[Format] Martian Timewalk

[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