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Skies Are Looking Deadlier in Type 2

Looking over the spoilers for Odyssey, I took notice that Blue gained some new fliers. I foresaw that Skies, being all about flying creatures, was going to rock this time around (did I miss something? - Ed). I fired up Apprentice and began to see how Odyssey cards were going to replace Masques in this deck.

The first blue bombs I noticed were the Thought beasts: Thought Nibbler, Thought Eater, and Thought Devourer. Each of them offered power/toughness equal to their mana cost, along with flying. However, they had the drawback of decreasing your maximum hand size. The 7th edition card Spellbook took care of this problem. What's infinity minus four?

Speaking of 7th edition, this base set also has some good fliers. Air Elemental and Mahamoti Djinn stuck out in my mind, so I figured "throw 'em in there". Mawcor is a reasonably good creature, so I decided to use a few.

Another feature of Skies is its countermagic. Since we're talking Type 2, the immortal Counterspell is always going to be there. Odyssey has given blue mages a new treat in Syncopate. You not only counter a spell, you remove it from the game. It may cost more mana to use than the original (We should assume he's not discussing Power Sink - Ed), but it's still faster than Fervent Denial and more economic than Rites of Refusal, Odyssey other counter. I'm going for an aggressive Skies, so we'll just use four copies of Syncopate and four copies of Counterspell.

Trying to weed out the Spellbooks and big fliers is easily done. Blue has many card drawers in Type 2 - Fact or Fiction and Opt being the most used. Sage Owl from 7th edition lets you take a peek at your next four cards, plus you get a 1/1 flier for only 2 mana. A powerful cantrip is the sorcery Touch of Invisibility. Sometimes all it takes is an unblockable Mahamoti or Thought Devourer to win the game. (Wash Out, Rushing River, Repulse etc. all remove blockers and are superior cards - Ed)
This is the deck so far:

Creatures
        3 Thought Nibbler
        4 Sage Owl
        2 Thought Devourer
        3 Mawcor
        3 Air Elemental
        3 Mahamoti Djinn
Countermagic and Card Draw
        4 Spellbook
        4 Syncopate
        4 Counterspell
        4 Touch of Invisibility
        3 Opt
        2 Fact or Fiction

This leaves space for 21 Islands. With all the card drawing, you'll rarely get mana screwed.

Odyssey also introduces to us the Avens, a human-like bird race. Two of the Avens that are sideboard worthy are Treetop Sentinel and Aven Smokeweaver, they're both 2/3 fliers for four mana with protection from Green and Red, respectively. Each of them buy 3 spaces in the sideboard as replacements for Mawcor. Sway of Illusion, an instant that changes your creatures' colors and allows you to draw a card, should be swapped in if your opponent is playing Spheres or Circles. Cognivore will be a monster if your opponent is playing lots of instants (assuming you draw the 8/21 islands needed - Ed). You'll also have a few power/toughness points to add with your counters and cantrips. Finally, we'll add Extract. Use it to get rid of any threats your opponent may have, such as Boil.

Your sideboard should look like this:
3 Treetop Sentinel
3 Aven Smokeweaver
3 Sway of Illusion
2 Cognivore
4 Extract

This Skies deck is geared to win in about eight to ten turns, depending on what you draw and when. Just get your big guns out early while countering any threats, and the battle will be shifted in your favor.

John Weis

You are: Home -> Articles -> Feature Article | Editor: Daniel Drew. Sunday 13 Dec 2001.