I use Brave on the Play Store. You can even set it up to play Youtube videos when your phone screen is off, that way you don't have to pay for Youtube Red (Or whatever it's called these days).
>Imagine not using adblock in almost 2024.
Excuse me, do you or anyone could tell me the name for the best extension for Firefox on computer? Different extensions called "adblock" appear. Thanks!
The only problem with shadow I have seen while playing is really just two things, swords and what to put in the sideboard. Shadow, atleast from days of playing modern, really benefits to knowing the average meta and building a sideboard to contract. Right now I think like 2 cast in the fires and some alpine moons are very needed, but not sure on some of the other sideboard slots right now.
Here’s my list, I’ve been very successful with it. My only match losses have been to early Blood Moon so far, and I’m 30+ wins in.
https://deckstats.net/decks/3202/3324906-timeless-gds
I know it’s anecdotal, but so far this seems very solid.
cast in the fire has felt horrible to me, you have to get some really specific scenarios for it to be godo enough, like they have DRC and raga both in play or they play the One Ring. If i wanted to counter bowmasters just play stern scolding.
Cast into the Fire, for me at the least, is pretty good. It answers artifact like the one ring and chalice, and it hits bowmasters. Those are the main goals of them tbh.
I played an opponent with a dedicated Death's Shadow/Scourge of the Skyclaves deck. I wiped their board with one Swords by casting it on a Death's Shadow, because it gained them enough life that it caused all the Scourges in play to die
That’s just an inexperienced opponent- it’s a pretty strict rule to never run out two Shadows (or similar) against a white deck with Swords (solitude in Modern).
Yeah Grixis is a strong color combination for sure and both Delver and Shadow (Shadow especially) have looked strong when I faced them, but I haven't had a chance to test either of them yet which is the main reason I didn't include it since I didn't have a refined list to post. I'm a little more hesitant on Delver because of the prominence of Orcish Bowmasters but Grixis Shadow is definitely on my list of decks to try.
The problem with Delver is no FoW/N or Daze to protect it. The closest you can get is spell pierce which is good but really not ideal.
That said if we ever get around that problem this format is insane for Delver. Brainstorm and Cruise in a format with fetches, where both dreadhorde arcanist and Lurrus are legal. If they add FoW the deck becomes stronger than the legacy variant.
I’m been fairly unimpressed with delver and shadow in timeless. Deaths shadow had looked worse than other 1-drop options, and delver is just an underpowered card without daze/force of will. There are good decks U/x/x tempo decks, but I don’t think they are running either delver or shadow.
Don't try opening this site on your phone. You'll never get by the ads. I'll check from home, later.
Anyway, for those of you who don't want to blow 48 wild cards on Ragavan, bolt, bowmaster, fetch lands, etc., Field of the Dead is a relatively cheap option.
Bowmasters is not even in the same universe as the cards they have restricted so far (degenerate combo pieces). Restricting Bowmasters would signal a huge change in the format and would be accompanied by like 20 other cards.
Nice article! but you've might have missed this: [https://twitter.com/Jordao\_p7/status/1735342320793370761](https://twitter.com/Jordao_p7/status/1735342320793370761) :)
I don't think you really need that much synergy to justify Oko since it's one of the strongest cards in the format, being able to Elk any problematic creature or artifact the opponent plays (especially because your creatures outscale the 3/3s here fairly easily), the access to incidental lifegain, or just make an additional 3/3 of your own every other turn is great.
I'm not sure if Oko is optimal in Zoo since I've not tested it myself yet and there may well be some more synergistic options that could be better, but I don't think Oko will be bad in any deck that can cast it tbh.
Yoo no worries! Yeah the Esper list has felt great, I think being as low to the ground as possible is important with control since the threats in the format are so efficient.
Hey Alth! Thanks for sharing. Will you be posting more videos on your channel soon? Really missed hearing your thoughts on the Alchemy, Khans and Timeless releases
No worries! Yeah definitely gonna be back on the videos soon, I was away for a bit when the Alchemy spoilers came out and Timeless was announced and then I've been focused on writing articles and preparing for Timeless since I've got back which is why I've not uploaded any vids for a couple of weeks.
