Introduction

For those of you who know me, you are probably aware I've spent the better part of 2015 working on this deck, right from the first incarnation that bore a very close resemblance to Tommi Hovi's Pro Tour Rome winning deck.

For those of you who don't, hi, I'm Hrishi. I love combo decks and have long wanted to work on one of my own. After watching the Academy combo deck in action on video (thanks Randy Beuhler!) I wanted to bring that deck back to life in Vintage today.

I am not sure which section this deck belongs in. Feel free to move it to the appropriate section if this one is incorrect.

History

I like to include historical perspective for those not familiar with this archetype, please skip to the end of this section if it does not interest you.

Ever since this broken card was printed, it has infiltrated every single format it was legal in. It saw play both in Standard and Extended at the time. Of course, it got banned very quickly, but not before it featured prominently in the winning deck of Pro Tour Rome.
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/65

From the point of view of Vintage, it was restricted as well. This did not stop people at the time. A regular player of Neutral Ground, Matt D'Avanzo, worked on a Vintage version that ran with a single copy of this land.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/decks-horsepower-2002-11-06

For your interest, there is a thread discussing this deck on this very website. It is, of course, quite outdated for the game today, but it is very interesting from a historical perspective.
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=11799.10

Tendrils of Agony was printed and Academy combo largely fell to the wayside. There have been some attempts through the years to revive this archetype.
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=41952.0

During preparation for the NYSE Open of 2015, I came across this deck and wanted to work on this. After many rough versions and hilariously bad results at small events, I came to a version that I liked enough. I played a very similar version at both the NYSE Open and Eternal Weekend of 2015.
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=47988.0

And here we are.

Deconstructing Combo Decks

Combo decks largely fall into two broad divisions.

• X-Card Combos

This typically refer to you requiring "X" number of cards that when brought together create a powerful, often game-winning effect. In Vintage you usually only see either 1-card or 2-card combos, anything higher is usually unwieldy. For example, Tinker is a 2-card combo, but is often really only 1-card when your deck is built such that you always have access to some random Mox. Oath of Druids is a 2-card combo with Forbidden Orchard that turns into a 1-card combo when your opponent is nice enough to play a creature for you.

• Engine Combos

These decks usually have enough replacement pieces and the entire deck is one big combo, working together to create a game-winning effect. That is to say, engine combos do not require specific cards for it's engine to continue running as there are usually multiple cards that satisfy this condition.

Why do I bring this up? When it comes to deck construction in combo, I believe it is important to understand what sort of deck you are trying to make. When it comes to Academy combo, the deck is undoubtedly supposed to be an engine.

We bridge the gap between the two by kickstarting the engine with a "combo" of Time Spiral and Tolarian Academy. In reality, any Draw7 will start the engine. The deck is constructed in such a way Time Spiral is a one-card combo because finding Tolarian Academy becomes easy. Once Tolarian Academy is on the table, Time Spiral usually results in a win. Of course, Draw7s have inherent randomness, but with a Top in play you will almost never fizzle.

Winning

The deck wins by casting Mind Over Matter and pointing a large Stroke of Genius at your opponent. Some people were confused how you could do this with only a single Stroke left.

• Mind Over Matter your Academy, make a bunch of mana, cast Stroke on yourself
• Drop all artifacts (including Tops and Grids), make a ton of mana, cast a Time Spiral
• Use MoM + Top to find your Stroke again for the kill

Decklist Discussion

Below is the decklist I had been playing with right up to the most recent B&R announcement. Please understand that there is no standard decklist, you MUST make adjustments for whatever metagame you expect to face. I played 13 lands for both NYSE and Worlds because I expected shops. I played 12 lands and more Grids in the MTGO Daily because I expected more blue and storm, etc.

When you understand the role of each card in the deck, it becomes easy to tinker with the list and make adjustments based on what you expect to face.


This deck's big glaring weakness comes in the form of two things, Wastelands and Null Rods. Post Chalice restriction, the number of Null Rods had increased and I sought to make a version less susceptible to that sort of hate. Unfortunately, this meant getting rid of the Thoughtcast engine and looking elsewhere. Below was my attempt at making a non-artifact land version that kept it's explosiveness as much as it could.


