The Arcborn Virus

I. Introduction

Less than a year ago Mike Long released a deck he dubbed “Suicide Virus.”

Suicide Virus Type I
circa Oct 2004

1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Mana Crypt

4 Ornithopter
4 Disciple of the Vault

1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring

4 Skull Clamp
4 Myr Servitor

1 Burning Wish
3 Arcbound Ravager
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk

4 Artificer’s Intuition
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Thoughtcast

4 Seat of the Synod
2 Vault of Whispers
2 Glimmervoid
2 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Mind’s Desire
1 Balance
1 Mind Twist
3 Hydroblast
1 Zuran Orb
3 Duress
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Regrowth
1 Time Spiral
1 Overload

The immediate reaction to this deck was incredulity. Most readers dismissed the deck as “a pile.” A few players tinkered with it before moving onto something else. Regardless of what people thought at the time, no major structural improvements to the deck have been published since. Since then, I have been furiously working in my secret Vintage laboratory pouring creative energies into improving this deck.

I am content with the results. Although I have made huge strides in the deck’s technology, I never quite got the list to a place where I considered the deck to be my best choice in a major tournament. Since that time may never come and since I think this is honestly a good deck that still has room for improvement, I felt that the deck and the Type One community would be best served by me explaining my understanding of the deck and the many, many options I have entertained.

Let me be clear at the outset. I believe, in all sincerely, that this is a very good deck. It has some structural flaws; but as I will show, it is has flexibility to compensate. This deck is also fast. Properly built, the deck should be goldfishing on turn 2.5. This deck also has a surprisingly powerful control match. The reason is that there are just too many little cards to counter. For example, this deck does not lose to Oath of Druids. Their two turn clock is not faster than your combo kill. In my experience, Psychatog autoloses to this deck as well. Unfortunately, the only two control decks that have game against this are the two strongest control decks in the format: Control Slaver and Gifts.

Staring at the decklist will probably reveal very little about this deck actually operates. If you put it together and goldfish for a while, it will still probably leave you mystified.

The deck is built around two cards: Skullclamp and Artificer’s Intuition. These two cards are the engine of the deck. Everything else is synergistic support. Ideally, the deck wants either turn 1 Artificer’s Intuition or turn 1 Skullclamp. The deck is filled with lots of 1/1 creatures so that you have plenty of creatures to clamp to draw more cards. From that starting point, the deck has several very different ways it can play out. The best way to educate you is probably just to goldfish a hand for you.

Sample Goldfish

My opening hand is:

Gemstone Mine,

Seat of the Synod,

Sol Ring,

Arcbound Ravager,

Ornithopter,

Thoughcast,

Disciple of the Vault

This opening hand lacks the core components of the deck, but it is a nice way to start off because it demonstrates the flexibility of the deck. This hand would stand a very good chance of destroying a Fish deck or a Workshop deck. Against Fish, you could play:

Turn One:

Seat of the Synod, tap it to play Sol Ring. Tap Sol Ring to play Arcbound Ravager,

Drop Ornithopter.

Fish runs the dastardly Null Rod. However, Fish only runs one or two Moxen. For that reason, Null Rod almost always comes down on turn 2 or later. Therefore, even on the draw, you will have an enormous flying Ornithopter before their Null Rod can resolve. The Disciple of the Vault can come down on turn 2 before you enlarge the Ravager to speed up the goldfish. In other words, you can go:

Turn Two:

Draw a card for the turn.

Play Gemstone Mine. Tap the Gemstone Mine to play Disciple of the Vault.

Tap the Seat of the Synod for Thoughtcast (which only costs one Blue at this point) and hope to draw another Mox or artifact to sacrifice to the Ravager.

Here is how this works in slow motion:

1) Sacrifice Sol Ring to Arcbound Ravager. Disciple deals one point of damage to your opponent.