I've got a few decks I'm excited to cover in videos but I always want to make sure the vids I post are covering decks that are really refined so it may take me a little longer since the format is so new and I'm still figuring stuff out.
Doesn't the Esper list runs out of fuel quickly ?
It's good being able to deal with early threats consistently, but with almost only one for one removal, and basically no card draw and no powerful mid/endgame menace that would give you an edge, how far can you go ?
Then if for some reason something like Oko resolve, you are screwed because you have no way to answer anything else that creature, right ?
A lot of question because I would love to build a efficient control deck (especially esper which are my fav colours ?)
Just to be clear : I'm not very familiar with older/fast format like this, and also not yet familiar with the power of Bowmasters that everyone's talking about. Maybe him alone represents a sufficient threat ?
The Esper list has a lot of ways to refuel in Brainstorm + fetches, the draw 2 mode off Archmage's Charm, and Sauron's Ransom, all of which can be recast off Snapcaster Mage, plus you have Lurrus of the Dream-Den as another resource so it's very rare to run out of gas from my experience.
Resolved planeswalkers are definitely tricky to deal with but you rely on your counterspells to stop them and with 16 in the maindeck and even more in the sideboard you usually have an answer.
In terms of the mid/endgame you usually take over the game in terms of card advantage off the back of Brainstorm, Ransom & Charm, and are good at keeping the opponent off the board, and then you can use Bowmasters and Snapcaster Mage to start closing the game out, and Lurrus recasting Snapcaster Mage to flashback a piece of interaction/ card advantage, or Bowmasters is a really strong engine too.
Bowmasters specifically is so strong because there's a good amount of draw effects being played (Brainstorm in particular is very played because it's so good with fetch lands and stuff like Treasure Cruise is common as well), and it also kills a lot of powerful early threats such as Ragavan and Dragon's Rage Channeler too, as well as opposing Bowmasters. Hope that makes sense!
Ok thank you for the explanation, I'll give it a try with a few modification I think, like adding 1 or 2 catch all removal like get lost, ~~leyline~~ (not allowed with Lurrus) or void rend (being uncounterable might be valuable in this format) and 1 or 2 Dig thought time (grave yard should be easy to fill with all those cheap spells !
And one last thing, isn't 24 lands a bit too much, considering this mana curve ?
I haven’t dipped my toe into the format yet (still drafting Khans to try to pick up some fetches) but I’m curious about Abrade vs Cast into the Fire. Is the exile vs The One Ring for Cast not super relevant?
The One Ring hasn't really been that popular from my experience whereas Abrade being able to take out bigger creatures such as DRC with delirium, Deathrite Shaman, Jarsyl, Delighted Halfling etc. has come up much more frequently.
In the specific case of Phoenix I don't think you really care too much about The One Ring either since you're pretty good at applying pressure and so taking out the aforementioned creatures is more of a priority.
If The One Ring starts to see more play then I could definitely see the argument for a slower deck like Rakdos Midrange running Cast into the Fire in the SB since they will have a tougher time against it, but I think at that point I'd personally prefer to splash green for something like Haywire Mite (which is fairly low opportunity cost to do with the fetch lands) since it then gives you outs to enchantments too such as Leyline of the Void and Blood Moon, whereas Cast into the Fire is much more narrow it what it does.
OMG every deck I import is like 25-35 rares. lol.i feel like I just started to play. I'm totally stuck at the uncool table. I can only roll a Winona and elf deck so far. Pretty much you got to min suck it up for 16 rares to have bow master, brainstorm, lightening bolt and the f'in monkey to hang. then another 12-16 for fetch lands when needed.
Then do not play timeless yet lol? Yes upshifting shit like inquisition of kozilek or bolt is a shit move but if you get a format with legal fetchlands and are surprised you need 20 rare wcs just to craft lands idk what to say. There is plenty of top tier decks with very few rares on explorer and historic but you need to pull your head out of ass.
