colors should be balanced across decks, because then you can actually play a two color deck, which defeats the whole purpose. Limiting the whole team to no more than one copy of any card is very cool, but I think for the purposes of actually getting games in, you'd be better served by just letting people team up with regular decks, although certain decks will work much better than others.

[Philatio]

Oh man, team skittles deck construction would be insanely insane. I do not think that colors should be balanced across decks, because then you can actually play a two color deck, which defeats the whole purpose. Limiting the whole team to no more than one copy of any card is very cool, but I think for the purposes of actually getting games in, you'd be better served by just letting people team up with regular decks, although certain decks will work much better than others.

Haha, I didn't even think of that.  The possibility of having one deck be monocolored/artifact would be a little dumb.  So yeah, it would make sense to just have two regular skittles decks play together.

The thing I like about 2HG is that some cards get a lot worse or better than they are in duels; and it gives me an excuse to start work on a new couple of skittles decks meant to play in 2HG.

[Mr. Nightmare]

If for absolutely nothing else, Skittles is why I want to make it to this Waterbury.  2HG would be pretty difficult to prepare for, especially on the spot.  People who are interested in playing could probably throw a deck together, but with additional constraints on it, I think you wouldn't get many teams.  My vote goes to a maximum of 1 card in each deck, with a max of 2 per team; deck construction rules apply to each individual deck, and each deck must have the same number of cards per color.

[Jacob Orlove]

Okay, so I just stumbled across a little guildpact uncommon that may just be the best Skittles card in that set: [card]Vedalken Plotter[/card].

[Anusien]

Yeah, I knew about him and discarded him.  It seems cute that you can trade a normal land for a bounceland, but wouldn't Aven Fogbringer be better for that slot?  1/1s kind of really really suck.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh, Aven Fogbringer is good too, but 3 mana is a lot less than 4, and the Plotter is actual manafixing for you.

[EnialisLiadon]

I think the best you could do with Plotter is give them a near-dead gemstone mine or something.  But the fact that it's blue mana-fixing is definately interesting.  Also, it's also worthy or note that he can effectively cost 2 mana, as you can take an untapped land of the opponent's.

[Nomad]

If for absolutely nothing else, Skittles is why I want to make it to this Waterbury.  2HG would be pretty difficult to prepare for, especially on the spot.  People who are interested in playing could probably throw a deck together, but with additional constraints on it, I think you wouldn't get many teams.  My vote goes to a maximum of 1 card in each deck, with a max of 2 per team; deck construction rules apply to each individual deck, and each deck must have the same number of cards per color.

I figured it would be more interesting if people got to play decks that differed a bit, without Crystal Shard, Flametongue and Etched Oracle in every one.

Assuming Phil goes to Waterbury, we'll probably build a pair of decks for this.  Or maybe I'll make Harriet play.

[Philatio]

If for absolutely nothing else, Skittles is why I want to make it to this Waterbury.  2HG would be pretty difficult to prepare for, especially on the spot.  People who are interested in playing could probably throw a deck together, but with additional constraints on it, I think you wouldn't get many teams.  My vote goes to a maximum of 1 card in each deck, with a max of 2 per team; deck construction rules apply to each individual deck, and each deck must have the same number of cards per color.

I figured it would be more interesting if people got to play decks that differed a bit, without Crystal Shard, Flametongue and Etched Oracle in every one.

Assuming Phil goes to Waterbury, we'll probably build a pair of decks for this.  Or maybe I'll make Harriet play.

If there's skittles day 2, I will almost certainly go, even though I don't really play Type 1 anymore.  And I would be uber psyched to build some 2HG decks if for nothing else to try out some new cards.  Not that FtK wouldn't be good in that format, too.

[Harlequin]

I agree that It would be much more diverse if both players decks combined had to be Highlander.  It would make for better diversity.  Also you could build decks with slightly different focuses.

[Nomad]

I agree that It would be much more diverse if both players decks combined had to be Highlander.  It would make for better diversity.  Also you could build decks with slightly different focuses.

Well, yes.  Hopefully not as different as the ridiculous Erayo decks in the 2HG constructed at GenCon though...

2 highlander, 5 colour decks are going to be relatively hard to get to go broken together, I hope.

[Jacob Orlove]

2HG Skittles would also really really favor decks that prepare for the late game. If your deck cannot spend 10+ mana in a turn, then you're probably going to get overpowered once the big spells start flying.

Also, random agressive creatures become even more terrible, evasion (especially landwalk) becomes even more amazing, and the format basically turns into an even more extreme version of itself. It should be much more like 2HG limited than like 2HG constructed, although you could probably engineer some subtle synergies between the decks.

[Philatio]

Hooray for a new land-D spell:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/mtgcom/fcpics/features/327_wb_3199211.jpg

I can't say I like the land-D archetype one bit, but this seems better than pain/suffering (in most cases) if you run it in the red/black slot. 

