[Format] Martian Timewalk

[BirdsOfParadise]

MARTIAN TIMEWALK
Nerdy Martian engineering students are using remote sensing technology to obtain spoilers for Magic: the Gathering sets, one by one. The cards fascinate them, but the technology is finnicky, so each set takes time and effort to detect. Because of their otherworldly concept of time, the Martians can't detect sets in chronological order; instead, they detect sets at random. They use psycholinguistics to infer the up-to-date, comprehensive rules of Magic: the Gathering. They sit down to play, and a new format is born: Martian Timewalk.

KEY INFO
Format type: Constructed. Sets added to card pool in random order.
Legal sets: Alpha/Beta, Lorwyn, Magic Origins, Mirage, Planar Chaos, War of the Spark
Deck construction:
> 60+ cards in maindeck.
> Optional 15-card sideboard.
> No more than 4 copies of a card, except basic lands.
> Some cards cost points to include in a deck. No more than 7 points allowed between maindeck and sideboard.

Cards that cost points (per copy):
Ancestral Recall (3 pt)
Sol Ring (3 pt)

Black Lotus (2 pt)
Time Walk (2 pt)

Balance (1 pt)
Channel (1 pt)
Dark Ritual (1 pt)
Demonic Tutor (1 pt)
Karn, the Great Creator (1 pt)
Lightning Bolt (1 pt)
Mana Vault (1 pt)
Mox Emerald (1 pt)
Mox Jet (1 pt)
Mox Pearl (1 pt)
Mox Ruby (1 pt)
Mox Sapphire (1 pt)
Mystical Tutor (1 pt)
Swords to Plowshares (1 pt)
Taiga (1 pt)
Time Vault (1 pt)
Timetwister (1 pt)
Wheel of Fortune (1 pt)

Banned cards:

All ante cards (such as Contract from Below)
All dexterity cards (such as Chaos Orb)
All cards that do not meet Martian community standards, which are identical to WotC community standards (such as Crusade) --- see https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/depictions-racism-magic-2020-06-10
No cards banned because of power level


Next update of point list: August 1, 2022
Next set added: October 16, 2022

DESCRIPTION
(*) Martian Timewalk is meant to feel like a nascent Eternal format in an alternate reality; sets are released in a random walk instead of chronologically.
(*) Sets will be added quickly at first and more slowly later on. This is because formats with deep card pools take longer to stabilize after being perturbed.
(*) A point system is used instead of a banned list. An algorithm, applied periodically, is used to assign points to cards. (Cards that are both restricted in Vintage and banned in Legacy enter the format with one point.)

HOW TO PARTICIPATE
(*) Ask questions, post decks, or discuss any aspect of the format in this thread!
(*) Send any outcomes of competitive play to me by PM. Prior to each automatic point adjustment, I collate all results of competitive play and feed them to the algorithm. Competitive play includes tournaments, but any isolated 1v1 match can also count as competitive play if both players so agree beforehand.

[BirdsOfParadise]

(reserved for possible future post about point algorithm)

[BirdsOfParadise]

This deck won my first test gauntlet.

RUG Zoo

// 26 Creature
4 Mtenda Lion
4 Granger Guildmage
4 Quirion Elves
1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Frenetic Efreet
2 Searing Spear Askari
4 Nettletooth Djinn
2 Wildfire Emissary
1 Emberwilde Caliph

// 12 Other Spells
4 Rampant Growth
4 Incinerate
1 Armor of Thorns
1 Memory Lapse
2 Kaervek's Torch

// 22 Land
4 Mountain Valley
9 Forest
4 Mountain
5 Island

SB: 3 Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 2 Emberwilde Caliph
SB: 1 Wildfire Emissary
SB: 3 Mind Harness
SB: 3 Memory Lapse
SB: 3 Reign of Chaos

Mtenda Lion, Granger Guildmage, Frenetic Efreet, and Nettletooth Djinn are all nice, efficient creatures. Incinerate is a must. Quirion Elves and Rampant Growth are necessary to cover three colors of mana. Kaervek's Torch is great at 2 or 3 copies when you're aggressive and have 8 ramp spells. Everything else is pretty much filler. (Emberwilde Caliph is probably a superstar or a disaster, depending on the situation.) The Goblin Tinkerers are there because I expect Reality Ripple + Phyrexian Dreadnought to be playable.

[BirdsOfParadise]

This deck won my second test gauntlet.

UW RippleNought

// 16 Combo & tutors
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Reality Ripple
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Enlightened Tutor

// 3 Enlightened Tutor package
1 Cursed Totem
2 Pacifism

// 4 Mystical Tutor package
1 Meddle
1 Afterlife
1 Disenchant
1 Boomerang

// 14 Other
2 Dream Fighter
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink
4 Dissipate

// 23 Mana
1 Sky Diamond
7 Plains
11 Island
4 Flood Plain

SB: 2 Cursed Totem
SB: 2 Benevolent Unicorn
SB: 2 Shimmer
SB: 4 Mind Harness
SB: 2 Mangara's Equity
SB: 3 Disenchant

Sorcery-speed removal is surprisingly weak against Reality Ripple because the Dreadnought is phased out while you are tapped out. When Dreadnought phases in, you're untapped, so you can protect it with counterspells.

Goblin Tinkerer is good against this deck. GR(x) midrange decks can sideboard into a configuration with multiple copies each of Worldly Tutor and Goblin Tinkerer (and Mindbender Spores if they're willing to go there), and Cursed Totem and Mind Harness are good answers.

[BirdsOfParadise]

This deck won my third test gauntlet.

UW PolyWave

// 4 Artifact
4 Marble Diamond

// 2 Creature
2 Spirit of the Night

// 2 Enchantment
2 Sacred Mesa

// 23 Instant
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink
4 Dissipate
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Tidal Wave
1 Afterlife
1 Boomerang
1 Disenchant

// 7 Sorcery
3 Dream Cache
4 Polymorph

// 22 Land
4 Flood Plain
6 Plains
11 Island
1 Crystal Vein

SB: 2 Cursed Totem
SB: 2 Shimmer
SB: 4 Mind Harness
SB: 2 Meddle
SB: 3 Disenchant
SB: 1 Boomerang
SB: 1 open slot

Plan A: Cast Tidal Wave at opponent's EOT so that the Wave token exists on your turn. On your turn, cast Polymorph on the Wave token, getting Spirit of the Night into play. Win with that plus some disruption.
Plan B: Be a UW control deck and win with Sacred Mesa. Tidal Wave can be part of the control plan by eating an attacker instead of being a combo piece. The Sacred Mesa plan doesn't work too well against beatdown decks, but it can be the stronger plan against decks that don't fill the board with creatures. Sacred Mesa can also feed into the Polymorph plan in a pinch.

Mystical Tutor can fetch either half of the combo. Dream Cache can tuck a Spirit of the Night that ends up in your hand.

[BirdsOfParadise]

This deck won my fourth test gauntlet.

// UR Imp

// 5 Artifact
4 Fire Diamond
1 Sky Diamond

// 16 Creature
4 Teferi's Imp
4 Frenetic Efreet
4 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Dream Fighter

// 8 Instant
4 Incinerate
4 Flare

// 12 Sorcery
4 Hammer of Bogardan
4 Kaervek's Torch
4 Stone Rain

// 19 Land
10 Mountain
9 Island

SB: 4 Mind Harness
SB: 4 Boomerang
SB: 3 Reign of Chaos
SB: 4 Builder's Bane

Teferi's Imp gives card draw (one card every other turn) if you can keep your hand empty to negate the discard trigger. Every card in the deck can be played proactively so that you can empty your hand. Another way to outlast opponents is Hammer of Bogardan. One weakness of this deck is Sacred Mesa.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: September 15, 2021

Automatic point adjustments:
Memory Lapse and Mind Harness each cost 1 point (up from 0).

Next automatic point adjustment: October 1, 2021
Next random set added: October 1, 2021

See OP for complete info.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: October 1, 2021

Random set added: Planar Chaos is legal.

Automatic point adjustments:
Memory Lapse now costs 0 pt (down from 1 pt).
Power Sink now costs 1 pt (up from 0 pt).
Mind Harness now costs 2 pt (up from 1 pt).

Next automatic point adjustment: October 15, 2021
Next random set added: November 15, 2021

See OP for complete info.

***

UW PolyWave won my fifth test gauntlet, and UR Imp won my sixth test gauntlet (the last one before Planar Chaos enters the format).

[BirdsOfParadise]

This deck won my first test gauntlet in the Mirage + Planar Chaos format.

GR Keen Sense

// 26 Creatures
4 Granger Guildmage
3 Firefright Mage
1 Village Elder
4 Mire Boa
2 Radha, Heir to Keld
1 Brushwagg
2 Prodigal Pyromancer
4 Nettletooth Djinn
4 Quirion Elves
1 Goblin Tinkerer

// 12 Other Spells
4 Keen Sense
4 Incinerate
4 Harmonize

// 22 Lands
4 Mountain Valley
10 Forest
8 Mountain

SB: 3 Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 3 Sand Golem
SB: 3 Mindbender Spores
SB: 3 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 1 Chaosphere
SB: 2 Reign of Chaos

My idea was that Keen Sense would be good with cheap pingers (Granger Guildmage) and regenerators (Mire Boa), but it was actually Harmonize that pushed the deck to victory over removal-filled decks running Damnation and Hammer of Bogardan. There are some bad/cute cards in this list, but I think a more optimized Harmonize deck will be a force in the Mirage + Planar Chaos format.

[FTW]

Since the creatures are so terrible in Mirage, a more spell-oriented midrange/control deck might be good.

BG Midrange


//Spells: 20
4 Rampant Growth
4 Stupor
4 Dark Banishing
4 Damnation
4 Harmonize

//Creatures: 15
3 Wall of Roots
2 Ana Battlemage
4 Nettletooth Djinn
2 Harbinger of Night
3 Deadwood Treefolk
1 Jedit Ojanen of Efrava

//Lands: 25
1 Island
4 Bad River
12 Forest
6 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

//Rough Sideboard: 15
2 Sand Golem
2 Extirpate
1 Seeds of Innocence
3 Seal of Primordium
2 Roots of Life
2 Tropical Storm
1 Cursed Totem
1 Amber Prison
1 Vorosh, the Hunter


Stupor, Harmonize and Damnation are card advantage and above the average card quality in these sets.

Harbinger of Night removes all these pesky X/1s and X/2s.
Kicked Ana Battlemage seems very good against other control decks (blue counters, Harmonize, etc)
Wall of Roots helps ramp while also blocking early attackers.
Deadwood Treefolk creates a recursion engine. The 2nd makes a loop.
Nettletooth and Jedit for beatdown just because most other creatures are terrible (Mirri the Cursed is a contender for this slot but pairs up badly vs enemy Djinns)

In the SB
Extirpate deals with graveyard recursion like Hammer of Bogardan or combo/control decks with few win conditions
Sand Golem is for black discard mirrors
Disenchant effects attack Dreadnought decks and artifact ramp
Cursed Totem shuts off pingers and other annoying abilities

Edit: Cut Withering Boon, added Roots of Life & Tropical Storm

[BirdsOfParadise]

I think that list looks pretty strong, FTW, and I was mildly surprised when it didn't win my second Planar Chaos gauntlet. The deck that won (and knocked out the BG Midrange deck) was this:

Mono-Black Control

// 11 Creature
2 Wall of Corpses
4 Tainted Specter
1 Spirit of the Night
2 Mirri the Cursed
2 Magus of the Coffers

// 22 Other Stuff
1 Enfeeblement
1 Enslave
4 Dark Banishing
4 Stupor
4 Choking Sands
4 Drain Life
4 Damnation

// 27 Mana
4 Dark Ritual
4 Charcoal Diamond
19 Swamp

SB: 3 Sand Golem
SB: 1 Big Game Hunter
SB: 4 Dunerider Outlaw
SB: 1 Enslave
SB: 4 Soul Rend
SB: 2 Reign of Terror

Obviously, small sample sizes and my own play mistakes can have a big role in my test gauntlets. The games between BG Midrange and Mono-Black Control were long, so there were plenty of chances to mistime a Damnation, and I definitely erred by playing a land while mana flooded instead of holding back to protect real cards from a topdecked Stupor (which proved relevant). If there were any real factors that favored MBC, they were these:
(*) MBC has 27 mana cards, while BG Midrange has 33. BG Midrange was prone to flooding, and lost after drawing no gas off Harmonize.
(*) Drain Life is really, really good in mono-black in these long games, and doubly so when Magus of the Coffers is involved.

Second place was UW Polymorph, which gained some consistency with Akroma, Angel of Fury (it works as both the front end and the back end of the Polymorph, so it's never trapped in your hand like other big creatures would be).


Mirri the Cursed is a contender for this slot but pairs up badly vs enemy Djinns
This is the only bit I didn't follow. Mirri outraces Nettletooth Djinn from any life total, even if Djinn is played first. And outside a racing situation, Mirri's vampire ability is upside while Djinn's life loss is downside.


Withering Boon
One of my decks had this and it was a lot worse than I'd hoped. The effect is not flexible and the life loss mattered. I can see how it's filling a specific role here, but I'd try Wall of Corpses or Soul Rend.

[FTW]

This is the only bit I didn't follow. Mirri outraces Nettletooth Djinn from any life total, even if Djinn is played first. And outside a racing situation, Mirri's vampire ability is upside while Djinn's life loss is downside.

If the opponent has a beatdown deck with Djinns, your own Djinn will stop it but Mirri will not (Mirri dies to Djinn). Against beatdown you need to stabilize more often than race and Mirri fails there. It was mainly for defending against aggressive green decks using Djinn. Djinn is one of the best beaters in the format and was in multiple of your decks, so I wanted a creature that answers it. 0/5 Wall of Roots blocks it and Djinn trades with enemy Djinn. Seemed good.

I didn't consider the scenario of a control mirror between Mirri & Djinn. In that case, racing is viable, Djinn can't stop Mirri, and Mirri wins the race.


I think that list looks pretty strong, FTW, and I was mildly surprised when it didn't win my second Planar Chaos gauntlet. The deck that won (and knocked out the BG Midrange deck) was this:
Mono-Black Control

I'm not surprised. That looks like an abysmal matchup.

My BG's ground defenses (0/5, 4/4, 3/6, 5/5) are good at defending against most of the format's ground beaters and surviving burn spells & pingers, but are useless against those black flyers. Dark Banishing doesn't even hit them because they're black. The only answers are Damnation and Harbinger. Harmonize has little to dig into, even if you hit non-mana. Ritual/Diamond into fast Mirri can threaten to race with almost nothing to answer it.

Drain Life is also a big advantage in long games. Even more if you have to board in Withering Boon to fight black creatures. I thought about including a couple Drain Lifes in BG (with 3-4 Urborg). It seemed greedy for multicolor, but maybe it's still worth it.

The BG deck needs to be adjusted to have more diverse answers.

Soul Reap looks good as cheap removal that hits black creatures.

Wall of Corpses also seems strong with Deadwood Treefolk recursion. I could probably cut a land and some Wall of Roots, to avoid mana flood.

Edit: The blue splash for Ana Battlemage is greedy and vulnerable to LD strategies. It's an easy cut. Tainted Specter could attack the hand instead.


//Spells: 22
4 Rampant Growth
4 Stupor
4 Dark Banishing
4 Damnation
4 Harmonize
2 Drain Life

//Creatures: 14
3 Wall of Corpses
2 Marsh Boa
2 Tainted Specter
2 Harbinger of Night
2 Mirri the Cursed
3 Deadwood Treefolk

//Lands: 24
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
12 Forest
8 Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
3 Sand Golem
3 Seal of Primordium
1 Seeds of Innocence
2 Extirpate
2 Tropical Storm
3 Roots of Life
1 Amber Prison


Wall of Corpses gives another way to fight ground beaters so Djinn isn't necessary.
Dirtwater Wraith could be funny tech with Urborg giving the opponent Swamps, but maybe this is better as Mirri.

