I'm running an extremely similar deck atm.



I only have 1 Think Twice mostly because 5 mana for 2 cards is a bit costly in my opinion, despite the fact that it removes itself from the deck which should make it easier to draw into Resounding Thunder after using Elixir of immortality. Ramp is nice, but I'm thinking of removing Cultivate and adding Darksteel Ingot.

Recently a random 1v1 opponent asked if I wanted to play 4-player FFA and I declined because I had no deck suited for that format. I'd been getting a little bored with 1v1 though, so I decided to make something for multiplayer occasions, and that's what the below list was initially intended for. However, when I was done I thought it might not be bad in 1v1 and sure enough I tore off a pretty good run.

It's designed to get the most out of Cloudshift (and is named as a jab against a Modern deck I don't like). You can spend it on your early cantrip guys to find the sweeper you need, you can get hyper value by hitting your wurms and demons later on, and of course there's the combo win of Archaeomancer and Sphinx-Bone Wand (which I included after reading about it on these very boards...thanks, NGA!).

I just made it yesterday so there's probably going to be a few kinks to work out. The mana, as in any 5-color deck, is dicey and I might play around with it some, but no matter what you're going to get stuck sometimes. You just need to be very mindful of your mana when you're playing out your tapped duals between turns 4-6 and when you cast Cultivate, know what cards you need to leave yourself open to cast and play/fetch accordingly. It sounds basic, and it is, but I get careless sometimes and I imagine others do too.

Not sure about Ground Assault. It's one of the best removal spells overall, but it's possible something else belongs here instead. I'm thinking specifically of Reprisal. I dunno, worth a try maybe.

You probably have noticed the glaring absence of Obelisk of Alara. Initially it didn't make the cut because it's not nearly as good in multiplayer variants, which was the original point. However, even in 1v1 I don't think it's necessary. It doesn't play well with Planar Cleansing, for one, and you have access to more efficient ways to stabilize and beat your opponent. Against decks with Angelic Edict it'd be nice to have the loot function to more easily discard Kozilek if you need to cycle your library, but that really doesn't come up very often.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I hate Fusion Elemental. He's terrible. The ONLY thing I can see him MAYBE being good for is if you use Soul of Ravnica's ability while he's out. But considering Soul is a one-of, it's not very likely to happen. And it's too slow anyway. I'd drop all three of them for better cards.

I lost to Fusion Elemental plus Soul of Ravnica recently.

I mean, yeah it can happen. I still think it's not good enough for this format in general.

Oh I agree, and that's why losing to it felt so bad!

An 8/8 for 5 mana is awesome. You guys are cray cray..

Don't hate bc he beats up your precious Pelakka Wurms.

How many other 8/8s or larger are there in the game? Yeah.. that's right..

Ouch.... that one hurt to watch too. It was like pulling off a bandaid...made of duct tape. I definitely felt for ya bro!

Just remember, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.

elk

I just don't see it.

Size isn't everything you know lol.

I will admit, an 8/8 for 5 is good economy, and Fusion Elemental IS larger than the majority of cards in the format. That said there is just too much bad about the card for me to consider it being really worthwhile.

His biggest issue is his mana cost in this format IMO.

Fusion Elemental becomes significantly better if you can consistently drop it on T5. The problem with this though is that all of our duals/tri-lands come in tapped, and Cultivate can only do so much by itself.

The longer you wait to drop Fusion Elemental the worse off it becomes. If you are dropping it on T6 or later your mana would probably just be better spent on the other bombs available.

8/8 may stand up well to a lot of the creature combat in the game, but consider.

Fusion Elemental has no ETB/LTB abilities. It doesn't automatically generate any sort of value the instant it is played. It also doesn't generate any sort of value for you should it eat removal.

Fusion Elemental has no sort of evasion or evasion-like Keywords. While it is likely that Fusion Elemental can kill whatever is thrown in front of it to block it, it has the potential to be cheaply chump blocked for a long time, and is particularly foiled by anything with Deathtouch/Regen.

Fusion Elemental doesn't generate any CA, and has no activated/triggered abilities. This combined with the whole no evasion thing means it often isn't a HUGE threat. It isn't the type of card that says "answer me right away or just lose" unless it is being played onto an empty board.

Fusion Elemental has no sort of inherent protection. Admittedly it is too big for burn spells to really mess with, but most other removal in the game takes it out easily enough. Of course "dies to removal" isn't a valid reason not to run something. "Dies to removal while generating no value, not generating CA or instant pressure, and potentially clogging up your hand" seems a little more valid a reason not to run it to me.

