Developing An Intuition For Intuition

You can also create Gifts Ungivenesque packages such as Buried Ruin, Academy Ruins, and Crucible of Worlds. Or Unburial Rites, Faithless Looting, and Griselbrand. One package that Drew Levin said he and Gerry Thompson had discussed some time ago was Life from the Loam, Academy Ruins, and a key artifact such as Engineered Explosives.

Anyway, as previously stated, one of the applications that intrigues me most is as a Tutor for one-of instants and sorceries with the use of Snapcaster Mage (or just sorceries with Recoup, or any card with Noxious Revival / Eternal Witness / Regrowth etc., but let’s focus on Snapcaster Mage). The main problem with this is that whatever instant or sorcery you’re searching for along with your two Snapcaster Mages is going to cost 1U more to cast, which is often debilitating.

So the main problem with Intuition for Accumulated Knowledge is the same as the problem with using Intuition to Tutor with Snapcaster Mage: it simply costs too much mana over too many turns over the course of multiple spells.

How to tackle this problem? The natural conclusion is to add mana acceleration, but that solution falls short in practice. You see, you’re creating acceleration, but you’re not generating the velocity the shell needs to function in the format. Using a Birds of Paradise variant, a Rampant Growth variant, or what have you only gives you one additional mana. You still are spending three, then two, then the cost of the spells you need to use to survive, and so on. The whole thing still takes multiple turns full of mana while on a restrictive time frame. Even though you’re making that process occur sooner, you’re not making the process itself any faster. That’s the difference between acceleration and velocity.

The second natural solution an intelligent deckbuilder would come to is to think outside the frame of “go faster” and try to make it so that it is ok that you are going slowly. You can overload on removal/disruption in order to buy the necessary time to develop your engine to generate that advantage as well as give you a smoother avenue to convert those extra resources into a position of true favor.* This is actually the correct solution but not the full answer required. Partial credit should be awarded, though, as you do indeed need to build your deck with enough cheap ways to survive to get the train rolling, keep the plates spinning, or prevent the jiggler from…spewing grape juice. These cards also often function well to help you trade down resources at a fast clip to press the advantage that your engine generated.

* “A position of true favor” is a phrase I use here to mean a completely advantageous game state. There are so many factors and resources in Magic that it is almost always the case that one player may be up in one area but down in others such as life total, cards in hand, mana available, relevant threats left in deck, etc. “A position of true favor” means a game state where one player has complete control over [nearly] every aspect of the game and is overwhelmingly likely to win, save a tremendous blunder or an extremely unlikely series of very unfortunate events.

The most elegant and efficient solution is to take a page out of a very old book and use Sapphire Medallion to not only accelerate your engine but compress the entire process. Say it takes a turn to play an accelerant, a turn to Intuition, a turn to draw cards, a turn to stabilize the board, and a turn to trade resources and turn the tables. Now, it takes one turn to both Intuition and draw the cards, and just one turn to both stabilize the board and to trade off. That is the difference between acceleration and velocity. It’s not about doing clunky things sooner; it’s about smoothing out your entire game and making the clunkiness lean.

This whole time I’ve only been referencing the Accumulated Knowledge route, but the same principles apply to the Snapcaster Mage Tutor route. Besides the obvious fact that assuming your bullet is blue, you save two mana with Snapcaster Mage, it also simply allows you to do multiple things in any given turn. This is important when you need to stave off aggression while also setting up your Intuition game plan and executing it.

So now our deck has some structure:

4 Snapcaster Mage – cornerstone

4 Accumulated Knowledge – engine

4 Sapphire Medallion – backbone

3-4 Intuition – key role-player

4 Brainstorm – obv

4 Swords to Plowshares – most efficient control card ever, serving the dual purposes of survival early and resource conversion late

4 Force of Will – inefficient but most flexible control card, again serving that dual purpose, trading down

X silver bullets

X win conditions

22-24 land

You can see the deck taking form in front of your very eyes! Oooo, aaahhhhhh…

The natural direction to take the deck is into U/W, as Swords to Plowshares is just the best at what it does and plays the best with Snapcaster Mage. There are some bullets that also help make white the obvious choice of color pairing that we’ll get to in a second, but you could fairly easily be playing Dismember and/or Repeals with a boatload of countermagic and it would be the same idea.

