Time Sieve Annuity

I'm trying to think of a deck that can use Time Sieve properly, without already having won the game. I mean, in Type 2, in order to have a lot of artifact token creatures you would most likely need a Sharding Sphinx. In order to have a perpetual Time Sieve, you need Sharding Sphinx to make 5 tokens a turn. In order for that to happen, you have to deal combat damage with 5 artifact creatures every turn, which probably means the opponent is dead already, or they will die the turn after Time Sieve is activated, in which case Time Sieve is just a different "take another turn after this" "SORCERY" rather than a "turn taking ENGINE", which is something which we are trying to abuse, rather than just use once.



So in that case, Time Sieve is a win condition, but I don't think that's what we're trying to do. So instead of thinking about Time Sieveing every turn by sacrificing 5 new artifacts every turn, we have to think of a deck where we can have a reliable Annuity. I think that's what it's called.

What I mean is, is if you put $100 in the bank and you get 5% interest per year, and then at the end of each year you take out $5.00, then you can do this infinite times. But what if you only get 3% interest? Then you can do it a lot of times, but not infinite, but since I don't think you plan to live infinite years, this might be a good solution for you. 1% interest? Same thing. 0% interest? Well, now you're living on a clock, because you'll run out of money in a finite amount of time.

So, what I'm saying is that you don't plan to take infinite turns in a row. In order to win the game, you probably don't need infinite turns; maybe four additional turns is enough. Maybe two additional turns is enough. So you build your deck around that.

Of course, in this case the $5.00 is the number of artifacts you sacrifice, and the % interest is related to the number of new artifacts you make each turn. The $100 is a bit wrong, since you don't control 100 artifacts, but I digress. So instead of making 5 new artifacts and sacrificing 5 artifacts each turn, maybe you can make 4 new artifacts, sacrificing those and 1 of your own, or making 3 new artifacts and sacrifcing 2 of your own. So if you control 6 artifacts and you can make 3 new ones every turn, you can still take 3 extra turns. And that's useful enough. Although on your last turn you probably have nothing left in play...

So what makes artifacts? Well, you can read the Time Sieve article, but basically, in Type 2, you have Sharding Sphinx and Court Homunculus. Both of those should make it into the deck. If possible, we try to get Sharding Sphinx out as soon as possible, so that requires Etherium Sculptor or Master Transmuter, or Tezzeret the Seeker or maybe even Sharuun the Hegemon. Also, it will help if we draw a lot of cards.

Of course, when we find cards to help Time Sieve, we should also find cards that help those cards, or combo well with them; and then we find cards to help these new cards. So, as an additional win condition for when Time Sieve is activated, I turn to Sludge Strider.

I'll call it the "Drain 10+" win condition. Basically, when you activate Time Sieve, 5 of your artifacts leave play, so you can spend 5 mana on Sludge Strider and Drain your opponent for 5 life. And then you get an extra turn! On that extra turn, if you need to, and if you can, you can sacrifice another 5 artifacts and drain for another 5. Thus this could be a win condition too.

So, in a weird way, this Time Sieve deck is more of a Sludge Strider / Master Transmuter / Esperzoa deck; Time Sieve is a nice bonus at the end. I suppose you could take out the Esperzoa to concentrate more on getting Sharding Sphinx and Time Sieve into play, but that extra life drain or Kaleidostone "draw a card" synergy is pretty hard to pass up.

Sorcering

Sometimes when you look at cards, and you want to determine whether they are good cards or not, or whether they would fit into a particular deck, you have to imagine them as other cards. Also, while I'm playing a game, I have to think about "Sorcering" (the topic title), and see if that's effective. But before we get to Sorcering, let's talk about the other examples.

In the Lorwyn block, we got

Enchantment - 2B [U]
Whenever you play a spell during an opponent's turn, you may have target player lose 1 life.

So the first thing you you should ask yourself is, how many times will I trigger that, and how many times do I need to trigger that to make the card worthwhile?

So, you might want to change the spell, into something like

Sorcery - 2B
Target player loses X life.

Now, we have to determine X. Would you use this card, if X was:

1: no.
2: no
3: maybe in limited, but probably not
4: probably in limited, maybe in constructed
5: yes

So now you ask yourself, how often, in a game, will this happen? Remember, you would play this enchantment on turn 3, so it does use up your 3rd turn, AT BEST; if you draw this late game, there's a good chance you won't play as many instants after you play it, compared to if you played it on turn 3.

Anyway, so what I'm saying is that I would not use this card, because I don't think I will play that many spells in an average game, on an opponents turn, providing that this card is in play.

Example 2: Where Ancients Tread - 4R [R]
Enchantment - Whenever a creature with power 5 or greater comes into play under your control, deal 5 damage to target creature or player.

So once again, think of the spell differently.

Sorcery - 4R - Deal 5 damage to target creature or player.

