I am a crazy, crazy man. Not just today, but this whole last week and into the foreseeable future. I want to make a T2/Nemasquesis Block deck with Cloudskates. I want to make a T2/Nemasquesis deck with Wild Mammoth. Hold on to your frayed ends of sanity, here we go.

Cloudskate is pretty good. A lot of more respected players are saying,“it only costs six life to counter him,” but to me, six life is a lot to give up to one card in a beatdown deck. Giant Growth is counterable by paying three life. Fireblast is counterable by paying four life and you get to play a virtual Rain of Salt as an instant. Those cards are still pretty good, from what I've heard. Although I agree with the concept of a fundamental turn and sustainability of assault to make an attack deck work, I feel the Skate helps push temporal advantage beatdown into a new level. Temporal advantage has been achieved by out-resourcing your opponents in a variety of ways. The most commonly seen temporal advantage strategy is land advantage, by either laying more land (Exploration) or inhibiting their development (Rishadan Port). Card advantage used to be more prevalent, but Hypnotic Specter and Hymn to Tourach have rotated out of the discard strategy, while Wrath of God, Ring of Gix and Fleeting Image are not appropriate cards for the current T2 environment. Virtual Card advantage has replaced it in the form of regenerating weenies without Incinerate, Cursed Scroll replaced by Masticore, and Morphling being unkillable.

To all this I say:

4 Cloud Sprite
4 Trickster Mage
4 Cloud Skate
4 Waterfront Bouncer
2 Rootwater Thief
4 Rishadan Airship
4 Seal of Removal
4 Daze
4 Tidal Bore
4 Coastal Piracy
4 Rishadan Port
18 Island

And I retort:

4 Spineless Thug
4 Caterean Persuader
1 Spiteful Bully
4 Rathi Intimidator
2 Caterean Brute
4 Cloud Skate
4 Rishadan Airship
4 Seal of Removal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Vendetta
4 Parallax Dementia
4 Snuff Out
12 Swamp
8 Island

Ok, ok put the straight jacket away, I'll quiet down.

Seriously, the Pirates! deck is a model just waiting to be copied. Weak creatures sure dominate a field containing only your permanents. Bounce, beat. Tap, beat. Tap, tap, beat, beat. The first deck is insane when it gets Costal Piracy. When it doesn't, it just smacks the other deck around a lot and can probably squeak out a win based on the fact that Bouncers work better against Cho-Manno's Blessing and spot removal than most other cards. The second deck is terrible, but against a Port-less opponent can deliver 5-7 points a turn starting on turn three. And the Mercenary engine kicks in a lot sooner than Nightwind Gliders and Ballista Squads get in your way. Skate, Bully, Intimidator, and Airship all make attractive Dementia targets when you don't have a Vine Trellis in need of some good busting. Pay six life to counter the Skate. Pay six life you counter the Dementia. I think this deck can work in another 8 points of damage. If only the Dementia made the creature black.

Now for the real insanity. Wild Mammoth is a Green Serendib Efreet. Just kidding. You need a way to either make more creatures, keep your creatures, or prevent your opponent from playing theirs at all. Therefore, you'll need Black removal and Mercenaries, Blue bounce and counters, or Red removal and burn. The standard Stompy deck might fit the Mammoth in, but Uktabi Orangutan, Simian Grunts, and Cradle Guard all seem to serve that deck better. Blue Bounce might work, but the Pirates type decks work very well without the addition of a hitter like the Mammoth. Black already has Skulking Fugitive if they wanted a bad 3/4 for three, and a large Black mana requirement. Enter Ernahm/Burn'em 2000 or Mammoth.drek

4 Kris Mage
4 Stampede Driver
4 Vine Trellis
4 Arc Mage
4 Wild Mammoth
2 Ogre Taskmaster
2 Squallmonger
4 Seal of Fire
4 Seal of Strength
4 Thunderclap
4 Rath's Edge
10 Forest
10 Mountain

Yes, yes the deck is pretty strong without the Mammoths, but this is the only appropriate place for them, it seems. Standard has better options for the three power green slot, Extended doesn't even get a comment, and so Block Constructed it is. Although there isn't an insane amount of creatures in this deck, it does support the Mammoth due to the removal. Your opponent may be able to kill your spellshapers and Taskmasters, but they should have a real hard time taking out the four toughness critters and the non-attacking Squallmongers. I didn't include Natural Affinity, Collective Unconscious, or Spontaneous Generation because I didn't want to turn the Mammoth into a combo creature. Saproling Burst and Saproling Cluster both may have a place in the deck, but the Burst is expensive and the Cluster is too difficult to control.

These decks may not translate perfectly into Standard right now, and Urza's Block doesn't leave the environment for another 6 months, so these decks will probably be relegated to tier 2 for a while. But the lesson to be learned is that temporal beatdown is coming into it's own. From MirViLite Undo/ManoWar decks, to Rath Cycle Trade/Awake decks, to Accelerated Adept, to the latest manifestation in Pirates! (Use the Nautilus!), out developing the opponent can win you the game, even if you are hitting them with a 1/1 that costs three. When they can't play a land without having it Pirated away, or can't get a creature to block your janky critter, you win when they get to zero life. It doesn't matter how bad they cards are that get you there, as long as they take you there first. And if you lose, hey, you had an insane deck.

Good luck and have fun,
Erik Berg
galtwish@hotmail.com