The Hall of Illuminating Magic Decks

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Psarketos

Guest
Oversoul and I chatted earlier about making a collection point for decks that illustrate some particular point of interest or oddity regarding the game of Magic. I am starting with three of my own decks and a particular format for posting them, however there are a lot of interesting decks, such as one my friend has played focusing on the untap mechanic, that I would like to see here eventually despite not personally having the deck list now. If a future post revises or provides what looks to be a better format for listing the decks, I will likely edit these initial offerings to match.
 
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Psarketos

Guest
Deck Name: MetaEsper
Magic Format: Modern
Insight: A functional control deck that contains no permanents or mana sources, in contravention of rule 106.1 of the Comprehensive Rules - "Mana is the primary resource of the game. Players spend mana to pay costs, usually when casting spells and activating abilities." Comprised entirely of instants and sorceries, it provides a demonstrative foundation for the premise, "Cards are the primary resource of the game," while also demonstrating in the mirror match and variations thereon that a functional game of Magic can contain zero interactions with the battlefield zone.

Deck List (01/12/2018)

Exile cost paying cards:

4 Brilliant Ultimatum
4 Dream Salvage
4 Esper Charm
4 Merciless Eviction
4 Punish Ignorance
4 Worldpurge

Spells cast without mana cost:

4 Commandeer
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Noxious Revival
4 Patricians Scorn
4 Ravenous Trap
4 Shining Shoal
4 Snapback
4 Soul Spike
4 Sunscour
 
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Psarketos

Guest
Deck Name: Eternal Sway
Magic Format: Modern
Insight: A combo focused control deck with the ability to recursively extend a single game of Magic indefinitely, accruing advantage by exiling opponent threats between iteratively casting Sway of the Stars without paying a mana cost.

Deck List (01/12/2018)

Lands

4 Grasping Dunes
20 Mountains

Creatures

4 Galvanoth
4 Generator Servant
4 Wildfire Eternal

Spells

4 Abrade
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Spray
4 Structural Distortion
4 Sway of the Stars
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: The Pitch
Magic Format: Legacy (allegedly made tournament appearances circa 2012, but has never been a true competitive archetype)
Insight: A completely manaless deck that aims to win by casting spells that do not require mana, exiling other cards from the hand to pay for them. Colloquially, such spells are known as "pitch" spells.

Deck List (01/12/2018):

4 Blazing Shoal
4 Coalition Victory
4 Conflux
4 Fury of the Horde
4 Misdirection
4 Serum Powder
4 Shining Shoal
4 Soul Spike
4 Unmask
4 Chancellor of the Dross
4 Chancellor of the Forge
4 Crookshank Kobolds
4 Ornithopter
4 Progenitus
4 Reaper King
 
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Psarketos

Guest
Deck Name: Balefire
Magic Format: Modern
Insight: A second turn at fastest combo deck that exiles all cards in all decks from the game at instant speed, allowing all decks to be browsed by any player as per rule 406.3 of the Comprehensive Rules - "Exiled cards are, by default, kept face up and may be examined by any player at any time." Win or loss status for each player in the game is determined by the timing chosen by the player of this deck on when to initiate the combo and respond to a Sentinel Totem ability on the stack with Worldfire at instant speed, though the presence of Grand Abolisher makes a win for the owning player less risk involved than attempting a timing that creates a different player victory utilizing the phase structure of the game.