And it's more castable than befoul.  Instant speed makes it playable in control decks, not just land-D decks.

[LordHomerCat]

I think this will probably replace my Terminate, unless that Rakdos Guildmage ends up being insane or something... Whats 2 more colorless mana anyway when I can randomly color screw someone as well?

[Anusien]

How are we handling gold splits?

[Jacob Orlove]

How are we handling gold splits?

They're three color cards, like the dragon charms.

[Cross]

Here’s my skittles deck. It’s a spirits/arcane deck. All of the creatures are spirits, and some of the spells are arcane.

// Lands
    2  Island
    2  Forest
    1  Izzet Boilerworks
    1  Krosan Verge
    3  Swamp
    2  Mountain
    2  Plains
    1  Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
    1  Wasteland
    1  Gemstone Mine
    1  Orzhov Basilica
    1  Mishra's Factory (4)
    1  Golgari Rot Farm
    1  Gruul Turf
    1  Treetop Village
    1  Selesnya Sanctuary
    1  Dimir Aqueduct
    1  Mirrodin's Core

// Creatures
    1  Loam Dweller
    1  Hearth Kami
    1  Floating-Dream Zubera
    1  Ghost-Lit Warder
    1  Kami of Ancient Law
    1  Carven Caryatid
    1  Thief of Hope
    1  Elder Pine of Jukai
    1  Pain Kami
    1  Nikko-Onna
    1  Keening Banshee
    1  Phantom Centaur
    1  Haru-Onna
    1  Yuki-Onna
    1  Shimmering Glasskite
    1  Forked-Branch Garami
    1  Belfry Spirit
    1  Scuttling Death
    1  Torii Watchward
    1  Sire of the Storm

// Spells
    1  Skullclamp
    1  Wayfarer's Bauble
    1  Lightning Bolt
    1  Soulless Revival
    1  Glacial Ray
    1  Lightning Greaves
    1  Fellwar Stone
    1  Terminate
    1  Electrolyze
    1  Rend Flesh
    1  Kodama's Reach
    1  Darksteel Ingot
    1  Crystal Shard
    1  Spite/Malice
    1  Faith's Fetters
    1  Terashi's Grasp


Any thoughts?

I want to fit in a few cards and I have been unhappy with a few others.

I want to fit in Hana Kami. It combos with soulless revival to do some fairly sick plays, and it’s good with the soul shift mechanic. I am considering taking out carven caryatid because of the double green requirement, but I’m not sure I like this because of the draw engine of shard and caryatid. Plus caryatid is a lot larger than most skittles creatures.

Ghost lit warder is terrible, but so are most of the blue spirits. Is there any good replacement here? I was thinking Deep Analysis, but some people have written opinions against DA.

At times the zuberas can be underwhelming, but they are good soul shift material, and if you have both the draw card ability of the blue one can be powerful.

What are people’s opinions on X burn spells? Are they better than lightning bolts or electrolyzes?

[Jacob Orlove]

I like instant speed creature removal, but that's because I have a ton of other stuff to spend my mana on. If you find that later in the game you have a lot of mana free, X-spells are probably a good idea.

As for good spirits, here's a few interesting ideas that you don't have:
Cloud Spirit (3/1 flyer for 2U)
Revenant Patriarch (4/3 for 4B plus they skip an attack)
Dimir Infiltrator (1/3 unblockable for UB, Transmute)
Drift of Phantasms (0/5 flying wall for 2U, Transmute)
Spirit en-Kor (2/2 flyer for 3W, damage redirection)

Soulshift plus transmute could be some nice synergy.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh, and just for fun, here's my current list, although I haven't tested Vedalken Plotter yet, and as always I don't own an Imperial Recruiter, so it's not in there either:

Green:
Eternal Witness
Yavimaya Elder
Civic Wayfinder
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Thornscape Battlemage

No changes, as usual. These cards are insanely insane. My deck is all about Eternal Witness and the rest of the green cards, so my manabase is heavily slanted towards producing green, as you'll see later. Also, Tribe Elder is the only manafixer that actually accelerates my mana (aside from the newly added Felwar Stone). This deck is happy to make early trades while I develop my mana, and then just keep making land drops and doing insane things for the next ten+ turns.

Black:
Phyrexian Reclamation
Haunted Crossroads
Gravedigger
Nightmare Void (untested)*

I cut the b/g and b/r gold cards, because they were a little weak, so I had room for one more spell. Nightmare Void seemed like a good fit for the deck, since it gives me a strong attack against stuff like splice and it lets me force us into a topdeck war that I can win with recursion and tutoring. Black is the second most important color in terms of mana, both because I have so many good black cards, and because Reclamation and Crossroads are both much stronger if you can play them with B open.