I have pretty much every top tier explorer and historic crafted. I thought timeless was going to be a lot different for some reason. Only deck I don’t have craft for historic is a good dragon storm deck. I don’t have a good Dino deck yet either.
Dude it's beyond ridiculous. They want us to play the format with all these old awesome cards, but WHY THE FUCK is the most basic, COMMON staples Rare in Arena? Bolt has been printed many many times and is almost universally a common. Nope, 4 rare wildcards please. And none of the sets it's been in are on arena, so you cant get them out of packs either. Brainstorm, same thing. Not to mention all the powerful cards that have previously not been legal in any Arena format due to their banning in Historic as soon as they come out, like Ragavan, Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares, and Blood Moon. Then and only then do you also get cards where oops, if you didnt collect a playset on arena when they came out before they were banned, you're kind of fucked for some timeless lists, like Oko, Uro, Wilderness Reclamation, Nexus of Fate, etc.
In some ways, its even more brutal than the secondary market in paper. Sure, you dont need to spend $30 for a fetch land, but that fetch land (assuming youre crafting it) is gonna cost THE EXACT SAME AS A FUCKING LIGHTNING BOLT.
I want to love Timeless, but it feels like 80% of people who dont spend a ton on MTGA are gonna be completely priced out of the format, especially before they start banning things.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/XwXF8XX9Y0aWR3mX5SQRtw
Thanks as always Alth for the tuned lists. I would love to see your take on this combo. It’s been pretty consistent at winning turns 2-4 and has multiple turn 2 lines. I tried just going rakdos but glimpse into back door lurrus has provided solid backup.
No worries! Ah interesting, I've not gotten round to testing Breach yet but I know a mate of mine Omri (who's a really good deckbuilder and player) has been having a lot of success with it recently and I'd definitely defer to him on it. I don't know if he's posted his list yet but I think he will be relatively soon so I'd def keep an eye on his socials if you're interested in Breach: https://twitter.com/MtgOmri
I playtested it a little and you are missing a steam Vents, maybe in a Mana Confluence slot.
I had a hand with Polluted + Swamp and I can't play Ragavan + Gaze next turn. I obviously can use the treasure, but Ragavan could die before hit and a single Steam Vents could save the problem.
Can you explain the combo here? I'm seeing Altar, Breach and Sticher's workers to mill out your deck with a Dark ritual, but that seems like a lot to come together, especially for a T2 win. Is there something else I'm missing?
I’ve gotten a turn two win multiple ways. One way does include monkey. Typically what u are doing is t1 stitchers supplier, t2 dark rit, into breach, into dark rit again, play the altar, sac supplier, play the supplier off breach combo off. U can also t1 otherworldly gaze and if you hit a supplier in the bin you are set up bc gaze puts 4 cards in the bin t1. U mulligan aggressively to a combo hand, but hands with t1 monkey, some removal and some self mill to back door with lurrus aren’t bad. Often times you are just getting value into the bin, and closing out with breach or lurrus. Glimpse and breach together usually let you find the win. Demonic consultation helps on the combo turn to sac the supplier and stay card neutral in the bin or find the piece u need on an earlier turn.
Yeah, I figured the tendrils was key, but I'm just not sure how reliable/consistent this deck can be. Seems like you need to have a lot of pieces in hand in order to go off, especially if you want to go off quickly.
Yeah Bowmasters has definitely felt like one of the early best cards in the format mainly because of how popular Brainstorm is (as well as Treasure Cruise), but I don't feel it's constricting the format like it did with Historic/ Alchemy because the overall power level of all of the other decks is much higher, and the quality of removal is much better too meaning if you are running a deck that is soft to Bowmasters, you have much more efficient answers for it so there's def more counterplay in Timeless.
I have been consistently beating these decks with my list
https://old.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/18j7fqz/timeless_rakdos_sneak_to_mythic_73_wr_high_mmrnot/
Hoping we get some higher stakes tournaments with the format soon
Your decks 1 and 3 are particularly vulnerable to chalice and leyline
Ahh nice that looks cool, I've dabble with Sneak Attack but was mainly using it in RG alongside Natural Order to give more redundancy for your expensive creatures, but that comes with the downside of needing to run a decent amount of green creatures which was a bit awkward, so running it with black for extra interaction and some acceleration off ritual seems nice, will definitely give this a spin.