Size is everything! If she says otherwise.. she's just protecting your ego : )

I think the 'it can be chump blocked forever' argument is dumb. If it kills something of your opponent's each turn.. that's a really good thing. You could make the same argument about Nemesis of Mortals, Arbor Colossus, etc. Just bc it doesn't have evasion or trample doesn't make it bad.. it makes it balanced.

I feel your comments about ETB, card advantage, etc. are true.

Fusion Elemental is terrible. Especially vs the abundance of token decks.

Haha!

*Insert "motion of the ocean" colloquialism here*

Anyways.

Obviously I didn't mean that it can be chump blocked FOREVER. You are correct that being able to attack in and kill an opponents creature each turn isn't at all a bad thing as well.

What I am saying though is that the current meta that exists just works against it so hard.

Most of good to decent Aggro decks don't care about you dropping Fusion Elemental. They either have plenty of ways around it, or have you close enough to being dead by the time it comes down where it doesn't matter (at which point they can likely finish you with Burn/Evasion or by making bad attacks just to push damage through, which Fusion Elemental does nothing to prevent). The card often does nothing to help you come back when you are behind, unlike cards like Pelakka Wurm and Runescarred. Not to mention the power level and abundance of token strategies, which work great at chumping Fusion Elemental and/or going wide enough where it just doesn't matter if it hits the table or not.

Most of the good to decent Control decks are packing enough removal/bounce/discard/etc to likely answer it on sight and it has no form of protection to keep it from being vulnerable or ways to recoup the value lost to eating removal.

Most of the more combo oriented decks (most of the infinite turn decks, most Reanimator/Spawning decks, Seance decks, Lifegain decks, Jalira decks, etc) survive the early turns by flooding the board with stuff like Elvish Visionary, Satyr Wayfinder, Lone Missionary and the like, which people don't mind offering up to the chump block gods, and in a lot of cases, actually WANT to be chumping with to fuel their combos.

To be honest with you, I don't even like Nemesis of Mortals, even with the exposure (and success) it gets from the frequent posters around here. Beyond that, it is overall a better card than Fusion Elemental is anyways. True, both are undercosted fat, but keep in mind that Nemesis of Mortals is much less taxing on your mana base, and has the potential to be better value in terms of economy (8/8 for 5 is good, but 5/5 for 2 is better, especially when it becomes a 10/10 the next turn for a potential investment of only 2 more mana). Nemesis actually has the support (from other cards) to consistently be cast for 2-3 mana, and while Fusion Elemental may always cost 5 without any other fuss, it suffers from a very taxing mana cost (and the existence of only tap dual/tri-lands) which further muck with your ability to play it on curve.

As for Arbor Colossus, that isn't a card I am too huge a fan of either. I won't lie and say I haven't included it in more than a few of my decks. That said, literally every time it was included it was done so specifically because the deck lacked any other viable (or significant) ways in which to deal with flying threats. In my experience the card doesn't get played because it is a relatively undercosted beater. It gets played because it is one of the very few things in the game that can profitably block most flyers and the Monstrosity ability is just gravy when many of the games good expensive bombs just so happen to have flying (Demons and Dragons and Angels oh my!)

Fusion Elemental is not insane, but my deck can often cast him T4.
It's like having a one sided The Abyss in play that can also win you the game.

I like Elemental on T4/T5 but his value decreases sharply the longer the game goes on (think Quest for the Goblin Lord). Too much variance for my taste.

If we could run four copies with better mana and consistently hit him early, he'd be a bomb. But we can't so he's not.

I usually only keep hands with Ingot or Cultivate in my 5C decks, so consistent mana is not a problem.

I took Daninja's deck, and subtracted two lands (Forest and Island) and added two Sphinx-Bone Wands. That provides two extra win cons with potential creature removal, and makes Think Twice very handy.

Removing 2 land to add 2 seven drops doesn't make sense. In testing 26 land is the sweet spot for the pure control decks.

Between the card and land draws, I don't see the issue.

If you're not comfortable with it, you can drop some combination of Divine Verdict and/or Resounding Thunder instead.

Hi all, I created this deck before the trilands, so in the past he wastn't too powerfull because it was having mana problems.
I almost forgot this deck but after the DLC i gave it another try and it is perfoming very nice!

Like any other Ramp deck, it can win with fatties, but the main objective of this deck is to abuse Time Warp (not infinite) while you have a creature on online, it has a very powerfull recursion power. (Archaeomancer, Treasured Find, Cloudshift and now Sheoldred, Whispering One, and in some specifc circustances Dinrova Horror).

The most common way to do this is:
At 8 mana, cast Rune-Scarred Demon, tutor Cloudshift, protect it till opponent end step, attack with it, use Cloudshift, get and cast Time Warp, if you have a Treasured Find or a Archaeomancer, thats pretty much gg.