Puschkin

UPDATE:
Played the deck a couple of times. Can be quite explosive but sometimes it just doesn't get a grip. One game the order of two cards in my library meant the difference between doing nothing and playing several hasting creatures the same turn and finishing it off with a Tendrils vor about 30 damage in total - but I got Emrakul'ed one turn before I could pull it off.

During first games I realized that AEther Vial isn't very useful in this - it puts creatures into play instead of casting them. This means that Cascade isn't triggered when I use a Vial to put Bloodbraid Elf into play, Ripple isn't triggered when I put a Surging Sentinel into play and it means it doesn't up the storm count. On the one hand that's a pity, on the other I now have something to cut! I was at 61 cards, now I am at 60 and am tinkering with the Thrumming Stone.
Regarding Thrumming Stone: I drew it in 2 games so far. In one it did nothing, in the other one the deck hulked out - didn't win because it was a multiplayer game, something random stopped me and then I got ganged up on - but it was impressive and the deck got some notoriety from that. So I still don't know if I should keep it. A Scroll Rack or two in that slot would probably help to make the deck more consistent.

Other candidates to cut in order to make room for Scroll Racks: Beastmaster Ascension. Not because it is weak. More because everybody feels threatened when it is in play, not matter how many counters it has or how many creatures I have. Second candidate is the Pure//Simple. For some reason, whenever I draw it, it just sits in my hand. You'd expect that there would always be worthwhile targets for the Pure part and often many auras and equipments for Simple in multiplayer, but so far this wasn't the case and I am unsure if I just got unlucky.

Hm, but are you allowed to misdirect the Rancor to your Nemesis? Since it has protection from your opponent. Yes, you pick the new target but the Rancor is still controlled by your opponent, so I really don't know if this is a legal move or not.

BTW, please don't play the other decks that I haven't reviewed yet :) I will be able to check some of them later today.

Yes, Time Spiral is one of my favourite blocks. Not only because it features old school mechanics and themes, it was just well rounded and very open for innovation, strong cards but nothing too powerful.
Another very good one was Invasion, albeit not powerful enouogh for today's standards, but back then it was good for casuals and pros alike.

Sorry that it hit you, it's just that this is the umpteenth mill deck on this site and I had to vent. If that is fun for you, fine, enjoy how long it will last. I'll talk to you again in some years :)

Updated. First, I had to move some cards to the sideboard because they are in use somewhere else. Manabase adjusted. Cut Helix Pinnacle, didn't even know why it was there in the first place (just because it has shroud doesn't mean it should be in here). Chain of Acid down to 2 in order to keep it close to 60 cards (also, I realized that since creatures is the one thing it can't hit makes it less fun here, I need a lot of other cards to make Chain of Acid work). Added Molder Slug and upped Blastoderm to 4 to compensate for the losses. Also, finally got my hands on a Necrotic Plague that fits in nicely.

Played this deck a couple of times meanwhile. Worked great once. Didn't do much twice because I managed to completely draw one half of the deck but missed every single key card. Which is one of the reason I added the Scry-dualland I got recently. Death Match turned out to be very annoying to my opponents (read: it is good^^), considering trading for a second one. However, knowing me and my relationship to Murphy I will probably stop drawing Deatch Match once I have more than one ... anyway, this turned out to be a nice deck, provided I don't get overrun in the first couple of turns. It does, however, suffer from the fact that currently people are running lots of enchantment hate.

That's where I think Wizards is wrong.

See, every new expansion IS something new - Magic is an ever evolving game by definition. We need new cards, of course, but we don't need to do outrageous stuff every new set. Wizards is just trying way too hard to keep Magic "fresh" - for example artifacts with coloured mana costs? Even though the definition of an artifact is that it costs only colourless mana? This is changes for the sake of change, read: really stupid. Overdone blockmechanics are actually *limiting* the possibilities and therefore its MORE boring this way!
Besides, I have never heard of any Magic player that quit Magic because things got boring, not now and not back then. Ask them why they quit and the mayority will tell you one of two reasons: It's either "I didn't have the time anymore" or, by far the most common reason, "I could not keep up with buying new cards every 3 months just to keep me, my collection and decks up to date".