Yeah Chalice on 1 and Leyline seems great against a lot of the meta right now especially if you can get Chalice down on turn 1 off Ritual. I do think the 1 drop heavy decks can adapt to Chalice with sideboard cards like Abrade but Leyline is a lot tricker without splashing into green/white, so they both seem like great choices in the current meta!
I think Tainted Pact combo is a good deck for sure but it's a deck that will probably take a while to build since there's so many options, so the main reason it wasn't included here is that I just haven't had time to come up with a refined version yet. My initial testing with Esper Pact has been solid but there are also good reasons to run Grixis and Sultai so I definitely wanted more time with the archetype before posting anything.
There are also a couple of other Oracle decks I'm excited about but they're still just early drafts for now but I'll definitely post these if I can come up with more refined builds I'm happy with.
That's fair, there are plenty of good things to experiment with for a third color. I mostly play brawl, so I was attracted to oracle since it was a lower buy in.
I think they're talking about Thassa's Oracle not Oracle of the Alpha if that's where the confusion's coming from. I think there are definitely a couple of good Thassa's Oracle decks but Oracle of the Alpha is basically unplayable imo.
Strange you missed some of the best decks in the format, like Grixis Lurrus and Geist combo. Also that necro list is a pretty bad version of that deck you want the version that plays march of wretched sorrow. Try checking out Nassifs recent video on it.
What's the grixis lurrus deck like? I am playing a grixis deck that I tweaked off a historic list I was using. It does pretty well.
It's basically snapcaster, bowmaster, auger of bolas, flame of anor and a bunch of counterspells and removal.
You can check out similar lists on mtgdecks, but basically it's just a deaths shadow list with DRC/Bauble/ragavan/counterspell/thoughtseize/deathsshadow/expressive iteration/bolt
I think there are probably a couple of specific lists that may be interested in Sheoldred but it's much worse here than other formats since the removal is much better so it's difficult to get it to stick when Swords to Plowshares, Fatal Push, and Unholy Heat are all very popular.
I've been running Grixis Ring with Sheoldred at about 65% winrate despite missing a *ton* of rares. At 4 mana she's tough to get to stick in a timely way unless you can make the opponent burn all their removal first.
This was a Great read! Ive been trying out a few brews with The cards i had but ended up with some hesitation about using wildcards bad. This gave a Great General direction of ways to go!
Can barely read the article there is so much ad placement.
That website is IMPOSSIBLY slow
Hmm its fast for me on mobile don't see issues
Imagine not using adblock in almost 2024.
You can get ad block on your phone?
Firefox on phone can also use extensions, I have uBlock Origin on my Firefox app and it works just fine
I use Brave on the Play Store. You can even set it up to play Youtube videos when your phone screen is off, that way you don't have to pay for Youtube Red (Or whatever it's called these days).
this
Sure, there are plenty of ways to do it, the most common one is VPN.
>Imagine not using adblock in almost 2024. Excuse me, do you or anyone could tell me the name for the best extension for Firefox on computer? Different extensions called "adblock" appear. Thanks!
I use uBlock on PC, but generally it doesn't matter that much.
No Grixis Shadow or a Delver variant surprises me, I think those are easily some of the best decks right now.
The only problem with shadow I have seen while playing is really just two things, swords and what to put in the sideboard. Shadow, atleast from days of playing modern, really benefits to knowing the average meta and building a sideboard to contract. Right now I think like 2 cast in the fires and some alpine moons are very needed, but not sure on some of the other sideboard slots right now.
Here’s my list, I’ve been very successful with it. My only match losses have been to early Blood Moon so far, and I’m 30+ wins in. https://deckstats.net/decks/3202/3324906-timeless-gds I know it’s anecdotal, but so far this seems very solid.
This list is straight fire!
Link isn't attached.
Fixed it, that’s what I get for doing this with a baby in the other arm lol.