Deck List (01/21/2018)

Lands

16 Forest
4 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove

Creatures

4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Devoted Druid
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
4 Genesis Hydra
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Riftsweeper
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Soul of the Harvest
1 Verdant Eidolon
4 Vizier of Remedies

Spells

1 Altar of the Brood
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Leyline of Anticipation
4 Manamorphose
1 Sentinel Totem
4 Tooth and Nail
1 Worldfire
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: Valakut Hunt
Magic Format: Modern
Insight: New players are generally told that approximately 40% of a Magic deck should be lands. As they gain experience, they learn lots of exceptions for which a lower ratio of lands to spells is appropriate. Less common are decks with much higher ratios of lands to spells. I enjoy such decks and I'll find some other examples that operate on different principles. Loam decks routinely go over 30 lands and some of them have been so potent that they've been among the strongest competitive Legacy decks. Historically, some Legacy Loam decks went as high as 44 lands. But it's possible to push the envelope even further. The very highest land/spell ratios I've seen have been decks based around things like Seismic Assault and Molten Vortex. For this list, 54 out of 60 cards are lands. That's 90% of the deck, which is, I think, the highest ratio I've ever seen.

Deck List (01/12/2018):

1 Splendid Reclamation
1 Seismic Assault
4 Treasure Hunt
3 Reliquary Tower
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Cinder Glad
5 Forest
13 Island
25 Mountain
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: 44 Lands
Magic Format: Legacy (circa 2009)
Insight: Most decks rely on lands only for mana production and minor utility. This deck consists mostly of lands and uses them to take over the board. The combination of Life from the Loam and Manabond, especially with Tranquil Thicket and Forgotten Cave to dredge up Life from the Loam multiple times in one turn, vomits lands onto the battlefield in ways that put Fastbond to shame. Historically, some early versions of this concept were being built with 40 lands. The current mainstream Legacy version, which is quite good, tends to run about 35 lands. 44 was the highest number I ever saw for a Loam deck, and seems to represent the peak. This concept fell by the wayside with the sheer power of the Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage combo making it obsolete for tournaments. But I love this version and it's a great illustration of what lands can be capable of with only a few enablers. Sadly, very few players own a single copy of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, let alone two copies.

Deck List (01/12/2018):

4 Wasteland
4 Maze of Ith
4 Rishadan Port
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Riftstone Portal
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Forgotten Cave
3 Savannah
3 Taiga
3 Treetop Village
3 Nantuko Monastery
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Forest
2 Barbarian Ring
4 Exploration
4 Manabond
4 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: The Fluctuator
Magic Format: Extended (circa 1999)
Insight: When a lot of cards in a deck have Cycling 2, then under Fluctuator it becomes possible cycle through an entire deck. Other than Fluctuator itself and the lone copies of Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, and Haunting Misery, every card in this deck has Cycling 2. This deck is easily capable of achieving a second-turn kill. Haunting Misery was the one card missing that kept this from being Standard-legal, as everything but it and Lotus Petal come from Urza's Block. Because Fluctuator itself was never reprinted and its price has gone up in recent years, the deck isn't what I think of as a true budget build, although everything in it besides Fluctuator itself is dirt-cheap. For casual multiplayer, you could swap out Dark Ritual and Haunting Misery for Songs of the Damned and Exsanguinate, if you're into that sort of thing.

Deck List (01/12/2018):

4 Fluctuator
1 Lotus Petal
1 Haunting Misery
1 Dark Ritual
4 Drifting Meadow
4 Remote Isle
4 Polluted Mire
4 Smoldering Crater
4 Slippery Karst
4 Blasted Landscape
3 Bloated Toad
3 Cloud of Faeries
3 Darkwatch Elves
3 Disciple of Grace
3 Disciple of Law
3 Pendrell Drake
3 Sandbar Merfolk
3 Sandbar Serpent
2 Shimmering Barrier
3 Wild Dogs
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: Oops, All Spells!
Magic Format: Legacy (semi-competitive)
Insight: Lands? Who needs 'em? We can make mana with lots of cards that aren't lands. This enables Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer to flip our entire library into our graveyard, and this deck is designed to be able to win once that happens. The complete lack of lands is an interesting gimmick, but this deck is also incredibly fast, achieving first-turn kills more easily than almost any deck I've ever seen.