But I digress. The next card to be added is in a similar “obv” vein as Brainstorm: Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Not only is it the most effective spell ever in the same lineage as Serra Angel, Morphling, Psychatog, and Tarmogoyf before it, it also curves adorably from a Sapphire Medallion. If you thought Jace was impactful on turn 4 or 5, just wait until you run him out there Jace Beleren style. Surely I don’t have to sell you on this guy any more (he really does just do it all, and damn well at that), but I will say that some may be pensive about playing all four of the copies allowed by the tournament rules. Let me assure you, it is more than alright.

Having access to four is actually not only very good but absolutely crucial for this deck. Good because you’re more likely to have one when you need it and can generate a significant advantage in control mirrors by forcing (no pun intended) a Force of Will from an opponent, two-for-one-ing them, only to follow it up with another copy. Similarly, you can use your Jace to kill their Jace (or get yours killed by theirs) and still have access to one. Crucial because you’ll often get one Thoughtseized or otherwise dealt with and need to Intuition for another copy.

If you’re afraid of drawing too many, [then get over it] just realize that if you have superfluous planeswalkers, you can always pitch them to Force of Will, put them back with Brainstorm, or put them back with the +0 ability of your other Jace. And if you have a Jace in play, then you’re probably so far ahead that it doesn’t matter that you have a “dead” card stuck in your hand. It may be a little awkward to have multiples clogging up your hand early, but trust me when I say that this is a small price to pay for the power you are instilling into your build simply by having the maximum copies of the scariest card in the format available to you.

Next thing to look at is what silver bullets we want to have access to. The types of effects you want are powerful and widespread in their application. Powerful because you’re investing a lot to find them, and commonly useful because there is a certain percentage of the time where you’ll naturally draw it and want them to do something in those situations. Plus, Legacy is an open enough format that you want cards that can get you out of a lot of unique jams.

I believe the first two are fairly obvious: a Wrath of God and a Counterspell. Two of the most versatile and powerful control cards in the history of the game (you’re seeing a pattern, yes?). Instead of actual-literal Wrath of God, we’re going to play his mixed-race younger brother, Supreme Verdict. Countermagic is a lot more common than regeneration in Legacy, plus Sapphire Medallion gives you a discount. This means that Snapcaster Wrath, a play that would normally be far too late to save you, only costs as much as Wrath proper.

A hard counter is just a nice thing to have. Totally fine as a natural draw at any point, plays very well with Snapcaster Mage, and so on. I thought that it was a super obvious inclusion, but it ended up being underwhelming. But more on that later.

Next is a win condition. This one actually took a lot of thought. It should be stated that most of the time, your opponents will sort of die incidentally once you have a big enough advantage as a control deck. What I mean by “incidentally die” is that they’ll have literally no resources left while you’re still flush with cards and any old Jace or Snapcaster will finish them off with no extra slots having to be invested. Wasting slots on dedicated “win conditions” is usually somewhat of a beginner’s mistake. This is because having a dedicated win condition in your deck is often a fairly dead draw early, as well as is a slot that could have been dedicated to a more important role-player.

All of that being said, Legacy is such an open and diverse format with such a deep card pool that it can often be difficult to control every aspect of every game in the entire format. Because of that, it is actually recommended to try to actually kill the opponent so that they can’t assemble a combination to break through your defenses and mitigate your advantage in the late game.

Celestial Colonnade is a bit of a freeroll in terms of wanting win conditions but not wanting to waste slots. However, being vulnerable to Wasteland in addition to a fair amount of the creature removal played makes them a less than reliable option. So what to do?

Thankfully, we can choose to use win conditions that aren’t dead early but instead help us survive to the late game if we naturally draw them. We want it to be resilient to spot removal so we don’t have to waste resources protecting it (same goes for resilience to countermagic, if possible). We want it to be a reasonably paced clock. We want it to be Intuitionable.* We want it to be cheap. We want it to be able to trade down resources late.

* “Intuitionable” meaning you don’t have to waste a ton of slots because you need to be able to find it when transitioning into the endgame. Something like, say for example, Sphinx of Jwar Isle wouldn’t work; if you played fewer than three, you couldn’t Intuition for it, and the same goes for if you played exactly three and drew one early and had to pitch it to a Force of Will or got it tagged with a Thoughtseize. You don’t want to have to play four copies of such a card because of how they just clog your hand and don’t do anything for a huge percentage of the game. For these reasons, you want a card that either works from the graveyard (Nether Spiritesque cards or spells with flashback or dredge) or can be Snapcaster Maged.