2) Sacrifice Seat of the Synod to Ravager. Disciple does one point of damage to your opponent

3) Sacrifice Ravager to Ornithopter. Disciple deals one point of damage to your opponent. Ornithopter is a 4/6 flyer — assuming that in the three other cards you’ve seen you didn’t have any more artifacts to feed to the Ravager. You can immediately beat down for 4 leaving your opponent at no more than 13 life. Fish likely has no answer to that sort of threat.

In an actual game context, whether you would sacrifice all those permanents to Ravager depends upon a number of factors. The most important consideration is the cards you drew from your drawstep and the Thoughtcast. The second most important consideration is your opponent’s deck. Third, you need to consider the game state.

In my goldfish, I drew Mystical Tutor off of the draw step on my second turn. Unfortunately, since you are limited to two Blue mana sources, you are unable to Mystical for Time Walk, Thoughtcast into the Time Walk and cast Time Walk. Therefore, I play the Thoughtcast and see: Artificer’s Intuition and Skullclamp.

At this point, it is really not possible to say what the correct play is without an opponent and a game state. You have some options.

Assuming on your second turn you have just played Thoughcast and Disciple as outlined above, you can:

1) tap the Sol Ring to play Skullclamp and clamp

a) Ravager

b) Thopter

or

c) Disciple

Equipping the Arcbound Ravager with Skullclamp is only the right play if you simply want to see more cards. Alternatively, you can simply Clamp the Thopter and sacrifice the Thopter to the Ravager to see more cards and simultaneously enlarge the Ravager while doing damage with Disciple.

Already we have a tangled web of options. However, one thing to keep in mind is that Artificer’s Intuition has powerful synergy with Mystical Tutor. If we can afford to wait one more turn, you can set up a very powerful Yawgmoth’s Will. If you play Artificer’s Intuition with at least one artifact in hand, you can turn any dull artifact into Black Lotus for one mana. If you have another artifact, you can use the Black Lotus mana to cycle some powerful mana accelerants into your graveyard with the Artificer’s Intuition. At that point, you play the Yawgmoth’s Will you have found with Mystical Tutor for an insane boost.

This simple goldfish has already become enormously complex. I’ll stop there before you become lost, go bonkers, or both.

As you can already see, this deck has combo potential as well as beatdown potential. The hybridized victory condition provides speed at the same time it applies pressure. Combo decks that don’t attack the opponent’s life total more directly can be interrupted and completely stalled out by a single solution. Even if this deck can’t combo out, it can still beat down and kill you within a few turns, at most.

Now that you have a general idea of what this deck may be capable of, let me discuss the individual cards and explain their role and function.

II. Card Choices

A. The Engine

1) Skullclamp
Consider a hand with the following components:

Land
Mana Crypt
Skullclamp
Myr Servitor
Three other cards.

A hand with three mana on turn 1 and a Skullclamp enables you to Clamp something on turn 1.

The deck is designed with a threshold number of Clampable creatures. However, each of the creatures is more than just Clamp bait. You will have to weigh whether you want the cards more than the creature. However, Servitor’s primary function is to feed Skullclamp. The result is that you will either win on turn 2 if unmolested (I’m not exaggerating) or get very close. You will draw some restricted cards and more Clampable cards or cards like Artificer’s Intuition.

Clamp just helps you dig at the same time that it has synergy with Disciple, Ravager, and the like. If your opponent is smart, they will try to counter the Clamp. However, they may not know what they are doing. A couple of turns of feeding the clamp and you should have no trouble winning unless your opponent has already won.

2) Artificer’s Intuition
Artificer’s Intuition is the other side of the Clamp. It enables you to find Clamp quickly as well as find any card you need immediately.

Here is an example from memory of how Intuition can work properly in this deck:

Turn One:
Mox, Land, Artificer’s Intuition

Turn Two:
Discard an Arcbound Ravager or Ornithopter to find Black Lotus.