Blue:
Drift of Phantasms
Trinket Mage
Exclude
Condescend (untested)*

Ray of Command was not pulling its weight. Condescend is solid, but may become Plotter. Blue is probably the third most important color for the deck (lots of cards, with only Drift as double blue), but thanks to the guild bouncelands we currently have available, it was actually undersupported until I fixed my mana.

Red:
Avalanche Riders
Flametongue Kavu
Fire Imp
Thunderscape Battlemage
Tin Street Hooligan (untested)*
Firebolt (untested)*

I had an extra red slot after reorganizing my gold cards, so the Hooligan went it. He seems efficient, and killing artifacts is nice. Firebolt is a test replacement for Bolt, to see how good the flashback is. Red is one of the unimportant colors in my manabase, as all these cards are just removal. Tutors and mana fixers get a much higher priority in the manabase.

White:
Swords to Plowshares
Radiant's Dragoons
Orim's Thunder
Seed Spark
Faith's Fetters (untested)*

Fetters is in over Humble, because of the new layering rules. Humbling a creature with Moldervine Cloak AND Armadillo Cloak, only to find that it stays a 5/6 is no fun. White is, like Red, unimportant overall, but the two disenchants make it a slightly higher priority, especially since I have a few more white cards than red ones.

Gold:
Selesnya Guildmage
Aura Shards*

Dimir Guildmage
Moroii
Perplex
Clutch of the Undercity

These are all really good. The four U/B cards help explain why black and blue get so much more attention in the manabase than white and red..

Artifact:
Crystal Shard
Aether Vial
Skullclamp
Etched Oracle
Infused Arrows
Fellwar Stone (untested)

I wanted a bit more acceleration and mana fixing, so Stone seemed like a good idea. All of these cards are really good, especially Vial.


Mana base:
Gemstone Mine
Mirrodin's Core

The standard 5-color lands of the format.

Wasteland
Mishra's Factory
Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree

My colorless lands. All of them can be quite strong, but Factory is clearly much weaker than the other two. People LOVE to trade creatures with Factory, though, which is fine by me, because I have so many lands.

Selesnya Sanctuary
Golgari Rot Farm
Gruul Turf
Dimir Aqueduct
Orzhov Basilica
Izzet Boilerworks

I'm going to add the Simic (U/G) one as soon as it's legal. Obviously, I would keep all the G/X ones and the U/B one, but I'm not sure whether the last one is the Azorius or the Orzhov one. They are SO good, though, that I might just squeeze in both (or rather, Orzhov/Izzet or Azorius/Rakdos).
Current mana produced by these: GGG BBB WW RR UU

Pendelhaven
Treetop Vilalge
Tranquil Thicket
Slippery Karst
Faerie Conclave

This is where you see the real green emphasis of my manabase. The cycling lands have great synergy with lategame Guild Land topdecks, since you can bounce them and then cycle them away to dig for business. Conclave addresses the slight blue shortage from the guild lands, although it would be nice if it was something that didn't CIP tapped. Incidentally, Pendelhaven is a HOUSE, thanks to my three sources of 1/1 tokens.

Snow-Covered Forest
Snow-Covered Island
Snow-Covered Swamp
Forest
Island
Swamp
Plains
Mountain

And finally, the basic lands. A few extra sources of G, B, and U, because being able to tutor for the second colored mana in those colors is really good. I have had only one game where being unable to tutor for a Snow-Covered Mountain or Plains was a problem, and that was only because I forgot and didn't get back Mountain with Witness when I should have.

_____________________________ _____________________________ ____________

Here are some stats:

Total mana production:
Green: 11 sources
Blue: 7 sources
Black: 7 sources
Red: 5 sources
White: 5 sources

Mana fixers:
Tribe Elder
Civic Wayfinder
Yavimaya Elder
Fellwar Stone
Aether Vial

Tutors (can get mana fixers):
Perplex
Clutch of the Undercity
Drift of Phantasms
Trinket Mage

Situational mana fixers:
Eternal Witness
Condescend

Counters:
Exclude
Condescend

Creature Removal:
Swords to Plowshares
Firebolt
Fire Imp
Infused Arrows
Flametongue Kavu
Thornscape Battlemage
Faith's Fetters
Orim's Thunder (sometimes)

Artifact Removal:
Tin Street Hooligan
Orim's Thunder
Seed Spark
Aura Shards
Thornscape Battlemage
Faith's Fetters (probably)

Enchantment Removal:
Orim's Thunder
Seed Spark
Aura Shards
Thunderscape Battlemage
Faith's Fetters (sometimes)

Land Removal:
Avalanche Riders
Faith's Fetters (sometimes)

Lifegain (damage removal):
Radiant's Dragoons

Discard (hand removal):
Nightmare Void
Dimir Guildmage
Thunderscape Battlemage

Graveyard removal:
none (frowns)

Engines (reusable card advantage):
Vitu-Ghazi
Selesnya Guildmage
Dimir Guildmage
Skullclamp
Phyrexian Reclamation
Haunted Crossroads
Crystal Shard

Stuff that fits into none of the above categories, but is really good anyway:
Gravedigger
Etched Oracle
Moroii

Oracle is just savagely good (especially if Clamped, ugh), while Moroii is savage beats. Gravedigger is solid, since I have so many good creatures, but he's also a key out if Witness and my black enchantments hit the graveyard.