[FTW]

How did you update Polymorph with the new set? I wonder if UB for black is better because black has such good spells.

You lose the Sacred Mesa plan, but you gain Damnation and Dark Banishing and can hardcast Spirit of the Night. There's also EOT Treacherous Urge as an enabler. It works as a stand-alone card too.


//Spells: 32
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Memory Lapse
4 Dissipate
3 Dark Banishing
3 Dream Cache
3 Tidal Wave
4 Polymorph
4 Damnation
1 Treacherous Urge
2 Venarian Glimmer

//Creatures: 2
2 Akroma, Angel of Fury

//Artifacts: 4
2 Charcoal Diamond
2 Sky Diamond

//Lands: 22
4 Bad River
9 Island
9 Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
3 Mind Harness
1 Venarian Glimmer
1 Reign of Terror
1 Extirpate
1 Ashen Powder
1 Boomerang
1 Imp's Mischief
1 Pongify
1 Soul Rend
1 Ray of Command
1 Infernal Contract
2 Spirit of the Night

[BirdsOfParadise]

BG has so many options. I could see both builds being good against different things. Will test more.

I like the Tropical Storm in the SB, as my UR Imp deck evolved into a UR Flying deck with Frenetic Efreet, Chronozoa, and Serra Sphinx. A green deck might as well have Tropical Storm with that deck in the meta.

For Polymorph, here's my current UW list:

// 18 Things For Winning
2 Akroma, Angel of Fury
2 Spirit of the Night
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Tidal Wave
2 Sacred Mesa
4 Polymorph

// 16 Support Things
4 Memory Lapse
1 Power Sink
4 Dissipate
1 Disenchant
1 Ray of Command
1 Piracy Charm
1 Saltblast
3 Dream Cache

// 26 Mana
4 Flood Plain
4 Marble Diamond
6 Plains
11 Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

SB: 1 Shimmer
SB: 3 Mind Harness
SB: 1 Sacred Mesa
SB: 3 Disenchant
SB: 2 Boomerang
SB: 1 Piracy Charm
SB: 1 Afterlife
SB: 3 Sunlance

Nice find on Venarian Glimmer. I'll add it somehow.

About the black version, my gut says that nothing can replace what Sacred Mesa brings to the deck, but I will add the black version to my gauntlet and give it a go. Damnation is good, and I really like the tricky spells you found (Treacherous Urge, Ashen Powder, Imp's Mischief) that I'd overlooked.

Edit: One thing I'm sure of is that we have to max out on Mind Harness in the SB (so, 3 copies while they are each worth 2 pt), since Mind Harness -> Polymorph is brutal. (Incidentally, Mind Harness is a one-mana (or net zero-mana) kill spell against a full-health Wall of Roots! Take the wall and activate it every turn. The wall will pay for the upkeep of Harness one time, and on your next upkeep you make the wall die with the harness trigger on the stack.)

Edit2: Soul Rend is legal, not Soul Reap. My bad.

[FTW]

Venarian Glimmer seems strong for protecting combo decks, better than Power Sink because you can cast it the turn before instead of needing XU on top of the other spell.

Sacred Mesa does look strong as an alternate wincon. Maybe an Esper version is possible, using Flood Plain and Bad River for color fixing.

Soul Rend is much worse than Soul Reap, so black still has trouble killing other black creatures. Melancholy?

Edit: Roots of Life seems very strong against blue control and black control, even better with 4x Urborg in the deck giving opponent all swamps. It basically counters every Drain Life, punishes Power Sink, and makes it hard for small 2/x flyers to meaningfully race. Adding 2 copies to the BG deck. Maybe even 3.

[FTW]

Because there are so many powerful 4+ mana cards and such bad mana-fixing, land destruction could be a viable strategy. Do you have that in your Gauntlet?

RB Ponza


//Mana: 28
4 Dark Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Rocky Tar Pit
8 Mountain
8 Swamp

//Spells: 16
4 Incinerate
4 Stone Rain
4 Choking Sands
2 Boom // Bust
2 Phyrexian Purge

//Creatures: 16
4 Shadow Guildmage
4 Skulking Ghost
2 Blood Knight
2 Goblin Elite Infantry
4 Shivan Wumpus

//Sideboard: 15
3 Dunerider Outlaw
3 Goblin Tinkerer
2 Reign of Chaos
1 Shauku's Minion
4 Stupor
2 Big Game Hunter



Or maybe mono R



//Mana: 26
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Rocky Tar Pit
18 Mountain

//Spells: 15
4 Incinerate
4 Boom // Bust
4 Stone Rain
2 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Kaervek's Torch

//Creatures: 19
4 Blood Knight
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Skirk Shaman
3 Lavacore Elemental
4 Shivan Wumpus

//Sideboard: 15
3 Goblin Tinkerer
3 Stingscourger
2 Sulfur Elemental
2 Reign of Chaos
2 Volcano Hellion
2 Burning Palm Efreet
1 Builder's Bane

[BirdsOfParadise]

I'd thought of BR Ponza, but didn't have the available brainpower to build a list. I'm hyped to include these lists in my gauntlet.

Edit: Boom + sac Tar Pit in response, I like it. Good to see Shadow Guildmage employed, too.

[FTW]

I'd thought of BR Ponza, but didn't have the available brainpower to build a list. I'm hyped to include these lists in my gauntlet.

Edit: Boom + sac Tar Pit in response, I like it. Good to see Shadow Guildmage employed, too.

I'm curious how well they do.

The biggest downside to the BR list is the lack of good 2 drops to curve into 3 mana LD. I don't love the creatures I chose, but there wasn't much better. Blood Knight and Dunerider Outlaw are probably the best 2 drops but double color is hard. Instead I chose creatures that are more consistent to cast, but they're also less threatening.

Mono R has more consistent mana but loses the good black cards. Instead it tries to tempo the opponent with creatures that are unfair for their cost, especially ones that can keep time counters on Lavacore Elemental.

I think Reign of Chaos could be an insane SB card vs blue and white decks, especially ones trying to hit big mana. Burning Palm Efreet also picks off all these small flyers.

[BirdsOfParadise]

I just finished my third Planar Chaos gauntlet, and first place went again to GR Aggro. The list is different enough that I'll include it again:

GR Aggro

// 23 Creature
4 Granger Guildmage
4 Mire Boa
2 Radha, Heir to Keld
1 Brushwagg
4 Nettletooth Djinn
4 Quirion Elves
4 Mtenda Lion

// 3 Enchantment
3 Keen Sense
4 Incinerate
4 Harmonize
2 Dead // Gone
2 Hammer of Bogardan

// 22 Land
4 Mountain Valley
10 Forest
8 Mountain

SB: 3 Sand Golem
SB: 3 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 3 Seal of Primordium
SB: 2 Reign of Chaos
SB: 2 Dead // Gone
SB: 2 empty slots

As I said before, Harmonize is great, but the new discovery for me is that Dead // Gone is terrific too. In this run it was crucial against Spirit of the Night, Dunerider Outlaw, and Mirri the Cursed. Everything came together in the right proportions: mana, threats, card draw, and removal. Partly it was luck, but partly it's just that the deck is straightforward like that.

I'll mention the outcomes for decks that have been dscussed:
Mono-Black Control was dismantled by second-place Mono-Black Aggro.
UW Polymorph won a weird, weird match against BG Midrange. I haven't worked out the right mix of threats in BG. Roots of Life from the SB gained lots of life, and in the deciding game, BG decked itself with ~150--200 life and a Mirri the Cursed with double-digit P/T (I stopped keeping count) against a board full of Pegasus tokens that kept coming back after sweepers.
UB Polymorph and UW Polymorph were knocked out by the winner, GR Aggro. Dead // Gone shut down the main combo, Sulfur Elemental shut down Sacred Mesa, and the quick board pressure forced the combo decks into awkward positions. Mtenda Lion was a weak link against blue, but not too bad.

Changes to GR Aggro: I'm finally over Brushwagg. It could be Sulfur Elemental. Quirion Elves is too midrange and not enough aggro, but I don't know what would be better. Maybe I should try Simian Spirit Guide?


The biggest downside to the BR list is the lack of good 2 drops to curve into 3 mana LD. I don't love the creatures I chose, but there wasn't much better. Blood Knight and Dunerider Outlaw are probably the best 2 drops but double color is hard. Instead I chose creatures that are more consistent to cast, but they're also less threatening.
You said it. If you squint hard enough, Dwarven Miner seems like it could blow up a tapped fetch land or an Urborg once in a while.



I think Reign of Chaos could be an insane SB card vs blue and white decks, especially ones trying to hit big mana. Burning Palm Efreet also picks off all these small flyers.
Reign of Chaos is devastating. I think its biggest weakness is that for now there aren't too many white and blue creatures worth including in decks :D
I haven't tried Burning Palm Efreet.

The format gets an automated point adjustment on Oct 15. I think I'll fit in one more gauntlet before then. I'll be updating UW RippleNought for Planar Chaos (how have I not done this yet?), building G/U/R(?) Ramp, and adding FTW's mono-R and BR Ponza decks. If I had unlimited time, I'd want to have a crack at Reckless Wurm + Lion's Eye Diamond and Necrotic Sliver + Purgatory :-D

[FTW]

UW Polymorph won a weird, weird match against BG Midrange. I haven't worked out the right mix of threats in BG. Roots of Life from the SB gained lots of life, and in the deciding game, BG decked itself with ~150--200 life and a Mirri the Cursed with double-digit P/T (I stopped keeping count) against a board full of Pegasus tokens that kept coming back after sweepers.

Interesting match. Sacred Mesa sounds very strong in control mirrors, a big advantage of the UW build over UB. Was Seal of Primordium/Extirpate not able to handle it?

If BG felt threat-light, it may want some Mire Boa. Boa is good on defense (regenerate) and then good offensively in the late game, since Urborg will give all players Swamps.



Dead // Gone shut down the main combo

I overlooked the power of Dead // Gone. Shock on its own is quite good in this format, without other 1 cmc burn and with small P/T creatures. Having a 2nd mode to beat combo fatties is even better.

The Ponza lists need some copies in the 75.

How good has Hammer been? Do the decks regularly reach high enough mana to recur it? I remember that card being very strong back in the day but have now played so much "modern era Magic" that the mana cost feels unreasonable except vs control.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Sacred Mesa sounds very strong in control mirrors, a big advantage of the UW build over UB. Was Seal of Primordium/Extirpate not able to handle it?
Yeah, Sacred Mesa is a huge card in control vs control. Seal of Primordium helps, but in this match Dissipate and Venarian Glimmer were enough protection enough of the time.



If BG felt threat-light, it may want some Mire Boa. Boa is good on defense (regenerate) and then good offensively in the late game, since Urborg will give all players Swamps.
I like the idea of Mire Boa + Urborg. Not sure if it goes in the same deck as Damnation, though... If Damnation were a color-shifted Day of Judgment instead of Wrath of God, that would make Mire Boa happy!

My way of adjusting the BG list was to lean heavily into discard, bringing back Ana Battlemage and using the trio of that plus Stupor and Tainted Specter to keep the opponent in topdeck mode --- and increasing the Pauper's Cages to 3 copies in the main. Cage doesn't care about Damnation, so you've got heavy discard to punish combo and control, Damnation to punish aggro, Harmonize to keep ahead, and Cage to finish opponents if your creatures can't do it. Just like your first list, but with even more emphasis on the "Rack" angle. No Drain Life... 4x Urborg feels too risky.

Also I've now got Benthic Djinn in the SB. Djinn and Pauper's Cage can both do damage to UW past a Sacred Mesa board. We'll see how it works.



How good has Hammer been? Do the decks regularly reach high enough mana to recur it? I remember that card being very strong back in the day but have now played so much "modern era Magic" that the mana cost feels unreasonable except vs control.
The absolute amount of mana required is less a problem than the triple red mana. Hammer of Bogardan is good, but the mana fixing is bad, so that leaves hammer without many good decks to go into.

[FTW]

My way of adjusting the BG list was to lean heavily into discard, bringing back Ana Battlemage and using the trio of that plus Stupor and Tainted Specter to keep the opponent in topdeck mode --- and increasing the Pauper's Cages to 3 copies in the main. Cage doesn't care about Damnation, so you've got heavy discard to punish combo and control, Damnation to punish aggro, Harmonize to keep ahead, and Cage to finish opponents if your creatures can't do it. Just like your first list, but with even more emphasis on the "Rack" angle. No Drain Life... 4x Urborg feels too risky.

Also I've now got Benthic Djinn in the SB. Djinn and Pauper's Cage can both do damage to UW past a Sacred Mesa board. We'll see how it works.

I like these changes a lot.

In the original version, the idea was to lean into the hand destruction plan of Ana Battlemage + Pauper's Cage against control decks. Put them in topdeck mode, and then let the Rack effect bleed them out if they use their cards. Unfortunately the 3-color mana seemed weak to Choking Sands from your monoblack deck (or anything from RB Ponza), so I cut the blue splash. But maybe that plan was still better overall. Pauper's Cage surviving Damnation is big. The 2nd version has more stable mana but lacks finishers, with a lot of durdle.

Damnation killing your own creatures isn't supposed to be an issue due to Deadwood Treefolk recursion. But discard support should help that so blue decks don't just counter the Treefolk and put a stop to everything.

I wanted to find a home for Benthic Djinn for a while. Seems good vs blue control.

[BirdsOfParadise]

GR Aggro wins my fourth test gauntlet in the Planar Chaos format. Second place: UW RippleNought. Third place: Mono-Black Control.

Points will be automatically adjusted on Oct 15. Unless someone else out there is doing tests and shares their results with me (^_^), it’s a mathematical certainty that one or more cards from GR Aggro will gain a point. That won’t necessarily change deck construction, though, since decks have 7 points to spend.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: October 15, 2021

Automatic point adjustments:
Power Sink now costs 0 pt (down from 1 pt).
Mire Boa now costs 1 pt (up from 0 pt).
Sand Golem now costs 1 pt (up from 0 pt).

Next automatic point adjustment: November 15, 2021
Next random set added: November 15, 2021

See OP for complete info.

[FTW]

Sounds like GR Aggro needs some competition. The consistent aggro pressure, massive card advantage engines, and cheap removal seem to work together well.

Maybe there isn't enough aggro in the Gauntlet. What do your other aggro decks look like?

Monoblack Rebels


//Creatures: 20
4 Sewer Rats
4 Dunerider Outlaw
4 Blightspeaker
3 Rathi Trapper
1 Big Game Hunter
2 Dirtwater Wraith
2 Mirri the Cursed

//Spells: 17
4 Dark Ritual
4 Enfeeblement
4 Dark Banishing
3 Stupor
2 Drain Life

//Lands: 23
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
20 Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
1 Forsaken Wastes
2 Kaervek's Hex
2 Extirpate
1 Gravebane Zombie
1 Purraj of Urborg
1 Big Game Hunter
2 Melancholy
1 Phyrexian Vault
1 Infernal Contract
3 Sand Golem


These cheap creatures have grow abilities that scale well as the game drags on. Blightspeaker can tutor up a rebel army, tappers, or removal. Removal + tappers help Dunerider Outlaw connect.
Urborg + Wraith means an unblockable pump threat late game (could be replaced by Swamp + Feral Shadow/Deadly Grub but that gets chumped by Pegasus tokens)

If Mire Boa and Sand Golem were the biggest blows against black decks, then Enfeeblement answers Mire Boa (2 mana for 2 mana) and relying less on slow discard grind makes opposing Sand Golems weaker.

Kaervek's Hex wipes every creature (and mana dork) in GR aggro as well as 1/1 Pegasus tokens and pingers, without hurting anything in this deck.