Play the Black Lotus. Sacrifice it for UUU. Use one Blue to discard another artifact to find Skullclamp. Equip a creature that you have in play. Draw more cards. Discard an artifact to find another Myr Servitor. Rinse repeat. If you manage your Servitor’s well you can chain them into drawing many cards per turn. You don’t need to actually do this more than once or twice, but it is a very powerful play against Control decks since it is basically uncounterable card advantage once the clamp and one Servitor is in play.

The Artificer’s Intuition is also an all-purpose tutor. You can include threats like Pithing Needle and the like to answer problems like Goblin Welder or cards like Aether Spellbomb to answer Platinum Angel.

One of the reasons that artifact lands are used in this deck is because they can be fuel for your Intuition.

B. The Creature Base
There are a few creatures which I believe are absolutely essential. However, beyond those, there are many, many options with this deck that I will talk about.

1) The Essential Creatures

a) Myr Servitor
The first card that goes into the deck is Myr Servitor. One of the powerful things about this deck is the sheer quantity of synergistic cards. This deck can somewhat compensate for the fact that it is “merely” an aggro-combo deck by the fact that it has so many synergistic parts. Myr Servitor is primarily here to feed Skullclamp to draw you more cards. But if you have enough mana and you aren’t concerned about your opponent playing a counterspell, you can just chain through them with Artificer’s Intuition to deposit three into your graveyard and one directly into play. That way, on your next upkeep, you’ll have four creatures to Clamp. You can repeat this process.

Servitor is also great food for Ravager for the same reason. They keep coming back so you Ravager can keep getting bigger. Servitor is also quite annoying to a Stax player if you are using them efficiently.

b) Cloud of Faeries

Cloud of Faeries was not included in the original list because it was one of my additions. I believe that this is the second essential creature in the deck. I was aghast that Mike Long didn’t run Candelabra of Tawnos yet did run Fastbond when Candleabra has such obvious synergy with Artificer’s Intuition. When you goldfish this deck for a while or playtest it, you will quickly discover that Tolarian Academy is incredibly important. This deck is surprisingly adept at finding the Academy and getting it into play by turn 3. When Academy hits play, all kinds of nasty stuff happens. Since this is mostly an artifact deck, the Academy taps for a monstrous amount of mana. I found using Long’s original list that Candleabra of Tawnos significantly decreased the potential for stalling. However, once I thought of Cloud of Faeries, I was even more astonished that it wasn’t originally included. Like every card in this deck, it is highly synergistic.

First of all, Cloud of Faeries is a mana generator with Tolarian Academy. Since this deck is so good at finding and playing Academy, Cloud will be a seriously broken play at least once a winning game. You’ll untap your Academy and with Cloud and then tap it for an average of 8-12 mana. Even more disgusting, the Cloud will then be Clampable. And since Cloud untaps two lands, you’ll be able to reuse a multicolor land to play Disciple to accelerate your combo.

The fundamental reason Cloud is includable is because the seemingly harmless play of Cloud on turn two just meant that you played a zero casting cost creature which you can now Clamp. Even a turn one Cloud looks like this:

Turn One:

Mox,
Land,
Cloud of Faeries.
Untap your land
Skullclamp

Sure, that wasn’t the most broken play this deck can execute, but it certainly isn’t terrible either. Cloud of Faeries is really never dead. It even cycles! The inclusion of this creature obviates the need for Candelabra entirely.

Although I find Cloud of Faeries to be essential, I can honestly say that I’m not sure what the proper ratio of Clouds in this deck are. Currently, I’ve been happy with three although I can’t think of a good reason not to run four.

