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14 Forest
5 Island
2 Swamp

Sushi Snack.

Description of deck by it's author (quoted):
Sushi Snack is an OD/Tor variant of the Rice Snack style decks first popularized 2001 by Tsuyoshi Fujita at the 2001 Magic Invitational. If you're not familiar with these style decks please see my prior column on Salmon Snack.

The first thing that you should notice is this is an OD/Tor deck. It does not include Judgment cards. The reason for this is that tby presenting an OD/Tor build I can show one that has been tested and refined. At the end of this article I have suggestions for changes incorporating Judgment but without testing I'm uncomfortable listing a specific build. The build as shown has been tested and placed in the last OD Block Premiere event on MTGO before the card reset on May 24th.

Sushi Snack wins by Millstoning the opponent for the entirety of their deck courtesy of Ambassador Millstone. They die on their next draw phase or if you want them dead immediately you can just target them with a Deep Analysis. This kill mechanism replaces the more traditional X spell from Snack decks. But in OD block we don't have an X burn spell available (aside from Flaming Gambit which has other issues) so we use what tools are available. Milling the opponent out requires a huge amount of mana (especially against a Battle of Wits deck) but there is an advantage. You don't need all the mana on a single turn. This fits in very well with the lock mechanism.

The lock in Sushi Snack is recursive Time Spirals. Time Spiral is recurred with Nostalgic Dreams, preferably in groups of 2 or 3. Although this lock doesn't provide infinite extra turns, it provides a sufficient number. About 10 or so. Enough free turns to Mill the opponent out.

Of course a lock like this (and the kill mechanism) require a stupid amount of mana. Sushi Snack doesn't even start to go off until there are 10 mana producers in play and it isn't especially comfortable until 12 are on the table. This large amount of mana is produced from several sources. Basic deployment of land is one part, although this is slow. Basic land deployment usually doesn't warrant discussion, but in the case of Sushi Snack it does. Sushi Snack is a slow combination deck and deploying land from the hand every turn where possible, as opposed to holding lands to discard to a Dreams, is a point worth making. What makes the deck work even at a such a slow speed (compared to other combination decks) is the defenses of Sushi Snack. It is usually comfortable for 7 or 8 turns.

Diligent Farmhands, of course, act as mana acceleration and a turn of defense along the way. The Millikin also acts as mana acceleration and provides card power (see below) as well! He's a great spell in Sushi Snack as both his mill effect and mana production are worthy effects in their own right. Combined they're a great package. Last but not least is Far Wanderings. Mana acceleration and card power.

Achieving 10 mana while defending against the opponent requires a great deal of cards. The first and most obvious source of these cards are Deep Analysis and Concentrates. Then there is the hidden card advantage in Sushi Snack - self-milling. Most decks are neutral about being milled. Sushi Snack though goes out of it's way to mill itself. As mentioned Millikin is the obvious method, however it's not unusual for the Ambassador to mills his own library before turning his attention in a serious way to the opposing team.

There are 23(!) cards in Sushi Snack that benefit from self milling. Obvious are the flashback cards such as Deep Analysis, Moment's Peace and Chainer's Edict. Far Wanderings a mediocre card without threshold becomes an "I win" card with threshold. Aether Burst also increases in power with self-milling as other copies of Burst are milled into the graveyard. Finally, Nostalgic Dreams becomes significantly more powerful as the number of available targets increase.

As with Salmon Snack, Sushi Snack must play defense before it can win. Sushi Snack plays a different style of defense compared to more traditional Snack builds. The differences in defense is based on the different threat group that is used in OD/Tor. In OD/Tor the primary threat is from Green creature and a fair number of them are tokens (Roar, Elephants, Squirrels) What is lacking from this threat group is the threat of burn. Thus Sushi Snack can afford to let the earlier attacks in and allow its controller's life total to be reduced to a minimal level, then stall future attacks for the remaining turns using spells like Moments Peace and Aether Burst.

