Post your Arcane decks here.

[Force of Will Smith]

2 Mountains
10 Swamps
10 Forests

4 Glacial Ray

4 Hana Kami
4 Sakura Tribe Elder
4 Kodoma's Reach
2 Kodoma's Might
2 Wear Away

4 Soulless Revival
4 Thief of Hope
3 Waking Nightmare
3 Hideous Laughter
2 Kuro, pitlord
2 Seizan, Perverter of Truth
2 Cranial Extraction/Other Arcane

Its pretty self explanatory.. abuse the mechanic..

Fetch your mountains to get glacial
Re-use Laughter, sometimes blow your last one, fetching it with hana.. The 4 Demons were from Extra Space.. Seizan is actually kind of amazing..


Another one people have been talking about is something like this..

11 Islands
11 Forests

4 Long Forgotten Gohan

4 Petals of Insight
4 Psychic Puppetry
4 Peer Through Depths
3 Eerie Procession
3 Reweave

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fertile Ground
4 Dawn's Reflections
4 Kodoma's Reach

it could probably use Uyo to copy some spells..
Basicall with Gohan's you reduce arcane.. you soup up a land with +tap mana.. reuse reweave to destroy all their permanents..


I've played my BG a lot. It's fun as hell and is apparently really irritating... Casting Kodoma's+ spliced Laughter+Spliced Laughter+Normal Laughter is pretty funny..

This deck can actually fetch you every land in your deck before long.

My version doesnt have cranials in it yet.. I was just recurring waking, i can't imagine how sick it would be to re-cast cranial (providing you had a good idea what they were playing)

Anyone else have arcane Decks?
BTW, this is for any format.

 

[Rooser]

Outside of the obvious Unspeakable deck, I think there are some excellent Spiritcraft decks to be had with Sire of Storms and some appropriately used Zuberas.

Anybody else get a little excited when they saw MaGo's Devouring Greed/Dripping-Tongue Zubera combo?

Anyway, let me be the first to post an Unspeakable deck.

Don't Speak, (I Know Just What You're Sayin')

Island x24
Unspeakable x2
Sift Though Sands x3
Reach Through Mists x4
Peer Through Depths x4
Eerie Procession x3
Eye of Nowhere x3
Consuming Vortex x3
Mana Leak x4
Condescend x3
Hinder x2
Long-Forgotted Gohei x3
Sire of Storms x2

 

[Oversoul]

I almost resisted...

"Arcane" deck:

4x Cloud of Faeries
2x Morphling
2x Serendib Efreet
4x Ertai, Wizard Adept
4x Arcane Laboratory
4x Counterspell
4x Arcane Denial
4x Mana Leak
4x Force of Will
2x Daze
1x Force Spike
4x Capsize
21x Island

No, I've never played this deck. It's all guesswork, so it could easily be improved. But it uses both Arcane Laboratory and Arcane Denial, which is pretty Arcane...

 

[Force of Will Smith]

I tested out the infinite G/U arcane... bleh..
it takes turn 4-6 to go infinite, and LD Murders it, as well as bounce, therefore it's frustrating and not viable.

U/G is much better.. Heres one i started
btw.. Uyo is game winning...

8 Forests
12 islands

2 Long-Forgotten Gohei

4 orochi Sustainer
3 Kodama's Reach

3 Reach Through Mists
3 Peer Through Depths
2 Sift Through Sands

3 Dampen Thought
3 Eerie Procession
3 Reweave
3 Petals of Insight
3 Eye of Nowhere
3 Psychic Puppetry
2 Uyo, Silent Prophet
2 Consuming Vortex
1 Unspeakable

I still question the # of forests, i just really like to get the orochi early.. and i usually reweave the orochi to get a Uyo or unspeakable.. I usually dont even use petals, but copying a petals is nice to draw 3 cards. Psychic puppetry will probably be replaced by a new blue low cc arcane spell in the next set. I was considering flipping vortex to 3 and puppet to 2.

Gohei helps a lot, not sure if i'd want to bump it to 3.. any thoughts?

 

[Oversoul]

U/G is better than G/U? They look the same to me, but the letters are switched around...

 

[Force of Will Smith]

hehe whoops.. it was late.. but yea... U/G is DEFINATELY better than G/U... BR better than RB as well..

 

[Ephraim]

My deck is not pure Arcane, but it makes heavy use of the Arcane subtype and the Splice mechanic. Although they were not costed very aggressively, several of the common level spells were cheap enough to have potential to generate card advantage. It wasn't cheap enough on its own, but when combined with Isochron Scepter, the card advantage gained was enormous. Don't be fooled by the low percentage of arcane instants. Although it is also very good to imprint Accumulated Knowledge or Counterspell, the arcane spells are by far the most useful spells to put on Isochron Scepter.

