Flicker deck that uses the repeatable Cloudshift/Archaeomancer interaction to produce large amounts of Drakes (Talrand), damage (Wand) and/or cards (Mentor) to win the game. If I go off, I can win in a turn or two, and there's very little anyone can do to stop it.

Mentor not only draws you into your combo, but can also grow the Skulker for additional defence, which you can split via Reprisal if needed. Raise the Alarm is great for defence, surprise removal, and also as triggers for the Talrand/Wand/Mentor combo.

Can be a little slow to go off though, so defence is key. Flickering the Archaeomancer is great even when the win-cons are not present though as it can defend without dying, chain turns with Time Warp, or pull back counters or removal at instant speed.

**3-0 so far with this new version of my deck

UW "Squadron" (no premiums)
11 Island
11 Plains
-
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Tritin Shorestalker
4 Kraken Hatchling
4 Loyal Pegasus
-
3 Quickling
3 Ordeal of Heliod
3 Military Intelligence
3 Reprisal
-
2 Mentor of the Meek
4 Wind Drake
3 Niblis of the Breath
-
1 Baneslayer Angel

although I did bail one game since I accidentally mulliganed. I click 'draw new hand' but nothing happened, I click oit again and it lit up, but I didn't get a new hand. I click it a third time, and all of a sudden it mulligasns twice, putting me to 6 cards. Worse still, time ran out immediately afterwards so I didn't even have thee option of mulling to 5. I decided to bail right away, since if I stuck around I would have to count that game.

its all because I started taking screencaps of my starting hands more often lately. It seems taking a screencap causes the game to stutter for a few seconds afterwards, and your inputs aren't recognized during that time.

This situation gave me an idea for the game though.. if you mulligan, the timer should reset.

p.s. Was considering changing the name of the deck. But to what?
Now that I've added mentor, I was considering something like Flight School.

edit: **4-1
I just lost to someone running Thraben Purebloods!!

edit: **6-2
lost to a deck that cast 2 Triplicate Spirits and a Phantom General followed by Beastmaster Ascension. My deck is starting to feel inadequate..

edit: ****9-3
Lost to a quick monored goblin deck. I turned to defernse early in the game. All his creatires are 1/1's so I figure this should push him back. He burned or Coordinated Assaulted each turn to get in another attack. It was especially easy for him since he was able to ignore Loyal Pegasus pretty much the whole time.

Carbon, could you add a number count to your cards. Thanks

The deck is amazing btw

Thanks for the feedback - your advice was definitely correct after some playtesting

Sure, I'll try and get it tonight and post tomorrow. It's on my tablet so I don't have it here (at my laptop).

Happy to hear you are having good results with it!

I'm continuing to try and test out a few other options but haven't finalized anything yet - specifically am finding that artful dodge is actually very beneficial though I had dismissed it earlier. You can cast it one one creature, and then immediately recast from the graveyard on a second (two island total cost) and then attack, and that is a great way to finish the game much faster in some cases as your opponent makes assumptions about what they can block per turn, or further jump your card draw, etc.

If you find any improvements in playing, please post so we can continue to improve.

There are 2 comments i would like to make about this deck Stevo:

1) Archaeomancers make great chump blockers too when you have Cloudshift and are trying to buy some time. Barring a instant to end your fun (although having a second cloudshift will continue to infuriate your opponent), this is a solid stall. Even if he dies, a second Archaeomancers starts this whole process again.

2) The HUGE PROBLEM WITH THIS DECK ---> Triggers

Just like you must never feed your Mogwai after midnight....never ever start Cloudshifting your Archaeomancers with x2 Mentor of the Meek & Sphinx-Bone Wand AND Talrand, Sky Summoner on the board.......Oh god it was terrible.

Please rename this deck: "Make your opponent's eyes bleed watching a 250 trigger nightmare unfold"

Yup, the Archaeomancers make great Cloudshuft chumps. That's something I do often if I don't have the combo set up yet. The trigger issue is a massive pain too. As you say, with 2 Mentors and Talrand, that's 4 triggers per shift!

Here's the latest update with cardcount. I made three changes from earlier:
1 - dropped the Bident in favor of 3x Military Intelligence
2 - moved to all lands and dropped the Azorius Guildgate
3 - added in artful dodge


Broken out by color:

4x Elite Vanguard
4x Loyal Pegasus

2x Nimbus Wings
2x Wall of Omens
4x Ordeal of Heliod

3x Kraken Hatchling
4x Cloudfin Raptor
4x Triton ShoreStalker
4x Vapor Snag
2x Artful Dodge
3x Phantasmal Dragon
3x Military Intelligence

Lands
10x White
12x Blue

61 total

Hope that helps!

In my experience Phantasmal Dragon is just WAY to easy to kill. Pretty much every deck runs some sort of burn/destroy/enchant/bounce/anything else that targets a creature. The 5/5 Flying for 4 is amazing, but it just never ever seems to stick. Normally I don't go for the "dies to removal" argument but this is a unique case where every thing is a removal for the dragon. That being said if it isn't dealt with it can be brutal.

I agree. In a deck where you could give him hexproof or shroud (without targeting him), he is grand. But otherwise he is just a waste of space as he'll die if you sneeze on him.

The "die if you sneeze on him" gave me a good laugh. You both have very valid points.