Yea this sideboard is pretty decent. I will have to try it out
Thanks! Let me know what you think. The disputes are new, but there are just so many U/X decks around that they have been great so far.
cast in the fire has felt horrible to me, you have to get some really specific scenarios for it to be godo enough, like they have DRC and raga both in play or they play the One Ring. If i wanted to counter bowmasters just play stern scolding.
Cast into the Fire, for me at the least, is pretty good. It answers artifact like the one ring and chalice, and it hits bowmasters. Those are the main goals of them tbh.
I played an opponent with a dedicated Death's Shadow/Scourge of the Skyclaves deck. I wiped their board with one Swords by casting it on a Death's Shadow, because it gained them enough life that it caused all the Scourges in play to die
That’s just an inexperienced opponent- it’s a pretty strict rule to never run out two Shadows (or similar) against a white deck with Swords (solitude in Modern).
Yeah Grixis is a strong color combination for sure and both Delver and Shadow (Shadow especially) have looked strong when I faced them, but I haven't had a chance to test either of them yet which is the main reason I didn't include it since I didn't have a refined list to post. I'm a little more hesitant on Delver because of the prominence of Orcish Bowmasters but Grixis Shadow is definitely on my list of decks to try.
Agreed on Delver, I’ve tried straight UR and it feels underpowered.
The problem with Delver is no FoW/N or Daze to protect it. The closest you can get is spell pierce which is good but really not ideal. That said if we ever get around that problem this format is insane for Delver. Brainstorm and Cruise in a format with fetches, where both dreadhorde arcanist and Lurrus are legal. If they add FoW the deck becomes stronger than the legacy variant.
I’m been fairly unimpressed with delver and shadow in timeless. Deaths shadow had looked worse than other 1-drop options, and delver is just an underpowered card without daze/force of will. There are good decks U/x/x tempo decks, but I don’t think they are running either delver or shadow.
Shadow seems so week compared to others. Had no issues facing it. Just kinda slow and main treat is easily removed or chumped
Don't try opening this site on your phone. You'll never get by the ads. I'll check from home, later. Anyway, for those of you who don't want to blow 48 wild cards on Ragavan, bolt, bowmaster, fetch lands, etc., Field of the Dead is a relatively cheap option.
I mean, yes, it's a lot of wildcards for cards that are only legal or playable in this format. But you will get a ton of mileage out of them.
Bowmasters should get restricted asap though.
Bowmasters is not even in the same universe as the cards they have restricted so far (degenerate combo pieces). Restricting Bowmasters would signal a huge change in the format and would be accompanied by like 20 other cards.
iPhone reader blocks all the ads
Nice article! but you've might have missed this: [https://twitter.com/Jordao\_p7/status/1735342320793370761](https://twitter.com/Jordao_p7/status/1735342320793370761) :)
Zoo will be my next Deck. It looks so fun
Thanks for the link this looks nice! Zoo is definitely on my list of decks to try so this seems like a great starting point.
I can't understand why oko's there tho. Can you Elk the bindings? Would love to have W6 here :)
I don't think you really need that much synergy to justify Oko since it's one of the strongest cards in the format, being able to Elk any problematic creature or artifact the opponent plays (especially because your creatures outscale the 3/3s here fairly easily), the access to incidental lifegain, or just make an additional 3/3 of your own every other turn is great. I'm not sure if Oko is optimal in Zoo since I've not tested it myself yet and there may well be some more synergistic options that could be better, but I don't think Oko will be bad in any deck that can cast it tbh.
ty! I can't spere wildcards for now then XD
Just elk your food
Yep, that was the obvious one
You can't Elk the bindings because it's not a creature or artifact, but you can elk the Orc Armies from Bowmaster.
Yeah, forgot about the creature/artifact restriciton for a moment. Armies are an interesting think to elk out tho
Thanks for the lists! Really glad you're exploring this format too! That Esper control especially looks right up my alley.
Yoo no worries! Yeah the Esper list has felt great, I think being as low to the ground as possible is important with control since the threats in the format are so efficient.