This is where I am currently at. The reason for going up to 3 Strokes is that with being able to resolve Moxen and etc easier, you get to cast mini-strokes on yourself for 4-5 and those are almost as good as any bomb you have in the deck, and usually results in a win if allowed to resolve. Windfall and Yawgmoth's Will are the 2 "card advantage" engines I put in instead of Thoughtcasts. The main issue of Yawgmoth's Will is that is it pretty bad mid-combo.

Is there a better suggestion out there than just overloading on X card draw? You need something to spend all that mana on!

It's possible this is inferior? I wasn't sure if I liked Thoughtcasts without having artifact lands. How does it look?

Individual Card Discussion

The main mindset to understand in this deck is that mana generation is very different to other contemporary Vintage decks. You will often have ridiculous amounts of mana at your disposal.

Before anybody asks, I believe Stroke is superior to BSZ due to being castable with a ton of off-color Moxen. I have often cast a Stroke with a single blue source on the table and won as a result.

I keep flip-flopping between 12 and 13 lands. I am honestly not sure where I would be happier.

The three Tops provide a lot of the deck's consistency, effectively turning each Draw7 into a Draw10. Mind Over Matter + Top also cycles through your entire deck until you find any card you want.

Defense Grids are some of the best disruption available to pre-emptively stop opposing counters. One overlooked advantage is that with your superior mana generation, you can often pay for Grids to counter something your opponent deck if it ever becomes necessary.

Dack Faydens was a suggestion I received some time ago as a way to "counter" opposing Dacks as well as a maindeck "bomb" against Shops. It also loots (thus making your Draw7s into Draw9s) and steals artifacts such as moxen to power your Academy.

Tezzeret, Time Vault and Voltaic Key make up your deck's secondary win condition. It synergizes very well with your main plan because artifacts power Academy. Mind Over Matter also untap Time Vault.

Sideboard Discussion

I know SBs are typically just extensions of your deck but I wanted to make a separate section on this. There is some argument to be made that the only things that beat you is Null Rod, Wasteland and a counter to stop you. We have ways to bring in cards to nullify these cards (Needle for Wasteland, Defense Grid for counters and some bounce for Null Rod). Certain Hatebears also stop you such as Spirit of the Lab.

Is it better to have a SB dedicated to beating hate you might encounter? As long as you are allowed to combo off you can usually ignore anything that has happened since. You could run something like 4 Pithing Needles, 4 Chain of Vapor, extra Defense Grids, etc...

The other point of discussion is beating Workshops. One technique I came across while playing was morphing into a UR semi-control deck with very powerful mana generation to jump spheres and hardcast Ingot Chewers. The other is bouncing with Hurkyl's and comboing. I am honestly not sure which approach is superior.

The anti-Dredge plan is very powerful with 5 maindeck ways to reset the graveyard so you do not need too much. I suggest diversifying the hate you bring in so you force the Dredge player to bring in a multitude of answers. Pithing Needles just happen to hate on Dredge, they are taking SB room for Wasteland.

Closing Thoughts

I wanted to post a tiny write-up to maybe get some suggestions from people here and maybe generate some discussion. I truly believe the archetype is inherently very powerful. It has many advantages over Storm combo, not the least of which is the ability to combo through multiple spheres. I have won with 2 Spheres, 1 LSG and a Trinisphere on the table before.

If anybody tries it or has any suggestions on improving this, do let me know! A lot of people working on a single deck is infinitely better than anything a single person can come up with.

If there is anything you'd like me to expand on, do let me know and I will try to do so.

There are a lot of directions this deck can go. I hope you come up with some nice ones!

In a word, Null Rod. Null Rod is not bad if I can find Academy before it lands. The issue is if it actively prevents tutoring for the Academy itself. At that point I'm dependent on finding and resolving one of my Ingot Chewers, bouncing it or finding Academy another way. God help me if it's a Stony Silence. Ancient Grudge is also a good card, as are Wastelands.

Note that I'm not saying the above matches are unwinnable, but just the ones that give me the most trouble. I can lose if my mana is constantly denied and I am prevented from "ramping" into my expensive spells. I usually never lose to counters alone, it requires backing up with mana denial.

