Welcome to the ultimate Islands deck!
This deck is originally designed to play in BO1, but it is also playable in BO3.
Let me start with the basic concept of this deck.
The name of this deck \”Islands\” come from the mana base.
If you look carefully on lands in this deck, you would notice that they all have the land type \’Island\’.
That is why this is the Islands deck. We do not accept non-Islands. But why?
The main reason to do that is of course the awesome card from the Brothers\’ War: Flow of Knowledge.
Flow of Knowledge is a 5 drop blue instant card that reads \”Draw a card for each Island you control, then discard two cards.\”
In a deck that plays only Islands, this is literally drawing a card for each land you control, then discarding two cards. If you control 6 lands, you draw 6, discard 2. That\’s amazing!
You normally play this card in a mono blue shell, but how about playing in a multicolored deck?
In help of Triome lands and shock lands, it is possible to play only Islands in a UW deck. There\’s a drawback of needing to play a lot of tap lands in a 2-color deck, but the return is so awesome.
Of course if this was the only return, it would not be that exciting. We can also play Mystic Sanctuaries. They were usually played in Modern with fetch lands and got banned, and weren\’t played in Pioneer, Explorer, or Historic where you don\’t really play that many Islands. But they are perfect in this deck with only Islands.
You can always use its ability when you play it as a fourth land or later. You can bring back a Supreme Verdict when you need a board wipe, Union of the Third Path when you need lifegain, Flow of Knowledge when you want to draw more, Fragment Reality if you want to deal with something annoying, that\’s so much value.
Therefore we play 4 Mystic Sanctuaries in this deck.
I used to play this deck even before LOTR release, but with LOTR release this deck got huge upgrades: of course the One Ring!
The One Ring is of course good in almost every decks, but also very good in this deck. This deck used to suffer turn 4~5 because even if you play Supreme Verdict on turn 4, your life total is pretty low at that point and likely die on turn 5 or 6. But with the One Ring, you can play the One Ring turn 4, then play Supreme Verdict turn 5. You can draw many cards with the One Ring to find more answers. It got much much easier to survive the midgame.
In addition to the One Ring, Lorien Revealed is also a big upgrade, which I realized recently. The main text in this card is \”Islandcycling {1}\”. Since all our lands are Islands, this is technically a instant speed Sylvan Scrying that costs {1}. No way it isn\’t good, right?
This is why I moved to 4 colors from UW. Before this card existed, because of the mana base, it was hard to consistently have access to 3rd or 4th color, so it was just better to stick on 2 colors. But because now we have Lorien Revealed, we can search for the missing color lands. If we need untapped lands we can get Watery Grave or Breeding Pool. If we need tapped lands we can get a Triome for that color. And remember that Mystic Sanctuary is also an Island. We can always search for Mystic Sanctuary! Then if you want more lands, you can Mystic Sanctuary the Lorien Revealed to islandcycle more, or even play the card itself to draw three cards.
Even though this deck got huge upgrades from the LOTR set, it didn\’t only favor this deck. The set also includes the card that punishes this deck the most: Orcish Bowmasters. Even worse, this card is just everywhere! All black decks play them, and the ladder, especially BO3 is full of black decks! Even more worse, because of the One Ring, Sheoldred became even more popular than ever.
It is a disaster if you play a Flow of Knowledge, your opponent responds with Orcish Bowmasters, and you don\’t have a way to deal with it. So keep in mind that if you are facing a black deck that is likely to have Orcish Bowmasters, try to cast Flow of Knowledge if you have something to deal with the Orc, like Fragment Reality, Sheoldred\’s Edict, Fateful absence, or Leyline Binding. If you don\’t, at least don\’t cast it on your turn if you don\’t have enough mana to Supreme Verdict afterwards.
Now, let\’s talk about how this deck wins.
This deck\’s win condition is Oracle of the Alpha, that shuffles a set of Power Nine into your deck.
This deck has two Oracle of the Alphas, because Thoughtseizes are popular and if your Oracle get discarded it\’s a disaster if you only play one.
You draw a bunch of cards with The One Ring, Flow of Knowledge, and Lorien Revealed, gain life with Union of the Third Path, play Oracle of the Alpha, play Time Walk, play Timetwister.
Because of Flow of Knowledge and the One Ring that draw a bunch of cards, it is easy to iterate through your deck after Timetwister to find another Time Walk and Timetwister (you have to play two Oracle of the Alphas to do this.), making it infinite turns. You kill your opponent by hitting with your Oracles for a few turns.
Here are some tips with this deck:
– You can Mystic Sanctuary Time Walk to play it again. It is useful when you only played one Oracle of the Alpha and there are still many cards left in your deck. You would like to aggressively search for Mystic Sanctuary with Lorien Revealed at this point.
– You can Fragment Reality your own Leyline Binding or The One Ring to get Snapcaster Mage or Oracle of the Alpha. If you hit Snapcaster Mage, you can try again with flashback Fragment Reality if you have another target for that.
– If one of your Oracle of the Alpha has been exiled somehow (for example, by getting Thoughtseized followed by Go Blank), it\’s still fine. Just remember not to play Timetwister while Oracle is still in play. Destroy your own Oracle with Fateful absence or Supreme Verdict, then play Timetwister. This will shuffle the Oracle into your deck, to create a second copy of Timetwister.
That\’s it for the deck guide of this awesome Islands deck. The sideboard for this deck is not complete nor perfect at all, since this deck was not designed to play in BO3. So try to build your own sideboard with it. I hope you enjoy and have fun with this deck!