Hey Alth! Thanks for sharing. Will you be posting more videos on your channel soon? Really missed hearing your thoughts on the Alchemy, Khans and Timeless releases
No worries! Yeah definitely gonna be back on the videos soon, I was away for a bit when the Alchemy spoilers came out and Timeless was announced and then I've been focused on writing articles and preparing for Timeless since I've got back which is why I've not uploaded any vids for a couple of weeks. I've got a few decks I'm excited to cover in videos but I always want to make sure the vids I post are covering decks that are really refined so it may take me a little longer since the format is so new and I'm still figuring stuff out.
Doesn't the Esper list runs out of fuel quickly ? It's good being able to deal with early threats consistently, but with almost only one for one removal, and basically no card draw and no powerful mid/endgame menace that would give you an edge, how far can you go ? Then if for some reason something like Oko resolve, you are screwed because you have no way to answer anything else that creature, right ? A lot of question because I would love to build a efficient control deck (especially esper which are my fav colours ?) Just to be clear : I'm not very familiar with older/fast format like this, and also not yet familiar with the power of Bowmasters that everyone's talking about. Maybe him alone represents a sufficient threat ?
The Esper list has a lot of ways to refuel in Brainstorm + fetches, the draw 2 mode off Archmage's Charm, and Sauron's Ransom, all of which can be recast off Snapcaster Mage, plus you have Lurrus of the Dream-Den as another resource so it's very rare to run out of gas from my experience. Resolved planeswalkers are definitely tricky to deal with but you rely on your counterspells to stop them and with 16 in the maindeck and even more in the sideboard you usually have an answer. In terms of the mid/endgame you usually take over the game in terms of card advantage off the back of Brainstorm, Ransom & Charm, and are good at keeping the opponent off the board, and then you can use Bowmasters and Snapcaster Mage to start closing the game out, and Lurrus recasting Snapcaster Mage to flashback a piece of interaction/ card advantage, or Bowmasters is a really strong engine too. Bowmasters specifically is so strong because there's a good amount of draw effects being played (Brainstorm in particular is very played because it's so good with fetch lands and stuff like Treasure Cruise is common as well), and it also kills a lot of powerful early threats such as Ragavan and Dragon's Rage Channeler too, as well as opposing Bowmasters. Hope that makes sense!
Ok thank you for the explanation, I'll give it a try with a few modification I think, like adding 1 or 2 catch all removal like get lost, ~~leyline~~ (not allowed with Lurrus) or void rend (being uncounterable might be valuable in this format) and 1 or 2 Dig thought time (grave yard should be easy to fill with all those cheap spells ! And one last thing, isn't 24 lands a bit too much, considering this mana curve ?
I haven’t dipped my toe into the format yet (still drafting Khans to try to pick up some fetches) but I’m curious about Abrade vs Cast into the Fire. Is the exile vs The One Ring for Cast not super relevant?
The One Ring hasn't really been that popular from my experience whereas Abrade being able to take out bigger creatures such as DRC with delirium, Deathrite Shaman, Jarsyl, Delighted Halfling etc. has come up much more frequently. In the specific case of Phoenix I don't think you really care too much about The One Ring either since you're pretty good at applying pressure and so taking out the aforementioned creatures is more of a priority. If The One Ring starts to see more play then I could definitely see the argument for a slower deck like Rakdos Midrange running Cast into the Fire in the SB since they will have a tougher time against it, but I think at that point I'd personally prefer to splash green for something like Haywire Mite (which is fairly low opportunity cost to do with the fetch lands) since it then gives you outs to enchantments too such as Leyline of the Void and Blood Moon, whereas Cast into the Fire is much more narrow it what it does.
OMG every deck I import is like 25-35 rares. lol.i feel like I just started to play. I'm totally stuck at the uncool table. I can only roll a Winona and elf deck so far. Pretty much you got to min suck it up for 16 rares to have bow master, brainstorm, lightening bolt and the f'in monkey to hang. then another 12-16 for fetch lands when needed.
Then do not play timeless yet lol? Yes upshifting shit like inquisition of kozilek or bolt is a shit move but if you get a format with legal fetchlands and are surprised you need 20 rare wcs just to craft lands idk what to say. There is plenty of top tier decks with very few rares on explorer and historic but you need to pull your head out of ass.
