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First, some history.
Type one combo has always been as broken as any combo deck can be, purely because of the sheer number of viable card-drawing, tutoring and fast mana effects. Yawgmoth's Will. Yawgmoth's Bargain (that yawgmoth is a pretty broken guy, huh?). Timetwister. Wheel of Fortune. Black Lotus. Tolarian Academy. Windfall. Ancestral Recall. Mishra's Workshop. The moxen. Fastbond. Mana Crypt. These were the tools used by combo players throughout the years to utterly, utterly break the game of magic.
The first combo decks used channel to cast a massive fireball, or mirror universe to hand your opponent that lich that you have on the field. Later on, Pebbles, a deck that used Enduring Renewal with things like Shield Sphere and Ornithopter to generate a lot of mana via Ashnod's Altar for a fireball emerged. It was improved with Goblin Bombardment later on.
Along came Urza's Saga. Tolarian Academy proved to be overpowered beyond all imagination and a period known as "combo winter" set in, in which Type Two decks could win on their first (or second) turn via the academy, mind over matter, windfall, and time warp, often finishing with stroke of genius.
A brutal series of bannings (and type one restrictions) eventually shut down that monster of a deck, though it still lingered. It never regained that broken status, though, and we have never again had a "combo winter."
Urza's Destiny brought on Academy Rector, which could fetch the uber-broken Yawgmoth's Bargain for the win. The old deck Trix aka illusions-donate became much more powerful since rector could draw you nineteen cards via bargain, often allowing you to draw twenty more cards via illusions and finish off your opponent with a donate/seal of cleansing.
Rector neve was restricted, though, because the deck was relatively easy to stop. A well-timed force of will could do it, and with most of the field packing said card, it was not overpowered.
Fastforward: It is the scourge pre-release. Mind's Desire has become the second card ever to be banned or restricted before it is legal to play in tournaments (memory jar was the first). Another card, tendrils of agony, however, is almost as good as a win condition.
Type one becomes broken beyond all repair. Long.dec, the most reliable, fast and powerful combo deck ev4r (post combo winter) tears up the field using lion's eye diamond to get a LOT of mana quick and burning wish to fetch yawgmoth's will from the sideboard. Restrictions ensued, and long.dec was killed.
Storm combo, however, lived on, in the forms of so-called "Cunning Freeze," "The Perfect Storm (TPS)," and "draw-seven," the brainchild of steve menendian
Now, a decklist.
Draw7.dec (meepoo2's version):
accel:21
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
actual lands: 10
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Glimmervoid
1 Tolarian Academy
combo protection: 6
4 Force of Will
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Time Walk
draw-sevens: 9
4 Diminishing Returns
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Memory Jar
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
other draw: 9
1 Frantic Search
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Brainstorm
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
win: 5
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Burning Wish
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Mind's Desire
1 Retract
SIDEBOARD: 15
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Hull Breach
3 Oxidize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Balance
4 Duress
autocard
This deck's gameplan is as follows:
1) drop lots of fast mana
2) play a draw-seven (timetwister, wheel of fortune etc)
3) drop more fast mana
4) play another draw-seven
5) win via yawgmoth's will, mind's desire, or tendrils of agony.
CARD DISCUSSION (well, things that aren't super obvious anyway):
lion's eye diamond
this is BIZZROKOKEN with yawg will. use it in response to casting a draw-seven.
chain of vapor
necessary to take out opposing trinispheres, pyrostatic pillars, null rods, ivory masks, or whatever else stands in your way! you can sideboard some more, too.
oxidize
same purpose.
naturalize
better than oxidize in some metagames. good for destroying food chain and ivory mask.
retract
good for turning a non-lethal storm count lethal quickly. not really necessary though.
brainstorm
excellent card drawing.
hull breach
wishable oxidize/naturalize.
fork
useful to counter their counterspells, copy an ancestral, or a number of other things. i chose not to include it because it is reactive, and i thought i should make my deck 99.9% proactive
duress
this is for matchups against other combo decks, especially belcher and other storm combo.
xantid swarm
anti-stifle tech for sideboarding.
blue elemental blast
not a horrible sideboard choice, though it doesnt stop the main things which shut you down, so i'd leave it out. it's not bad at countering pyrostatic pillar, though.
red elemental blast
good for stopping that stifle or force of will
hurkyll's recall
playable instead of retract if you expect to see a lot of workshop. also a good sideboard choice.
chrome mox
another viable option. could replace a land, in the above list.
the rest of the deck is just fast mana tutors, and card drawing. pretty self-explanatory.
CARDS THAT DO NOT BELONG:
time spiral
while it may look good on the surface, you will NEVER (short of fastbond) have more than three lands in play at any given time, making this significantly worse than timetwister or diminishing returns, even.
creatures:
your opponents will have removal for your creatures IF you play any. you won't get to attack or use any utility abilities, and there is just so much of an advantage to playing a creatureless deck that to not do so would be foolish.
more retract
how much does it suck to have this in your hand instead of another card-drawer, tutor, draw-seven, or tendrils? a lot.
mox diamond
i want you to go back to that decklist and look at how many lands you are playing. ten. can you support this? i didn't think so.
attempting to fuse this with another deck
no. there is just no other deck that could possibly mesh with this. not even belcher, though it has the most overlap of anything you could take to a tournament.
HOW TO PLAY:
this is (IMO) the second hardest deck to play in type one, behind only belcher.dec. The choices you make can and will determine your success in any given game. getting the right color of mana from lotus and LED (generally blue, though if you are REALLY close to playing tendrils, you can get black), deciding whether to "go for it" or hold back for a turn (generally go for it if you can), which draw-seven to play (any of them before returns, and if you want to do a massive yawg will, use wheel instead of twister), and how to bluff correctly (pretend you are going off, even if you aren't) are VERY important to avoid "fizzling."
another important choice is WHICH LAND TO PLAY. if you expect to go off this turn, gemstone mine is much better than city of brass. if you plan to tap lands for mana this turn and "go for it" next turn, however, the city is probably a better choice.
don't play academy with no artifacts in play.
you will need to mulligan frequently. that is normal. keep a hand if it has fast mana and a draw-seven. don't keep one that is all mana or all draw-sevens.
this deck will win on turn one approx. 20% of the time, on turn two approx 60% of the time, and win turn three (or later) or "fizzle" another 20% of the time.
one piece of advice: DO NOT play this deck against thorn elemental.dec, as you will just make some kid very, very sad, and probably have to explain a LOT of things along the way.
for now, may you have the chain of vapor to bounce the pyrostatic pillar staring at you from across the field. |