I’m aware that is asking a lot, but such a card does exist. In fact, it has been used with Intuition before! Lingering Souls is the cure for what ails you. Deckbuilding is an art form, and great artists steal. Taking an idea or a theory or a principle or a piece of technology from another deck is an extremely useful thing to do when trying to build a new deck. If you come to a crossroads in your brewing process, work to identify specifically what the problem is and then look at other decks—from the format, other formats, or other points in Magic’s history—to get ideas or inspiration to assimilate into your own deckbuilding arsenal. You can then apply these new additions to your mental toolbox to the problems you’re facing at the time.

Now, Lingering Souls does require black mana, which is a bit unfortunate but ultimately worth it. You often don’t need to fetch out a black source until you’re ready to flash it back, but in case you need to play your Underground Sea from your opener and it gets tagged by a Wasteland or you flash one back and get Wasted but need to flash the other one back as well, I think playing two black sources is fine.

We’ve reached the point where the last few cards (six or so) are open to your discretion. Before going into what I would play in those slots, let me briefly go over a couple of things that I tried or thought of that don’t work. That will hopefully save you a lot of time when testing and tinkering with these flex slots.

First, Sunscape Familiar is ultimately not worth it. As badly as I wanted to get cute and play “extra” Sapphire Medallions (they can even block!), all they do is eat an otherwise dead Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, or Liliana of the Veil activation. Too many of this effect can also clog your hand at certain points, as extra copies don’t help you in any of the stages of the game. Early they don’t help you live, midgame they don’t really help your engine get online, and late they don’t help you convert your resources efficiently or press your advantage or kill them. In a world where Sapphire Medallion had a Relentless Rats clause, I think the correct number would be five, but Sunscape Familiar is just too much worse to consider.

Before I caved to adding the black for Lingering Souls, I was killing with a copy or two of Cunning Wish and a Brain Freeze in my sideboard. While this did work in best-case scenarios, it destroyed my sideboarding capabilities and restricted the types of Intuitions I was casting to almost solely Accumulated Knowledge piles. It’s also worth noting that the version with the Brain Freeze kill had two or more Sunscape Familiars, which made “going off” a much more manageable prospect. It should also be stated that many decks in Legacy right now have Emrakul, the Aeon’s Torn, making the Brain Freeze kill impossible. This is mostly irrelevant, however, as those decks are almost never able to deal with a resolved Jace, the Mind Sculptor, meaning the Brain Freeze kill was unlikely to ever be necessary in those matchups anyway.

Vendilion Clique was also an option for a win condition, but it fell to the same fate as Sunscape Familiar in that it is both too vulnerable and livens otherwise dead cards for little gain. It also didn’t fit nearly any of the criteria listed in the earlier section. It is extremely good in specific matchups and utter trash in just about every other one, so it is relegated to the sideboard.

Speaking of sideboard cards, things like Disenchant were all considered but ultimately decided to be too narrow in the application. If they could be pitched to Force of Will, then that would be another story.

When I was testing the original brew on my stream, the chat was spamming ideas for random cards to include. The one that seemed the most repeated was Fact or Fiction (and Whispers of the Muse, albeit likely for comedic effect), which doesn’t make any sense. If you want a giant card drawer, there are better options. And it’s not like the deck really needs to draw more cards. It’s not all that great of a draw at almost any point of the game. I’d much rather play Merchant Scroll than Fact or Fiction if I had room for a no-impact, facilitating card like that.

Here’s what I played in the StarCityGames.com Open Series in Las Vegas a few weeks back. For now, we’re only looking at maindeck, and we’re only looking at spells. For reference, there are 23 lands.

4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Intuition
4 Sapphire Medallion
1 Sunscape Familiar
2 Lingering Souls
1 Repeal
1 Counterspell
1 Supreme Verdict
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

As you can see, one of the flex slots is taken up by the since cut Sunscape Familiar. The already discussed Counterspell and “Wrath of God” are also present. I decided on 23 land. That left room for one slot, and I decided on Repeal. You’re never upset to draw it, it plays well with Sapphire Medallion and/or Snapcaster Mage, it’s good in every phase of the game, and it’s flexible enough to get you out of the very weird sticky situations one finds themselves in when playing Legacy. Sequences such as Repeal your Rest in Peace, Intuition, untap, AK, Snap AK are not that uncommon. A brief consideration for this slot was Cryptic Command, as it has an obviously much higher upside, but the triple blue is too debilitating for most of Repeal’s uses.