Iso-Splice (peasant magic legal)

Arcane Instants (11)
4 Reach Through Mists
4 Glacial Ray
3 Peer Through Depths

Non-Arcane Instants (14)
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Impulse
4 Counterspell

Creatures (7)
4 Spiketail Hatchling
3 Cloud of Faeries

Other Spells (5)
4 Isochron Scepter (uncommon)
1 Fabricate (uncommon)

Land (23)
16 Island
7 Mountain

The deck tends to play the first four turns rather slowly - playing Clouds of Faeries and Spiketail Hatchlings to slow down an opponent's initial advance. As of the fourth turn, the player often has the four necessary mana to safely imprint something on an Isochron Scepter. Any of the spells in the deck makes a good first imprint. Counterspell, Accumulated Knowledge, Reach Through Mists, and Impulse are particularly good. If you have a single copy of Glacial Ray in your hand, Peer Through Depths also makes a good imprint. If you have two copies of Glacial Ray, Glacial Ray is a good imprint. If the first imprint is not Arcane, it is fairly important that the second imprint is. Although the first Isochron Scepter can be used to hold down the fort, regardless of the spell on it, what this deck really wants to do is start splicing Glacial Ray onto an Arcane spell from Isochron Scepter.

The deck doesn't change much in its non-peasant incarnation. The spells that drive the deck are mostly common, so they remain. Lightning Bolt is best replaced by Fire & Ice, while the mana base can be tightened up with the addition of Shivan Reefs or Volcanic Islands.

 

[Oversoul]

Wow, that is so awesome. That sucker is peasant legal!

 

[Force of Will Smith]

11 Arcane spells seems a little light, but then again your playing with tried and true classics along side it.

Here's wut i think.

since you have so many impulse like cards..
up peer through depths to 4,
-3 impulse, cause your most likely going to have either counter, or burn. I'd also add 1 more bolt, cause its so damn good.
I also cut 2 lands to add some burn.. its still at 21, which is good.
Plus you have, 8 card drawing spells.


Arcane Instants (16)
4 Reach Through Mists
4 Glacial Ray
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Lava Spike

Non-Arcane Instants (12)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Counterspell

Creatures (7) (7 more arcane)
4 Spiketail Hatchling/2 Eye of Nowhere
3 Cloud of Faeries/2 Consuming Vortex
/3 Dampen Though

Other Spells (4)
4 Isochron Scepter (uncommon)

Land (21)
14 Island
7 Mountain


with that, every single spell can be dropped onto the isochron

 

[Oversoul]

Well, the Scepters themselves can't be...

And then there are the creatures...

 

[Ephraim]

For starters, Eye of Nowhere is a sorcery, so it can't be imprinted on Isochron Scepter.

I also note that you've added 4 Lava Spike (also a sorcery), which is really unnecessary. The seven direct damage spells in the deck are sufficient. They're not meant to be hardcast all that often. They're there to supplement the blue control elements until one of them can be imprinted on an Isochron Scepter - or in the case of Glacial Ray, until some other Arcane spell can be imprinted on Isochron Scepter. By the way, you're right that Lightning Bolt is incredibly good, but it also has no depth to it. It does one thing incredibly well. Unfortunately, I needed to focus on more versatile cards, so when I was looking for space in the deck, I cut a copy of Lightning Bolt.

I have two reasons to object to Dampen Thought. First, beyond being Arcane, it doesn't actually do anything for the deck. I'm never going to win with Dampen Thought faster than I can win with Glacial Ray. Dampen Thought is also uncommon, which breaks the deck's peasant legality.

Consuming Vortex is a definite possibility. Thus far, I've found the direct damage and counter magic to be sufficient for keeping the board clear of creatures. If I later find that I need more board control, -3 Cloud of Faeries, +3 Consuming Vortex is probable.

The reason I opted for 3 Impulse/3 Peer Through Depths is because Peer Through Depths skips over lands and artifacts. Particularly in the early game, when I'm looking for an Isochron Scepter, Impulse is a much better card to hardcast.

The creatures are very important to the deck. Cloud of Faeries is filler to an extent, but it's a huge tempo booster. Played early in the game, Spiketail Hatchling is like a Time Walk. They also serve as chump blockers to slow down decks that operate on a faster clock than this one does.

As for the huge number of card-drawers in my build, note that it is essentially a card advantage machine. It seeks to rifle through the deck as quickly as possible. Only later in the game, when it's got two or more Isochron Scepters on the table, does it cease to care about what cards it's drawing.

Finally, I think the high land count is relatively important. Because I want to have at least two spells imprinted on Isochron Scepters and be able to splice a Glacial Ray to one of those spells each turn, I want to get to six mana as fast as I can.

 

[Force of Will Smith]

I was excited to find that someone in Mississippi played with a similar deck taking top 8. Which means it beat some tooth, some affinity, maybe to bad draws or bad players, but it still happened..

So i modified my deck to be more like his.

2 Mountains
10 Swamps
10 Forests

4 Glacial Ray/ instead of simulacrum

4 Sakura Tribe Elder
4 Hana Kami
3 Eternal Witness
4 Kodoma's Reach
4 Wear Away

4 Soulless Revival
4 Rend Flesh
3 Death Cloud

4 Thief of Hope
2 Cranial Extraction/Other Arcane

SB: Waking Nightmare for Rend Fleshes?
SB: Hideous Laughter for Death Cloud

SB:
3 Nezumi Shortfang
4 Oxidize
2 Cranial Extraction
2 Hideous Laughter
4 Terror

I really wanted to keep thiefs in there. Also sometimes if they have a swarm, a laughter is all you need. I dropped 1 witness for my 4th thief, seeing as how i have 11 cards to return spells now instead of my 8 before. I'm debated to run the dragons in conjunction with cloud, giving me life. Also the glacials are more aggro then simulacrum and i find spliced glacials winning me games.

heres his deck.