So yeah, that's my current list. I expect Dissension to shake things up some, but there's no longer that much room for improvement. I put *s next to the cards I might seriously consider removing if something generically good comes along, but I suspect that there will only be a few real gems from the set to abuse.

[Roxas]

Here's my deck.  It's basically an aggro deck, but gets to play around with Auras in the long game.

White:
Nagao, Bound by Honor (might become Monk Idealist)
Auramancer
Auratouched Mage
Faith's Fetters

Blue:
Stratozeppelid (this seems bad, I'd really like to find something better)
Flight of Fancy
Iridescent Drake
Mark of Eviction
Trinket Mage

Black:
Animate Dead
Strands of Undeath (Might become Dance of the Dead)
Phyrexian Reclamation
Haunted Crossroads
Gravedigger

Red:
Lightning Bolt
Incinerate (I'd love for these burn spells to be Auras of some sort, but I'm not sure what I could use)
Galvanic Arc
Sokenzan Spellblade
Flametongue Kavu

Green:
Dowsing Shaman
Moldervine Cloak
Thornscape Battlemage
Sakura-tribe Elder
Civic Wayfinder

Gold:
Moroii
Dimir Guildmage (might become Clutch)

Sunhome Enforcer
Lightning Helix

Armadillo Cloak
Selesnya Guildmage

Artifact:
Chromatic Sphere
Bonesplitter
Wayfarer's Bauble
Fellwar Stone
Skullclamp
Etched Oracle

Lands:
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Boros Garrison
1 Gruul Turf
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Krosan Verge
1 Mirrodin's Core
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Treetop Village
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
1 Quicksand (can probably be something better)

[froz3nn]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already, but bazaar of bagdad is an uncommon. Although i am not sure were it would be best, i would think that reanimator would be really good with this although i think it needs alternatives to squee. I also think that it is pretty good with eternal witness. Unfortunately,not many people have access to them, and with ld seeming to be a powerfull strategy, making it not likely to survive, not to mention it doesn't make any mana(!), and has anti-synergy with the already shaky mana bases that are found in this format.

[Anusien]

Bazaar of Baghdad is U3 in a set with no rares, so it's banninated.

[Philatio]

Bazaar of Baghdad is U3 in a set with no rares, so it's banninated.

If you check Simon's webpage at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/swcooper/skittles.html, he mentions in Arabian Nights the U2s are the rares.  The breakdown for the set is at http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/products/arabiannights.php - a list of the cards are at http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/lists/files/list-an.pdf.

I've always thought Bazaar was legal.  I had it proxied in a reanimator deck when I first started playing the format, but was a little underwhelmed because it's hard to hold those ranimation effects if your hand size is shrinking.  The closest thing to squee I can think of is Death Spark.

I've been meaning to throw a deck together for a while with a Bazaar a Mana Drain and a Berserk in it for no other reason to be funny.  I don't know what else would go in it to make it good or synergetic, though. 

Are there any other really expensive, legal skittles cards?

[Philatio]

Bazaar of Baghdad is U3 in a set with no rares, so it's banninated.

If you check Simon's webpage at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/swcooper/skittles.html, he mentions in Arabian Nights the U2s are the rares.  The breakdown for the set is at http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/products/arabiannights.php - a list of the cards are at http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/lists/files/list-an.pdf.

I've always thought Bazaar was legal.  I had it proxied in a reanimator deck when I first started playing the format, but was a little underwhelmed because it's hard to hold those ranimation effects if your hand size is shrinking.  The closest thing to squee I can think of is Death Spark.

I've been meaning to throw a deck together for a while with a Bazaar a Mana Drain and a Berserk in it for no other reason to be funny.  I don't know what else would go in it to make it good or synergetic, though. 

Are there any other really expensive, legal skittles cards?

Uh.....  okay.  What really jumps out at me from that list now that I read the whole thing and not just the Bazaar part is the Library of Alexandria is also U3, which would also make it legal.  And something I bet you'd want to play.

[Polynomial P]

Nothing from the Type 1 restricted list is allowed, so Library could not be played, even if it is considered an uncommon.

[Philatio]

Nothing from the Type 1 restricted list is allowed, so Library could not be played, even if it is considered an uncommon.

Uh, Derf.  There is that obvious thing I overlooked.    Otherwise we'd all play Fact or Fiction.....