2) Important Creatures
The only two absolutely essential creatures in my estimation are Myr Servitor and Cloud of Faeries. The reason I say that is because no matter how you build the deck, you are going to want those creatures. I have come up with nearly a dozen different builds of this deck trying to focus on different goals. In almost all reasonable or tournament worthy builds you are going to want the duo of Arcbound Ravager and Disciple of the Vault. However, that doesn’t mean that they must be included. In some pure combo variants of this deck, they weren’t necessary. However, the combo variants just aren’t resilient enough or better combo deck than existing combo decks. Therefore, I think you want both of these creatures.

a) Arcbound Ravager
This deck’s game plan is matchup dependent. In some matches, Ravager is not a card you wish to see until you are on the verge of winning. In that case, he becomes the perfect card to feed to Artificer’s Intuition. The most common recurring victorious game state is a Yawgmoth’s Will fueled turn that concludes with Arcbound Ravager, one or more Disciples and a hoard of artifacts which are promptly consumed on your opponent’s upkeep to trigger the Disciple’s lethal handiwork. Ravager is the most efficient way to trigger the Disciple’s ability. The reason you can’t simply kill them immediately is because in a Yawgmoth’s Will turn, the sacrificed artifacts don’t go to your graveyard as required by the Disciple.

In many other matchups, Ravager is a fantastic early threat. Against Fish, he is your trump card. I would recommend at least one more Ravager in the board. Mike Long included three in the original list. Unless you want to tweak your list to become faster with the combo kill and drop them out entirely, I suggest sticking to three.

b) Disciple of the Vault
This is one of those cards that I recognize as powerful in the metagame, but I still can’t seem to figure out how many to include. I have been running two for some time. If you are going to run this deck at a serious Vintage tournament, you probably want at least three and maybe even four. Goblin Welder is high prevalent in Vintage tournaments and this little guy can stack up the damage very quickly. With two in play, the life loss can be devastating. Every time your opponent sacrifices Black Lotus or Welds out their Smokestack they are going to be taking damage. Since many Type One decks already do some damage to themselves, this guy can be even more annoying. And he also can attack! Once Arcbound Ravager joins the fun, you become lethal very quickly. The only drawback on this guy is that he isn’t blue and isn’t an artifact so you are going to need a five color mana source or an appropriately colored Mox to play him.

c) Ornithopter
This is the only other creature I would seriously urge you to include. Ornithopter is one of those cards that can just be terrible. You can fan open a hand with two Ornithopters, one land, and even cards like Skullclamp and have to throw it back because it doesn’t do anything. However, Ornithoper has some important functions.

First of all, it supports Thoughtcast. Second, it feeds Ravager and can even make your Ravager fly, in a way. Third, it is a good card to cycle away in the early game to Artificer’s Intuition. Those three reasons are nice, but not very compelling. However, the primary reason that Ornithoper keeps his place in the deck is because he is by far the best midgame Clamp target. When you are comboing off and you have two Clamps in play, double clamping Ornithopter to draw four cards is very likely to put you into a position from which you will not stall out. Heaven forbid if you see another Thopter or a Cloud of Faeries in those four cards. Ornithoper is probably the most important midgame Artificer’s Intuition target for that reason. In the pure combo versions of this deck, you will want four Ornithopter for sure. However, I think three is probably the right number. I probably played this deck for a good month before I realized that I could clamp a Thopter once and then sacrifice it to Arcbound Ravager for two cards. That just shows you that I didn’t play Affinity in Standard I guess.

3) Other Creature Considerations:

a) Myr Moonvessel
This guy was suggested by a teammate and I found him to be quite good. In a pure combo build of the deck, I suggest running four. However, the problem is that I found that with the addition of Cloud of Faeries, this guy just was so much worse and that there wasn’t room for him. You should try him and see what you think.

b) Gorilla Shaman
In my last build of the deck, I was running two Gorilla Shaman. He combos very nicely with Disciple of the Vault, Skullclamp, and provides resilience to cards like Chalice of the Void. However, the problem with him is that he costs a Red mana. The deck as built had two Vault of Whispers. If you want to run this guy, you are going to have to cut at least one Vault for another five color source. I recommend trying to fit him into the deck if possible. He is quite strong. One other dilemma I have with Shaman though is deciding whether to use my available mana to eat my opponents board or to simply equip the Shaman and continue to combo out. Every time that I have decided to just combo out it has paid off. This suggests that this guy may just be a sideboard card.

c) Xantid Swarm
If you play in a heavy control metagame, seriously consider this guy. You can drop him on turn one and then attack on turn two with him and then start playing your spells freely. At the least, he is a good sideboard option.

