Hello fellow Planeswalkers and welcome to my newest article, The Deck to Beat. You might be asking yourself, what exactly is a "deck to beat". Well, in tournament play this is the deck that you would metagame against. This would be the deck taking the scene by storm. This would be the deck that everyone is talking about and everyone is wanting to play because it is THAT good. This is the deck that...well, you get the picture.

In this particular article we are going to take a look at a deck that came late in the last phase of Type Two, and two decks from the current format including Time Spiral. Both of these decks use some of the best commons and uncommons from the Time Spiral set but we will get to that a bit later. First I need to talk about the deck that took the Kamigawa Type Two rotation by the throat and hit it with a nasty choke slam! It used more tricks than a David Copperfield Vegas show, strong lands, counter spells, card drawing, Angels and Dragons, but most of all, it had recursion. Know which deck I'm referring to?

That's right kiddos, its Solar Flare. The hottest deck toward the end of the Kamigawa rotation Type Two format. Before I get into the tricks of this deck, check out the deck list:

Solar Flare used the Legendary Lands and the Legendary Dragons to their fullest potential. You could easily gain life, lock down, and get a fat body out on turn four. Allow me to break it down a bit. Your opening hand is:

Godless Shrine, Minamo, School at Waters Edge, Plains, Compulsive Research, Zombify, Angel of Despair and Swamp

Your goal, is to use Compulsive Research on turn three to dump the angel into your graveyard. On turn four, utilize Zombify to bring in the 5/5 and force your opponent to either deal with it, or die. The card drawing aspect of this deck is really what gets this monster moving. I personally threw in Sift as well in my tweaks of the deck.

Now onto the tricks of Solar Flare. It holds many, and with patience, you too could unlock them. I'm here now to give you a bit of a head start. Two of my more favorite tricks with Solar Flare both utilize two Legendary Lands. The first of which being Minamo, School at Water's Edge. I cannot tell you how awesome this card is in Solar Flare. With the amount of Legendary Creatures you have, Minamo is a staple of the deck. How could you not pass up a card that allows you to attack, then untap your creature? The timing of Minamo's effect can also be crucial. I remember a match where I attacked for 5 with Yosei, the Morning Star. He then tried to kill it by using his Royal Assassin's ability. I used Minamo to untap Yosei, and effectively made his Assassin useless.

The second trick is one of the more brutal lockdown combos that I have seen. It uses Miren, the Moaning Well, Adarkar Valkyrie, and Yosei, the Morning Star. We start off by having all three aforementioned cards in play. During your attack phase, swing in with Yosei to cause five damage. Using Miren, sacrifice Yosei to send him to the graveyard and trigger his graveyard effect. Here is where it gets fun...Tap Adarkar Valkyrie to trigger her effect and bring Yosei right back to play untapped.! Not only did you get in for five damage, but you effectively tapped five of your opponents permanents and you can do it again next turn by using the same combo. I happened to pull this combo off on turn five during an organized match and the person with whom I was playing conceded after he realized I could do it over and over again.

Overall Solar Flare was the deck to beat in Type Two. I am personally sad to see it go since not only was it fun to play, but it was fun to play against. Each person played it differently so you got to see different play styles. The only deck that really had a one up on Solar Flare was Land Destruction decks. Solar Flare had too fragile of a manabase. Hopefully one day we will see the return of the Legendary Dragons from Kamigawa. They, in my opinion, held three of the five top spots in the Champions set. Were they too powerful? Some might say so, but I feel that one day we will see them flying high once more.

The next deck that we are taking a look at is going to be a deck that is getting a lot of attention and getting it fast. According to Magic Online this deck is the second most popular on the Type Two tournament scene following only the new Soggy Pickles deck which we will visit in the next article. UG Scryb Force is has gained in popularity since it was first introduced at Worlds and is now a force to be reckoned with. The deck utilizes Scryb Ranger, one of the best uncommon cards from the Time Spiral set. Here is the deck list:

The deck basically abuses the synergy between Scryb Ranger and Spectral Force allowing you to swing with an 8/8 trampler every turn. Using Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves you can get your Spectral Force out by turn three giving your opposition something to seriously think about. With an Ohran Viper in play you have your cantrips kicked in, and you should be able to hold off your opponent doing too much damage with Remands or Mana Leaks. Oops...did I just say Mana Leak? But it's not in the deck list you say!? Impossible!!!