Deck List (01/12/2018):

4 Balustrade Spy
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Narcomoeba
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
1 Tinder Wall
4 Undercity Informer
1 Underworld Cerberus
1 Wild Cantor
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Manamorphose
3 Summoner's Pact
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Bridge from Below
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: Manaless Ichorid
Magic Format: Legacy (semi-competitive, circa 2011)
Insight: Arguably one of the strangest archetypes to find a home in the zeitgeist as a serious tournament deck. Lands? Don't need them. Mana? Don't need it. Casting spells from your hand? Not worth it. Casting spells at all? Eh, take it or leave it. Play or draw? Draw please, except actually, I won't be drawing a single card after my first turn of the game. Opponent has creatures? Better not kill them! There's a perception that Dredge decks in general operate in a kind of upside-down world, and Manaless variants even moreso. So much could be said about the weirdness of this sort of deck. Perhaps most notably, yes, you can potentially win a game without ever casting a single spell, although the Flashback mechanic does allow this deck to cast Cabal Therapy and Dread Return from the graveyard. The idea is to be on the draw and discard down to 7, getting a Dredge card into your graveyard so that you can keep dumping your library into your graveyard, replacing every card draw with Dredge triggers. Street Wraith in the opening hand can allow for extra Dredge triggers. Phantasmagorian can put dredgers back into your graveyard. Through the course of the game, Gigapede, Narcomoeba, Nether Shadow, and, most importantly, Ichorid can all wind up on the battlefield through their own abilities, and when they die, Bridge from Below makes zombies. Although this build needs to use Cabal Therapy and Dread Return to really get enough zombies to be explosive enough to be competitive, in principle it is possible to win against some opponents without casting any spells at all.

Tournament usage note: Psarketos pointed out that it is of interest that this deck took down a large tournament (Star City Games Open in Cincinnati in July of 2011). Technically, the deck took 2nd place because the pilot conceded in order to boost the other finalist's standing for future tournaments, but it essentially won the whole thing. Pretty cool. The Legacy metagame at the time was in a strange spot, as this was near the end of the infamous "Mental Misstep era." Some players correctly read the environment as being soft to graveyard-based decks and ported the Manaless Ichorid deck from the MTGO Classic format to Legacy. This kind of deck basically folds to graveyard hate, but is robust against nearly all other types of sideboard countermeasures. Counterspells don't help much, because Cabal Therapy can pick them off and even if Dread Return does get countered, it is still probably making several zombies due to Bridge triggers.

Deck List (01/13/2018):

4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Gigapede
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
3 Dakmor Salvage
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: Manaless Affinity
Magic Format: Legacy
Insight: Another approach to a manaless deck. The Affinity for artifacts mechanic from Mirrodin Block can be used to flood the board, often using very little mana. This deck is a demonstration that mana could be cut out entirely.

Deck List (01/14/2018):

3 Arcbound Ravager
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Darksteel Juggernaut
4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
4 Mycosynth Golem
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
4 Dark Sphere
4 Mishra's Bauble
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Welding Jar
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
 
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Psarketos

Guest
Deck Name: Pristine Stasis
Magic Format: Modern
Insight: A deck that demonstrates the ability to revert all decks to their start of the game state and lock them into that state indefinitely, as equivalent to Comprehensive rule 103.1 - "At the start of a game, each player shuffles his or her deck so that the cards are in a random order. Each player may then shuffle or cut his or her opponents’ decks. The players’ decks become their libraries." This example utilizes a third turn at fastest iteration of the Balefire deck shell to draw the library, use Riftsweeper to return cards from the exile zone to owner libraries, and then cast Blinkmoth Urn, Elixir of Immortality, Leashling, Nuisance Engine, Possessed Portal, Rusted Slasher, Sundial of the Infinite, then Mirrorworks, then Sway of the Stars, all at instant speed in response to the previous spell after having resolved a Plagiarize spell targeting the opponent. The deck returns the 14 cards drawn from Sway of the Stars to the library with Leashling, shuffles the non-token artifacts and graveyard back into a complete deck using Rusted Slasher and Elixir of Immortality, then utilizes the four tokens created by Mirrorworks to create a game state in which all cards remain shuffled into their owner libraries indefinitely due to the triggered and activated abilities of a Blinkmoth Urn token, Nuisance Engine token, Possessed Portal token, and Sundial of the Infinite token.