In defense of the dragon - normally people expend their burn on the Raptors because they keep ramping up and they want to deal with that before it gets out of their range (ala Shock), so by the time the Dragon arrives, often they've already spent what they had in hand at least.

And typically, since this deck is relatively fast he's usually arriving to where I should be finishing in 2 or so turns (i.e. they have 7 mana left) so he ends up being a fast finisher rather than designed to 'stick around'.

But agree that he can be a waste of a turn if you drop him and he gets pricked with anything he pops like a balloon.

I'll try playing without and see what might swap in and see if anything better fits.

Update on my flying disruption deck:

I swapped out the 3 Phantasmal dragon's for 3 Frost Lynx and after some testing it has worked well so far.

The reason for the Dragon was as a Finisher, but the Frost Lynx accomplishes a similar goal by 'freezing' a blocker for 2 of your combat turns and thus punching holes in their defense so the flyers can get through and finish since they've usually mounted some defenses near the end.

As I found, Frost Lynx actually can be more valuable in two scenarios:
1 - Flying blocker like Guardian Garmola (forget the name) where it suffers no combat damage. It just keeps nerfing back flying attackers, and have lost to people who posted two of these out since it stalled enough for them to bring out some big cards like Inferno Titan. Encountered that last night and froze it with Frost Lynx and punched through for the win.
2 - Nasty flyers that have "when cast, opponent discards a card" or similar on cast bonus, where a vapor snag would in fact only help their cause more than yours, which renders vapor snag unusable against some blockers.

Of course a 2/2 body doesn't have near the punch, but by having Frost Lynx and Vapor Snag and Artful Dodge, I'm finding enough tools to punch holes where needed for the flyers to get through and the deck to win nicely.

Thus, revised list at this point:

Broken out by color:

//White - Attackers:
4x Elite Vanguard
4x Loyal Pegasus

//Defenders & Card Draw
2x Wall of Omens

//Enchantments
2x Nimbus Wings
4x Ordeal of Heliod

//Blue - Attackers
4x Cloudfin Raptor
4x Triton ShoreStalker

//Defenders
3x Kraken Hatchling

//Disruptors
4x Vapor Snag
2x Artful Dodge
3x Frost Lynx (was 3x Phantasmal Dragon)

//Card Draw
3x Military Intelligence

Lands
10x White
12x Blue

61 total

I'll keep playing and testing but the above is performing very well so far and any feedback is welcome.

After seeing Monk's Xbox tournament with side-boarded games I fixed up my UW Token deck. Tell me what you think!

Second Coming 2015 deck (Second Coming)
60 Cards. 37 nonlands (17 creatures, 20 spells). 23 Lands (10, 7 ).

Creature
-- 3x Elite Vanguard
-- 4x Loyal Pegasus
-- 4x Squadron Hawk

-- 3x Banisher Priest
-- 2x Mentor of the Meek
-- 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos

Spell
-- 4x Vapor Snag
-- 4x Raise the Alarm
-- 3x Military Intelligence
-- 2x Negate

-- 2x Hall of Triumph

-- 1x Time Warp
-- 4x Triplicate Spirits

Land
-- 4x Azorius Guildgate
-- 2x Radiant Fountain

Sideboard
3x Reprisal
2x Meditation Puzzle
3x Dissolve
2x Negate
2x Bident of Thassa
1x Baneslayer
2x Solemn Offering

Anti-Control plan...(for example UW Control, Grixis Control etc.)
-3 Banisher Priest
-2 Mentor of the Meek
-1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
-1 Time Warp

+3 Dissolve
+2 Negate
+2 Bident of Thassa

Anti-Aggro plan...(WG Tokens, R Goblins etc.)
-3 Military Intelligence
-2 Negate
-2 Mentor of the Meek
-1 Time Warp

+3 Reprisal (ONLY for big creatures, like Seraph of the Masses, Scion of the Wild, and other reanimated stuff you might see otherwise keep in sideboard and bring in 2x Bident of Thassa and keep in Time Warp)
+2 Meditation Puzzle
+2 Solemn Offering (...Quest for the Goblin Lord, Beastmaster Ascension, Sanguine Bond etc)
+1 Baneslayer (...just because)

Yeah i really like the list you posted, and was even going to ask how necessary the plains ramp really was, since it stuck out a bit as the weakest link in the deck I'm excited to give it a spin

Yep, I feel it works much better now. Still can have issues of waiting forever for the combo to arrive, but can stall much longer and much better now until that happens, and the single Jalira (still haven't had her hit the field yet) should in theory at least speed the process up, as although she can't find Talrand, she can pull Archaeomancers if a win-con is out, or solidify defence if not. Raise the Alarm token double up as fuel for her too.

All about the air.

Airborne Assault

23 Creatures:
4 Loyal Pegasus
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Squadron Hawk
3 Wall Of Omens
4 Pestermite
3 Skymark Roc
1 Baneslayer Angel

8 Spells:
4 Vapor Snag
4 Arrest

5 Enchantments:
3 Military Intelligence
2 Bident Of Thassa

24 Lands:

10 Plains
10 Island
4 Azorius Guildgate

Why Wall of Omens instead of Guard Gomazoa? Is it just for the cantrip?

Yes, I didn't want any wall in it, but a wall and a draw? lol
Guard Gomazoa would fit better, but I don't defend with this deck. If your defending you prob already lost.