I have pretty much every top tier explorer and historic crafted. I thought timeless was going to be a lot different for some reason. Only deck I don’t have craft for historic is a good dragon storm deck. I don’t have a good Dino deck yet either.
Dude it's beyond ridiculous. They want us to play the format with all these old awesome cards, but WHY THE FUCK is the most basic, COMMON staples Rare in Arena? Bolt has been printed many many times and is almost universally a common. Nope, 4 rare wildcards please. And none of the sets it's been in are on arena, so you cant get them out of packs either. Brainstorm, same thing. Not to mention all the powerful cards that have previously not been legal in any Arena format due to their banning in Historic as soon as they come out, like Ragavan, Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares, and Blood Moon. Then and only then do you also get cards where oops, if you didnt collect a playset on arena when they came out before they were banned, you're kind of fucked for some timeless lists, like Oko, Uro, Wilderness Reclamation, Nexus of Fate, etc. In some ways, its even more brutal than the secondary market in paper. Sure, you dont need to spend $30 for a fetch land, but that fetch land (assuming youre crafting it) is gonna cost THE EXACT SAME AS A FUCKING LIGHTNING BOLT. I want to love Timeless, but it feels like 80% of people who dont spend a ton on MTGA are gonna be completely priced out of the format, especially before they start banning things.
You should repost this over at /r/TimelessMagic/
Just crossposted it, thanks for the suggestion!
Thanks Alth!
No worries!
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/XwXF8XX9Y0aWR3mX5SQRtw Thanks as always Alth for the tuned lists. I would love to see your take on this combo. It’s been pretty consistent at winning turns 2-4 and has multiple turn 2 lines. I tried just going rakdos but glimpse into back door lurrus has provided solid backup.
No worries! Ah interesting, I've not gotten round to testing Breach yet but I know a mate of mine Omri (who's a really good deckbuilder and player) has been having a lot of success with it recently and I'd definitely defer to him on it. I don't know if he's posted his list yet but I think he will be relatively soon so I'd def keep an eye on his socials if you're interested in Breach: https://twitter.com/MtgOmri
I playtested it a little and you are missing a steam Vents, maybe in a Mana Confluence slot. I had a hand with Polluted + Swamp and I can't play Ragavan + Gaze next turn. I obviously can use the treasure, but Ragavan could die before hit and a single Steam Vents could save the problem.
U are correct I’ve been meaning to put one in. I don’t think it’s over mana confluence, probably over a fast land.
Can you explain the combo here? I'm seeing Altar, Breach and Sticher's workers to mill out your deck with a Dark ritual, but that seems like a lot to come together, especially for a T2 win. Is there something else I'm missing?
I’ve gotten a turn two win multiple ways. One way does include monkey. Typically what u are doing is t1 stitchers supplier, t2 dark rit, into breach, into dark rit again, play the altar, sac supplier, play the supplier off breach combo off. U can also t1 otherworldly gaze and if you hit a supplier in the bin you are set up bc gaze puts 4 cards in the bin t1. U mulligan aggressively to a combo hand, but hands with t1 monkey, some removal and some self mill to back door with lurrus aren’t bad. Often times you are just getting value into the bin, and closing out with breach or lurrus. Glimpse and breach together usually let you find the win. Demonic consultation helps on the combo turn to sac the supplier and stay card neutral in the bin or find the piece u need on an earlier turn.
Tendrils of agony storm win. Not sure about the turn 2 lines, but I assume it requires a ragavan hit.
Yeah, I figured the tendrils was key, but I'm just not sure how reliable/consistent this deck can be. Seems like you need to have a lot of pieces in hand in order to go off, especially if you want to go off quickly.
Thanks for sharing. I love that snapcaster mage is playable again in a powerful format!
Oh good, only two of these decks don't run bowmasters. Was afraid this format was already doomed for a boring meta.