Ironically, the true reason why Wizards keeps on pumping out sets at the same rate and why they are forcing block mechanics and tribes down our throat is something different: If everyting focuses around block mechanics and tribes, they can control what decks will be played. Which in turn has 2 benefits for WotC: a), R&D has it easier to playtest new cards in their future league. Secondly and most importantly that way they have the best control over prices. They know exactly which and how many cards will be needed to play successfully and that means they can drive up sales. See, if cards are useful in too many decks, people might stop buying cards. But if they print cards that are strong within the current block but not so much outside, you have to keep on buying the latest product.

He has Lifelink in the form of Spirit Link! In case you don't know: You can play it on opponent's creatures, effectively negating their damage. Entreat the Angels has already been cut - are you posting from the past?^^ Two-drops? He has Orim's Chant, Luminarch Ascension and Isochron Scepter, all of which are better 2-drops than any creature with lifelink could ever be.

New players get bored? How could they? Magic is the most innovative game ever. If it doesn't thrill you when everything is new, what else could excite you? No, they won't get bored, it will just be a lot more difficult for them to build good decks because they have to think for themselves now. Currently you can just start throwing together creatures that share creature type, guild and/or blockmechanic without even looking at the actual abilities. As long as you follow basic deck construction rules like following a mana curve, you'll have a better deck than any "regular" deck people build 15 years ago.

If I was in charge I would still do block mechanics but I won't focus on that in every single cards and would get sure that you can go different paths. I would start printing symmetrical cards again, I would add dangerous upkeeps again on powerful cards, I would spread combos across several cards. Morph, suspend, vanishing/fading, flanking, bushido, those are examples for well executed block mechanics. Especially morph and suspend allow for a broad array of uses without forcing you to play them exclusively with other morph/suspend cards or cards that are designed to work with them.

Still not high enough to warrant such an attention grabbing title. Well, it worked and I am even posting here, so who am I to complain?

Well, these days that usually isn't any better. Whatever their next gimmick is, it will overshadow everything else. They are doing this since Odyssey ... which is a hell lot! I just miss the days where I built my decks myself. These days, Wizards pre-builds them for us. Look at the last block. Gods and enchantments and heroic. Try to build a deck using the last 3 sets that doesn't focus on gods, heroic or enchantments ... impossible!
Anyway, I don't want to start a rant again ...

More? There are already 175 birds ... if you mean by that there should be more birds that boost other birds I have to disagree. On tha basis that they have been focussing on creatures types way too much now for way too long. It's about time to print creatures again where the type doesn't matter that much. So that the deckbuilders are again free to mix up whatever works together. Right now you have to deal with serious drawbacks if you DON'T focus on one creature type. Which is silly, first, that limits what I could do, secondly, that's boring and lazy - the creature type signals the deckbuilder which cards to combine right of the bat.

It's the creature type. There is no competitive Bird deck but Merfolk ("Fish") is strong Legacy deck.

Well, some decks of yours *are* nice, I just only ever mentions that when something strikes me as exceptionally nice. See, constructive criticism is way more useful than patting each other's shoulders. This series of decks is all tribal, so there will probably nothing be that impresses me (tribal decks just build themselves), but you have actually done a nice job putting together decks that will be fun to play against each other because they all have basically the same structure. So, the effort as a whole for this project gets a thumbs up from me :)

Yawn.

Please note that Ghost Quarter doesn't force the opponent to search his deck, that's a MAY option. Of course he will first game but probably not second game.

Other than that, yet another run-of-the-mill mill deck. Pun intended of course to make this deck and my post less boring.