That is the beauty of Scryb Force. There are a plethora of cards that can go into this deck without changing its main goal. My personal build of this deck has Remand and Mana Leak for control, Utopia Sprawl for mana acceleration (poor mans birds in this case), Four Stonewood Invocation, and Four Looter il-kor. I also use one of the more interesting rares, viewed by many as a crap rare, in my sideboard. Mind Bend is an amazing sideboard tech in this deck since you can change the protection color on Scryb Force. I was playing against a gentleman and changed the Protection from Blue to Protection from White just so I could block his Akroma.

EDITOR'S NOTE: After the posting of this article, the Mind Bend trick with the Scryb Ranger was exposed as a non-working combo.  Scryb Ranger has protection from blue.  Apologies on the mishap.  ~Streetz~

I personally see Scryb Force staying a staple in the type two community throughout the Time Spiral block. With so many amazing blue and green cards that are interchangeable with this deck, I can see the metagame against this deck being very difficult. I also think that this deck will only get stronger once Planar Chaos and Future Sight come to be.

The last deck, but certainly not the least for this week, is a rogue deck that made a name for itself in a similar fashion that Scryb Force did. The deck is a BW control with some great mid game and some heavy sideboard tech. The deck is meant to confuse your opponent when you board in 15 cards. The deck goes from a high cost card of four, to a high cost of seven after you board. The fun thing is, your deck doesn't change at all.

Panda Connection was a deck created by Norwegian Champion Øyvind Andersen. Note: Andersen is also responsible for the RB Satanic Sligh deck.

Let's take a look at Panda Connection:

As you can see, the deck has several things going for it. My favorite being the inclusion of one particular Time Spiral common. Temporal Isolation is just amazing. Not only is the card on the cheap side of casting, but seeing the facial expressions of those who you play against is priceless! In a particular match I cast Faiths Fetters on my opponent's creature. He told me that if I Fetter's another creature of his he was going to reach across and punch me in the face...so I threw down a Temporal Isolation instead explaining to him that he said Fetters, not Isolation!

Panda Connection has many strengths, and few weaknesses if played correctly. Having the Martyr of Sands to gain life, the Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena for card advantage, and having several discard spells gives this deck the advantage over many decks in the current type two format. I found that the biggest weakness in the deck was that it did poorly against extremely fast aggro decks. When I wasn't able to pull out a Martyr to gain life and losing life to the Confidant I went down quicker than Oprah on a Twinkie. My only loss when running this deck was to a red/green Aggro/LD. When my opponent is having an opening hand of Stomping Grounds, Forest, Birds of Paradise, Giant Solifuge, Stone Rain, and two Cryoclasm REALLY really sucks. I had absolutely no chance after the second turn Stone Rain.

As we have reviewed three of the best decks on the past and current scenes I challenge you, the MDV audience, to tell me what you think of them. What would you change in the decks, what would you keep? How would you play them in certain situations? I recently took a different build of Panda Connection to a tournament and went 4 and 1. I made the deck an aggro control with several creatures and Avatar of Woe. Playing against a mill deck was rather fun: My opponent plays a second turn Glimpse the Unthinkable which gave me a third turn Avatar of Woe.

In our next edition of the Decks to Beat we will take a look at the beauty of Soggy Pickles, the new hot Tron Deck, and the utilization of another amazing uncommon, Locket of Yesterdays. After that we are going to take an in depth look at Planar Chaos and the insanity it will bring to the type two format. Just a hint...Black Green and Black White Green are going to be HUGE!

~FNG~

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Articles Spotlights from 2007:
Lorwyn Theme Week Intro & Schedule of Events
Blink And Bounce: Timing is Key
Going Blind: XCB Metagaming - A Prolonged Conclusion.
The Science of Magic: Genetic Engineering, Part Two.
Shifting Lineaments: Casual Metagaming (Pt. 2).
The Dungeon Of Malefict: Pure Evil!
Land Week Introduction & Schedule.
Combofusion: Legends Timeshifted.
One Card to Rule Them All: Coastal Piracy
Irrational Love: Chimeras. The Lego's of Magic.