Or

Sorcery - 4R - Deal 5 damage to target creature or player. Deal 5 damage to target creature or player.

I would play the first one in a limited deck, and I would play the second one in any deck. Now, what are the chances I play a creature with power 5 or greater, after turn 5, OR after I play this card? If I play this card early, I'm pretty sure I would end up playing 3 or more huge creatures afterwards, so this card is that amazing. If I draw this late game, I can probably still end up bringing a big creature out, and thus this card will be worth it for me.

Of course, there are a bunch of other cards which you have to think about differently. If you want an exercise, look up these cards and think about them: Polluted Bonds, Dire Undercurrents, Fable of Wolf and Owl, Prowess of the Fair, and Mighty Emergence.

Sorcering

I guess I shouldn't call this sorcering, cuz I thought of a few other cards that we can think about differently. First, to define, Sorcering isn't really about Sorceries... but it is about playing something slower than you normally would or could, to act as a surprise card. Another Sorcering term is thinking about an enchantment as a sorcery, so it would be an enchantment except the effect only lasts for one turn. I will get to one of the main points of this article at the bottom, but be patient. So... just a few questions here and there.

Look up Wound Reflection. The card's been done, as a Sorcery, that costs 1 less. Now it's an enchantment so it lasts longer, which is awesome.. but would you still use it if it was a sorcery? I think you would. I think it's great enough that you would.

There's a preview card currently, called Knight of Alara. Check it out. So it would make sense to play it early and your creatures will have awesome power and toughness for the rest of the game. But consider playing it on the turn that you win? Would you play this?

2GW - Sorcery
Choose 2 target creatures you control. They each get +3/+3 until end of turn. All other creatures you control get +2/+2 until end of turn.

I think that card's pretty good. You may want to play it as a sorcery on some turn at the end of the game, rather than as a creature early game.

Relentless Assault. Great card. Whenever I think of Relentless Assault, I think of attacking with six 5/5 creatures, and then untapping them all and attacking again. But have you ever considered using it on turn 5, to just attack for another 4-5 damage? Even then, Relentless Assault is a usable card. Similarly, you think about doing great things with Temporal Extortion in late game, but you may want to get the tempo advantage on turn 5. It's not too bad.

Last but not least - playing Equipment as Enchant Auras. The neat thing about equipment is being able to play it early and have it do nothing, and then next turn equip it to someone and be awesome. The problem is, during that turn where it's doing nothing, your opponent will see it, and they will respond accordingly. That 0/2 ornithopter on your side wasn't a threat before, but now with the equipment, it's kinda scary. So instead of continuing with their aggressive ground attack, the opponent will play his willow-wisp and your attack is ruined.

The great thing about Magic is that your opponent doesn't know the cards in your hand a vice versa, so you're able to deploy trickery and glory at different parts in the game. The above example of playing an equipment kinda ruins it; the opponent will see the equipment and react accordingly.

So this is the real sorcering; playing equipment as enchant auras; that is, instead of paying for the equipment in one turn and equipping it the next, you do both on the same turn. It's rather quite expensive, but sometimes it's oh very worth it. What equipment am I talking about?

The one and only... Quietus Spike.

Equipment cost 3, Equip cost 3; Or, Enchant Creature Aura for 6 mana; and once again, you can Sorcerize this. Would you take:

Sorcery - 6
Target player loses half of his or her life.

Yes. Yes you would. Quite often would Quietus plans be foiled if played as an equipment, but played as an aura... it's dirty, so very dirty.

Neighbor's Barking

So... I had two articles about Magic, and then I stopped posting... hmm...

Partially is probably because of the comments... so basically I was just writing for myself, and to David, so... I dunno. I wanted to write two articles, about Scarland Thrinax and the Doublestrike/Lifelink thing... I was going to do something convoluted about the "race to 20", which basically just states that in most magic games, it still boils down to the "race to 20", or whoever can deal 20 damage to the other guy the fastest.

And then (in the same article) I was going to write something about, like, if your opponent is attacking with a 5/5, then should you block on a 2/2 or take the damage? Basically, if you just twist some terms around, then you can pretend that you can't block the 5/5, and your 2/2 becomes an artifact that has "sac this: gain 5 life". And yeah, you might want to keep your guy so you can attack with it, if that's what you need at the moment....




ANNNYYYYWWAYY.... So I haven't written Magic for a while, so as usual, whenever this blog has some inactivity, I end up posting a joke:

Neighbor's Barking

Chris and Pat are in their residence listening to the
neighbor's dog, who has been in the backyard barking for
hours and hours. Finally, Chris jumps up and says, "I've had
enough of this." He rushes downstairs and out the door.

20 minutes later, Chris finally returns and Pat says, "The dog is still
barking; what have you been doing?"

Chris says, "I put the dog in our backyard. Let's see how
our neighbors like it."