Red Deck Wins


//Lands: 24
24 Mountain

//Spells: 14
4 Dead // Gone
2 Brute Force
4 Incinerate
2 Spitting Earth
2 Hammer of Bogardan

//Creatures: 22
4 Blood Knight
3 Keldon Marauders
3 Pyric Salamander
3 Searing Spear Askari
3 Lavacore Elemental
3 Shivan Wumpus
2 Wildfire Emissary
1 Torchling

//Sideboard: 15
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Burning Palm Efreet
2 Reign of Chaos
2 Pyrohemia
2 Sulfur Elemental
3 Goblin Tinkerer
3 Sand Golem


Again, this packs a lot of removal and creature threats that scale over the game. Against control you can SB out removal for more threats.

I'll see if I have time to run a mini-tourney of 8 decks this weekend.

[BirdsOfParadise]

That's funny, I do have a similar Rebels deck --- it's not half bad! I like some of your choices, like Infernal Contract in the side.

Mono-Black Aggro

// 19 Creature
4 Blightspeaker
4 Dunerider Outlaw
2 Rathi Trapper
1 Big Game Hunter
4 Sewer Rats
4 Mirri the Cursed

// 17 Other Stuff
4 Dark Banishing
4 Drain Life
4 Choking Sands
4 Stupor
1 Tombstone Stairwell

// 24 Mana
4 Dark Ritual
20 Swamp

SB: 2 Paupers' Cage
SB: 4 Sand Golem
SB: 1 Tombstone Stairwell
SB: 3 Soul Rend
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 1 Reign of Terror
SB: 2 Kaervek's Hex

Mono-Red has a hard time mustering 1- and 2-drops after Blood Knight, doesn't it? Great removal, though.

My other aggro-ish lists are your BR Ponza and previous Mono-Red list, with minor tweaks such as adding Dead // Gone, but I haven’t seen them in many matches yet.

If you manage to do that mini-tourney, do share!

[FTW]

Tombstone Stairwell is interesting. I was thinking about it in the side vs control. MD it seemed like a liability in case opponent has more dead creatures.

Yeah, Infernal Contract seems strong SB vs control when your life total isn't under pressure but your cards are.

I like Phyrexian Vault for that too. You can activate in response to removal, digging into more gas.

I think Enfeeblement is a big boost for mono B aggro. Otherwise you're spending minimum 3 mana to kill a creature (Drain Life is slow), which lets decks like GR Aggro get out of hand because you're spending too much tempo to stop a Mtenda Lion or Granger Guildmage+Keen Sense. Enfeeblement also works vs other black decks, just enough to kill Mirri or Tainted Specter, so you still have removal vs black preboard.

I went away from the discard / Pauper's Cage engine because it seemed like most decks were boarding in Sand Golem vs mono B. Black aggro doesn't need to give the opponent free 4/4s. Just beatdown and leave them with a 5-mana 3/3 in hand. I like the Cage plan for BG midrange with Ana Battlemage and Tainted Specter, but it feels like Stupor alone is not enough discard to support the Rack plan. I might even board out Stupor except against combo-control.

For Mono R, I realized Pyric Salamander is better than it looks. It will only deal 1 damage unblocked (still enough to put counters on Lavacore) but in combat it can trade up with big stuff like Nettletooth Djinn. Left unchecked it can eventually alpha strike for a lot. It can be a real pain and force out trades or removal more than other 2 drops could. Because of how well it trades, I like it better than Goblin Elite Infantry (which only trades as a 1/1).

Spitting Earth also gets much better in mono R.

[BirdsOfParadise]

All good points!

I think the Lavacore Elemental angle in Mono-Red looks fun, and the payoff is there. If a deck is trying to connect with that and also with Pyric Salamander, then Firefright Mage starts looking OK. I'd probably cut Searing Spear Askari. I tried the Askaris in the Mirage-only version of the format and they were very disappointing.

[FTW]

Did you try Searing Spear Askari in the Mirage version or just the other Askaris? It's the only version I'd play and that's because it has Menace. Menace + Flanking is not easy to block, especially with so much burn and the threat of Brute Force. I think that would make it more likely to go unblocked, although it's possible Skirk Shaman is better if there's a lack of other red creatures.

Edit: If you do go for Firefright Mage, then you might as well run Reckless Wurm and go up to 4 Hammers, so you have more profitable cards to discard. Otherwise it's a 1/1 + card disadvantage just to get evasion.

Edit2: If a 4/4 like Nettletooth blocks Searing Spear Askari, you can Incinerate it after the Flanking trigger but before combat damage. Flanking gets significantly better with instant burn (Dead//Gone + Incinerate) and combat tricks (Brute Force), especially if you forced 2 creatures to block (-2/-2 total). I need to test this more but I think it has potential.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Hmm... I tried Searing Spear and Burning Shield Askaris, and they just didn't put on enough pressure to justify being useless on defense. I see now that Searing Spear specializes in being buddies with Lavacore Elemental, but yeah, I imagine Skirk Shaman is better. With Hammer of Bogardan and Pyric Salamander, one surely wants to keep the mana free when possible.

^ ^ Very true up there in the ninja edit too ^ ^

[FTW]

Hmm... I tried Searing Spear and Burning Shield Askaris, and they just didn't put on enough pressure to justify being useless on defense. I see now that Searing Spear specializes in being buddies with Lavacore Elemental, but yeah, I imagine Skirk Shaman is better. With Hammer of Bogardan and Pyric Salamander, one surely wants to keep the mana free when possible.

Good point. Maybe Skirk is better, freeing up mana.

Yeah, since red's 1-3 cmc creatures were so bad, I basically picked creatures that would make it easy to put counters on Lavacore Elemental. Keldon Marauders, Pyric Salamander, Askari... none are great threats on their own, but they're all really hard to block on curve. Especially backed up by cheap burn. So they will likely go unblocked at first. The goal is for them to just get early damage in and keep counters on Lavacore. They're bad on defense, but RDW isn't trying to play defense in most MUs. Just get in damage early and then finish with burn or firebreathing.

The other way to play red aggro would be madness with Reckless Wurm. That becomes a slightly different deck. Not sure which is better for this meta. Edit: You could go really greedy with Lion's Eye Diamond to accelerate madness costs or Hammer recursion.

[BirdsOfParadise]

The other way to play red aggro would be madness with Reckless Wurm. That becomes a slightly different deck. Not sure which is better for this meta. Edit: You could go really greedy with Lion's Eye Diamond to accelerate madness costs or Hammer recursion.
Oh wow, you know else what LED is great at? Unmorphing Akroma, Angel of Fury. I'm gonna have to throw this together.

Idea for GR:
T2 Radha, Heir to Keld
T3 morphed Angel
T4 swing with both, unmorph

Maybe GR Aggro can evolve to have 8 copies of cards (4 Radha / 4 LED) that let unmorphed Akroma swing on T4? Are there other synergies with LED and green stuff, or with Reckless Wurm and green stuff, that can make it all fit together? Akroma is already "hardflippable" in a lot of GR's games, although I haven't been running it.

Edit: Well, I've searched Scryfall for cards with text containing echo, morph, discard, madness, and graveyard in the GR colors, and the only additional support I can find for LED or Madness is Fa'adiyah Seer and Timbermare, which doesn't seem promising. So instead of ruining a good aggro deck by going deep into combos, I should just remember that Radha is already a good card in the deck and think about the flex slots.

I've got 1 Sulfur Elemental in the deck and 6 Quirion Elves / Radha; if I max out on Radha and lose the Quirion Elves, I have room for three 3-drops in flex slots. There are three 3-drops with synergy with Radha:
Sulfur Elemental cast mid-combat for the "play out your hand fast benefit" --- mainly good if you have Harmonize ready or Keen Sense active, which both happen fairly often
Lavacore Elemental --- play on T3, swing with your Radha, use the Radha mana to cast Incinerate or Dead // Gone on a blocker so that Radha connects
Akroma, Angel of Fury --- late game punch, nice when mana flooded or Harmonize is drawing lands; also, the trick where Radha unmorphs it in combat on T4.

I think I'm most convinced by a 2/1 split of Lavacore and Akroma. Sulfur Ele can hang out in the sideboard. It helps GR crush the UW combo matchups where it faces Sacred Mesa, although I'm not sure the help is necessary.

[BirdsOfParadise]

I just finished my first test gauntlet in the second leg of the Planar Chaos format. The point adjustment after the first leg didn't really force any decks to change. Anyone who's been following this thread may be interested to know that BGu Discard Midrange (a slightly modified version of what FTW posted above) took first place, dethroning GR Aggro for now. Second place: GR Aggro. Third place: UW RippleNought.

BGu Discard Midrange

// 13 Creature
2 Mirri the Cursed
2 Nettletooth Djinn
2 Wall of Roots
3 Ana Battlemage
4 Tainted Specter

// Other Stuff
1 Seal of Primordium
4 Rampant Growth
4 Stupor
4 Damnation
4 Harmonize
3 Paupers' Cage
4 Dark Banishing

// 23 Land
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
12 Forest
5 Swamp
4 Bad River
1 Island

SB: 1 Amber Prison
SB: 3 Sand Golem
SB: 2 Benthic Djinn
SB: 1 Seal of Primordium
SB: 2 Roots of Life
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Soul Rend
SB: 1 Seeds of Innocence
SB: 1 Kaervek's Hex

[FTW]

Nice list. Looks like putting Pauper's Cage and discard in the spotlight really paid off.

I guess the Deadwood Treefolk shenanigans were too slow or easy to disrupt?

Did you ever use Soul Rend even once?

[BirdsOfParadise]

I actually did use Soul Rend! BGu Midrange faced GRW Blink on the road to victory and had a lot of Stonecloakers and Aven Riftwatchers to destroy.

Deadwood Treefolk is probably good. I think I’ve been too scared to run creatures alongside Damnation. It’s gotta be good to wipe the board and then play Deadwood Treefolk. I didn’t test it enough before changing the build.
Edit: GRW Blink does use Deadwood Treefolk and it’s crazy good there.

On another note, I put Lavacore Elemental into a bunch of decks this run and didn’t like how often it was a dead card. It’s good when it’s good, but it’s lousy in topdeck wars or when opp has removal or blockers.

[FTW]

Lavacore is probably bad in Ponza and only playable in RDW with enough aggressive creatures and burn to push damage through. Too bad. I wanted that card to work.

Is there a mono W deck? I overlooked white at first, but there is quite a bit to look at.


//Lands: 24
24 Plains

//Removal: 13
4 Sunlance
4 Pacifism
3 Afterlife
2 Saltblast

//Creatures: 23
4 Whitemane Lion
3 Stonecloaker
4 Aven Riftwatcher
4 Riftmarked Knight
4 Calciderm
3 Voidstone Gargoyle
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero

//Sideboard: 15
4 Disenchant
3 Sand Golem
3 Benevolent Unicorn
1 Melesse Spirit
1 Malach of the Dawn
3 Revered Dead


The bounce creatures end up being good with reusing Calciderm and Riftwatcher. There's also premium removal, a Meddling Mage effect vs combo, and Disenchants.

I've been trying to make BW or GBW Purgatory.dec work with Aven Riftwatcher and Necrotic Sliver (maybe Enlightened Tutor, Damnation, Circle of Despair, Sacred Mesa) but it hasn't quite come together yet.

[BirdsOfParadise]

I haven’t tried mono-white. That looks cool. I do have a GW Midrange deck with Calciderm, and the card is great (not sure about the deck). Bouncing and reusing a Calciderm that was about to vanish is awesome.

BW Control looks sweet. I’d include Porphyry Nodes.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: November 15, 2021

Random set added: Alpha/Beta is legal.

Automatic point adjustments:
Mire Boa now costs 0 pt (down from 1 pt).
Mind Harness now costs 1 pt (down from 2 pt)
Harmonize now costs 1 pt (up from 0 pt).
Sand Golem now costs 2 pt (up from 1 pt).

The following cards enter the format with one point:
Ancestral Recall
Balance
Black Lotus
Channel
Demonic Tutor
Mana Vault
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Sol Ring
Time Vault
Time Walk
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune

From now on, any card enters the format with one point if it is on both the Vintage restricted list and the Legacy banned list. Nothing happens to Flash and Mystical Tutor, as they entered the format previously.
The nerdy Martian engineering students used remote sensing to obtain the Vintage restricted list and the Legacy banned list, and they use these lists to inform their expectations upon adding new cards.

Next automatic point adjustment: December 1, 2021
Next random set added: January 15, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[BirdsOfParadise]

I'll use something close to this as a starting point for my new gauntlet.

BU "Mind Twist Is Zero Points"

35 Spells
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Ancestral Recall [4pt]
4 Dunerider Outlaw
4 Blightspeaker
4 Mind Twist
4 Sinkhole
2 Mystical Tutor
1 Terror
1 Paralyze
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Rathi Trapper
1 Mirri the Cursed
1 Royal Assassin
3 Stupor

25 Mana
4 Dark Ritual
3 Sol Ring [3 pt]
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Underground Sea
4 Bad River
3 Island
6 Swamp

SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 4 Paupers' Cage
SB: 2 Black Knight
SB: 2 Kaervek's Hex
SB: 1 Big Game Hunter
SB: 1 Rathi Trapper
SB: 1 Unsummon
SB: 2 Terror

[FTW]

Random set added: Alpha/Beta is legal.

Sand Golem now costs 2 pt (up from 1 pt).

The following cards enter the format with one point:
Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus

Umm.. WOW. The format's power level shot up from Kamigawa Block Limited to Type 0.

Are we really going to proceed with Alpha/Beta as an eligible set, no B/R list, and only modify the P9 cards +1 per season?

Due to the raw power level of T1 Mind Twist or T1 Hippie, and the overall low average card quality (compared to Vintage or Legacy), I'm going to gamble Lotus is worth more than Recall in Mind Twist decks.

Mono B TurboTwist (4 Lotus+3 Tutor=7)

//Mana: 25
10 Swamp
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Crystal Vein
4 Dark Ritual
4 Black Lotus

//Threats: 12
4 The Rack
4 Dunerider Outlaw
4 Hypnotic Specter

//Other Spells: 23
4 Paralyze
4 Sinkhole
3 Demonic Tutor
4 Stupor
3 Infernal Contract
4 Mind Twist
1 Nevinyrral's Disk

//Sideboard: 15
3 Damnation
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Demonic Hordes
1 Royal Assassin
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Drain Life
1 Extirpate
1 Forbidden Crypt
1 Disrupting Scepter
1 Gloom
1 Deathgrip
1 Paupers' Cage

Edit: Changed this to more tempo than control, moving Damnations and Royal Assassin to the SB. The monoblack build can better exploit explosiveness, while BW or BU can play better control games. The game plan is to disrupt early with random discard, drop an efficient threat and win, using disruption to make opponent stumble on defense. I originally had bigger threats like Mirri the Cursed and Juggernaut but cut them for the lower cost Outlaw, because spot removal is now very cheap (Bolt, StP, Paralyze).

Demonic Tutor increases consistency of Mind Twist blowouts and also allows a toolbox control package, especially out of the SB. There are some devastating punisher cards.


BW 8Twist (4 Balance + 3 Lotus = 7)

//Mana: 24
4 Scrubland
2 Flood Plain
1 Bad River
4 Plains
3 Swamp
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual

//Mind Twists: 8
4 Balance
4 Mind Twist

//Other Spells: 13
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
3 Stupor

//Artifacts: 14
4 The Rack
4 Paupers' Cage
1 Meekstone
1 Forcefield
1 Disrupting Scepter
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Nevinyrral's Disk

//Enchantments: 1
1 Sacred Mesa

//Sideboard: 15
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Circle of Protection: Black
1 Mangara's Equity
1 Forsaken Wastes
1 Soul Echo
1 Deathgrip
1 Conversion
1 Forbidden Crypt
1 Library of Leng
1 Cursed Totem
1 Stupor
2 Disenchant
2 Damnation


4 Balance is broken with fast mana and an enchantment/artifact deck, which can be powered by Enlightened Tutor. This deck has the option to run up to 4 Wrath of God + 4 Damnation, and yet I think it wants no more than 2 Damnation in the 75 (slightly better than Wrath due to Dark Ritual & Urborg). Balance is insane.
Edit: 8Twist calls for 8Rack, which also speeds up the clock a lot

The fact that Sand Golem costs 2 points makes 8Twist even better than it already is!