C) Other Cards and Considerations

1) Thoughtcast
Although I don’t think that Thoughtcast is particularly strong, I can’t think of a better card in the spot. Most of the time it costs one or two mana to play it. It often gives you just want you need. I toyed with the idea of running Brainstorm in the slot, but I reverted back to Thoughtcast. One idea that I didn’t really get to experiment with was running Thoughtcast and Brainstorm.

One trick with Thoughtcast that Vintage players may not be aware of is that you can lock in the casting cost even if upon resolution you have fewer artifacts in play than you did when the spell was announced. For example, if you have Black Lotus in play with Seat of the Synod and Ornithopter, you can account Thoughtcast to lock in its cost for 1U but then use the Black Lotus to pay for it without having to pay an additional mana.

2) Force of Will
With Cloud of Faeries, Artificer’s Intuition, Thoughtcast, possibly Brainstorm and a number of Blue restricted cards, this deck could definitely support Force of Will. I haven’t tried all the permutations but I have found that it’s probably not necessary. If you want to try it, go for it.

3) Cabal Therapy/ Duress
I think Cabal Therapy is probably a stronger card just because this deck has so many creatures. You should test it out for yourself and decide what you think of them.

D) Restricted Cards

Some of the restricted cards are auto-inclusions:

However, one question that I have not fully settled is whether to run Mind’s Desire maindeck. In the opening hand, the card is pretty dead. It is the best and most efficient way to seal a combo kill, however. If you are running the combo version of the deck, you must run this card. A related question is whether to include Burning Wish as Mike Long has. I think the answer to both question is a probably no. The fact that Mind’s Desire is not infrequently a dead draw in the opening hand is too big of a strike against it.

Fastbond is a card that Mike Long included in his deck. Fastbond is inferior to both Candleabra and Cloud of Faeries and either card obviates the need for it.

E) The Mana
Once again, some cards are auto-inclusions.

Tolarian Academy

Mana Crypt

Mox Pearl

Mox Ruby

Mox Sapphire

Mox Jet

Mox Emerald

Sol Ring

Black Lotus

Mana Vault

Lotus Petal

But what then?

First of all, Chrome Mox stays. It isn’t always the best card, but you can at least discard it to Artificer’s Intuition or feed it to Ravager. Second, Mox Diamond does not have a home in this deck. Sure, it is nice to be able to discard a land — but the only two times you are going to do that is on turn one (when you probably don’t need it) and when you are about to win after ramping through a monstrous combo turn. Cloud of Faeries makes Mox Diamond that much less necessary.

The card I struggled with the most was Lion’s Eye Diamond. I am a huge fan of the card and believe it to be dramatically undervalued even today. This card has really nice synergy with Skullclamp, Yawgmoth’s Will, and even Artificer’s Intuition.

If your board is: Land, Mox, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Skullclamp, Artificer’s Intution, and Myr Servitor — you can sacrifice the Lion’s Eye Diamond, Clamp a dude and probably draw an artifact to discard to the Artificer’s Intuition and use remaining LED mana to clamp the Intuited critter.

The problem is that LED is just not necessary. It creates an awkward position that you have to play around. It doesn’t actually accelerate you in the early game. And you’d just as well find another card with Artificer’s Intuition. If you want to run it, go ahead and do so. But my nearly year-long experience with the deck suggests that it is not correct.

One more sticky issue with the deck is the proper ratio of lands. Mike Long correctly figured that 12 land was the proper number to run. However, I don’t think that Glimmervoid or Gemstone Mine are very good. If you run Gorilla Shaman or Xantid Swarm, the second Vault of Whispers can’t be in the deck either.