Deck List (01/24/2018)

Lands

16 Forest
4 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove

Creatures

4 Devoted Druid
4 Genesis Hydra
1 Leashling
1 Riftsweeper
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Rusted Slasher
1 Soul of the Harvest
1 Verdant Eidolon
4 Vizier of Remedies

Spells

1 Blinkmoth Urn
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Leyline of Anticipation
4 Manamorphose
1 Mirrorworks
1 Nuisance Engine
1 Plagiarize
1 Possessed Portal
1 Sundial of the Infinite
1 Sway of the Stars
4 Tooth and Nail
 
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Psarketos

Guest
Deck Name: Golgari Affinity
Magic Format: Modern
Insight: A Modern format take on the entry Oversoul posted earlier, this deck adds Salvage Titan and Mutagenic Growth with the intention of creating multiple variations on a three turn clock from the opening hand, whether Salvage Titan with Tooth of Chiss-Goria or Frogmite and Myr Enforcer finding a Mutagenic Growth on the way. As a no lands or mana abilities deck, the competitive level in relation to the Modern field is higher than in relation to Legacy.

Player Note: This may be the most popular casual Magic deck I have ever built. It is a blast to put your entire hand onto the battlefield first turn, the swing twice and win games are particularly memorable, and the deck feels "fair" to play against for the most part because despite removing one of the traditional elements of the game in mana, the stompy flavor of tapping creatures in the attack phase with combat tricks feels very much like traditional Magic.

Deck List (1/31/2018)

Creatures

4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
4 Salvage Titan
4 Street Wraith

Spells

4 Darksteel Relic
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Scale of Chiss-Goria
4 Sigil of Distinction
4 Spellbook
4 Tooth of Chiss-Goria
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Welding Jar
 
T

Terentius

Guest
I tried making deck similar to those Affinity decks, but with a low land count, Tezzerret's Gambit, and Steel Overseer instead. It was hit and miss.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: 9-Land Stompy
Magic Format: Type 1.5/Legacy (2004)
Insight: We've seen that gimmicky no-lands lists are viable. In the early 00's, before such decks were prevalent, green mages found that they could drop as low as 9 lands (10 was more common), using a combination of alternate casting costs, alternative mana sources, and Land Grant. These decks were traditional, creature-based attacking decks. Simple aggro, but laughing in the face of the 40% lands deckbuilding guideline. The idea was to get a single Forest on the board and deploy a fast kill with that alone, only on rare occasions dropping more than two lands. My list was made while testing for the Legacy format in 2004, when the format was brand-new and didn't even have the name "Legacy" yet. But the archetype is a bit older, going back to Extended in 2002 or so. But I like my list because I get to use Berserk, a card from the greatest set of all time: Unlimited Edition.

Deck List (02/01/2018)

4x Elvish Lyrist
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Quirion Ranger
4x River Boa
4x Rogue Elephant
4x Vine Dryad
4x Berserk
4x Bounty of the Hunt
4x Lotus Petal
3x Winter Orb
4x Briar Shield
4x Rancor
4x Land Grant
9x Forest
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: Pitch Dredge
Magic Format: Vintage (2016 to present)
Insight: Vintage Dredge decks, while not as alien as Manaless Dredge decks in the Legacy format, are unusual decks that are deceptively fast. These decks operate by finding a copy of Bazaar of Baghdad (and use Serum Powder to mulligan into it, if necessary), then using it to discard Dredge cards right away, filling up the graveyard with cards and the board with zombie tokens courtesy of the Bridge from Below + Ichorid + Narcomoeba trick. Vintage Dredge easily achieves third-turn kills and can potentially get some second-turn kills. Pitch Dredge is a newer version and a demonstration that even a deck operating on such extreme principles as Dredge, the king of upside-down-land, can pack disruption and have answers to interact with what the opponent is doing. Typically includes a transformational sideboard because some matchups that can sideboard in enough graveyard hate to shut a Dredge deck down have no answers to Dark Depths.

