Hello - it's me again. You know, when I’m on a long road trip and I have nothing to do, I like to think about Magic strategy. This weekend, as I traveled to the Twin Cities and back (not to GP: Minneapolis, unfortunately), I began thinking about Battle of Wits. For those who don’t know already:

Battle of Wits
3UU Enchantment Rare
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 200 or more cards in your library, you win the game.

And already, this is being pushed off to the side and treated as a crap rare. (Now, let’s hope that Anthony doesn’t use this for his Break this Card contest. But, you know what? It doesn’t matter! I want to write another article.) So I figure I’d better find a way to abuse this card. Just to make things easier, I’m going to make this Type I legal, trying to restrict the power cards as much as possible. If you’re planning on trying this out in casual play, then you don’t have my restrictions, so go all out on the tutors (and be sure to e-mail me to tell me how your deck does - check my address at the bottom). My initial thought was to find a way to get all my permanents and cards in my hand and graveyard into my library, leaving only my Battle in play. And in my searches, I found this card:

Kaervek’s Spite
BBB
Instant
Visions Rare
Sacrifice all permanents, Discard your hand: Target player loses 5 life.
"The end justifies the means. What do I care if I rule over the dead rather than over the living? The dead ask fewer questions."
—Kaervek
Illus. Bryan Talbot

So this thing provides me with a way to get rid of everything I have. Now all I need is a way to get it all back in my library, which leads us to:

Gaea’s Blessing
1G
Sorcery
Weatherlight
Uncommon
Target player shuffles up to three target cards from his or her graveyard into his or her library.
Draw a card.
If Gaea’s Blessing is put into your graveyard from your library, shuffle your graveyard into your library.
Illus. Rebecca Guay

Now combine this will Millstone, a way to gain extra turns, and some other random cards, and we have a deck. So what do we have so far?

4x Battle of Wits
4x Kaervek’s Spite
4x Dark Rituals (to cast the Spite easier)
4x Gaea’s Blessing
4x Millstone
1x Time Walk
2x Time Warp
3x Second Chance
2x Final Fortune

So that’s twenty-eight cards so far (okay, so I may have overdone it on the extra turn cards). And already we’re into three colors. Well, let’s make it easier to cast our key cards and find our combo:

1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Diabolic Tutor
4x Noble Benefactor
4x Intuition
1x Enlightened Tutor
4x Helm of Awakening
4x Scroll Rack
4x Sapphire Medallion

Now we’re up to fifty-two. And then we’ll add some cards just to smooth things out and stuff:

3x Turnabout
3x Propaganda
1x Braingeyser
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Time Spiral
4x Celestial Dawn
4x Orim’s Chant
4x Wrath of God
4x Disenchant
3x Wall of Glare
4x Ivory Mask
3x Moat
2x Peacekeeper
2x Delaying Shield
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Pearl Medallion
2x Mana Flare
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Katabatic Winds
3x City of Solitude (113)

Most of these cards are just make to stall. Wrath of God, Moat, Peacekeeper, and Ensnaring Bridge to handle creatures, Ivory Mask, Delaying Shield, Orim’s Chant, and City of Solitude to protect you and your spells, and the other stuff to help reduce mana costs and make things easier to cast. Now for lands:

4x City of Brass
4x of each dual land (or basic lands)
4x Adarkar Wastes
4x Battlefield Forge
4x Coastal Tower
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Salt Flats
4x Scabland
6x Islands
6x Plains
4x Swamp
4x Mountain (88)

And that’s the deck basically. If I counted right, there should be 201 cards in the deck. I call the deck ‘201,' since you only need 201 cards in your library to win. So what do you do? Okay, make sure you have the Millstone in play, the Blessing on top of your library (via the Scroll Rack or a Tutor), and plenty of mana. Find a way to give yourself another turn (via the Time Walk or Warp or Second Chance). Then cast the Battle. In response, Millstone your library. In response to the Millstone, cast the Spite, discarding your hand and sacrificing everything. Then the Millstone resolves, shuffling your graveyard into your library. Then the Battle resolves. Now all you have to do is end your turn and (barring a Disenchant) win the game. Enjoy!

Nathan Long
that_guy_eating_some_bread@hotmail.com