Skies

[Burrito]

It happens. Would like to include opt to smoothen the mana, but its hard to fit in. Could take out the webs and the counterspells to get them in, though. But I like them since they have a suprise effect. The webs help the mana, since they stop the ports and protects the underground rivers. Most players do not expect counterspells and they help in a counter war.

 

[Gizmo]

It`s an interesting idea - taking out all the good cards that make a deck work and replacing them with bad cards instead. I`ll have to give it a try one time.

 

[Griffith_se]

Don't sugar coat it My English Muffin, What do You really think (joking )?

Gizmo's usualy 98.2% right, I was trying to be more subtle.
But hey if You like it, play it, its all about having fun and being creative.

If You want to be competitive You should probably listen to Gizmo.

 

[Gizmo]

I`m still half-set on Skies. not really playing it ebcause there isn`t a lot of point in keep playing the deck because there is very little you can do to change it. Adding any non-acc counterspells is bad, adding bounce cards is almost certainly bad maindeck. The deck is just sort of 'there' and there isn`t very much you can do to change it.

4 Hatchling
4 Airship
4 Idol
4 Troublesome
(best realistic additions are Cloudskate (I don`t like it) and Indentured Djinn (ok, good surprise card but very risky), Air Elemental sounds a step too far to me)

4 Opt
4 Brainstorm
4 Gush
(card drawing is this deck`s forte, dropping it means you are weakening your key aspect. I max it out for better consistency - effectively over most other Skies builds I simply take out 4 Islands and put in 4 Brainstorms, which makes me weak vs Ports, but stronger otherwise)

2 Daze
4 Foil
2 Thwart
1 Misdirection
(non-ACC counters are terrible. I don`t like running Thwart and Gush in the same deck as they draw on each other`s power. I`d rather cut the Thwarts a little as picking up three Islands effectively annoucnes your intention to never tap lands for mana again in that game. Misdirection is random add for against removal, possibly better than Daze. Got to be scared of Flametongues, though, and Misdirect it bad there)

3 Wash Out
(Wash Out is good. Wash Out says 'I win' in 50% of matches. It also says 'I`m bad ' in 50% of matches so I wouldn`t run 4 maindeck. Also consider that my card drawing is a little more penetrative with Brainstorms in.)

20 Island
(If I can`t Gush it up I don`t want it. It`s that simple)

 

[Rick Vaughn]

Well, i ve read all of yours thread, and i still thimk that skies should be mono-blu only:adding a color is a risk too high that can t be run in actual standard!In my opinion skies will gain much by 7th edition with tolarian winds,and ,first of all,IBERNATION!The greatest card ever printed against green;when ur opponent is plaiing blasto and soon attacking u,ibernation will crush all his opportunities, giving u 1-2 extra turn to counter and beat him down by troblesome!Glacial walls can be a good option but i m still testing it.Anyway what makes monoblu a great deck are drawing card which are really necessary in order to counter or bounce his/her beasts!Just let wait a bit and we ll learn more about future skies, and future decks as well!

 

[Burrito]

Skies is a solid deck in the present T2 enviroment, but not a tier 1 deck. This because it just get crushed by fires and counter-rebels. My version of skies is of course inferior to mono-blue versions of skies if we would play in an all-skies enviroment. Luckily, we don't. The purpose is of course to keep the elements of the original skies deck and then tweak it to the metagame, so that otherwise devastating matchups becomes easier.

My idea comes from a deck that came second in Swedish nationals last year. In a field dominated by trinity and stompy an accelareted blue deck came to the finals, because it included 4 underground rivers maindeck and had 4 perish in the sideboard. That was enough to make an otherwise unfavourable mathup, favourable.

Maybe I'm going in the wrong direction, but I believe that if you tweak skies so that it "can" beat (let us say 50% of the matches) the tier 1 decks you can come a long way. This because it wrecks the other popular tier 2 decks, Chant, Ponza and Netherhaups (even if Obliterate is big problem).

But hey, I'm just a scrub.
Air Elementals - wins mirror.

 

[Lotus Mox]

My Skies:

//NAME: Skies
21 Island
4 Gush
3 Sky Diamond
4 Foil
2 Thwart
3 Daze
3 Wash Out
4 Opt
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Rishadan Airship
4 Troublesome Spirit
4 Chimeric Idol

SB: 2 Misdirection
SB: 2 Glacial Wall
SB: 1 Wash Out
SB: 2 Withdraw
SB: 4 Chill
SB: 4 Rising Waters

I have played Skies a lot now, and I feel the Diamond version is superior to the Brainstorm version, because the Diamonds improve the power of Gush, Daze and Rising Waters.

I played a similar version (4 wash Outs main and no Misdirections in s/b, a huge mistake) in the E-League Master (03/30) (~64 ppl) and the only match i lost was in the Quarterfinals vs. Brawler-Ponza.