With the black in the deck, I did consider trying Vindicate as the “catchall,” but the mana made me a little nervous. I’m glad I didn’t switch, but not because of the mana but rather because I used it almost solely on my own stuff! One of its more common uses was to rebuy a Snapcaster Mage to Accumulated Knowledge some more or Swords to Plowshares a key creature. I also used it to protect Sapphire Medallions from Abrupt Decays. In fact, the only time I can remember casting it on my opponent’s permanents was when I topdecked it for a Pithing Needle naming Celestial Colonnade so I could attack for the win when hellbent and facing lethal the following turn.

The first thing I noticed was how unnecessary the Counterspell was. Even though it seems like an obvious inclusion, drawing it early isn’t actually all that great, and later on you have Force of Wills with more than enough mana and Sapphire Medallions to simply cast them. If I were to play a counter in this slot, it would be one that is better early in the form of Spell Snare.

I also discovered how awkward it was at times to close games when you had a huge advantage but they had a surplus of otherwise worthless removal just waiting for you. You don’t want to spend countermagic on it for fear of opening yourself up to the possibility of losing, but you also can’t just let them kill your stuff because you can easily run out and deck yourself.

I address that with a card that also addresses another concern. That second concern being that if you don’t naturally draw an AK before using Intuition, your Ancestral Recall can often be enough to stabilize the board and trade resources but not pull into a truly advantaged position. The same can be said for games where you don’t get Intuition (or it gets hit with a discard spell or countered) but you get a couple of AK’s naturally and can fight your way into a stabilized position, one of slight advantage, but can’t close the door entirely. This actually happened a couple of times where I was being hit with Hymns and the like early and had to scramble and burn my AKs and either Snapcaster them or get them removed to a Deathrite Shaman or what have you.

I’m rambling. Occasionally, the engine doesn’t work as designed, and it becomes difficult to create a position of true advantage without that avalanche of cards. There are many decks that play better off of the top than you do. Enter Sphinx’s Revelation. An excellent Tutor target for such situations, it’s totally fine to draw as it can draw a couple of cards in the midgame to help transition you to a late game position where you can just Snapcaster it at any point.

This may some contradictory to what I said about Fact or Fiction, but there are two key differences. 1) The upside of Snapcaster Mageing it late is much, much higher. 2) The life gain can help you stabilize in your transition from mid to late game. You may not think the life would matter much, but there are many decks that rely on fast, almost incidental damage while deploying a fury of disruption and leaning on a good amount of reach. The popular RUG Delver is a perfect example of this. There are also Jund decks, which not only apply a similar strategy but are also trying to push the game to a poverty-stricken scenario where both players are living off of the top of their decks (ideally with a clock and/or a significant life advantage). This game state is practically scripted for Sphinx’s Revelation.

One more thought on Sphinx’s Revelation: in the Las Vegas Open, both of my losses were actually concessions because we went to time and I felt slightly behind in game 3 and unintentional draws early in a tournament are horrible, especially with a deck like this and especially especially after you already have a loss as well. Sphinx’s Revelation, in addition to all of the excellent characteristics listed above, also simply helps close out games faster, which is a real thing for this deck. You’re often playing against both your opponent and the clock, so be sure to get a lot of testing in if you plan on bringing this to a tournament so that you can make correct decisions quickly enough to not draw yourself out of the tournament.

Moving on from the Standard staple, there are plenty of other options for these flex spots as well. I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with a fair number of possibilities yourself, so I won’t list all of the possibilities here (as if I could).

Now, let’s talk lands. Four Tundra is a given, as you’ll need access to a fair amount of white in order to play your removal, but the maximum number of blue sources possible is ideal, as your entire chain costs a blue for each piece and the whole idea of the deck is to be able to do a lot of things in a short amount of time. Remember what I said about compressing the process and increasing the velocity of your engine? That all requires the highest blue mana count you can give yourself. For example, say that in the late game you want to cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor with Snapcaster Mage for Force of Will backup. With two Sapphire Medallions, that will cost you 1UUUUU. Not much room for lands that don’t make blue.

