Topics

Hi,
after reading anouncement, one thing crossed my mind regarding Scapeshift issue. What is real offender in Scapeshift deck? Is it Scapeshidt itself or the fact, that it tutors Valakut that insta-kill the opponent. I have never seen using Valakut in RDW as a tech for manaflood situations and I gues, that any other deck can't even think about including it. On the other hand Scapeshift itself has some interesting applications. It can tutor tech lands, enable land synergies, landfall triggers, Dark Depths combo, Urborg & Cabal Coffers, Glacial Chasm lock... All above mentioned is quite fun and can bring interesting games. What is currently not so fun is the fact, that resolved Scapeshift ends the game without much possibility for opponent to interact with it.

Would you reconsider swapping Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle for Scapeshift on the Watchlist?

I know that today it is first april = fools days. But I do not find nothing funny or amusing on today's anouncement. I will not be defending Top, although I think, it is far from neccessary to ban it.

What surprised me was banning of Natural Order. It was clear, that people who are willing to play this card will not be searching Courser of Crupix with it but Primeval Titan, Crafthoof Behemoth or Protean Hulk.

I searched decks which accualy made it to mtgpulse and I found 18 entries (still it is just Berlin meta though). Uses of the card varried - 8x4c piles, 4xRG various builds, just 1xPattern. Which is not that bad or supposed to be used as banning criteria. On several tournaments we had here in Prague, one could see someone resolve Natural Order, but there was no crying about it or no heated discussion.

You released demon from the bottle, people used it and before meta could adapt you stripped the card again. I think it is mistake to ban it so harshly.

Hi
I would like to start new thread about this sweet deck. Three years ago there was thread also featuring Hearthbeat of the Spring. Oldtime hearthbeat deck was almost pure combo deck with ramp elements. The deck, I want to present today is diffrent, althought many aspects of the deck are similar. There are some big differences in deck structure.

Pure combo aprochach used one or two removals in whole deck, the rest was just bounce. Goal of this deck was ramp quickly, draw many cards and then kill. Usually it was using fog efects against agro. It could easily get in situation of almost no possible recovery - like winterorb or single hatebear.

Combo-control aproach is completely different. It is more atrrition deck than combo deck. It runs 4 wrats efects, 5 spot removals, hand full of counters, draw spells for mid and late game, 4 planewalkers to grind advantage, 2 lifegaining spells.

Here is the decklist:

//lands
7 Island
5 Forest
1 Plains
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Tundra
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Arid Mesa
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mystic Gate
1 Karakas

//Combo
1 Palinchron
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Mirari's Wake
1 Future Sight

//Timewalks+Untap
1 Frantic Search
1 Turnabout
1 Treachery
1 Time Spiral

1 Exhaustion
1 Capture of Jingzhou
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Time Warp
1 Temporal Mastery

//Tutors
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Personal Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Wargate
1 Tooth and Nail

//Defense
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Wall of Omens
1 Augur of Bolas
1 Timely Reinforcements

1 Nature's Claim
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path to Exile
1 Oust
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Terminus

1 Mental Misstep
1 Negate
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Mana Leak
1 Remand
1 Counterspell
1 Mana Drain
1 Cryptic Command
1 Force of Will

//Ramping
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wall of Roots

1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Three Visits
1 Nature's Lore
1 Farseek
1 Into the North
1 Rampant Growth

//Regrowths
1 Eternal Witness
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Regrowth

//Draw
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Compulsive Research
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Careful Consideration
1 Concentrate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Tidings
1 Braingeyser
1 Sphinx's Revelation

//Cantrip
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sylvan Library

//Planewalkers
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Gideon Jura


Funcitons of some cards overlap, so the division into these categories is not strict.

Goal of this deck is take over the game - wrath board, get PW's to play, draw many cards and if possible kill with combo or Emrakul. This deck is not evading comfrontation like High Tide decks. It is ready to get hit by some nasty spells like Mindcensor, Gaddock, W. Orb, Glena Eleandra. It has all the solutions to most common combo stoppers.

From the deck playstyle perspective it can be percieved as Timewalk combo. It outgrinds opponent by takind several timewalks in row. By timewalk I don't mean just regular timewalk, but cards that behave like timewalk under some circumstances - like Wrath opponents creatures, don't let opponent untap, tapping opponents creatures or lands on upkeap, getting lifes with Timely Reinforcements or Sphinx Relevation, stall game with Jace or Gideon, Oust a creature... there is plenty ways how to gain pseudo timewalk. When this deck gets to lategame it should overwhelm opponent by card advantage. It does not rely purely on the combo kill, but it can kill with planewalkers as well.

Against agro you play control card, against agrocontrol you play more like combo because they lack speed and against control you play like big control but with more crazy lategame plan. Upside is that opponents will have dead many cards against this deck. All the removal will be completely dead. This deck has capability of getting rid of cards that are out of matchup by several cards - Brainstorm, Jace, Frantic Search, Compulsive Research, Thirst of Knowledge and Careful Consideration. It is more than usual control decks have available.

I returned to this deck after some time and it has performed extremely well lately. Last two tournaments I had 4-1 score. Two losses were against WW and the second mono blue control. Our meta is filled with bluebased-agrocontrol decks and creature based combo decks. Int this kind of metagame this deck is realy what you want to play.

The best card in the deck is by far Futuresight! This deck is designed to do some incredible plays with this enchantment. And I do not meen just Top + FS combo.