I had a document saved with all the SBing plans which I'll paste in here once I get home!

Here's an example from my document. It is unfortunately still using the older decklist, but it should be good enough to give you an idea!

SHOPS
+3 Ingot Chewer
+2 Viashino Heretic
+1 Mountain
+2 Hurkyl's Recall
+2 Pithing Needle

-3 Defense Grid
-1 Mox Opal (consider keeping it on the play)
-1 Wheel of Fortune
-1 Sensei's Divining Top
-2 Thoughtcast
-1 Brainstorm
-1 Ponder

Alternatively, you can remove these and forgo the combo altogether.

-3 Defense Grid
-1 Mox Opal
-1 Sensei's Divining Top
-1 Wheel of Fortune
-1 Mind Over Matter
-1 Stroke of Genius
-2 Time Spiral

In this plan, you give up the combo and seek to win by riding Dack or Viashino Heretic to victory, along with hardcast Chewers.

Oddly was looking at the old thread just the other day (I bookmarked it a while ago)

I used to play a fun candelabra/capsize build years back - not the best deck, but hilarious. This seems to have the fun with more consistency.

These are both reasonable suggestions. The problem is the color. You could potentially go 5c but the main issue is that multiples of the above cards are dead. Expedition Maps at least power your Academy (which translates into a lot of mana if you untap it multiple times with MoM). I'd be more ok with Sylvan Scrying than Crop Rotation due to the prevalence of Misstep and getting your Crop Rotation countered is a 2-for-1. Mostly though, Maps boost your artifact count. You want a lot of them in your deck to power your Academy.

Why?  Living wish was just awful for Randy.

Swapping Red for Green is something that could work because you get a few more cards such as Fastbond. I very much dislike Living Wish, however. By putting Academy in your SB, you remove the chance of ever drawing it naturally, remove finding it with Top and remove being able to Demonic Tutor/Vampiric Tutor for it. It's just not worth doing that.

Crop Rotation would certainly make things more explosive, but I wonder if increasing explosiveness is the way to go. As it currently stands, kickstarting the combo is where the challenge lies because you lose when you cannot get to 6 mana to cast your Time Spiral. Of course, post-Grid, Crop Rotation is going to easily resolve. That being said, the colorless requirement of Map is not to be under-stated compared to the colored requirement of Sylvan Scrying/Crop Rotation.

I'll do some testing swapping Green in and report.

Misstep hits crop rotation. But then again force hits sylvan scrying. . .  point is, anything can be countered. And yes, I recognize that misstep is something to consider.  But I think sometimes its given too much weight.  The existence of misstep is not, in and of itself, a reason to never play 1 drops.  It is a reason to carefully consider your 1 drops but don't dismiss them out of hand just because of a narrow counter.

Consider for example running 2 crop rotations. Are you just throwing them out there as soon as you draw them?  Probably not. More than likely you are holding them for either a waste/strip effect (which at least game 1 most decks running waste/strip don't run misstep).   Or you are waiting until you can do something with the land you are fetching.

Scrying is sorcery speed vs instant for crop rotation.  Scrying costs 1 more than rotation. Scrying puts the land into your hand vs into play for rotation. All 3 of these are major factors when you consider what crop rotation does - it protects your manabase.   If you get your academy wasted you can at least replace it with 1 mana.  If  you get an early land wasted you can rotation search for academy. Or if you if have all the combo pieces but just need mana....instantly get academy.   Against shops who's goal is to destabilize your mana base and make your spells cost more I'd think crop rotation is hands down better.

Against other combo decks again the ability to put academy right into play I'd think is better. It lets you race easier. This decklist already runs vamp tutor for somewhat the same purpose with the exact same drawback.  Without playtesting I don't know if green for crop rotation is worthwhile. But I can be pretty sure its far better than sylvan scrying.

Going green over red is a great idea imo. This gives you access Fastbond, Crop Rotation, Sylvan Library, and both Natures Claim and Abrupt Decay which both can handle Null Rods and Stony Silence. If you want to you might even be able to fit in Zuran Orb and Crucible of Worlds. A billion life and mana Academy or not is always fun.