Deck List (02/07/2018)

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Golgari Thug
4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
4x Stinkweed Imp
3x Vengeful Pharaoh
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Dread Return
4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
4x Mindbreak Trap
4x Serum Powder
4x Bridge from Below
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Petrified Field

Sideboard:
4x Dark Depths
1x Riftstone Portal
4x Thespian’s Stage
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Vampire Hexmage
 
T

Terentius

Guest
Deck Name: Pitch Dredge
Magic Format: Vintage (2016 to present)
...
Deck List (02/07/2018)

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Golgari Thug
4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
4x Stinkweed Imp
3x Vengeful Pharaoh
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Dread Return
4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
4x Mindbreak Trap
4x Serum Powder
4x Bridge from Below
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Petrified Field

Sideboard:
4x Dark Depths
1x Riftstone Portal
4x Thespian’s Stage
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Vampire Hexmage

Oh man, my homeboy Vengeful Pharaoh makin waves in Vintage??
 
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Psarketos

Guest
Deck Name: Surrak Alone
Magic Format: Commander (all cards Modern legal)
Insight: Worldfire has been banned in the Commander format effectively from its release in 2012. Exiling all decks face up to determine the game is still possible despite that utilizing the Temur affinities of Surrak Dragonclaw. The process is more complicated without Worldfire, though it is protected by an uncounterable Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Once unbounded mana and library draw are in place and all necessary cards retrieved from exile and the graveyard, Plagiarize is cast for each opponent, with Venser, Shaper Savant clearing any obstacles like Leyline of Sanctity or Eidolon of Rhetoric and then returning Myojin of Infinite Rage to hand after it has destroyed all lands. The deck then casts / activates Myojin of Infinite Rage, Burning-Tree Emissary, Riftsweeper, Flameshadow Conjuring, Cloudstone Curio, Altar of the Brood, The Great Aurora, Perilous Vault activated ability, Sentinel Totem activated ability, Loaming Shaman, then Shimatsu the Bloodcloaked, all at instant speed in that order without ceding priority. Shimatsu sacrifices non-card draw monogreen creatures on entry if necessary such that their number plus the number of lands in the graveyard is equal the total number of cards in all opponent hands plus the number of indestructible lands not returned to hands with Venser, then Loaming Shaman shuffles those cards into the library to be drawn and played once The Great Aurora resolves after the activated abilities of Sentinel Totem and Perilous Vault exile all graveyards and nonland permanents. The green mana engine resolves and uses Riftsweeper to retrieve back and activate Sentinel Totem and Perilous Vault after Myojin of Infinite Rage destroys all lands and Altar of the Brood puts all remaining opponent libraries in graveyards, ensuring all cards in all decks are either exiled or in the command zone.

Commander

1 Surrak Dragonclaw

Lands (39)

1 Botanical Sanctum
18 Forest
1 Hinterland Harbor
18 Island
1 Mountain

Creatures (46)

1 Acidic Slime
1 Aetherplasm
1 Ambush Krotiq
1 Archetype of Endurance
1 Axebane Guardian
1 Bloom Tender
1 Burning-Tree Emissary
1 Carven Caryatid
1 Chancellor of the Spires
1 Chancellor of the Tangle
1 Druid of the Cowl
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fathom Mage
1 Fog Bank
1 Galvanic Alchemist
1 Gatecreeper Vine
1 Geist of the Archives
1 Glade Watcher
1 Greenwarden of Murasa
1 Guard Gomazoa
1 Hedron Crab
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Invasive Species
1 Jaddi Offshoot
1 Llanowar Empath
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Man-o'-War
1 Myojin of Infinite Rage
1 Naga Vitalist
1 Overgrown Battlement
1 Riftsweeper
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Shimatsu the Bloodcloaked
1 Simic Sky Swallower
1 Soul of the Harvest
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
1 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Trophy Mage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Wall of Roots
1 Wall of Vines
1 Wistful Selkie
1 Woodland Bellower
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Verdant Eidolon

