Academy 2017!
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// 60 Maindeck
// 23 Artifact
1 Black Lotus- Mana
1 Mox Ruby- Mana
1 Mox Pearl- Mana
1 Mox Sapphire- Mana
1 Mox Emerald- Mana
1 Mox Jet- Mana
1 Lotus Petal- Mana
1 Mana Crypt- Mana
1 Mana Vault- Mana
1 Sol Ring- Mana
4 Helm of Awakening- Combo
4 Candelabra of Tawnos- Mana
1 Memory Jar- Draw
4 Grim Monolith- Mana// 4 Enchantment
4 Mind Over Matter- Combo// 17 Instant
1 Ancestral Recall-Good card draw
1 Mystical Tutor- Good tutor
4 Meditate- Card draw
1 Vampiric Tutor- Good tutor
4 Force of Will- Control
4 Capsize- Control and Combo
1 Stroke of Genius- Big Card draw and Win
1 Brainstorm- Card draw// 10 Land
4 City of Brass- 5C Mana
1 Strip Mine- Anti Tolarian Academy
1 Tolarian Academy- Big Mana
4 Mana Confluence- 5C Mana// 6 Sorcery
1 Demonic Tutor- Tutor
1 Time Walk- Turns
1 Timetwister- Card draw and tricks.
1 Tinker- Card draw and Mana.
1 Balance- Control.
1 Windfall- Card draw.// 15 Sideboard
// 4 Enchantment
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void- For Combo Strategies.// 7 Instant
SB: 3 Chain of Vapor- For Control Strategies.
SB: 4 Echoing Truth- For Aggro/Control Strategies.// 4 Sorcery
SB: 4 Echoing Calm- For Control/Combo Strategies.Here's my new Academy deck for 2017. Card explanations are next to the cards.
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You can totally cut strip mine now, since the Legend rule was changed recently to allow each player to have their own copy of a legend in play!
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I think you probably want Blue Sun's Zenith over Stroke of Genius. You're ultra-heavy blue, so the additional UU doesn't hurt too bad and it allows you to cast it multiple times in one turn.
This has been seen in Legacy high tide - Blue Sun's for my entire deck, cast a draw spell to get my Blue Sun's, cast some shit then Zenith you for the win.
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That decklist looks severly outdated. When was the last time you followed the vintage metagame? I would consider looking into Mox opal, Paradoxical outcome, expedition map, thoughtcast for your engine. For control/protection: Defense Grid, Mental misstep, flusterstorm, Hurkyl's recall, Echoing truth. Finally, it wouldn't hurt to have an alternate wincon like Tinker bot or tezzeret time vault.
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I played an Academy combo deck last year to some decent finishes and a small tournament win. That might serve as a decent starting point for you. Note that I played this deck before Paradoxical Outcome was printed, so it's possible that you want that in your deck now. Linking you to the write-up down below, which I posted on the old TMD site.
http://www.archive.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=48381.0
Good luck! I had a lot of fun playing it and I think people got to see some crazy stuff happening.
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The problem with stuff like Mox Opal is that it doesn't produce enough mana, and Paradoxical Outcome just cost too much. It's competing for the Meditate slot. The key to the deck is to have average draw, and powerful spells. Mox Opal is competing for the Grim Monolith slot. Grim Monolith makes just enough mana to cast things like Meditate followed by a Candelabra. If Lion's Eye Diamond was unrestricted this would greatly increase card distribution throughout the deck.
Thoughtcast is great but only draws 2 cards. Map of Expedition is also great but competes in the Grim Monolith and Candelabra Slots. Just doesn't do enough.
It's a deck that is easy changeable. It just really depends on the player and what you wanna do with your skills.
Also, Strip Mine is for other Academy decks running around. You don't want them to be able to stay on their mana for more than one or two turns. If they do they win.
Theres ways of getting Academy back in your hand sure, but those ways are stuff like Regrowth, a color not often used in Combo Control, and Timetwister, a limited card. I guess you can use Black cards to get it back, but those are really not comparable to Regrowth or Timetwister as methods.
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@Shax said in Academy 2017!:
The problem with stuff like Mox Opal is that it doesn't produce enough mana, and Paradoxical Outcome just cost too much. It's competing for the Meditate slot. The key to the deck is to have average draw, and powerful spells. Mox Opal is competing for the Grim Monolith slot. Grim Monolith makes just enough mana to cast things like Meditate followed by a Candelabra. If Lion's Eye Diamond was unrestricted this would greatly increase card distribution throughout the deck.