In the Swiss I won matches vs. G/W-Blastogeddon, mono-green, Fires, RedControl(or somethign like that).
after playing an awful lot of Skies I would say it is at least Tier 1.5 depending on the metagame even Tier 1.

The key in beating Rebels is Rising Waters combined with Wash Out, if you manage to cast both Rebels will have a hard time recovering.
And Fires usually beats itself with a bad draw, although Flametongue Kavu turned the match more into Fires favor.
The worst matchup are Red decks in my opinion.

 

[Gizmo]

I think the analysis of Skies is flawed. It generally only goes between 40-60% in the first game agaist any deck. But afer SB it`s closer to 80% vs all decks. A lot of matches are won by playing a L-W-W record.

 

[Lotus Mox]

A lot of matches are won by playing a L-W-W record.

I haven't realized it until you mentioned it, but it's true (esp. vs. red decks).
So if you test Skies be sure to test it w/ sideboard.

 

[Burrito]

Except fires, where it is most likely 10% in the first game and maybe 30% - 40% after sideboard. Or to quote Tim Mckenna "a bye for Fires".

 

[NeuroDeus]

I simply have used the Diamonds version and found out it was too slow and I ended up looking at the Diamonds as useful piece of artifacts...

I don't use 4 Gush allowing 4 Thwarts in my deck. I usually play 4 Opt and 2 Gush. A card that you might be thinking of also adding is Ensnare which for 2 bouced islands taps all creatures... Some controls and you can attack then use that...

 

[Gizmo]

Burrito:
There is currenty a huge Skies/Fires argument going on in the other websites. I think it was Kibler says Fires beats Skies all the time. At Chicago, however, the Skies player who they are discussing (don`t know his name, the guy who top-8ed I think) met 5 Fires decks, and went 5-0 winning each match 2-1 after losing the first game. The typical Anti-Fires SB is something like 4 Withdraw 4 Submerge, which makes it very hard for Fires to achieve anything.

Flametongue hurts, though. I still think Skies vs Fires is no worse than 30% first game, and no worse than 60% second game, posibly more. I guess it`s about how good you are with the deck, Skies is a very techy deck to play.

 

[Lotus Mox]

Skies is a bye for Fires? I don't think so. I have played a bit vs. fires and although it's not easy, it's winnable, Wash Out + Glacial wall can provide enough time to win the race.
As I said the Fires-matchup is very draw dependant when they get the nuts draw they win, when they get only a mediocre draw they usually lose. And Fires does get a bad draw more often than most people think, while Skies is a very consistent deck (because of it's card-drawing). I very seldomly have to mulligan a bad hand when I play Skies.

I simply have used the Diamonds version and found out it was too slow and I ended up looking at the Diamonds as useful piece of artifacts...

er.. I don't understand this sentence, do you mean Diamonds are useful or too slow or both?

And I would recommend playing 4 Gushes and 2 Thwarts because with Gush you're likely to draw into some more counters,pressure and bounce while Thwart just counters things and picking up 3 Islands can seriously slow you down.

 

[NeuroDeus]

it should have been "useless"

 

[Burrito]

You're right Gizmo, there is a large discussion about Skies vs. Fires going on right now ( esp. on Mindripper). And it mostly favours Fires especially after Chicago and Planeshift, with the inclusion of Flametounge and Simoon in most Fires decks.

The problem for Skies in the matchup as I see it, is that it can never permanentely remove the threats that Fires cast against it, except with the help of counters, of which it has about 8 of. The Washouts and Withdraws just stops the Fires for a while, and the Skies very seldom has the amount of creatures to be able to put pressure on Fires.
Since there is no need for Fires to get defensive the Washouts just stops it for 1 or 2 turns without really damaging it.

The reason why I wanted to include black in the Skies, even if I am sceptical to it, is that it allows Skies to clear the board permanentely (with the help of Perish/Decree)of Fire's threats, instead of just buying a turn or two, which really don't make any difference. Without any permanent removal I hardly can see how Skies will have an sort of favourable matchup against post-Chicago Fires.

 

[Purple_jester]

At a local sanctioned tournament where I live there were 76 entries. SEVENTY (70) of them were Fires (yowza). Of the remaining 6, 1 was red-black land destruction, 1 was Nether-Go, 1 was WW-Rebels and 3 were Skies.

The final 8 were made up of 5 Fires (duh, there were 70 to begin with...), with the remaining 3 being Nether-Go, Skies, and the R/B land destruction.

The top 2 spots were contested not by any of the 5 Fires decks, but the LD and the Nether-Go! Guess what? The Nether-Go won.

How? I'm not sure. But from what I saw, all of the non-Fires decks had anti-Fires tech built into the main deck design. Now that's[i/] metagaming.