My recommended twelve lands are:

1 Tolarian Academy
4 City of Brass
4 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers (you can Intuit this up too)

At this point, you should run what you are comfortable with.
I would probably run:
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Glimmervoid

Although, it is worth testing Forbidden Orchard or even Tendo Ice Bridge in one of the latter two slots.

Therefore, my recommended decklist is as follows:

Arcborn Virus, Tuned By Stephen Menendian, August 2005

I’ll reiterate once again, your sideboarding options are incredibly numerous. Here is a non-comprehensive list of candidates:

Xantid Swarm
Myr Moonvessel
Gorilla Shaman
Chalice of the Void
Engineered Explosives
Pithing Needle
Tormod’s Crypt
Spellbombs
4th Cloud of Fearies
4th Ravager
Tendrils/Brain Freeze
Force of Will
Cabal Therapy
Duress
Stifle
REBs
Thopter 4
Zuran Orb
LED
Candleabra of Tawnos
Overload/Naturalize/Oxidize

There are two approaches to sideboarding with this deck. They are not mutually exclusive. I haven’t decided which approach is best, so I’ll leave this to you.

The first is to approach is to bring in hate at specific enemies in a way that doesn’t interfere with the natural flow of the deck: like Tormod’s Crypt, Needle, Duress/FoW, etc, Artifact Destruction, etc. The second approach is to basically modulate the speed of the deck. For instance, you could sideboard into the ‘Combo” list by cutting out Ravagers and adding four Moonvessels and Mind’s Desire + Tendrils of Agony or Brain Freeze into the maindeck. It kills with Desire and a storm kill. You can do this against a disruption light opponent by turn 2 pretty regularly. If you do that, you’ll want Fastbond though. But that list, although really fast and fairly consistent, is not optimal when not goldfishing. The point is that the second approach to sideboarding with this could be just to fill the sideboard mostly with deck building components designed to speed up or slow down the deck and increase its resiliency in any given matchup.

So now we have reached that point where I’ve basically exhausted my knowledge of the decks internal components and you might be wondering: is this deck really enough? I believe that it is. The deck has some problems, but I think that any of the bigger flaws are resolvable through testing, tuning, and good sideboard with a lot of experience. I could talk about the matchups, but if you are going to pick up this deck, you’re going to have to learn those for yourself. I am not lying when I say that this deck can stand toe to toe with the best decks in the format, even if it doesn’t have a formal advantage.

This deck is a lot of fun and if you like beatdown and you like combo cards, this might be the deck for you. I will say that one vulnerability this deck has is to Goblin Welder. Running a maindeck Pithing Needle might be necessary to deal with that problem

To help get you off the right foot, I’ll go through a few goldfishes with you of my refined list.

Goldfish One:
Opening Hand:

Mox Jet
Seat of the Synod
Myr Servitor
Skullclamp
Vampiric Tutor
Disciple of the Vault
Aether Spellbomb

This hand is solid and pretty difficult to play out.

Without thinking too hard about it, my play would probably be, other things being equal:

Turn One:
Seat of the Synod
Mox Jet
Tap Seat of the Synod to play Skullclamp
Tap Mox Jet to play Disciple of the Vault

Assuming all that resolves…

Turn Two:
I would upkeep tap the Jet and Vampiric Tutor for Tolarian Academy.

Draw the Academy

Tap your Seat of the Synod for Myr Servitor.

Play Tolarian Academy. Tap it for UUUU

Equip the Servitor and have the Disciple ping your opponent. UUU floating and you draw: Vault of Whispers and Thoughtcast.

I would play the Aether Spellbomb UU floating and then play Thoughtcast. U floating and drawing: Mox Pearl and Demonic Tutor.

Play the Mox Pearl and tap it for mana. WU floating. Activate the Spellbomb to draw: Artificer’s Intuition and be sure to ping your opponent again.