While discard seems overpowered, all that heavy discard is needed to keep Blue-based combo-control in check. Blue decks can just hold up counters, draw a ton of cards, and then set up combo kills. The two dominant combo decks I can think of are ChannelFireball and MaskNought.

RUG Burn aka ChannelFireball (4 Ancestral + 3 Channel = 7)

//Mana: 20
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Taiga
4 Mountain Valley
4 Flood Plain

//Spells: 34
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Regrowth
4 Counterspell
3 Channel
1 Fork
4 Kaervek's Torch
3 Power Sink
2 Fireball
1 Braingeyser

//Artifacts: 4
4 Ivory Tower

//Enchantments: 2
2 Mana Flare

//Sideboard: 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Power Sink
1 Dissipate
1 Venarian Glimmer
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Savage Twister
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Shatterstorm
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Tranquility
1 Nevinyrral's Disk


This deck can try to Channel+Torch kill as early as turn 3 (with Bolt earlier). But it can also play a grindier game with Ivory Tower + counters, refilling the hand with a ridiculous number of Ancestrals (Mystical Tutor, Regrowth, Fork). In the late game Mana Flare and X spells should take over the game, generating more value than opponent can get from the mana boost.

Edit: Removed Chaos Orbs after rules clarification.

[Reeplcheep]

Is lotus really better than sol ring with mind twist? Lotus + twist is just +1 CA which is worse than recall. The reuability of sol rings seems like you could really pound the opponent into the dirt.

[FTW]

I tested these 4 decks out for a few games. Rug Burn is bonkers. A fast Mind Twist/Hippie plus LD does a good job of keeping it on its toes, but RUG can refuel too easily.

Some other blue-based control must be very strong too.

Edit: Good question. After testing, I preferred the explosiveness of Lotus in the Mono B deck (not just for Mind Twist but also Hippie, Infernal Contract, etc).
Lotus+land = T1 Twist for 3
Lotus+Vein = T1 Twist for 4
Lotus+Ritual+Swamp = T1 Twist for 5
Lotus/Ritual are 8 ways to get T1 Hypnotic Specter.
These explosive starts pressure the opponent's hand early with random discard, play under opponent's discard, and dodge counters.

For fast starts Sol Ring is only +1 mana (or +2 mana -1 turn), while Lotus is +3 mana. The -1 turn is relevant if opponent is also vomiting out their hand or will have UU up by turn 2. This is a format with 12 2-mana counters but no free ones, so accelerating on turn 1 vs turn 2 is a big difference. Sol Ring can also lead to awkward T1 and T2 sequencing with a lot of BB costs.

Sol Ring is better in the more controlling BU and BW decks. Reusing Sol Ring is only better if you have colorless mana sinks for it.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Thanks for your feedback, FTW. After some fumbling, I believe I've hit on a plan that will minimally alter the rules of Martian Timewalk while incorporating Alpha/Beta in a way that's fun:

Let the intersection of the Legacy banned list and the Vintage restricted list be called the Special Treatment list of Martian Timewalk.
(A) Cards entering Martian Timewalk will enter with one point if they're on the Special Treatment list.
(B) The point-assigning algorithm, instead of only hitting the top two cards, will be allowed to hit many top cards at once if those cards are on the Special Treatment list. (That way, big changes are allowed to happen if the format is overrun with cards from the Special Treatment list.)

So far, my testing suggests that the format is fun and that the best deck is not obvious. (Opinions welcome!) Every deck has "spice," but no deck can have all the spice --- you have to pick and choose (as you did with your lists). It will feel weird to play decks with 4x Black Lotus, but it's a desirable feature of the format that people can spend their seven deck-building points as they wish.

Ante cards and dexterity cards (like Chaos Orb) are banned. I didn't make that explicit --- my mistake! (I know they play Chaos Orb in Old School Magic, so it's no wonder you'd want to build with it.)

ps Hi there Reepicheep!

ps2 FTW, if you can, please feel welcome to post test results here or share on PM (winning list, size of "event," even if it's a duel) so the point-assigning algorithm has data. I know your sample size must be small, but so is mine, and something is better than nothing! I have so little time these days, but I would love the point list to be able to adapt to the tier-1 strategies, if you're testing them out anyway.

[FTW]

I like that change. If P9 cards can gain points quickly, that should self-correct soon. It's just a strange feature that Harmonize costs as many points as Ancestral Recall for now.


dexterity cards (like Chaos Orb) are banned.

Thanks for clarifying! I checked the stated rules a few times and it appeared legal. Your original format rules had no B/R list, with the point system instead. Chaos Orb also wasn't on your list of Vintage restricted cards starting at 1 pt (because it's not on the Vintage restricted list, it's banned). Considering 4 Ancestral is legal, I thought maybe the Martians allowed silliness like Chaos Orb and Shahrazad in their experiment.

Other formats that allow Chaos Orb errata out the dexterity component. You assume opponent rearranged their cards far apart so you can only hit one card, and that you have enough coordination to hit the card you want. It's basically Vindicate.




ps2 FTW, if you can, post test results here or share on PM (winning list, size of "event," even if it's a duel) so the point-assigning algorithm has data. I know your sample size must be small, but so is mine, and something is better than nothing! I have so little time these days, but I would love the point list to be able to adapt to the tier-1 strategies, if you're testing them out anyway.

Sure

RUG vs BU Mind Twist (your list): 5-1 for RUG
The 1 loss was from a "cheating" game where the BU deck had 5 free mulligans to see if it could get a powerful enough start to win. I concluded BU can win with the right mix of fast disruption and multiple threats, but its opening hands were high variance. Or maybe I was just getting bad luck.

RUG vs Mono B: 3-2 for RUG
The more explosive T1s helped pressure RUG before it had counters up.

RUG vs BW: 2-1 for RUG
RUG recovered after a T2 Balance+Rack discarding 5 cards (Mystical Tutor putting Ancestral on top), but lost one after 2 Balances.

I'll have to adjust the others without Chaos Orb.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Brilliant! Thank you.

Chaos Orb slipping past was 100% my lack of forethought/organization :-)


I like that change. If P9 cards can gain points quickly, that should self-correct soon. It's just a strange feature that Harmonize costs as many points as Ancestral Recall for now.
I agree that it's strange. It's also very weird, as you pointed out, that Sand Golem is 2pt while Mind Twist runs free. My philosophy of the format is very process-oriented --- keep adding points to cards that keep winning tournaments, keep letting other cards' point values decay. It was your feedback that prompted me to adjust so that Special Treatment cards can get points faster.

The algorithm will also experiment with unpointing cards like Mox Emerald that aren't seeing use in this rotation. That'll be weird too, but the algorithm has memory, and the more times a card has acquired points, the slower it is to shed them (the cards gets permanent "stickiness"). In that way, errors that get corrected will tend to remain corrected.

At some point I'll add a full, step-by-step description of the algorithm so that it's not so hand-wavy.

[FTW]

So far the strength of the RUG deck is how often it can Ancestral (4 Ancestral + 4 Mystical Tutor + 4 Regrowth). That makes it extremely resilient against disruption. Combined with cheap counters & burn and the ability to access copies easily as needed (Mystical Tutor & Regrowth), it's quite adaptive to whatever fight the opponent is picking. Then it just needs to find an opening to set up its combo finish when opponent is vulnerable, which is easy with EOT Mystical Tutor after Power Sinking or opponent taps out.

The combo finish depends on life total, so it's weak to early aggro pressuring life total. The SB has some help against aggro but maybe not enough (more Rough//Tumble?). A dedicated aggro deck should be favored.

That makes me wonder if another blue control-combo would be even stronger. You just need to sit back with
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Counterspell
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink

[FTW]

After stumbling around with a few UWx combo shells that felt clunky, I turned the same shell into control (using fewer slots for the wincon)

Jeskai Control (4 Ancestral + 3 Sol Ring = 7)

//Mana: 25
4 Flood Plain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
4 Plateau
6 Island
3 Sol Ring

//Spells: 31
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink
3 Disenchant
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Wrath of God

//Creatures: 4
2 Frenetic Efreet
1 Numot, the Devastator
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury

//Sideboard: 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Wrath of God
1 Shatterstorm
1 Boomerang
1 Braingeyser
2 Voidstone Gargoyle


This felt strong overall but still lost to RUG. Kaervek's Torch made it hard to win counter wars, forcing the counter on Channel instead of the burn spell, which let RUG keep developing with no penalty (1-for-1 instead of 2-for-1 and no 19 life paid). Once Jeskai almost got there with a tricky StP on Frenetic Efreet (to survive at 2 life vs 2 life) into 2/2 morph, but then RUG found another burn spell in time. Edit: Added 3 BEB to help this matchup.

Jeskai did well against the rest though. The Sol Rings were bad early game but eventually fueled unstoppable Power Sinks and powered out the big finishers.

Jeskai v RUG 0-3
Jeskai v BU Mind Twist 2-0
Jeskai vs Mono B TurboTwist 2-0
Jeskai vs BW 8Twist 1-1

I've tested some aggro ideas too. Maybe you can help improve these.

Big Red (4 Sol Ring + 3 Wheel = 7)

//Mountains: 20
20 Mountain

//Artifacts: 11
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Sol Ring
4 Gauntlet of Might

//Spells: 14
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
3 Hammer of Bogardan
3 Wheel of Fortune

//Creatures: 15
4 Blood Knight
4 Reckless Wurm
4 Akroma, Angel of Fury
2 Wildfire Emissary
1 Torchling

//Sideboard: 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Burning Palm Efreet
2 Goblin Tinkerer
2 Shatterstorm
2 Dead // Gone
3 Fireball


This deck is trying to ramp into big red mana sinks, playing all the best red cards instead of having to play the bad 1-3 drops for curve reasons. Numbers are still rough. It's very good at making Akroma, and Akroma is annoying to stop for nonblack decks. This deck is also good at grinding out with Hammer.

Blood Knight, Wildfire Emissary and Akroma are immune to StP (ironically this makes Torchling very weak to StP because it lacks targets to redirect at).
Wurm and Emissary are both bigger than Bolt too, and Emissary can untap under Meekstone, so Wildfire Emissary is better than it looks.



GW NettleGeddon (7 Mox = 7)

//Mana: 21
4 Mox Emerald
3 Mox Pearl
4 Savannah
4 GW fetch
5 Forest
1 Plains

//Creatures: 27
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Mtenda Lion
4 Mire Boa
4 Hedge Troll
4 Groundbreaker
4 Nettletooth Djinn
3 Calciderm

//Spells: 12
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Giant Growth
4 Armageddon

//Sideboard: 15
3 Berserk
2 Radiant Essence
2 Lifeforce
3 Tsunami
3 Seal of Primordium
1 Tranquility
1 Calciderm


The plan is to accelerate efficient threats with Mox and Birds, then blow up all lands with Armageddon. Postboard there are 7 Armageddon effects vs blue decks!! Because of the Geddon plan and the high demand for colored mana costs, I think the Moxen are better than Lotus or Sol Ring.

There's also a "combo" plan to alpha strike with Groundbreaker + Berserk. I initially had Berserks main but moved them to the SB, because the combo plan is weak to heavy disruptive decks. Against other aggro Berserks can come in over Geddons. Against control, Groundbreaker comes out for hate.

GW Geddon vs RUG 1-2
GW Geddon vs Jeskai 0-2
GW Geddon vs Mono B TurboTwist 1-1
GW Geddon vs BW 8Twist 0-2
GW Geddon vs Big Red 0-2
Big Red vs Mono B TurboTwist 2-0
Big Red vs BU Twist 0-2
Big Red vs Jeskai 1-1
Big Red vs BW 8Twist 1-1

GW should have a better shot after some point adjustments on the more powerful cards, since those Moxen may be the last to survive. It can pack a lot of hate for the more dominant blue and black decks! It should also get a boost once the points adjust to favor Harmonize and Sand Golem over Ancestral Recall and Mind Twist. This deck badly wants to refuel with Harmonize but can't afford wasting points on non-Power. Without card draw, the blue decks were able to answer everything until this deck ran out of gas. The one win against RUG came from a Geddon that snuck through after making them tap down vs 2 Mtenda Lion (by preventing damage RUG had lethal Channel+Fireball next turn, the Lion damage would have stopped it, so it was worth the gamble but walked into Geddon).

[BirdsOfParadise]

Cool lists! I'd been wondering how to use Groundbreaker. And I'd forgotten all about Gauntlet of Might. I'm looking forward to playing with these. And thanks for posting your own testing results! Much appreciated.

Dwarven Miner has to be good now that dual lands are everywhere, right? I'd run it in mono-red for sure, and maybe in the sideboard of URW Control for when the opponent sideboards out creature removal.

Did you consider Sacred Mesa in URW Control? I had it in decks with 14 W sources, not 12, but I think that deck looks made for Sacred Mesa. It's the actual perfect card in a late-game scenario where you have lands, but you need board stabilization, and you need a way to win, and your topdecks will be more lands and countermagic.
Edit: I also had my eye on Crovax, Ascendant Evincar --- it has a built-in board control effect, is immune to removal, and plays well with Sacred Mesa if for some reason you ever have to go there.
Edit2: Frenetic Efreet doesn't play well with protect-the-threat counterspells... you can't just try the coin flip and then spend the counter only if you lose the flip. Maybe 2--3 Mesa, 0--1 Crovax, 0--1 Numot? I do like the idea of getting a swing in with Numot :-D

Shatterstorm is not legal, but no worries, Builder's Bane should be similar, right?

[FTW]

Cool lists! I'd been wondering how to use Groundbreaker. And I'd forgotten all about Gauntlet of Might. I'm looking forward to playing with these. And thanks for posting your own testing results! Much appreciated.

Glad to help contribute to your game!

I played a few more with the modified Jeskai list, but it still lost 0-2 to RUG (even after boarding in 7 blasts!). It's funny to think that Granger Guildmage and Sand Golem were tier 1 cards, and now I'm playing blue mirrors where Ancestral Recall is put on the stack over 10 times in a game (including both players).

Gauntlet of Might has been insane in Mono Red. I had games with Akroma attacking for 17 damage on turn 5. It's also a lot easier to Hammer every turn.
But the BW deck shut it down hard with Enlightened Tutor into Conversion or Circle of Protection: Red! Without Chaos Orb, red lacks enchantment removal. It probably needs Disks in the SB.



Dwarven Miner has to be good now that dual lands are everywhere, right? I'd run it in mono-red for sure, and maybe in the sideboard of URW Control for when the opponent sideboards out creature removal.

Yeah, Dwarven Miner is good tech. Attacking greedy mana seems good. I originally had 2 Miners in the Jeskai SB and cut it because tapping down sorcery speed to play fragile creatures is not what draw-go control is about. Monored definitely wants it. Jeskai maybe... Detritivore is another option that even dodges counters and spot removal.



Crovax, Ascendant Evincar --- it has a built-in board control effect, is immune to removal, and plays well with Sacred Mesa if for some reason you ever have to go there.

The synergy with Sacred Mesa is nice. Otherwise it suffers from the problem of being another "dragon" (6-mana sorcery speed), when the deck really wants to play Draw-Go with untapped lands. Recasting it makes that problem even worse. A flash creature would be ideal.

For a sorcery-speed threat, Voidstone Gargoyle might be better. You can either name removal (to protect it) or name one of their important spells to shut down their deck. So even if you get tapped down for a turn, Gargoyle can stop them from doing anything broken with that turn.