Impulse is a good card but not that useful in a deck that is already redundant. It will help you to stabilize in mid- to late game, however, this deck doesn't really want to reach late-game anyway. You can of course cut the Probes instead. If you cut them and keep the Impulses, you will prolong games and probably get more interesting games, so I am all for it :)

Oh, I just misread - it's 8 ARTIFACT creatures, I somehow thought there were only 8 creatures in total. Sorry for that, I shouldn't post before I had my coffee fix :P

The Time Bug will never live long enough to actually do something. It is one of only 8 creatures in the deck and as an artifact creature with toughness 1, almost everything can kill it. In that place I would run Greater Gargadon.

And then, especially with the Gargadon in mind, I'd seriously consider to run Jokulhaups! Think about it, if you cast that while some cards are still suspended, then that should be game in 95% of all cases.

This needs a lot of work :)

Abeyance is nice and gives you extra cards when put on a stick and would therefore rape any control or combo based deck. However, knowing that you will play exclusively against creature decks, Abeyance is next to useless in this! What your deck is totally missing, though, is creature removal, so my first change to the deck would be to replace the Abeyances with Swords to Plowshares (or Path to Exile).

Entreat the Angels is weak. Horribly overcosted if you try to cast it regularily. So, you have to go for Miracle but without any library manipulation I don't see this working very often. Luminarch Ascension would be my replacement of choice for this. You don't deal any damage to your opponent until the late game and you will prevent your opponent from damaging or attacking you, so this should be active quickly.

Given the Angel theme and knowing that you will play against creature based decks exclusively I would play Voice of All over Story Circle.

Linvala is a gamble. I think Windborn Muse has the better ability considering that most of your decks will attack straight forward instead of using tricks.

Again, a deck without any enchantment or artifact removal, is that a deliberate choice to give all decks equal footings? I mean, look at this deck, Isochron Scepter is mean and Story Circle can shut down mono colour decks easily, it is a bit unfair to leave all other decks without any weapons against these.

This is basically a control deck and what you will do with your mana in the early turns depends much on your draw and what your opponent does. So, we do have room for some nice non-basic lands that come into play tapped and so on. Here some suggestions that would make this deck considerably stronger:
* Emeria, the Sky Ruin - secures your victory in the end game
* Kor Haven - helps you surviving
* Karakas - there is no drawback using this, so I guess you didn't include it out of budget reasons
* Cathedral of War - adds Exalted which is useful since you will be attacking with single creatures a lot
* Quicksand - helps against creatures with protection from: white, regeneration and similar annoyances
* Thawing Glaciers - I am not sure if you have the time to use this but it is worth considering
* Forbidden Watchtower - would add more defense but might violate the deckbuilding rules (because they are no angels)

VERY straight forward indeed. If this sets the bar for the other decks, then I understand why you insisted to make the Beast deck so weenie-ish. And True-Name Nemesis is such a ridiculous card, it basically carries this deck on his own.

Anyway, I don't see the use of High Tide in this. It gives you one extra mana on turn three. But on turn 3 you want to play the Nemesis, what would you do with that extra mana, cast a 1/1 Merfolk? That's not worth throwing away a card. On turn 4 High Tide would net you 2 extra mana, however, this presumes that you drew 4 Islands and then what are you gonna do with 6 mana? I mean, your mana curve ends at 3 - you have probably already emptied your hand.

This deck drops a creature every turn and then tries to protect what it has in order to ride a Nemesis or a horde of boosted Merfolk to victory. Daze helps with this plan because the first 3 turns are the ciritcal ones where you can't protect the creatures you play. But your opponent will most likely also have no mana to spare and will tap out when he tries to kill your fish, so Daze might be exactly what you need. Daze would replace the High Tides.

Impulse, hm, maybe, maybe not. I would go with Misdirection instead, it's such a useful card - a single Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile that was about to kill your Lord of Atlantis redirected to one of your opponent's blockers instead wins the game right there.

Can't be bothered to check all Merfolk right now but from top of my head I would play Triton Shorestalker over Sandbar Merfolk. And you need another 2-drop! Inkfathom Infiltrator would probably be my first pick.

All this nostalgia made me recreate and post one of the decks I played all the way back then in 1994 when I started playing with Revised and Fallen Empires:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/nostalgia-the-compost-heap/