The Plan
Win with Goblin Charbelcher or by stealing turns with Timesifter. The deck's high mana costs mean that without an answer to Timesifter, many opponents will never have a turn again.
Goblin Charbelcher and Timesifter are a natural pairing because they both work well in decks that run very few lands. But Timesifter also favors cards with high mana values, which is not typical for a Charbelcher deck. So, instead of ramping with cheap spells into a one-shot kill, this deck uses expensive but discounted board wipes to buy time to cast its wincons fairly.
Removal
The deck's many deckbuilding restrictions make it difficult to keep up with the opponent's boardstate, so we don't try to. Instead, we wipe the board, over and over again, until we can safely drop a one-card wincon.
When building this kind of deck, look for removal with a high mana cost that can be played early for a discount. Here is the earliest each card can be used for removal:
Some of these options are fast, and some are not, but cards that can't be played yet can be pitched to Solitude and Sunscour. This is also true for most of the manabase.
Lands and "Lands"
Running any lands at all is very unusual for a Charbelcher deck, but there are a few ideas here.
- We plan to filter all or most lands out of the deck using our Plains tutors.
- We accept that some wins may take multiple Charbelcher activations. Unlike other Charbelcher decks, we usually only activate Charbelcher after we stabilize, so taking multiple activations is more acceptable.
- We get to run "lands" with more upside, like Timeless Dragon instead of Suppression Ray
. Which brings us to...
Creatures
A lot of the manabase plays a secondary role as high-cost fliers. Those creatures are not mana efficient, but they can come in after a board wipe to stall against a weakened army or even to threaten the opponent directly. Most Timesifter wins end pretty quickly with creature attacks, which can be important against other decks that do have a chance of hitting a high cost card eventually.
Last but not least is Squadron Hawk, which plays a unique and important role. Despite costing just two mana, it fits well with Timesifter because it filters itself out of the deck. Unlike our other creatures, it can make important early-game blocks. And it works perfectly with Solitude and Sunscour.
Stray Points
- If you don't build around it, Timesifter is a five mana artifact that gives your opponents extra turns. It needs a deck to fully support it if it's going to be a one-card wincon.
- This deck is fundamentally different than a typical Goblin Charbelcher deck. It is slower, but it is not a glass cannon. It can defend itself and it can often play through multiple Charbelcher activations.
- The deck has a lot of things that could go wrong, but usually don't. You could lose a game because you hit a Plains on a Charbelcher too early, but you usually don't. You could lose a game because Timesifter hits a Squadron Hawk, but you usually don't. I think that accepting these small risks allows the deck to gain more significant advantage in other areas.
- If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me me know in the comments.