Thoughtcast is great but only draws 2 cards. Map of Expedition is also great but competes in the Grim Monolith and Candelabra Slots. Just doesn't do enough.
It's a deck that is easy changeable. It just really depends on the player and what you wanna do with your skills.
Also, Strip Mine is for other Academy decks running around. You don't want them to be able to stay on their mana for more than one or two turns. If they do they win.
Theres ways of getting Academy back in your hand sure, but those ways are stuff like Regrowth, a color not often used in Combo Control, and Timetwister, a limited card. I guess you can use Black cards to get it back, but those are really not comparable to Regrowth or Timetwister as methods.
Here is a starting point list for you:
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Mox Opal
1 Grim Monolith
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
3 Expedition Map
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Defense Grid
2 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Mind Over Matter
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
2 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Paradoxical Outcome
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
3 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Capsize
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of WillSB: 2 Defense Grid
SB: 2 Island
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt -
@Shax I like your list a lot sir. Lots of turn 1 potential. PO is better than Meditate in this list though. My only changes/ideas?
-4 Mediatate +4 PO (better engine)
-2 Capsize +2 Senseis Div Top (very good with PO, helms, and voltaic keys, good in general)
-1 Mind Over Matter +1 Magus of/Future Site (either, infinite draw w Helm and Top, good in general)
-1 Windfall +1 Frantic Search. Windfall is very situational. Frantic Search has obv synergies.Give that a try, lemme know how it feels.
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Another change you can possibly make is to take out Brainstorm for another restricted bomb, but it must be a good one. Merchant Scroll, or some sort of tutor like Imperial Seal. It's a deck that's on the cusp of just having one more card to be a fairly easy deck to win with. It doesn't even need Paradoxical Outcome to win tons of matches, it's just a great support card and draw engine.
You can also swap Chain of Vapor in the SB for Serum Powder if you wanna get greedy and allow yourself to get better chances to draw SB cards. The SB cards like Echoing etc will help you get out of sticky situations. Leyline is a clutch move against Dredge, Snappy decks and Tarmo decks. Not to mention is just destroys combo and other Academy decks if you've stripped their Academy.
Another big thing about Academy is that their is a foil to the deck.
Channel Fireball as funny as it sounds or Channel variants are a big reason why Blue has cards like Force of Will, Mental Misstep and Misdirection.
The way Channel Fireball decks are made sadly is that they require 4 Channel as a structural card. Without it players cannot use life as a resource.Another funny thing about MTG is that originally Academy was supposed to use White as a backup to support Black and Blue, since White has the best control elements and can support a combo engine with trivalous things like Balance, but Balance is the only card that is restricted in white. Maybe if Wizards eventually prints another White restricted card we'll have something that doesn't use Red as a backup in Tolarian Academy. Red is for Removal, Draw, and tricks like discarding both players hand, or just your hand if the other player doesn't have one. If White had let's say Balance go in the Wheel of Fortune slot, and maybe StP go in Echoing Ruin I might see that as possible. But White really needs some removal, I'll have to do more studying to find a few cards that go in White for the Echoing Ruin slot. MtG is mainly about studying when playing Tolarian Academy. With something like Rituals for example it might be about being flashy or say winning tournaments.
Gush is another one of those decks you really have to put a lot of time and effort into to really get it to work, theres tons of pro players that surely can atleast want to play Gush as a kitchen table magic deck, the same could be said for Shops and Dredge, but whats required to get those decks to run like a Academy deck is far and beyond what players are sometimes capable of. Which is why some players win the events, and some just don't. Sometimes Red is too strong, which is a common cycle in MtG. It forces players to lose to good decks. When actually they are a good player. It allows Dredge to cheat with Ingot Chewer, I actually had a Reveliark deck that used Ingot Chewer in standard, it was just way too good. I guess if you splash White you can use Hold at Bay or Divine Offering. They are both medicore cards. If Wizards really wants they can change Divine Offering to life lost this turn and Hold at Bay to less life but destroy all artifacts to with same name. Echoing Calm is a decent alternative to what White wants, I guess you could also run Fragmentize but it's just not the same as wiping out 2 or more Null Rods on the table. The original purpose of Echoing Ruin. I would actually be pleasant with a white reprint of Echoing Ruin but it's one of those where I don't think Wizards would want White splashing in the color pie to get a powerful effect at this time.
Depending on how you build Academy you can kick Aggro to the curve, or crush Combo or even other Academy decks.
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