Spells (14)

1 Altar of the Brood
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Flameshadow Conjuring
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Manamorphose
1 Omniscience
1 Perilous Vault
1 Plagiarize
1 Sentinel Totem
1 Snakeform
1 The Great Aurora
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Zendikar Resurgent
 
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Psarketos

Guest
Deck Name: Epic Awakening
Magic Format: Modern
Insight: Is it possible to construct a recursive combo deck in the Modern format without any nonland permanents? Is it possible to build a Modern burn deck that can win against multiple opponents without being impeded by life gain, hexproof, and shroud? These are two of the theory questions that led to the building of this deck, which is also an homage to Oversoul. The deck spends early turns drawing and shuffling cards back into the library, with Anger of the Gods as an early sweeper against fast creature strategies. With five mana available by the fifth turn, the deck attempts to overfill its hand with Thoughtflare on the opponent turn before casting an Inner Fire, or preferably two, on the sixth turn followed by a sixth land drop, thereby casting an Epic Experiment for 8+ and looking to destroy or exile any creatures in play before using Rude Awakening to make its own lands into 2/2 creatures and then casting Biorhythm. Epic Experiment can recurse into second and even third Epic Experiments due to card draw after Learn from the Past has shuffled the graveyard into the library, with Inner Fire adding more red mana and Manamorphose adding both card draw and blue mana for iterative castings. With eight lands available, the game is sometimes won simply by having an Experiment untap all lands with one Rude Awakening and filling the hand with a second Awakening, Biorhythm, and a pair of Manamorphose, which provides green mana to entwine the Rude Awakening and then use the untapped lands to cast Biorhythm. One play note is that if you have the choice, you want to draw first rather than play first, due to the cards in hand utility of Inner Fire.

Deck List (03/12/2018)

Lands

12 Island
12 Mountain

Spells

4 Anger of the Gods
3 Biorhythm
4 Epic Experiment
3 Hour of Devastation
4 Inner Fire
4 Learn from the Past
4 Manamorphose
3 Rude Awakening
4 See Beyond
3 Thoughtflare
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Deck Name: Charles' Lich Deck
Magic Format: Type 1 (circa 1995)
Insight: When Magic was first released in 1993, Lich was probably the most dangerous and convoluted card. It would later be combined with Mirror Universe to kill opponents. As new sets were released, Lich got more tools to work with: Zuran Orb to sacrifice lands for card-drawing, Glacial Chasm to avoid sacrificing permanents, Nourishing Shoal to draw a ton of cards, etc. This list goes back further, though. It's the only Lich deck I've ever seen that predates Ice Age. It only uses cards from 1993 and 1994, and shows that with some ingenuity, it's possible to turn the original clunky rare into a killing machine. The creatures are there to provide protection and draw the game out, with the eventual goal of setting up enough permanents to use Lich, Fastbond, and Dark Heart of the Woods to cycle through the deck, generating mana for a lethal Fireball.

Deck List (03/18/2018)

2 Lich
2 Erhnam Djinn
4 Juzam Djinn
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Dark Heart of the Woods
4 Strip Mine
2 Sinkhole
1 Crumble
2 Fireball
3 Fastbond
2 Dark Ritual
4 Ice Storm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Black Lotus
4 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
2 Forest
4 Tropical Island
4 Taiga
4 Bayou
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring

Sideboard:
4 Gloom
4 Black Vise
2 Erhnam Djinn
2 Sandstorm
3 Crumble
 
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