John H. Klauk
8th Place - Mississippi
Garden State

9 Swamp, 11 Forest

4 Solemn Simulacrum

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Hana Kami
4 Eternal Witness
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Wear Away

4 Soulless Revival
4 Rend Flesh
3 Death Cloud

3 Kokusho, the Evening Star
2 Phyrexian Plaguelord

 

[NorrYtt]

The best splicing spell is Glacial Ray. The most tempting thing is U/R Isochron Scepter, and I made one.

The other trick is Hana Kami+Soulless Revival. This lets you cast any arcane spell over and over, noteably Cranial Extraction.

It might be cool to use the second best splice card Kodama's Might along with nice ones like Soulless Revival, Glacial Ray, and Blessed Breath. Mix in a green base of Birds, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Eternal Witness, and Hana Kama for happy splicing fun.

 

[Seeker of Truth]

Just jumped back in for a peek and saw this thread. There was an interesting R/B deck from Japan that got a top 8 finish based partially on Arcane. This is my take on it:

4x Through the Breach
4x Lava Spike (cheaper than Glacial Ray, and the base for the splicing)
2x Ryusei, the Falling Star
2x Grab the Reins (Blind with Anger works well also for the theme, but this is more effective)

4x Soulless Revival
4x Zombify
4x Kokusho, the Evening Star
3x Hideous Laughter

4x Solemn Simulacrum
4x Chrome Mox
4x Talisman of Indulgence (or is it Impulse? Whatever, the R/B one)

11x Mountain
10x Swamp

Basically, the objective is to ramp up the mana to play a spliced Through the Breach, dropping either Ryusei, which should swing for five and kill all non-flyers, or Kokusho, which should swing for five and drain five life off your opponent's total. Two Kokushos Through the Breach is game over. Grab the Reins is hilarious against an opponent's Kokusho, where they lose ten life and I gain five when I entwine Grab the Reins. I could even Grab the Reins my own Kokusho after it swings, dealing a total of 15 damage to my opponent in one turn. Soulless Revivals are there to bring back your control/win conditions, and Zombify helps you out if you need a more permanent solution or if you get Distressed/Waking Nightmared early in the game. I included Hideous Laughters because of the theme, and because this deck doesn't really have any control except for Ryusei.

 

[Force of Will Smith]

Hmmm... I know people use it, but i was never a fan of simulacrum...nonetheless..

The deck looks interesting and i like how through the breach was used...

I immediately want to say there should be more reusable arcane spells but i think i'll playtest breach and dragons before i make any assumptions..

The Japanese always come up with the coolest decks... they actually broke gilded lotus

 

[Seeker of Truth]

I'm sure there will be more spliceable spells in the next set.

Instead of Simulacrum, you could always use Wayfarer's Bauble. You need some kind of mana accel, though, because your kill conditions are so expensive. I liked Simulacrum in this case because it was a creature, so it could be Soulless Revivaled or even Through the Breached if you needed it.

 

[train]

Has anyone had success with these decks?...

Arcane hasn't been strong around here, and it seems really vulnerable to counters and the like...

 

[jorael]

Whell, I didn't play against a deck with counterspells, but the following arcane deck was insane vs. some R/U aggro-burn deck:

It isn't original, splicing dampen thought to mill an opponent, but boy was I surprised how fast it went.

COK Dampen.dec

24 lands
14 islands
10 plains

12 white spells
4 ethereal haze (white arcane fog)
4 candle's glow (spliced damage prevention)
4 ghostly prison

24 blue spells
4 reach through mists (drawing)
4 Peer through depts (drawing)
4 sift through sands (drawing)
4 Eerie procession (tutoring)
4 consuming vortex (bounce, spliceable for much mana)
4 dampen thought (slicing da milling)

It looks dull, but it does the job

The sift through sands were first some blue and white Hondens, but I didn't play them once. I preffered to use my mana for playing an arcane spell and splice it several times. So I dropped them for more card drawing (getting the proper arcane spells is a requirement).

 

[Force of Will Smith]

Green and black works pretty well..

R/U extended counterburn arcane works nice but its boring as all hell..

I've seen green and blue work really well, but usually from a forked forked forked Uyo arcane stack.

Sadly i think unspeakable is one of the best.

i imagine when this block is through it might actually be a really solid mechanic.

Big problem with many arcane decks is in group games they rip the living hell out of you. 1 on 1 ok.. multi.. nuh uh

 

[Oversoul]

Originally posted by train
Has anyone had success with these decks?...

Arcane hasn't been strong around here, and it seems really vulnerable to counters and the like...

I have played against a grand total of zero arcane decks. The mechanic does not impress me and apparently it isn't impressing others very much either...