The Year of Brew

Week 11: Let's Do the Time Warp Again

23 Mar 2021 - 5 min read

It’s the dawn of a new era in Year of Brew land, and what better way to kick off this Arc of the Power of Friendship than with a collaboration featuring my co-founder, Chev! It’s even in my favorite color combo, Esper. Chev and I have joined forces to bring his trademark deviousness (and my superior deckbuilding) to utilize everyones favorite enchanter throwing our opponents into a lethal time loop… or something like that, mwahahahahaha!

Deck 11: Esper

The whole point of this deck is to have as many upkeeps as possible, abusing all sorts of powerful cards that trigger on this step. To do that, we’ll need Paradox Haze . Zur can grab it, and is probably the most reliable option, but we’ve included multiple Enlightened Tutor effects to make sure we always have access. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Okay Julian and Chev - that’s kinda cool, but where are these time loop shenanigans I was promised!? Two upkeeps are nothing!” We hear you. Once we’ve landed our Paradox Haze, we can double or even triple up the fun with Zur or another tutor snagging a Copy Enchantment , Mirrormade , or Estrid’s Invocation ! That’s right, we can get as many as FIVE UPKEEPS PER TURN BABY!

Once we’ve got “upkeeps fo’ dayzzz”, it’s time to address the ridiculous effects we’ll fill them with. Palace Siege and Agent of Masks provide important drain and gain to whittle down our enemies. Bitterblossom , Dreadhorde Invasion , and Mirror-Sigil Sergeant will quickly build us up an army to swarm our foes, and to make sure we succeed in losing all our friends by the time the match is over - Sen Triplets and Chronomantic Escape give us the space we need to perform our shenanigans uninhibited. Oh, and if that’s not enough Debtors Knell can make fallen haymakers turn coat for us at a breakneck pace, Equipoise will keep all green players honest, and Court of Cunning will have players milling faster than a rogue Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger . Truly terrifying.

But…all this insanity comes with a catch: our opponents might not like how we’re having so much fun with all our upkeeps, and they’ll try to mess with our Paradox Haze. Luckily, that’s where our beefy protection package comes into play. A well timed Lazotep Plating or Turn Aside will make sure we continue our domination. And for more proactive protection, Monastery Siege puts an additional cost to targeting any of our permanents, hopefully making our opponents pick more mana-efficient targets for their Krosan Grip s and Return to Dust s

Lastly, to make sure we’re all gas and no breaks, we’ve included engines like Phyrexian Arena and Thassa, God of the Sea to keep the heaters coming, with Starfield of Nyx keeping all our threats sticky and persistent.

We’re both absolutely hype for this build and for the new possibilites of the Arc of the Power of Friendship. The only issue is deciding who gets to play it at the next game night…