Did you consider Sacred Mesa in URW Control? I had it in decks with 14 W sources, not 12, but I think that deck looks made for Sacred Mesa. It's the actual perfect card in a late-game scenario where you have lands, but you need board stabilization, and you need a way to win, and your topdecks will be more lands and countermagic.

Edit2: Frenetic Efreet doesn't play well with protect-the-threat counterspells... you can't just try the coin flip and then spend the counter only if you lose the flip. Maybe 2--3 Mesa, 0--1 Crovax, 0--1 Numot? I do like the idea of getting a swing in with Numot :-D

Both Numot and Akroma were amazing. I wouldn't cut either.

Frenetic Efreet doesn't need protection. It protects itself with 50% chance, good enough to mess up opponent's decision trees and make them bleed cards. It's a low-maintenance threat, letting you ignore it and save resources for disrupting the opponent's plan while it's annoying for them to answer. The bigger problem is it's a very slow clock. Opponent has a lot of time to assemble a win condition through counters, especially with any lifegain. I've wanted to cut it for another low cmc threat that can close the game faster. Sacred Mesa does that well, although it ties up the mana a lot more, which is a big downside. I'll test 2 Mesas for now and maybe drop it to 1.

[FTW]

Updated Jeskai Control


//Mana: 25
4 Flood Plain
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
3 Plateau
7 Island
3 Sol Ring

//Spells: 31
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterspell
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink
3 Disenchant
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Wrath of God

//Creatures: 3
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
1 Numot, the Devastator
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury

//Enchantment: 1
1 Sacred Mesa

//Sideboard: 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Wrath of God
1 Builder's Bane
1 Disenchant
1 Braingeyser
1 Detritivore
1 Voidstone Gargoyle



Updated RUG Burn


//Mana: 20
4 Flood Plain
4 Mountain Valley
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Taiga

//Spells: 34
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Regrowth
4 Counterspell
3 Channel
1 Fork
1 Dissipate
4 Kaervek's Torch
2 Fireball
2 Power Sink
1 Braingeyser

//Artifacts: 4
4 Ivory Tower

//Enchantments: 2
2 Mana Flare

//Sideboard: 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Power Sink
1 Venarian Glimmer
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Tranquility
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Savage Twister
1 Earthquake
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Nevinyrral's Disk


More matches
Jeskai Control vs RUG Burn 0-2 (in addition to the 0-2 reported above)
Jeskai Control vs Big Red 2-0

Even boarding in 7 blasts and 2 more disruptive creatures, RUG still gets the upper hand!

The problem is Jeskai can't make a threat without committing a lot of mana, which creates an opening for RUG to go off. It's a typical blue staring contest. If Jeskai does anything proactive, RUG untaps and wins. If Jeskai waits, RUG has forever to make land drops, gain life, draw cards, and sculpt a perfect hand to beat 2-3 counters. RUG can also pick some fights on end step (Ancestral, Bolt, Glimmer) and Jeskai has to let them resolve or be handicapped to fight the possible untap into Channel+Torch. But RUG can freely counter Jeskai's Ancestrals at any time because Jeskai can't exploit tap-outs in the same way. Between that and Regrowths, RUG is resolving a lot more Ancestrals each game. RUG can also exploit mana advantages to force counter wars over Channel instead of Torch (preserving resources). If Channels fail, RUG lost little and has a strong late game plan of piling up lands and hardcasting X spells.

LD could fight this, but Dwarven Miner is easily killed before it destroys anything. Detritivore is harder to stop but commits a lot of mana at sorcery speed, which gives RUG a big opening to go off the next turn.

The nice thing about Frenetic Efreet was it allowed Jeskai to actually do something proactive without committing much mana. The current build felt even worse against RUG, with Crovax and friends sitting dead in hand or casting them leading to losses.

Edit: Jeskai finally won a match against RUG! (won both postboard games)
The wins came from boarding in 2 Voidstone Gargoyle. This allowed Jeskai to make a proactive threat (accelerated by Sol Ring) that wouldn't allow RUG to untap and win, so it could start picking fights more freely. Both games had a bit of luck with Jeskai having more Ancestrals in the opening hand, and the proactive Gargoyle let it take advantage of those better draws to lock down the game and win when RUG drew poorly.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Conversion
mono-red
Is THAT why Sunglasses of Urza was printed?!

It looks like RUG ChannelBall is the best deck so far and URW Control is perhaps number two. BW 8Twist also seems to have an ever-or-better record against everything except RUG ChannelBall.

If nothing were favored against RUG, then the equilibrium would be trivial: Everyone play RUG and tune for the mirror match. So the assignment is to find one deck that's favored against RUG.

How about this? I did one quick Bo3 and it was RDW 2 > 1 RUG ChannelFireball.

Does Red Deck Win?
// 12 Artifact
4 Black Vise
4 Mox Ruby
4 Ankh of Mishra (Mirage fetch lands = 4 damage!)

// 16 Creature
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Blood Knight
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Dwarven Miner

// 10 Instant
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate

// 16 Land
16 Mountain

// 6 Sorcery
3 Wheel of Fortune
3 Hammer of Bogardan

Just saw your last line about Jeskai stealing a match. Sounds like Gargoyle was impressive!

[FTW]

Is THAT why Sunglasses of Urza was printed?!

Yeah, the early sets had a lot of hate but then also very specific counters to that hate.

The other use for Sunglasses was as mana-fixing for casual RW decks. Plateau was the only RW dual until Apocalypse's Battlefield Forge.



It looks like RUG ChannelBall is the best deck so far and URW Control is perhaps number two. BW 8Twist also seems to have an ever-or-better record against everything except RUG ChannelBall.

Yeah, at least in my pool of decks RUG was the top dog. I was looking for something to beat it. I hoped some aggro brew would but couldn't put together one that was strong enough.

I like your RDW. Black Vise and Ankh of Mishra add a lot of hate to the card drawing and fetchlands, punishing RUG for its greed. Maindeck REB and nonbasic hate too! That should balance the equilibrium to make a more stable meta.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: December 1, 2021

Automatic point adjustments:
Ancestral Recall -> 2 pt (up from 1 pt)
Mystical Tutor -> 1 pt (up from 0 pt)
Counterspell -> 1 pt (up from 0 pt)
Flood Plain -> 1 pt (up from 0 pt)
Harmonize -> 0 pt (down from 1 pt)


Next automatic point adjustment: January 1, 2022
Next random set added: January 15, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[FTW]

That point adjustment really helps balance the overpowered blue decks

RDW remains unchanged and should be strong. Nettlegeddon gains 4 Harmonize.

Blue control will need pivot around Enlightened Tutor instead of Mystical Tutor

UW MaskNought

//Lands: 24
4 Tundra
4 Bad River
10 Island
6 Plains

//Spells: 29 (3 Ancestral + 1 Mystical = 7 pts)
3 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Memory Lapse
4 Dissipate
3 Disenchant
3 Reality Ripple
3 Wrath of God

//Creatures: 4
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

//Artifacts: 2
1 Illusionary Mask
1 Nevinyrral's Disk

//Enchantments: 1
1 Sacred Mesa

//Sideboard: 15
1 Karma
1 Lifetap
1 Conversion
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Cursed Totem
1 Library of Leng
1 Shimmer
1 Forcefield
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
3 Power Sink
1 Disenchant
1 Wrath of God



UW Stasis Prison

//Mana: 22
4 Tundra
4 Bad River
14 Island

//Enchantments and Artifacts: 17
4 Black Vise
4 Howling Mine
4 Stasis
2 Island Sanctuary
3 Frozen Aether

//Spells: 21 (4 Time Walk + 3 Balance = 7 pts)
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Balance
3 Boomerang
4 Time Walk
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink

//Sideboard: 15
1 Lifetap
1 Island Sanctuary
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Shimmer
1 Cursed Totem
1 Library of Leng
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Meekstone
1 Boomerang
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Disenchant


Time Walk lets you not pay Stasis's upkeep and get another untap step before the opponent. It also combos well with Howling Mine and/or Island Sanctuary so that you can draw more cards.


Mono G Stompy

//Mana: 22 (Lotus + Mox = 7 pts)
4 Black Lotus
3 Mox Emerald
15 Forest

//Creatures: 26
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Birds of Paradise
2 Mtenda Lion
4 Mire Boa
4 Groundbreaker
4 Juggernaut
4 Nettletooth Djinn
2 Force of Nature

//Spells: 12
4 Giant Growth
4 Berserk
4 Harmonize

[BirdsOfParadise]

Wow, MaskNought looks scary. I'm trying out those three decks plus RDW, Big Red, GW NettleGeddon, Mono-Black Mind Twist, and BW 8-Twist in my next gauntlet. Seems like Mind Twist must gain a lot of ground with the point adjustment.

By the way, you know how Channel decks always win with a spell costing RX? Do people ever smugly say "here's your prescription" when casting the lethal burn spell? (You know, Rx?) How has this not caught on? :D

I bet Porphyry Nodes is a decent singleton in UW MaskNought.

[FTW]

Lol, never heard that joke before.

Porphyry Nodes looks good for UW.

RUG ChannelFireball can still exist but is probably a lot weaker. It loses the most (Ancestral, Mystical, Counterspell, Flood Plain) and already has points taken up by Channel. The remaining points would go to Mystical Tutor to fix the combo. So that means 0 Ancestral, 0 Counterspell, 0 Flood Plain, and probably a rebuild around more burn and board control. It loses its strengths at drawing extra cards and controlling the stack. Or Rx could cut down to just RG colors and play more proactive burn+aggro (Bolt, Incinerate, Black Vise, small creatures, and then Channel+Torch finisher).

I played a few matches so far:
UW MaskNought vs Mono G: 2-0 for UW
UW Stasis vs Mono G: 2-0 for Stasis
MonoB TurboTwist vs UW Stasis: 2-0 for Twist
UW Stasis vs Nettlegeddon: 1-1

[BirdsOfParadise]

Thanks for sharing, FTW! It looks like you're better at playing the Stasis deck than I am. Or maybe its victories are the result of your sneaky deck updates --- fitting Time Walk in there seems like a good plan.

I just finished my first test gauntlet of the second leg of the Alpha/Beta format. Big Red came in first, with GW NettleGeddon in second place. Both those lists are FTW's lists in post #47 of this thread, higher up on this page. Summary below.

Round of 8
Big Red 2 > 0 Red Deck Wins
Big Red had plenty of cheap removal and then drew superior creatures. RDW was not helped by the fact that I'd tuned it against last rotation's RUG ChannelBall deck, or that I didn't build it a sideboard (since it was pre-boarded for ChannelBall). I'll try to adjust it for a wider field.

Mono-Black TurboTwist 2 > 0 UW MaskNought
TurboTwist did what it's supposed to do: huge Mind Twists fast. Hypnotic Specter and Sinkhole were powerful too.

GW NettleGeddon 2 > 0 UW Stasis Prison
G1: NettleGeddon was too fast for the prison deck to build a late-game position. G2: Tsunami, then another Tsunami.

BW 8-Twist 2 > 0 Mono-Green Stompy
Balance. It's not fair.

Round of 4
Big Red 2 > 1 Mono-Black TurboTwist
The Big Red deck is dynamite. One can't tell in so few games whether it's good, but it sure is fun. The games were surprisingly close, given that both decks just throw haymakers at each other.

GW NettleGeddon 2 > 1 BW 8-Twist
G1 was fast. G2 and G3 were both drawn-out and interesting to play, with lots of board-clearing effects and hand-clearing effects. Deathgrip was very powerful in G2.

Finals
Big Red 2 > 0 GW NettleGeddon
G1: "Bolt the birds" leaves GW NettleGeddon needing to topdeck a third land. Instead it topdecks all four Hedge Trolls. The smaller creatures get removed by Big Red as necessary.
G2: NettleGeddon has an okay curve, putting five or six lions, boas and trolls and a Seal of Primordium onto the board over a few consecutive turns. It doesn't have Swords to Plowshares, though, and a turn-3 morph creature followed by a turn-4 Lion's Eye Diamond proves to be an unbeatable threat. Akroma, Angel of Fury wins the game for Big Red. I admit that I shaved one or two copies of Swords to Plowshares after sideboarding because of all the creatures with protection from white, but a Swords to Plowshares would have been essential to NettleGeddon winning this game.

[FTW]

Interesting result! Thanks for sharing the details of the round matchups!

Yeah, I really enjoyed playing the Big Red deck. It has fun interactions and scales well into the late game. As you probably noticed, it's very good at making a fast Akroma, and Akroma is very strong! I had similar games with T4 or T5 Akroma. It would have won more in my pool if not for the 8x Ancestral decks, but now the format adjustment balances that out.

I ran into the same sideboarding thing with Big Red vs GW. StP is so bad against most of the creatures, so do you board it out? But then Big Red gets to jam Akroma faster!

My Stasis results are for the modified version with Time Walk. I didn't test any games with the other version. Time Walk was strong. With Stasis out it works like Boomerang: If you have 2 untapped Islands, you can fully untap before the opponent does (normally opponent untaps first when Stasis dies, which is what you want to avoid). Without Stasis it interacts well with Howling Mine and/or Island Sanctuary, letting you draw more cards without downside. Even just played on turn 2, you get to Explore and have an easier time using Power Sink on the opponent. When I got 1-1 vs Nettlegeddon (2 matches), Stasis won all preboard games and got its losses postboard (Tsunami). The extra copies of Island Sanctuary were amazing at stopping all the ground attackers, but Stasis really can't recover from Tsunami if the GW player can sneak it through. Edit: And 3x Balance of course helped against fast creatures. Otherwise the deck is slow to get to a winning state.

[BirdsOfParadise]

I just finished my second gauntlet of the second leg of the Alpha/Beta format. This time the winner was Mono-Black TurboTwist (exactly or almost exactly FTW's list), with Red Deck Wins coming in second place.

Mono-Black TurboTwist (4 Lotus + 3 Tutor = 7)

//Mana: 25
10 Swamp
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Crystal Vein
4 Dark Ritual
4 Black Lotus

//Threats: 12
4 The Rack
4 Dunerider Outlaw
4 Hypnotic Specter

//Other Spells: 23
4 Paralyze
4 Sinkhole
3 Demonic Tutor
4 Stupor
3 Infernal Contract
4 Mind Twist
1 Nevinyrral's Disk

//Sideboard: 15
3 Damnation
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Demonic Hordes
1 Royal Assassin
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Drain Life
1 Extirpate
1 Forbidden Crypt
1 Disrupting Scepter
1 Gloom
1 Deathgrip
1 Paupers' Cage

This time I didn't write out all the matches, but here are the highlights.

Round of Eight --- Big Red, previous winner, eliminated
Big Red lost to BW 8-Twist. In game 1, Big Red won through Hammer of Bogardan recursion, with the help of other burn spells and Gauntlet of Might. Games 2 and 3 were long and hotly contested, and both were eventually concluded with the help of BW's big anti-red sideboard cards, Circle of Protection: Red and Conversion.

Semifinals
Red Deck Wins 2 > 0 BW 8-Twist
Game 1 was long. BW seemed to stabilize after some pressure from RDW, but it didn't soon draw a win condition, and RDW topdecked a Hammer of Bogardan, for which BW had no answer. Two Incinerates helped finish things.
Game 2: RDW punished BW's land-light opening with a Flashfires that destroyed two Plains.

The other semifinals
Mono-Black TurboTwist 2 > 0 UW MaskNought
Huge, fast Mind Twists put UW in a bad spot. In game 2, UW heroically managed to get a Phyrexian Dreadnought into play twice, but it was to no avail, as they were met with Damnation and Icy Manipulator. Infernal Contract was outstanding in this matchup.

Finals
Mono-Black TurboTwist 2 > 0 Red Deck Wins
More huge, fast Mind Twists. Like UW MaskNought, RDW came close to making a comeback, since TurboTwist exhausts a lot of resources to do such big Mind Twists, but both times it came up short. In both this match and the semifinal, Sinkhole and Hypnotic Specter played a big role in ensuring that the opponent couldn't get back into the game after a Mind Twist.