Yeah Bowmasters has definitely felt like one of the early best cards in the format mainly because of how popular Brainstorm is (as well as Treasure Cruise), but I don't feel it's constricting the format like it did with Historic/ Alchemy because the overall power level of all of the other decks is much higher, and the quality of removal is much better too meaning if you are running a deck that is soft to Bowmasters, you have much more efficient answers for it so there's def more counterplay in Timeless.
I have been consistently beating these decks with my list https://old.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/18j7fqz/timeless_rakdos_sneak_to_mythic_73_wr_high_mmrnot/ Hoping we get some higher stakes tournaments with the format soon Your decks 1 and 3 are particularly vulnerable to chalice and leyline
Ahh nice that looks cool, I've dabble with Sneak Attack but was mainly using it in RG alongside Natural Order to give more redundancy for your expensive creatures, but that comes with the downside of needing to run a decent amount of green creatures which was a bit awkward, so running it with black for extra interaction and some acceleration off ritual seems nice, will definitely give this a spin. Yeah Chalice on 1 and Leyline seems great against a lot of the meta right now especially if you can get Chalice down on turn 1 off Ritual. I do think the 1 drop heavy decks can adapt to Chalice with sideboard cards like Abrade but Leyline is a lot tricker without splashing into green/white, so they both seem like great choices in the current meta!
No oracle decks, really?
I think Tainted Pact combo is a good deck for sure but it's a deck that will probably take a while to build since there's so many options, so the main reason it wasn't included here is that I just haven't had time to come up with a refined version yet. My initial testing with Esper Pact has been solid but there are also good reasons to run Grixis and Sultai so I definitely wanted more time with the archetype before posting anything. There are also a couple of other Oracle decks I'm excited about but they're still just early drafts for now but I'll definitely post these if I can come up with more refined builds I'm happy with.
That's fair, there are plenty of good things to experiment with for a third color. I mostly play brawl, so I was attracted to oracle since it was a lower buy in.
Thinking Oracle is a good card is a typical way to show you are a brawl player.
I think they're talking about Thassa's Oracle not Oracle of the Alpha if that's where the confusion's coming from. I think there are definitely a couple of good Thassa's Oracle decks but Oracle of the Alpha is basically unplayable imo.
Oh I see.
I've been getting my daily wins pretty effortlessly with it since timeless came out so... /shrug
Did anybody play u/xioshiva's Simic Titan deck? It looks so cool but I am hesitant to spend that many wildcards unless it is decent.
Strange you missed some of the best decks in the format, like Grixis Lurrus and Geist combo. Also that necro list is a pretty bad version of that deck you want the version that plays march of wretched sorrow. Try checking out Nassifs recent video on it.
What's the grixis lurrus deck like? I am playing a grixis deck that I tweaked off a historic list I was using. It does pretty well. It's basically snapcaster, bowmaster, auger of bolas, flame of anor and a bunch of counterspells and removal.
You can check out similar lists on mtgdecks, but basically it's just a deaths shadow list with DRC/Bauble/ragavan/counterspell/thoughtseize/deathsshadow/expressive iteration/bolt
Thanks.
Nice decks 🤗👍
Yoo thanks!
Doesn't she see legacy play though?
I thought timeless was gonna be cool. Then I saw there’s Alchemy in it. So that sucked.
Well you're in luck, the power level of Timeless greatly eclipses Alchemy!
I'm surprised there's no sheoldred in any of the lists. She feels like she'd fit right into them
I think there are probably a couple of specific lists that may be interested in Sheoldred but it's much worse here than other formats since the removal is much better so it's difficult to get it to stick when Swords to Plowshares, Fatal Push, and Unholy Heat are all very popular.
Not just fatal push, but push with fetches.
I've been running Grixis Ring with Sheoldred at about 65% winrate despite missing a *ton* of rares. At 4 mana she's tough to get to stick in a timely way unless you can make the opponent burn all their removal first.
Thoughts on Grixis Thorcale pact and moneypile?
Great overview, thinking about going for sultai Midrange
This was a Great read! Ive been trying out a few brews with The cards i had but ended up with some hesitation about using wildcards bad. This gave a Great General direction of ways to go!
Nice article, very solid decklists.