At this point I would probably use the final blue to equip the Disciple drawing: Artificer’s Intuition and Cloud of Fairies. Next turn you should have no trouble comboing out. If we had seen the Cloud earlier, it might have been possible this turn.

Turn Three:
Draw: Thoughtcast
Play the Vault of Whispers.

Tap the Seat to play Thoughtcast drawing: City of Brass and Seat of the Synod. The reason for playing Thoughcast first was the hope of seeing more artifacts to put into play.

Tap the Academy for UUUUU.
Tap the Pearl and play Artificer’s Intuition. UUUU floating.
Use one blue to discard the Seat of the Synod to find Black Lotus. Put Black
Lotus into play.
UUU floating. At this point, tap the Vault for mana:
BUUU and play Cloud of Fearies leaving UU up.

Untap the Vault and the Tolarian Academy.
Use one of the blue floating to equip the Cloud drawing: Myr Servitor and another Artificer’s Intuition. One blue floating.

This is assuming, of course, no countermagic on the part of your opponent. But at this point, you can tap the Academy for six mana giving you a total of seven blue. I would then just chain the Myr Servitor into Mana Crypt, Lotus Petal, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Lotus Petal, and Chrome Mox — exhausting your mana. You can now play the Chrome Mox and imprint one of the excess Intutions in your hand. Now tap the Jet and Vault and Demonic Tutor for Yawgmoth’s Will. Sacrifice the Black Lotus to play Yawgmoth’s Will and then replay all of the artifacts you just chained away.

Replay the Mana Crypt first and tap it for colorless to play Sol Ring and Mana Vault. Then play the Petal and the Black Lotus. (Now you know why Mind’s Desire is good in here!). Sacrifice the Black Lotus for BBB.

Use one Black and tap the Mana Vault and use one colorless to Demonic Tutor for Cloud of Faeries. Tap the Chrome Mox and use a colorless floating to play Cloud of Faeries untapping Academy and Vault of Whispers. BB1 floating.

Tap the Sol Ring. BB3 floating. Play Aether Spellbomb and both Myr Servitors from your graveyard floating BB. Using a black to play Disciple of the Vault. Use another black to play Vampiric Tutor for Time Walk. Tap the Academy for 13 mana. Play the Cloud from your graveyard (it has no effect). Play Thoughtcast from your graveyard drawing: Time Walk and Seat of the Synod. Play the other Thoughtcast drawing Ancestral Recall and Skullclamp. Now you still have 9 blue floating. Play Time Walk. 7 blue floating. Ancestral Recall into Skullclamp, Clamp, and City of Brass. Now play one Skullclamp. 5 floating. Discard Seat of the Synod, removing it from game to find Ornithopter. Do the same with the other two Skullclamps. Play all three Thopters. Now you have 2 mana floating. Use the remaining mana to clamp a Cloud drawing: City of Brass and Myr Servitor. Play the Servitor.

Now take your Time Walk turn.

Turn Three(B):
Draw Seat of the Synod.
Play it.

Tap Tolarian Academy for 19 Blue mana. Tap Sol Ring for 2 Colorless and double equip a Thopter drawing: Disciple, Disciple, Ravager, and Glimmervoid. It’s over. Just play the Disciples and the Ravager and sac a few of your artifacts to win on the spot.

Obviously, you’d play the hand much differently if you were facing an actual opponent. You’d manage your resources more judiciously in an attempt to get them to try and counter spells to get your real bombs to resolve.

Goldfish Two:
Glimmervoid
Mox Pearl
Disciple of the Vault
Disciple of the Vault
Skullclamp
Skullclamp
Ornithopter

Of course, against any deck you have to choose the plan of action that is strongest. Against a Slaver deck, multiple Disciples is almost as strong as you can get.

I would lead with a Skullclamp to try and draw out a counterspell.

Turn One:
Mox Pearl, Skullclamp

If that resolved, then I’d play and tap the Glimmervoid for the second Skullclamp so that you can double equip the Thopter next turn. I’d then drop the Thopter.