[FTW]

Interesting results!

So the two big haymaker decks are winning (with Big Red of course losing to Conversion). That probably means there needs to be a stronger blue control presence. MaskNought might take up too many spots on a fragile win condition that's easily stopped (Paralyze, StP, Icy, Damnation, Wrath, Balance, Disenchant).

With RUG ChannelBall banned out of the format, the best remaining Ancestral deck is probably some Bant Control (3 Ancestral + 1 Mystical + 4 Regrowth)

Bantcestral (3 Ancestral +1 Mystical = 7 pts)

//Lands: 23
4 Grasslands
4 Bad River
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Savannah
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

//Spells: 30
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ancestral Recall
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Regrowth
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink
2 Disenchant
4 Dissipate
2 Wrath of God

//Artifacts: 5
4 Ivory Tower
1 Nevinyrral's Disk

//Enchantments: 1
1 Sacred Mesa

//Creatures: 1
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero

//Sideboard: 15
2 Voidstone Gargoyle
2 Wrath of God
1 Disenchant
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Tranquility
1 Braingeyser
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Karma
1 Conversion
1 Lifetap
1 Lifeforce
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Cursed Totem


Edit: Channel Fireball might work better in an RG shell, since it can't run Ancestral + Mystical + Counterspell anymore

RG AggroChannel (4 Channel + 3 Sol Ring = 7 pts)

//Mana: 23
4 Mountain Valley
2 Rocky Tar Pit
4 Taiga
5 Mountain
5 Forest
3 Sol Ring

//Spells: 28
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Channel
3 Regrowth
2 Hammer of Bogardan
4 Harmonize
4 Kaervek's Torch
3 Fireball

//Artifacts: 6
4 Black Vise
2 Nevinyrral's Disk

//Enchantments: 3
3 Mana Flare

//Sideboard: 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Flashfires
1 Tsunami
2 Regrowth
2 Rough // Tumble
3 Seal of Primordium
1 Tranquility
1 Nevinyrral's Disk

[BirdsOfParadise]

Cool lists! I'm looking forward to trying them out.

I wonder if counterspells are really the best way to fight TurboTwist. The trouble is that a 2-mana counter is too slow for a turn-one Hypnotic Specter or big Mind Twist, and a 2-mana counter is also too slow against Sinkholes when you're on the draw. Of course, most other strategies will struggle with those threats too, so that's just another way of saying TurboTwist is very strong! I suspect that the best way to beat it is by proactively emptying your hand fast, spending your deck points on fast mana. That way, when you're on the play, you can get in under a turn-one Mind Twist. I suspect Big Red isn't as strong as TurboTwist overall, but it beat TurboTwist in the first gauntlet by having openings like Land -> Sol Ring -> Sol Ring -> Morph Akroma, where you have a lot of game even if your hand gets discarded afterward. Of course, Bant Control looks like it'll do great against anything as soon as it has two untapped lands in play.

I bet Radha, Heir to Keld would be a good fit in RG ChannelBall. It makes green mana, or you can attack and spend the temporary red mana to remove a blocker using Lightning Bolt or Incinerate. I even wonder about Llanowar Elves as a mana-making attacker? Life totals matter so much for that deck.

I've been thinking about something like this.

\\Mana: 24 (7 Mox = 7)
4 Badlands
4 Scrubland
4 Plateau
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Mox Jet
2 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
3 Rocky Tar Pit

\\Creatures: 14
3 Goblin Tinkerer
3 Dwarven Miner
4 Blightspeaker
2 Dunerider Outlaw
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Rathi Trapper

\\Spells: 19
4 Mind Twist
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Disenchant
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Sinkhole

\\Empty slots: 3
Stupor
Sedge Troll
Jayemdae Tome
Shadow Guildmage

Choke the mana, remove everything, Mind Twist for value but you're not all-in on it. Win with rebels, or add threats in the empty slots, or exchange the rebels for Hypnotic Specter and other good stuff. (Does this want to be a Dark Ritual deck? It's hard with 3 colors).

[FTW]

I wonder if counterspells are really the best way to fight TurboTwist. The trouble is that a 2-mana counter is too slow for a turn-one Hypnotic Specter or big Mind Twist, and a 2-mana counter is also too slow against Sinkholes when you're on the draw.

Yeah, 2-mana counters are slow, since TurboTwist is designed to turbo out under 2-mana counters. What should help is the whole Ancestral Recalls + Regrowth thing. That's basically how RUG ChannelFireball kept beating it in my gauntlet. You could attack RUG's hand, but then RUG quickly redraws more cards and stabilizes.

TurboTwist also lacks win conditions (it consumes a lot of resources to gain tempo on opponent), so if you can redraw into counters and removal, you should be able to answer the wincons and then eventually start countering the next haymakers.

Proactive is another approach. That's what Big Red was aiming for. It has a couple ways to not get blown out by Mind Twist (Sol ring acceleration, Hammer, madness creature, Wheel redraw).

Yeah, Radha and Llanowar Elves might help RG Channel. Ramp + damage is what the deck needs to get ahead for Channel.

Your RWB deck looks good. Mix of discard and heavy mana denial, a lot of disruption and card advantage with less card disadvantage. Worth testing in the next gauntlet.

[BirdsOfParadise]

What should help is the whole Ancestral Recalls + Regrowth thing. That's basically how RUG ChannelFireball kept beating it in my gauntlet. You could attack RUG's hand, but then RUG quickly redraws more cards and stabilizes.
That makes sense. I haven't tested the new UWG against Mono-Black yet, but against other stuff, the Ancestral Recall + Regrowth plan feels like you're playing a whole different game.

Have we been sleeping on Magus of the Library? Does the Channel deck want to be a hand-size-matters deck with Ivory Tower, Magus, Harmonize, Regrowth, and Wheel of Fortune? At least it would be good at drawing the combo... and you could use spare RX spells as board control. Hmm.

[FTW]

Have we been sleeping on Magus of the Library? Does the Channel deck want to be a hand-size-matters deck with Ivory Tower, Magus, Harmonize, Regrowth, and Wheel of Fortune? At least it would be good at drawing the combo... and you could use spare RX spells as board control. Hmm.

I considered an 8x Library UGx control deck with that plan, when I first thought that Library of Alexandria evaded your point list (forgetting it was not in ABU). The main obstacle is the need to keep 7 cards in hand. That's hard in a format with Mind Twists and explosive early plays that demand interaction. The glue holding it together was Ancestral + Regrowth. That made it possible to consistently stay at 7 cards when needed, triggering the Libraries and Ivory Tower. Harmonize helps too. You can even run Library of Leng in the 75 to go over 7 cards as well as hate on discard.

(pre-bans)
4 Ancestral
4 Mystical
4 Regrowth
4 Ivory Tower
4 Library/Magus
1 Braingeyser
1 Timetwister

(post-bans)
3 Ancestral
1 Mystical
4 Regrowth
4 Harmonize
4 Ivory Tower
4 Library/Magus
1 Braingeyser

I didn't commit to this plan for RUG ChannelBall because Magus was bad with the reactive counterspell plan, but that shell could have abused a Library effect well.

I never thought about it for RG. Maybe it could help Channel+Fireball. I think it would be hard to get to 7 cards without the Ancestral train. D7s could help. The downsides of Magus are that it's fragile and it doesn't do anything proactive when you're below 7 cards. Without Ancestral though, you get a lot more points for other effects. Sol Ring would help power out Harmonize and D7s. There might be something there.

[BirdsOfParadise]

I played most of a third gauntlet of the second leg of the Alpha/Beta rotation.

I reached the point where Big Red had secured a spot in the finals, with the other finals spot being contested by UW MaskNought and UWG Control.

I'm a bit short on time and won't finish before next point adjustment, which is on Jan 1; however, it is a mathematical certainty that the outcomes of the remaining matches won't affect the point adjustment. This is because a mono-red deck placed first or second in all three gauntlets, while the other finalist decks were very different from each other (GW NettleGeddon, Mono-Black TurboTwist, a blue deck), with no cards overlapping all three. What's more, no cards from the other finalist decks also exist in any of the mono-red decks, so the algorithm will be forced to give points to some cluster of cards that are present in all three red decks.

Challenge: Mess up my math before Jan 1 by sharing your own test results! :D

Happy new year. Write-up below.


*** First Round ***
Mono-Green Stompy 2 > 1 Mono-Black TurboTwist
G1: Mono-Black kept a hand with a Dunerider Outlaw, but Mono-Green played land, Black Lotus, Juggernaut and handily won the race.
G2: Lifeforce on turn 2 was too slow to stop two Dunerider Outlaws.
G3: Another first-turn Juggernaut spearheaded a successful assault for Mono-Green Stompy.

UW DreadMask 2 > 0 RG Channel Burn
[My wife: "Sorry, 'MaskNought' sounds stupid. Why not call it 'DreadMask'?"]
G1: A two-land hand for the Channel deck took too long to shape up, letting UW cruise to victory.
G2: UW had a turn-three Phyrexian Dreadnought with countermagic backup; RG was too slow.

UWG Control 2 > 0 RWB Destroy-All
G1: RWB didn't sufficiently disrupt the hand or mana of UWG, so a Crovax, Ascendant Hero dodged three copies of Swords to Plowshares and then won.
G2: Weird game with both Karma and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play. UWG won with the power of Ivory Tower.

*** Round of Eight ***
Big Red 2 > 1 UW Stasis Prison
G1: Big Red won a long game by casting a Wheel of Fortune that decked UW.
G2: UW Stasis lost because of a crucial error on my part; if I'd tutored for Island Sanctuary instead of Stasis, I can't think of a way it could have lost, given the game state. I award a win to UW Stasis.
G3: Big Red cast Torchling on turn 2 and hardcast Akroma, Angel of Fury on turn 4, sealing the match. One Sol Ring is good, two are better.

Red Deck Wins 2 > 1 BW 8-Twist
G1: A first-turn Goblin Tinkerer played an outsized role in this back-and-forth game in which BW eventually stabilized the board but succumbed to burn spells.
G2: BW ground RDW to dust with multiple copies Balance while hiding behind Circle of Protection: Red.
G3: BW played a Circle of Protection: Red when at 1 life. Flashfires and a particularly active Dwarven Miner ensured that BW didn't have enough mana to actually use the COP. RDW won.

UWG Control 2 > 0 Mono-Green Stompy
G1: UWG countered most of the early threats, pulled ahead with Ancestral Recall, and took over with Sacred Mesa. (With just one less counterspell, UWG would have lost the game to Groundbreaker + Berserk!)
G2: Three Ivory Towers and seemingly endless Ancestral Recall + Regrowth hand refills were too much for Mono-Green. Not even Tsunami could do enough. UWG won comfortably.

UW DreadMask 2 > 0 GW NettleGeddon
G1: Smooth sailing for UW; Swords to Plowshares x2, countermagic, lots of land drops, a Sacred Mesa for the win, and a Phyrexian Dreadnought to hasten the inevitable.
G2: Porphyry Nodes stops the initial aggro rush and then a fast Phyrexian Dreadnought, nullifying the potential Armageddon follow-up, seals the match.

*** Round of Four ***
Big Red 2 > 1 Red Deck Wins
G1: RDW, after mulliganing to five cards, had a vicious opening of Black Vise, turn-two Wheel of Fortune off a mox, Ankh of Mishra, and three Lightning Bolts.
G2: Big Red won with Akroma, Angel of Fury, although it was close because of RDW's Manabarbs from the sideboard.
G3: Big Red won the damage race with 2 life remaining. Both victories in this match were made possible by Sol Ring, which allowed the otherwise slower deck to play its cards fast.

UW MaskNought ?:? UWG Control
Game 1 is taking forever and I don't know if I'll finish it before the format rotates on Jan 1. We'll see...

[FTW]

These matches sound so fun! Explosive games like Turn 1 Juggernaut and Turn 3 Dreadnought, but also grindfests like multiple Balance, destroying all lands to turn off CoP: Red, decking with Wheel of Fortune, Ivory Tower grinding out Karma, and Crovax dodging 3 removals.

I'll try to get in a few matches before Jan 1st.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Yes, the matches have been fun!

I finished up the third gauntlet after all. UWG Control came in first place, with Big Red in second place.

*** Round of Four (continued) ***
UWG Control 2 > 0 UW DreadMask
G1: Phyrexian Dreadnought shenanigans didn't benefit DreadMask against UWG, whereas Regrowth was a huge asset for UWG in ensuring that it won the subgame of "who can keep a Sacred Mesa in play."
G2: After a long struggle for card advantage, UWG won using Crovax, Ascendant Hero instead of Sacred Mesa because UW DreadMask had too many copies of Disenchant.

*** Finals ***
UWG Control 2 > 1 Big Red
G1: UWG won with Crovax, Ascendant Hero. Perhaps I misplayed Big Red's side --- twice I played a morphed Akroma, Angel of Fury, the first Angel meeting a Swords to Plowshares and the second a Dissipate. It might have been better to wait for eight mana and hardcast an uncounterable Angel with protection from white.
G2: A first-turn Dwarven Miner hampered UWG's development, and before UWG was quite on its feet, Akroma, Angel of Fury was attacking for 13 damage at a time.
G3: UWG answered an Akroma by casting Conversion, turning off the firebreathing ability. UWG hid, with little life left, in its Ivory Towers. The pressure mounted as Big Red played two morphed Angels and attacked for 10 damage a turn, but UWG finished the tournament with a topdecked Wrath of God.

[FTW]

I tested Big Red against a range of decks, because I was curious if it was the best.

Big Red loss vs Mono Green (WLL): Lost both games to Berserk+Groundbreaker. Might have misplayed one. I could avoided a loss by leaving up Bolt mana, but T2 Gauntlet seemed like a good play vs doing nothing (but cost 18 damage).

Big Red win vs Nettlegeddon (WW): Akroma + Gauntlet won both games while removal kept early threats off the board. Geddon came too late.

Big Red loss vs 8Twist (LL): G1 it beat 2 Akromas (StP on Morph, ETutor-> Meekstone on 2nd). G2 Turn 3 Conversion (off ETutor + Ritual) with Balance to clean up the board.

Big Red win vs TurboTwist (LWW): G1 had Turn 2 6Twist + double Rack. G2 and G3 were both swung by Goblin Tinkerer + Akroma.

Big Red loss vs Bantcestral (LL): G1 I tried to slow play Akroma at 8 mana to dodge StP & counters, which was wise because Bant answered every other creature. Meanwhile Bant stalled with Ivory Tower life gain and Disenchants to keep Big Red off 8 mana for a long time. By the time Akroma landed, Bant had Wrath. G2 ramping out Detrivore X=3 did some early work as uncounterable repeat-LD, but Ivory Tower + CoP: Red + 2 basics stalled. Big Red was forced to go wide, which walked into double Wrath. That was enough time for 4x Ancestral -> lands -> Sacred Mesa.

Bant seems very strong. Its biggest weakness would be losing to a fast start if it doesn't have the answers in hand (RDW or Green stompy). Once it gets the late game, it's extremely good at stabilizing, outdrawing the opponent, and having more answers. Unsurprisingly, casting multiple Ancestral Recall and hiding behind Ivory Towers is a good game plan. Because the wincons are so compact, it has more room for answers than the other blue decks. I'm not surprised it beat UW Dreadmask, which ends up with less available cards after making its threats.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Thanks for sharing! I'm glad Mono-Green Stompy finally got to do the Groundbreaker + Berserk thing :-)

I agree with everything you said about Bant. It's a great deck in the format, maybe the strongest deck in the current batch.

I realized that my third gauntlet had enough decks that my algorithm wants to know the top 3 placements, not just the top 2.