This was the biggest (and probably worst) suggestion that got repeated endlessly when I was testing on my stream. Everyone was suggesting adding all of these “awesome” colorless lands or suggesting I play more than one Plains not understanding the ramifications of cutting blue sources. You have to look at the impact your decisions have—what they would do to the deck’s ability to function. This is especially true when speaking of mana bases. I want roughly twenty of my lands to make blue, erring towards 21. You can play a little less conservatively than I do if you’d like. Just know the risks.

I digress. Four Tundra, two Underground Sea, and one Plains have already been mentioned. You’re going to want three Celestial Colonnades, at least eight fetches, and at least three Islands. With 23, that leaves room for two extra land. In Vegas, I played:

4 Flooded Strand
5 Other blue fetch
4 Tundra
4 Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Celestial Colonnade
1 Plains
1 Karakas

As you can see, I had only two Colonnades, giving me three flex lands to work with. I went with the ninth fetch, the fourth Island, and a Karakas. I think that you’re “supposed” to play three or maybe even four Colonnades, but I don’t actually see myself ever Intuitioning for them. I could see it post-board when they have a Rest in Peace, a Pithing Needle on Jace, and Engineered Plague on Wizard and Spirit. I’m not sure. I just know that while a minimum of three makes logical sense, it doesn’t feel all that worth it to me.

The fetch and Island were me being [possibly overly] conservative, but they were fine. The Karakas, however, was simply awful. I figure that it could save me from some Show and Tell shenanigans as well as maybe help me pull out from under a Gaddock Teeg or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Plus, post-board I have access to Vendilion Clique, which obviously combos well with the Venezuelan terrorist.

However, the card was simply too low impact to be worth not making blue mana, and while it did have niche applications, none of its uses really helped patch up any of the holes that the deck had. If your opponent is Sneak Attacking, Karakas doesn’t do much. If Show and Tell is cast, you still die to Griselbrand or Omniscience. And finally, even if the exact situation occurs where it’s good, you could just put a land into play and cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor to bounce it. It was simply underwhelming.

Rather than Karakas, I would prefer Riptide Laboratory since it still enables the soft lock with Vendilion Clique but also lets you go animal with Snapcaster Mage. The deck already leans heavily on Tiago Chan abilities, and the fact that you only get to play four is often a hassle. As mentioned, Repealing my flashback stick was a very profitable line in many games, so why not enable yourself to do that more often? The problem with this, of course, is that it once again turns on your opponent’s otherwise fairly poor removal spells. But sacrifices have to be made to increase the power potential of your deck.

A similar card I’ve been looking at trying in the one spot I’m willing to dedicate to a nonblue land is Volrath’s Stronghold. Rather than having to catch a Snapcaster Mage while it’s in play, you can allow it to chump block or get Lightning Bolted or what have you and then rebuy it in the late game. If Stronghold is allowed to be activated multiple times, you should surely win, but even if they Wasteland it immediately, you still get one activation out of it, plus that’s one fewer answer they’ll have for your Colonnades. This is the type of multifaceted win condition that you want. It creates a position of true favor, reeks of inevitability, helps perpetuate your engine, converts resources efficiently, slices, dices, and only costs you one easy payment of a land slot.

There are two concerns with Stronghold, the first being the black mana. The second is an overreliance on both your graveyard and on Snapcaster Mage. Just things to consider.

Finally, let’s go over the sideboard. The Intuition-as-Tutor and Snapcaster Mage utility are things to keep in mind when creating the sideboard. For this, I’m simply going to go over it card by card for convenience.

Supreme Verdict – You have one main but definitely want to go up to at least three post-board so that you can Intuition for them properly in case you don’t have access to a Medallion. Also, additional copies are just good to have due to Snapcaster Mage, meaning you can Wrath for days. It’s very good in the matchups where you want it, so you want access to multiple. You don’t need to play cards like Perish either when you have access to so many Verdicts.

Disenchant – Simply the most efficient at what it does. You want at least one, but you can’t Tutor for it to kill Rest in Peace, so it’s possible you want two to give you a better chance of naturally drawing it.

Celestial Purge – Once again, an extremely efficient, high-impact card. Tutorable, kills Dark Confidant, Engineered Plague, Liliana of the Veil, Deathrite Shaman, and… Yeah, you don’t need me to list all of the black and red permanents in the format.

Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm / Envelop / Negate – Countermagic for combo to slow them down enough to get to where you need to be. Also important against Counterbalance decks for their namesake card, Sensei’s Divining Top, Entreat the Angels, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. You want access to at least three pieces, not for Intuitionability, but so you have enough cards to bring in to take out all of your bad maindeck cards in these types of matchups. I like Spell Pierce the most as it is the most flexible. You don’t want to be stuck with Flusterstorms or Envelops against Sneak Attack or Counterbalance or Jace or other things that those cards don’t counter. And Negate simply costs more.

Vendilion Clique – One of the best cards against combo, it allows you to leave up counter mana and then play a threat if they don’t do anything while also disrupting them. Particularly good against Show and Tell. Meddling Mage is also a consideration for this spot, though Vendilion Clique has a couple other matchup applications that makes me prefer it a bit, at least for now.

Sphinx’s Revelation – If you’re not playing one maindeck, I strongly suggest putting one in your sideboard and bringing it in quite often. It’s good against graveyard hate and helps when decks bring in more anti-control measures to equalize cards with you. The look on the face of the opponent who thought they were maintaining parity with you when you blast one of these puppies off is priceless.

Hydroblast – Not necessary, but I like it. Has applications against a lot of fringe decks such as Burn and Goblins as well as simply counters Pyroblasts. Even good against combo beyond blasting a blast because they almost all have red spells at the crux of their combo, such as Burning Wish or Sneak Attack.

Path to Exile – Simply extra Swords to Plowshares for decks where they’re helpful.

Darkblast – Metagame dependent, but a nice card to Intuition for when it is good because you can throw it in a pile with a couple of Lingering Souls or what have you.

Cabal Therapy – An awesome follow-up to Vendilion Clique. You can really tear their hand apart, and sacrificing your Vendilion Clique means you can cast another without legend ruling yourself.

Thoughtseize – You can play a couple of these to mix up your disruption suite against combo between proactive and reactive, which is where you want to be. If you have all of one type and none of the other, then it becomes a lot easier for your opponents to play against you. This is the principle of why I like mixing Vendilion Cliques with my countermagic.

Orim’s Chant – A pretty good bullet for Storm, but I’m pretty sure Flusterstorm has all but outclassed it at this point. Not to mention that most combo decks are no longer storm-oriented. The only reason I bring this card up is because I wish it were good. And because it was a part of my Cunning Wish targets in the early period of testing.

Redirect – A fun Tutor target against BUG decks. Hymn to Tourach is the jackpot, but hitting a Thoughtseize isn’t bad either. Abrupt Decays targeting your Sapphire Medallions suddenly hitting their own Deathrite Shamans is pretty brutal as well. Shardless Agent builds also get their Ancestral Visions misdirected. While it is obviously super high-impact and really powerful, it is pretty situational and, more importantly, only really good in this one matchup. (And I guess against Deadguy Ale or other fringe decks. And it’s passable against Jund).

Surgical Extraction – Another awesome bullet against certain combo decks as well as other Snapcaster Mage decks. When you have a Snapcaster Mage in your hand already, you can throw this into an Intuition pile with, say, a Therapy and a Vendilion or a couple pieces of countermagic. Otherwise, you can simply get it and two Snapcaster Mages and tag their key card.

Alright. So, I have gone over a couple of the options for the flex slots and explained the core of the deck. The framework is there for you; all you need to do is test and tweak. To satiate the lazy list-hunters who likely didn’t read any of this:

U/W Control

AJ Sacher

Test deck on 03-31-2013

Legacy

Creatures (4)

• 4 Snapcaster Mage

Planeswalkers (4)

• 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands (23)

• 1 Plains
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold
• 4 Island
• 3 Underground Sea
• 4 Tundra
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 2 Celestial Colonnade

Spells (29)

• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Accumulated Knowledge
• 4 Swords to Plowshares
• 3 Intuition
• 4 Sapphire Medallion
• 1 Repeal
• 1 Spell Snare
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Sphinx's Revelation

Sideboard

• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Cabal Therapy
• 1 Hydroblast
• 3 Vendilion Clique
• 2 Celestial Purge
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 1 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 3 Supreme Verdict

And there you are! I hope you enjoyed this article and got a lot out of it. Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts on the piece. Even short comments are appreciated. I make an effort to respond to every comment left, so if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading, everyone!

– AJ Sacher

@ajsacher on Twitter