In general Sushi Snack will use the first few turns developing it's mana base with Farmers or Millikins. The exception to this is when an early Edict can be played to remove the opponents single but serious threat (usually a Turn 2 Mongrel.) Turns 3-5 will be a mix of card drawing and defense as appropriate and needed. Generally card drawing is more important but if you can bounce a big token that can be the correct play. Turns 6 & 7 are usually all about the final mana acceleration (aka threshold Far Wandering) with Moment's Peace as the stall mechanism. After that you go off.

Far Wanderings is played much more conservatively in Sushi Snack than in other Snack decks. Unlike Salmon Snack (for example) where you play Wanderings as soon as possible, in Sushi Snack you will often not play a turn 3 non-threshold Wandering. The rule of thumb is if you don't need to play it, wait for Threshold. Instead play a defense or a card drawer. The most common exception is when you need to play it in order find the 4th mana such that you can cast your card drawing spells.

The primary kill mechanism as mention is milling the opponent out with the Ambassador. Don't let this blind you to the "backup plan" of Ambassador & Farmer beat down. Although it's not plan A, in some fights this is the easiest way to win and when you're taking a dozen turns in a row a 2 point beat down (after Bursting the opponent's line away) is often the simplest way to end the game.

Nostalgic Dreams is probably the most difficult card to describe how to play in Sushi Snack. It's not a card you want to use in the early game. In the middle game it can often be a Regrowth for that crucial defensive spell or to find a mana accelerator or card drawing spell. Late game it's used to recur combination piece and/or kill mechanisms. In the mid-game you'll sometimes need to discard combination pieces to the Dreams. Don't worry about it. You can always get them back in the late game.

Sushi Snack mulligans fairly well and thankfully doesn't mulligan overly often. There are two circumstances when you mulligan a 7 card hand with Sushi Snack. The first is when you have 1 or less lands. The other is more difficult. It occurs when you have 2 lands and no playable mana acceleration and the rest of your hand is poor (i.e. no card power, lots of comb pieces.) With all this said, I'd still recommend the shuffling technique described in the Salmon Snack article.

The single most important card in the Sideboard is probably Circular Logic. In some metagames you'll want to start 2-3 of them main, in place of Chainer's Edicts. The swap is made in environments that have a fair number of decks with their own counters. Also, they are boarded in against the Mono-B control decks. If you're dealing with such a metagame I'd recommend starting a couple.

Another important board spell in the Possessed Avian. Although there aren't a lot of U creatures in OD/Tor, there is Tog. However, Tog removal isn't a primary duty of the Avian. He's there to provide a faster kill mechanism (and an alternate one) and the Avian is part as a transformer board into a U/B control deck.

Innocent Blood is also part of the aforementioned transformation board but also will come in for fights where the Aether Bursts are ineffective. Sickening Dreams is rarely boarded but is available against Squirrel decks or other ultra weenie rush strategies.

The last board spell is Unifying Theory. This is an unusual board spell but is very effective against control decks (U or B based). In the Blue control fight the mana acceleration in Sushi Snack allows you to make effective use of the Theory but it's almost impossible to use beneficially in Blue control. Against the Black control their key threat is Mind Sludgeing away your hand. Unifying Theory provides an on the board recovery method that Mono B control can't efficiently deal with.

There are several cards that might have been included but haven't been. New Frontiers is the most commonly suggested spell. However, the disadvantage of giving your opponent the huge mana advantage and first use of it is often fatal. Werebear is another spell that was removed in testing. He was just too vulnerable and too much of a target. Although mana acceleration with a potential 4/4 is nice, it was hard to find room for him, none of the spells in the current build should be removed to allow the 'Bear. Another strong candidate that didn't quite make the cut were the Token creatures (Roar/Call.) The issue with the Tokens is the heavy use of bounce in the metagame. If bounce becomes less prevalent in the OD block metagame Token creatures make for superb defensive spells.

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by Jay Schneider @ www.brainburst.com

MILL: Ambassador Laquatus - Time Stretch