*** Third Place Match (from my third gauntlet of this rotation) ***
UW DreadMask 2 > 1 Red Deck Wins
G1: Fast DreadNought, removal for the necessary things.
G2: RDW puts UW in a terrible spot with Ankh of Mishra and then Manabarbs. UW doesn't find an escape before running out of life.
G3: Goblin Tinkerers are at the ready, but UW can go Enlightened Tutor -> Cursed Totem and still has the combo in hand. Dead // Gone bounces a Dreadnought, but since it was put in play with Illusionary Mask and not Reality Ripple, it can easily be replayed by UW. Illusionary Mask is definitely an upgrade for the Dreadnought strategy. UW takes third place!
***

With this third place result and with FTW joining the cause of #FreeLightningBolt (i.e., sharing test results where red didn't dominate), I'm no longer certain that points will be added to red cards... I have some spreadsheets to crunch. The results may be late, but I'll rotate the points very soon!

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: January 1, 2022

Automatic point adjustments:
Swords to Plowshares -> 1 pt (up from 0 pt)
Nevinyrral's Disk -> 1 pt (up from 0 pt)
Sand Golem -> 1 pt (down from 2 pt)
Counterspell -> 0 pt (down from 1 pt)

Next automatic point adjustment: January 15, 2022
Next random set added: January 15, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[FTW]

Big Red survives! Big Red, RDW, and MonoG remain unchanged. SB Sand Golem still isn't worth 1 pt yet.

TurboTwist and RG Channel are almost unchanged, needing to reconsider how much they need Disk.

BW 8Twist can probably swap StP for Paralyze. Balance and discard create enough mana pressure to make Paralyze punishing.

Nettlegeddon has to decide whether to cut back on Moxen or StPs. StP is hard to replace in GW, so maybe Moxen need to be cut.

UW Stasis gets to upgrade Memory Lapse to Counterspell!

Other UW will need to reconsider how much they need white without StP. Bantcestral could swap into Porphyry Nodes or switch to BUG with black spot removal and Damnation.


Bantcestral (3 Ancestral +1 Mystical = 7 pts)

//Lands: 23
4 Grasslands
4 Bad River
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Savannah
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

//Spells: 28
3 Ancestral Recall
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Regrowth
4 Counterspell
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink
3 Disenchant
3 Wrath of God

//Artifacts: 4
4 Ivory Tower

//Enchantments: 4
3 Porphyry Nodes
1 Sacred Mesa

//Creatures: 1
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero

//Sideboard: 15
2 Voidstone Gargoyle
1 Wrath of God
1 Disenchant
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Tranquility
1 Braingeyser
1 Volcanic Eruption
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Karma
1 Conversion
1 Lifetap
1 Lifeforce
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Cursed Totem



BUG Control (3 Ancestral + 1 Demonic = 7 pts)

//Lands: 24
4 Bad River
2 Rocky Tar Pit
1 Grasslands
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest

//Spells: 28
3 Paralyze
3 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Regrowth
2 Terror
4 Counterspell
4 Memory Lapse
4 Power Sink
3 Damnation

//Artifacts: 4
4 Ivory Tower

//Creatures: 4
2 Aeon Chronicler
1 Mist Dragon
1 Vorosh, the Hunter

//Sideboard: 15
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Seal of Primordium
1 Tranquility
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Damnation
1 Volcanic Eruption
1 Braingeyser
1 Mind Twist
1 Lifeforce
1 Deathgrip
1 Gloom


Don't know whether Memory Lapse or Dissipate is better. I'm starting with Memory Lapse because I think there are enough sorcery speed plays that needing 2 mana open vs 3 mana open will make a bigger difference than having a permanent answer. But maybe Dissipate is better than Power Sink in counter wars?

I'll try to get some games in before the Jan 15th adjustment (very soon!).

[BirdsOfParadise]

You’re a champ, FTW. I haven’t managed to test this rotation at all. I’m going to slightly adjust future rotation schedules so that two-week-long rotations won’t happen. Two weeks doesn’t feel like enough time for testing.

I like the use of dragons in that BUG list! Also like Volcanic Eruption in the SB. As for 1x Mystical Tutor, I assume that's just copied over from the UWG Control design, and we prefer Demonic Tutor in BUG?

BW 8-Twist doesn’t much mind the loss of StP, I suspect; I played several games in which BW really wanted to empty its hand for a big Balance and there were no creatures on board, so StP was trapped in the hand. I think the deck fares well against creatures in general, so perhaps the swap could be something that works proactively. Relative to the list on page 2, I like -4 StP (because now StP costs points), +1 Paralyze, +1 Jade Statue, +1 Porphyry Nodes, +1 Stupor maindeck.

And yes, hooray for Big Red :-)

[FTW]

I'll try out those changes, thanks! Demonic Tutor wins over Mystical. Maybe BW doesn't need 4 spot removal, so I'll try those other cards.

Volcanic Eruption seemed like a strong way to fight back against the strong red decks.

[Wrath of Pie]

You’re a champ, FTW. I haven’t managed to test this rotation at all. I’m going to slightly adjust future rotation schedules so that two-week-long rotations won’t happen. Two weeks doesn’t feel like enough time for testing.

That's probably because it doesn't have the amount of games played that something like Standard does. (Martians are probably busy with other pursuits, it seems.)

[BirdsOfParadise]

That's probably because it doesn't have the amount of games played that something like Standard does. (Martians are probably busy with other pursuits, it seems.)
Dunno about the Martians but I have two children under age 3 xD (but yes, you're exactly right!)

Welcome to the thread and feel free to join us in brewing/testing if you'd like!

***

Edit: If these three-color blue control decks are going to be in the top tier --- and UWG certainly was in the last rotation --- I'll be adding Detritivores to Big Red's sideboard. Uncounterable, recurring land destruction that synergizes with the deck's plan? Sounds great. FTW suggested it a while ago, but I didn't really see it being useful until these three-color decks with lots of countermagic started showing up.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: January 15, 2022

New random set added: War of the Spark

Automatic point adjustments:
Ancestral Recall is now worth 1 pt (down from 2 pt)
Flood Plain is now worth 0 pt (down from 1 pt)
Bad River is now worth 1 pt (up from 0 pt)
Enlightened Tutor is now worth 1 pt (up from 0 pt)

Next automatic point adjustment: February 16, 2022
Next random set added: April 1, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[BirdsOfParadise]

War of the Spark has a lot of powerful cards, that's for sure. I'll start here. Planeswalkers add a lot to the mono-black Rack deck.

\\Mana: 24
3 Sol Ring
4 Black Lotus
4 Dark Ritual
13 Swamp

\\Action: 36
4 The Rack
4 Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Stupor
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Mind Twist
4 Sinkhole
4 Dreadhorde Invasion
4 Paralyze

Sideboard:
1 Illusionary Mask
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Paupers' Cage
1 Juggernaut
1 God-Pharaoh's Statue
4 Disrupting Scepter
2 Gloom
2 The Elderspell
2 Deathgrip

I like both Saheeli and Karn in Big Red. And Hammer of Bogardan sounds powerful with Saheeli and against enemy planeswalkers in long games.

I've updated my RUG Arcanist list:

RUG Arcanist (4 Ancestral + 3 Mystical = 7)
\\ Core (19):
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mystical Tutor
4 Regrowth

\\ Support (9):
2 Piracy Charm
3 Sapphire Charm
2 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
2 Narset, Parter of Veils

\\ Extra Control (9):
4 Memory Lapse
3 Counterspell
1 Return to Nature
1 Red Elemental Blast

\\ Lands (23):
4 Volcanic Island
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Mountain Valley
4 Island
2 Mountain
1 Forest

\\ Sideboard (15):
3 Red Elemental Blast
4 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Seeds of Innocence
3 Dwarven Miner
2 Fork
1 Lazotep Plating

Maybe:
Krenko, Tin-Street Kingpin
God-Eternal Kefnet

I wonder if there are enough threats. The trouble is that there aren't any worthwhile proactive plays at 1 mana. Do I bring back Granger Guildmage? Maybe add something more expensive but also more powerful, like Krenko, Tin-Street Kingpin or God-Eternal Kefnet?

[FTW]

Nice decks! Davriel is a big upgrade for Rack+Mind Twist decks. Narset is great for blue control. Karn seems good in a lot of decks.

For that black deck, 4 Disrupting Scepter seems like overkill. It's very mana-hungry. I've never wanted more than 1 copy in play at a time. 1 should be enough with Karn. Other SB slots could go to Damnation!


I had tested a few games before the rotation but forgot to post them before Friday the 14th.

BW 8Twist vs Big Red 2-0
Porphyry Nodes did a lot of work both games, since it can remove multiple creatures and removes Protection from White creatures! Coupled with discard, the red deck was punished for playing out too many creatures or punished for keeping creatures in hand!

BW 8Twist vs Nettlegeddon 2-0
Porphyry Nodes + discard again really punished Nettlegeddon for its strategy of trying to flood the board before Armageddon.

BW 8Twist vs Mono G 1-2
Postboard games were swung by heavy sideboarding: disenchants, Lifeforce, and more threats over the Berserk strategy.

Bant vs Nettlegeddon 2-0
Boarding in Tsunamis wasn't enough now that Bant has Counterspell, Porphyry Nodes, and Wraths

[BirdsOfParadise]

Thanks, FTW, for sharing!
You're right about Disrupting Scepter. I admit it, I'm completely lazy when it comes to making a sideboard!

I've adjusted the points and edited the announcement. Bad River now costs 1, ETutor now costs 1, Flood Plain is free again, and the big change is that Ancestral Recall is 1 pt again. (Bear in mind, gentle reader, that the point algorithm has stickiness: If a card bounces back and forth between two point values, it will get "stuck" for longer and longer at the higher value. Next time Ancestral Recall gets bumped to 2 pt --- which could be next rotation, if it's the most commonly used card among successful decks --- it will stay there for longer.)

How many Ancestral Recalls can we resolve before February 16?

***

Deck ideas:

Time Vault and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer can buy you two free turns. You just need a spare artifact, which could even be the Servo that Saheeli gives you when you cast Time Vault as long as you can wait for the summoning sickness. Other cards that support this interaction are Karn, the Great Creator (which can let you store a single Time Vault in the sideboard and still have up to four ways to get it) and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner, which gives you seven extra turns with Time Vault. So far the deck could be mono-blue, maybe spending points on 4x Sol Ring and 2x Mana Vault (and the Time Vault in the sideboard), since the deck is hungry for noncreature spells and generic mana, and both of these improve Kiora's ramping ability. One could even go as far as adding Basalt Monolith if one wanted to go in a MUD direction, or alternatively one could try to be more controlling with counterspells and protect the combo. I doubt the controlling plan would be as good as RUG Arcanist, and I've been wanting to play mono-blue MUD. You could punish the card-drawing decks with Black Vise, equalize things with Howling Mine, and improve consistency and speed with Copy Artifact.

Alternatively, Channel seems fun. Karn, Ugin the Ineffable, and God-Pharaoh's Statue are all cards that would be great to play on turn two with Channel or to ramp into by normal means. Also, how about T1 Llanowar Elves, T2 Channel > Karn > Kiora > use Karn to fetch Time Vault > take seven more turns > tick Karn up > get Illusionary Mask > get Phyrexian Dreadnought > play Dreadnought > attack twice. The opponent still hasn't had a second turn!

[BirdsOfParadise]

Here's what I've been trying out in the past couple of days:

All-In Black (4 Lotus, 2 Sol Ring, 1 SB Time Vault = 7)
// 13 Artifact
4 Black Lotus
3 God-Pharaoh's Statue
4 Basalt Monolith
2 Sol Ring

// 4 Creature
4 Simian Spirit Guide

// 4 Instant
4 Dark Ritual

// 21 Land
4 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Badlands
4 Crystal Vein
4 Swamp

// 12 Planeswalker
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner
4 Ugin, the Ineffable

// 6 Sorcery
4 Mind Twist
2 Shrouded Lore

// 6 Sideboard
SB: 1 God-Pharaoh's Statue
SB: 1 Time Vault
SB: 1 Illusionary Mask
SB: 1 Meekstone
SB: 1 Detritivore
SB: 1 Phyrexian Dreadnought


The idea is to cast something really big on turn one or two. Your big plays are Ugin, the Ineffable; God-Pharaoh's Statue; Mind Twist, the success of which depends on your available follow-up spells; and Karn, the Great Creator. Karn is fun because you can go for the Illusionary Mask + Phyrexian Dreadnought plan, grab a God-Pharaoh's Statue, or pick up a Time Vault. Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner + Time Vault wins on the spot. (You can win with Mask + Dreadnought during your seven extra turns.)

I played an extended set (best of (best of 3, best of 3, best of 5)) between an earlier version of this deck and the RUG Arcanist list above. RUG won 2-0, 2-0. Then I adjusted the All-In Black deck to its current state, and it won 2-1, 0-2, 3-1.

I overlooked Bolas's Citadel, but that belongs somewhere. I may remove the Time Vault combo in favor of Stupor or Infernal Contract or something, saving a point for a third Sol Ring. Also, there need to be redundant copies of the DreadMask combo in the SB.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Here's a new list for All-In Black. I didn't really believe it was more than luck when it beat RUG Arcanist in an extended match (best of (Bo3, Bo3, Bo5)), but this list did it again: 0-2, 2-0, 3-0. I think this deck may be a real thing in the current rotation.

All-In Black
// Mana: 43
4 Black Lotus
4 Basalt Monolith
3 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
3 Shrouded Lore
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Badlands
4 Crystal Vein
12 Swamp

// Bombs: 17
2 God-Pharaoh's Statue
3 Bolas's Citadel
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Ugin, the Ineffable
4 Mind Twist

// Sideboard: 15
SB: 1 God-Pharaoh's Statue
SB: 2 Illusionary Mask
SB: 1 Meekstone
SB: 1 Bolas's Citadel
SB: 1 Lion's Eye Diamond
SB: 1 Winter Orb
SB: 4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
SB: 2 Gloom
SB: 2 Deathgrip

[BirdsOfParadise]

This deck won my latest gauntlet.

RUG Arcanist (4 Ancestral + 3 Mystical = 7)
\\ Core (19):
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mystical Tutor
4 Regrowth

\\ Support (6):
2 Piracy Charm
2 Sapphire Charm
2 Narset, Parter of Veils

\\ Extra Control (10):
4 Memory Lapse
2 Counterspell
1 Lazotep Plating
1 Fury Charm
1 Return to Nature
1 Seeds of Innocence

\\ Mana (25):
4 Volcanic Island
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Mountain Valley
4 Island
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Forest

\\ Sideboard (15):
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Seeds of Innocence
3 Dwarven Miner
2 Fork
1 Lazotep Plating

The plan is to cast Ancestral Recall lots of times and overwhelm the opponent with one-for-one trades. Simian Spirit Guide is the tech that enabled this deck to beat All-In Black. Sacrificing a bit of value for speed is a welcome exchange in that matchup, and this deck has value to spare. Simian Spirit Guide helps cast Memory Lapse, Fury Charm (pronounced "Shatter"), or Return to Nature on turn one. If this kind of build became the dominant one, you'd start seeing versions tuned for the mirror match, with less artifact removal and more copies of Narset, Parter of Veils or maindeck Red Elemental Blast; and then perhaps that kind of build would be weak to All-In Black.

I'll replace that maindeck Lazotep Plating with a Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin to boost the threat density.

The next step is to try to think of other strategies that can go toe-to-toe with Mono-Black TurboTwist, All-In Black, and RUG Arcanist...