Turn Two:
Draw Thoughtcast
Tap pearl and the Glimmervoid and double equip the Thopter drawing:
Black Lotus
Mana Vault
City of Brass
Artificer’s Intuition

Now things get hairy. If we can find one more artifact, we can Intuit up another Thopter and go nuts. As it stands, I’m not sure about the best way of winning this turn, but I can see how to set up a savage turn three kill.

I would simply play the Lotus. Then I’d announce Thoughtcast using the Lotus to pay for it drawing: Ornithopter and Myr Servitor with UU floating. Use a blue to play the Mana Vault. Tap the Mana Vault and play the Ornithopter and double equip it again drawing: Another Artificer’s Intution, Mox Sapphire, Demonic Tutor, and Lotus Petal with 1U floating.

Wow. Play the sapphire and play the Petal. Let’s see if we can win this turn. This is going to be hairy. We can Demonic Tutor for Academy. Sacrifice the Petal for Black and use the remaining Colorless to Demonic Tutor for Tolarian Academy. Use the remaining blue to play Myr Servitor. Tap the Academy for UUUUU. Equip Servitor: UUUU floating drawing: Servitor and Crop Rotation (nice timing).

Take a big risk and use a remaining Blue to play the new Servitor and another to equip it drawing a third Disciple and Chrome Mox. Man do we need a Cloud badly! UU floating with an untapped Mox Sapphire. Play the Chrome Mox and imprint Disciple of the Vault. I would tap the Chrome Mox to play a Disciple and then equip it. Drawing double Thoughtcast. U floating and an untapped Sapphire. Running out of mana here.

I would use the remaining mana to play a Thoughcast drawing: Time Walk and Seat of the Synod. Unfortunately, we are one mana short from being able to play the Time Walk. Tap the last Sapphire to play the final Thoughtcast drawing: City of Brass and Disciple of the Vault. Discard City of Brass times two and pass.

Turn Three:
Draw another Seat of the Synod.
Play Seat of the Synod. Tap the Glimmervoid and Crop Rotate the Glimmervoid into Vault of Whispers. Tap the Vault of Whispers and the Chrome Mox to play both Disciples. Tap the Sapphire and Pearl to play Artificer’s Intuition. If it resolves, tap the other Seat of the Synod to discard your Seat of the Synod to find Ornithopter and play it.

Tap the Academy for nine Blue. Double equip the Ornithopter and ping your opponent twice drawing: Skull Clamp, Mystical Tutor, Spellbomb, and City of Brass.

Discard Skullclamp to Intuition to find Myr Servitor and play it. UUUUU floating. Equip the Servitor drawing: Arcbound Ravager and Sol Ring. Your opponent has taken two more damage from Disciples. Play Sol Ring and Tap it for Ravager. UUU floating. You have lethal damage between the Ravager and Disciples. That’s game.

You can get a sense for some of the tweaks that you might want to make. Another Ornithoper in the deck would have been nice. It may also be the case that the deck just wants four Cloud of Faeries that bad that you need four. A Cloud of Faeries on turn two would have enabled you to combo out on turn two.

Well, I’ve left you in a good place to continue working on this deck. I hope to see some tournament wins with this deck out there because it is pretty good and stands a chance of piloted well.

I’ll leave you with a puzzle more as a brain teaser than as a learning experience. This was a hand that game up in testing and I honestly had no idea how to play it properly. I drew this in game four in my testing series on the draw against Control slaver. Control Slaver mulliganed a no land hand then goes Island, pass and I am looking at:

City of Brass
Mox Emerald
Mox Sapphire
Black Lotus
Artificer’s Intuition
Demonic Tutor
Cloud of Faeries
Mystical Tutor

I tried to diagram the options and I came to the conclusion that this is possibly the most complicated hand of cards I’ve ever pulled into my grip. It demonstrates the possibilities with the deck. Let me know how you’d play it out and I’ll tell you what I did in the forums. Good luck and have fun!