You don't defend but you're running Wall of Omens?

well it of course helps for defense sure.

What about Kraken Hatchling then? Helps trigger Military Intelligence and Loyal Pegasus, and can stay back and defend later if necessary. Wall of Omens is obviously a good card, I was just legitimately curious

Yeah. no reason. Like the card for defense plus draw. With all the draw going, and such cheap creatures, just a lot of fun to Pump out the Birdies every turn.

Have you encountered anyone that doesn't understand how Skymark Roc works? I just cut cursed out because other player had a Palisade Giant on the field, he felt I shouldn't be able to unsummon his Talrand or his mass produced drake tokens.

I've also encountered many that don't seem to understand that if you turn simplified targeting off, you don't HAVE to unsummon an opponent's creature, like an Elvish Visionary or Lone Missionary.

Not if you're defending to buy time or defending to blunt an aggressive deck so your flyers can ..er..fly across and hit instead of having to stay back to block.

Don't get me wrong, if a player only uses defensive creatures without a mill game plan, then what's the point? But using some for the purposes I described is more than ok.

If you are running the Pegasus and Military Intelligence then the kraken is way ahead, and it isn't close.

And I've yet to play with tbe skymark, but it doesn't seem very hard to understand, so sounds like a isolated lemon

I guess so. Raging about something like that ...

That's actually a good point. Since I have had both the wall and a Pegasus out, Kraken would be better.

I've been running a deck almost identical to this. It's biggest weakness is to midrange to big creatures. For that reason, I suggest:

-3 Pestermite
+3 Niblis (can tap down the fatties every turn not just once)

-3 Wall
+3 Banisher Priest

2 win conditions in this cloudshift deck, spam talrand for 2/2 flying creatures or kill em with sphinx-bone wand.

The aim is to get cloudshift and archaeomancer out. On their own it's a blocking combo, combined with wand / talrand it's something else.

I've had a lot of abuse when using this deck

Spells etc


4 cloudshift
3 reprisal
4 arrest
2 seance
2 planar cleansing
2 dissolve
3 inspiration
2 sphinx-bone wand

Creatures

3 banisher priest
3 wall of omens
3 guard gomazoa
2 talrand, sky summoner
4 archaeomancer
1 baneslayer angel

Land

10 island
10 plains
2 azorius guildgate

tried to use the same
did not see much use of the 2 seance, so switched it to the 2 Think Twice - much more synergy
baneslayer angel is also looks like "win more" - but what to take instead of it?

Baneslayer will win the game on its own, AND save you when you are behind. Win-more would be a card that does powerful things when you are already in a strong position but doesn't provide much when you are behind.

I couldn't agree more. Baneslayer Angel can and will win games on it's own if not dealt with immediately. Even if you have it out for a single turn or 2 you gained 5-10 life and did 5-10 damage (whether it was to the face or killing creatures). If it is out any longer than that you probably just won the game.

On the attack, Baneslayer is a 10 point life swing (+5 to you, -5 to them).

change a couple cards and you have almost an exact replica of a deck posted already. i just dont like when decks pretty much get double posted instead of contributing to the conversation in a way such as " thats a nice deck, i run a similar build only i use XYZ instead of ABC. i feel like im watching the twilight zone where the same conversation repeats itself up to a point before starting over again the same way. or was that ground hog day? or...or maybe...maybe im locked in a time warp

I made my own version of the cloudshift + archeomancer deck, tried it online and it seemed pretty powerful. Then I read this thread to see if there was any good idea that I missed... and realized that I'm running neither Talrand nor mentor of the meek. It just didn't occur to me that these cards would be good in the deck.

Meh, thread is 8 pages long I can't be blamed for not reading the whole thing first.

And you know what, I found the deck I think you're referring to, and it uses the same combo but it's different enough imo. That's the nature of how these threads are made, you can honestly make this comment about a ton of posts on a ton of threads in this forum. But sure single mine out lol

Hi, my first post the forum.

I've been using Hakeems u/w deck in this thread. I've played about 20 games with it online and I'd estimate its got a good 80% win ratio (obviously the losses might be down to my skill level).

I removed the bone wand for the following reasons:
- by the time i'd gotten it out and for it be useful ie relying on the instants etc I invariably had control of the game
- it takes 7 turns to get it out, plus more to build up its power, thats a very long time.
- I only found it useful once the other parts of my combos were already in place ie talrand, Cloudshift/Mancer, mancer/timewarp etc
- for me the deck struggles against aggro/rush and I felt some form of lifegain would keep me in the game longer to go off on a combo

So I replaced it with resolute archangel, which has excellent synergy with Cloudshift or even voyages end at a pinch. Plus its another threat and usually takes x2 bolts etc to remove.

I really enjoy playing the deck, I like the challenge of staying alive early game before steadily taking control of the game.

Voyages end was a surprise to me, I didn't realise just how useful it is, its saved me on many occasions and is excellent at early game stalling, and can really kill of those aura/aggro decks. But its also useful for bouncing your own creatures back ie if its early game I'll often block with a Wall of Omens and bounce it back to my hand, Scry rocks in this deck!

I think the starting hand is particularly important using this deck and I'll often mulligan to get a min of x2 lands, and say an omen or journeys end/think twice.

Anyway just wanted to say thanks to Hakeem for sharing the deck and if anyone has any thoughts on my decision to remove bone and replace it with the resolute I'm open to suggestions. I'd also thought about the 6/6 blue flyer that can give cards. Thoughts?

First of all, I just posted the list, I'm not the creator. I did make a few small tweaks, though, and adding the Archangel was one of them, so perhaps you're using an older list.

I like the Bone Wand, though, because it's much harder for the opponent to interact with than Talrand is.