[BirdsOfParadise]

The winner of my latest gauntlet:

All-In Black

// 15 Artifact (4 Lotus + 3 Sol Ring = 7)
4 Black Lotus
2 God-Pharaoh's Statue
4 Basalt Monolith
3 Sol Ring
2 Bolas's Citadel

// 4 Creature
4 Simian Spirit Guide

// 4 Instant
4 Dark Ritual

// 21 Land
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Badlands
4 Crystal Vein
12 Swamp

// 9 Planeswalker
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Ugin, the Ineffable
1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General

// 7 Sorcery
4 Mind Twist
3 Shrouded Lore

// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 God-Pharaoh's Statue
SB: 2 Illusionary Mask
SB: 1 Bolas's Citadel
SB: 1 Lion's Eye Diamond
SB: 1 Winter Orb
SB: 3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
SB: 1 Juggernaut
SB: 1 The Elderspell
SB: 4 Extirpate

This deck beat RUG Arcanist (2-1, 2-1) and Mono-Black Discard (2-1, 1-2, 3-0). The key addition was Extirpate in the sideboard. When I first started this rotation, RUG Arcanist was the deck to beat; then I built and streamlined All-In Black, and it became the deck to beat; then I added Simian Spirit Guide to RUG Arcanist, giving it more ability to respond on turn 1, which pushed it ahead of All-In Black again; and now with Extirpate in the SB, All-In Black seems ahead once more. It's a really strong card against RUG Arcanist because that deck relies on getting way ahead by recurring Ancestral Recall and protecting the engine and key threats with countermagic. Extirpate crushes the engine and doesn't care about countermagic. My working theory is that this build of All-In Black is the best deck, and I'm looking for anything that will be favored against it.

Shrouded Lore is mana acceleration on turn one, assuming you've led with Black Lotus or Dark Ritual. It's the first card in the deck that I'd cut, but there are no other burst mana cards that can be included instead, unless I've missed something.

Lion's Eye Diamond in the SB is for the line where you don't think Phyrexian Dreadnought will work, so instead you go Karn, the Great Creator > Karn fetch LED > pass turn > next main phase, crack LED > Karn fetch God-Pharaoh's Statue or Bolas's Citadel. Sometimes LED will enable a turn-two Statue or Citadel in this way. Both artifacts have game-warping abilities, and having Karn animate either of them is a fast clock.

Winter Orb is for Karn to fetch when the situation warrants it, and it's basically always GG if you have God-Pharaoh's Statue in play, which is why I've included it. Without Winter Orb, Statue sometimes just drags a game out and doesn't win the game. Winter Orb is also fun when you have Ugin, the Ineffable in play; you cast Karn for 2 mana, use Karn to fetch Winter Orb, cast Winter Orb for 0 mana, and now you have two planeswalkers ticking up while the lands aren't untapping.

The Elderspell is a nod to other Karn decks, and maybe the right thing is to tune this deck for the mirror with more copies. Short of doing that, I think the best way to beat other Karn decks is to be the fastest Karn deck.

[FTW]

All-in black looks strong! I wonder if this is in part due to a meta with a lack of control. With Ancestral, Counterspell, Flood Plain and Mystical Tutor all downgraded there are a lot of blue options.


RUG Channelball (4 Mystical + 3 Channel)

//Mana: 23
4 Mountain Valley
4 Flood Plain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Taiga
1 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Island

//Spells: 33
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mystical Tutor
4 Channel
4 Counterspell
3 Incinerate
2 Boomerang
1 Regrowth
1 Return to Nature
1 Dissipate
4 Power Sink
4 Kaervek's Torch
1 Fireball
1 Finale of Revelation

//Enchantments: 2
2 Mana Flare

//Artifacts: 2
2 God-Pharaoh's Statue

//Sideboard: 15
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Builder's Bane
1 Tranquility
1 Flashfires
1 Volcanic Eruption
1 Rough // Tumble
1 Savage Twister
1 Drain Power
1 Library of Leng



Bantcestral (4 Ancestral + 3 Mystical)

//Lands: 24
4 Flood Plain
4 Grasslands
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
4 Savannah
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

//Spells: 26
4 Ancestral Recall
3 Mystical Tutor
4 Regrowth
4 Counterspell
4 Dovin's Veto
3 Memory Lapse
1 Return to Nature
1 Boomerang
1 Wrath of God
1 Commence the Endgame

//Enchantments: 6
3 Porphyry Nodes
2 Prison Realm
1 Sacred Mesa

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Creatures: 1
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero

//Rough Sideboard: 15
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Wrath of God
2 Prison Realm
2 Seeds of Innocence
1 Tranquility
1 Narset's Reversal
1 Magical Hack
1 Finale of Revelation
1 Narset, Parter of Veils



Big Red (4 Lotus + 3 Sol Ring)

//Lands: 20
1 Karn's Bastion
19 Mountain

//Artifacts: 12
4 Black Lotus
3 Sol Ring
3 Fire Diamond
2 Gauntlet of Might

//Creatures: 8
4 Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion
4 Akroma, Angel of Fury

//Planeswalkers: 13
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Chandra, Fire Artisan
3 Sarkhan the Masterless
2 Ugin, the Ineffable

//Spells: 7
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Hammer of Bogardan

//Sideboard: 15
1 God-Pharaoh's Statue
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Juggernaut
1 Library of Leng
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Detritivore
2 Dwarven Miner
2 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Earthquake

[BirdsOfParadise]

Sweeeeet. Can't wait to try them out!

[BirdsOfParadise]

My latest gauntlet was won by FTW's Big Red list! (See two posts above.)

Here's what happened.

Round of 8
Pure MUD vs All-In Black
M1.G1: It was trench warfare between Spirit tokens as Ugin, the Ineffable stared down Ugin, the Ineffable. MUD ended up using Blast Zone to destroy both Ugins so that it could play another Ugin, all while locking All-In Black under the Winter Orb + Icy Manipulator combo. 1:0 for MUD
M1.G2: All-In Black cast a seven-point Mind Twist on turn two and a Liliana, Dreadhorde General on turn three. Tied at 1:1
M1.G3: All-In Black had a quick Ugin, the Ineffable, while MUD had a quick Karn, the Great Creator. Soon a Phyrexian Dreadnought trampled over everything, destroyed Ugin, and won the first Bo3 for MUD. Matches 1:0 for MUD
M2.G1: All-In Black had a blistering start: Ugin, the Ineffable on turn one, then a Karn, the Great Creator on turn two, shutting down multiple mana rocks for MUD. 1:0 for All-In Black (matches 1:0 for MUD)
M2.G2: It was a perfect hand for All-In Black against a reasonable five-card mulligan for MUD. No contest. Matches tied 1:1
M3.G1: All-In Black's Karn, the Great Creator defeated MUD's Juggernaut by animating a Basalt Monolith and throwing it in its path; then Ugin, the Ineffable teamed up with Karn and MUD couldn't keep up. 1:0 for All-In Black (matches tied 1:1)
M3.G2: All-In Black won with Karn, the Great Creator into Phyrexian Dreadnought. 2:0 for All-In Black (matches tied 1:1)
M3.G3: MUD weathered a quick Karn opening from All-In Black by destroying a Phyrexian Dreadnought with a Blast Zone, destroying Karn with a Mobilized District, and casting a Karn of its own. 2:1 for All-In Black (matches tied 1:1)
M3.G4: All-In Black had a first-turn Karn and a second-turn God-Pharaoh's Statue (courtesy of Lion's Eye Diamond), which Karn animated into a 6/6 --- that's a three-turn clock with the life-draining ability. MUD had Blast Zone against the possible Phyrexian Dreadnought, but against this play MUD never even got to cast a spell. All-In Black advances to Ro4
I didn't explicitly mention it, but in several games Icy Manipulator was a useful card for MUD.
Here I realized I didn't have time for Bo(Bo3,Bo3,Bo5) in each match --- switching to Bo3

Big Red vs UWG Control
G1: UWG stumbled on mana after three lands, and by the time it resumed mana development, Big Red had it against the ropes. Sarkhan the Masterless flew in for exact lethal damage before UWG could stabilize. Hammer of Bogardan was indispensable in this game. 1:0 for Big Red
G2: Big Red nearly broke through the wall of countermagic, but a late-game topdeck led to a turn in which UWG cast multiples of Ancestral Recall and Regrowth, replenishing its countermagic and closing out the game quickly with a 14/14 Zombie Army token built up by Commence the Endgame. Tied at 1:1
G3: A Dwarven Miner did grave damage to UWG's mana while Big Red pulled ahead with Gauntlet of Might. The Dwarven Miner eventually died to a Blue Elemental Blast, but by that time Big Red was playing with three copies of Hammer of Bogardan and nearly endless mana. Big Red advances to Ro4

Mono-Red Aggro vs RUG Arcanist
Not close. With all the Ancestral Recalls it could cast, RUG Arcanist was playing a whole different format than Mono-Red Aggro. RUG Arcanist advances to Ro4

RUG ChannelBall vs Mono-Black Discard
G1: Mono-Black was on the play with a turn-one Mind Twist for 5, with Hypnotic Specter, Sinkhole, and another Hypnotic Specter on the next three turns. 1:0 for Mono-Black Discard
G2: RUG's mana was wobbly, and Mono-Black pressed its advantage with a Sinkhole. RUG had lots of spells trapped in its hand for Stupor and Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage to take away. Karn, the Great Creator fetched an Illusionary Mask before dying to a Lightning Bolt, and then another Karn closed out the game and the match. Mono-Black Discard advances to Ro4

Round of 4
Big Red vs RUG Arcanist
G1: RUG mulliganed to four cards, but they were the best four: land, land, Ancestral Recall, Mystical Tutor. Big Red had a Sol Ring opener, and RUG couldn't scramble for answers fast enough, despite the card draw. 1:0 for Big Red
G2: RUG used Fury Charm to turn another promising Sol Ring opener into a dud for Big Red, then drew and cast an avalanche of cards. Tied at 1:1
G3: A hand full of artifact mana enabled Big Red to suspend a Detritivore for X=4 on the second turn, nearly preventing RUG from having any mana at all; on the third turn, Big Red cast Ugin, the Ineffable, which destroyed a Dreadhorde Arcanist before it could gain value. Big Red advances to finals

All-In Black vs Mono-Black Discard
G1: It was All-In Black that fired off the first Mind Twist, but it was Mono-Black Discard that cast Dreadhorde Invasion when both sides were low on cards. 1:0 for Mono-Black Discard
G2: All-In Black's second-turn Ugin, the Ineffable might have been enough before sideboarding, but in this game Mono-Black Discard topdecked The Elderspell. A Spirit token and two Simian Spirit Guides weren't enough to sustain All-In Black's hopes. Mono-Black Discard advances to finals

Finals
Mono-Black Discard vs Big Red
G1: Mono-Black kept Swamp x3, Stupor, Mind Twist, Sinkhole x2 on the play. Big Red cast a first-turn Sarkhan the Masterless. That thing is a three-turn clock! 1:0 for Big Red
G2: Mono-Black Discard shredded Big Red's hand, but not before Big Red could cast a Gauntlet of Might off of a Black Lotus. Everything becomes a good topdeck with a Gauntlet in play, and even though Black had The Elderspell for the first planeswalker and Extirpate for Hammer of Bogardan, the next couple of red planeswalkers were too much. Big Red wins the gauntlet!

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: February 16, 2022

Automatic point adjustments:
Black Lotus now costs 2 pt (UP from 1 pt)
Sol Ring now costs 2 pt (UP from 1 pt)
Karn, the Great Creator now costs 1 pt (UP from 0 pt)
Dark Ritual now costs 1 pt (UP from 0 pt)

Mind Harness now costs 0 pt (DOWN from 1 pt)

Next automatic point adjustment: April 1, 2022
Next random set added: April 1, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[BirdsOfParadise]

The winner of my first gauntlet of War of the Spark's second rotation:

BURG Arcanist (4 Ancestral + 3 Mystical = 7)
\\ Core (19):
4 Ancestral Recall
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mystical Tutor
4 Regrowth

\\ Other Spells (17):
2 Extirpate
4 Narset, Parter of Veils
2 Memory Lapse
1 Imp’s Mischief
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Dwarven Miner
2 Angrath’s Rampage

\\ Mana (24):
4 Volcanic Island
4 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Mountain Valley
1 Rocky Tar Pit
2 Badlands
1 Bayou

\\ Sideboard (15):
4 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Return to Nature
1 Lazotep Plating
1 Tranquility
2 Narset’s Reversal
1 Extirpate
1 Imp’s Mischief
1 Angrath’s Rampage
1 Flashfires
2 Counterspell

Right now, I assume that blue is the best color, Ancestral Recall is the best card, and casting multiples of Ancestral Recall is the best strategy. This deck is meant to play that strategy while beating anything like a mirror match. I wonder if there are any viable decks against which this mirror-match focus cedes too much ground. Such a deck might prey on this one and help round out the meta. I can't yet imagine what it might look like, though.

[BirdsOfParadise]

This deck won my second gauntlet of the second chapter of War of the Spark:

RG Anti-Blue

(4 Mana Vault + 3 Mox Ruby = 7)
4 Taiga
4 Mountain Valley
3 Mox Ruby
7 Mountain
2 Mobilized District
4 Mana Vault

4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Dwarven Miner
3 Moss Diamond
2 Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
3 Hammer of Bogardan
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Chandra, Fire Artisan
4 Tsunami
2 Sarkhan the Masterless
3 Detritivore
1 Fork

\\ Sideboard: 8
3 Flashfires
1 Fork
4 Black Vise

The rest of the gauntlet is heavy on 3- and 4-color blue decks that wield the power of 4x Ancestral Recall. This deck was built to test the possibility that a deck without 4x Ancestral Recall can consistently beat decks with 4x Ancestral Recall. This deck can. Obviously, it's very easy to build a deck that can prey on this one, but the question is whether one can build a deck that is favored against this *and* against those unfair blue decks. I'm thinking of RGU Anti-Blue that uses Birds of Paradise and Simic Guildgate to cast Ancestral Recall while still having access to Tsunami.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: April 1, 2022

New set legal: Magic Origins

Automatic point adjustments:
Ancestral Recall now costs 2 pt (UP from 1 pt)
Time Walk now costs 2 pt (UP from 1 pt)
Lightning Bolt now costs 1 pt (UP from 0 pt)
Taiga now costs 1 pt (UP from 0 pt)

Bad River now costs 0 pt (DOWN from 1 pt)
Nevinyrral's Disk now costs 0 pt (DOWN from 1 pt)

New policy: In rotation periods when insufficient playtesting data is collected, the results of the algorithm will be supplemented by adjusting the points list toward the average of Australian Highlander and Canadian Highlander. This is to avoid letting sampling bias govern the direction of Martian Timewalk.


Next automatic point adjustment: May 1, 2022
Next random set added: July 1, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: May 1, 2022 (Okay, it's May 21 --- bad BirdsOfParadise)

Automatic point adjustments:
Ancestral Recall now costs 3 pt (UP from 2 pt)
Sol Ring now costs 3 pt (UP from 2 pt)
Enlightened Tutor now costs 0 pt (DOWN from 1 pt)
Sand Golem now costs 0 pt (DOWN from 1 pt) (Yay Sand Golem!)

Next automatic point adjustment: July 1, 2022
Next random set added: July 1, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Format update: July 1, 2022

New set added: Lorwyn

Automatic point adjustments:
No modifications to the points list.
I'm not satisfied with my previous solution to the no-playtesting-data issue, which was to let the points list move in the direction of an average between Canadian and Australian Highlanders. This feels to me increasingly like a kludge, since Martian Timewalk is its own format. That solution also involves additional tedious spreadsheet usage. Going forward I will simply freeze the points list in the absence of playtesting data.

Next automatic point adjustment: August 1, 2022
Next random set added: October 16, 2022

See OP for complete info.

[BirdsOfParadise]

Because of time limitations, I won’t be updating Martian Timewalk until further notice.

It has been a fun experiment. I’d recommend this type of format to anyone who’s enthusiastic about Constructed but looking for something fresh. The combination of random sets and a point system worked just as I’d hoped, but I just have no time to play test anymore.

The amount of play in just a single set (Mirage) was surprising to me.

Cheers.