My favorite game mechanic is suspend. I know suspend has a lot of flaws. Suspending Greater Gargadon is telling your opponents, “Look what I have! Please save your counter spells and creature removal!” Suspend is like playing Telepathy that only works on you. One Unsummon later and Greater Gargadon goes back on the ten turn trip to the battlefield. I could drone on but you see the point. Despite the draw backs, the reason I like suspend is nifty effects for low mana. You can have lots of fun spells in a queue waiting for the last time counter to be removed. While queueing forty five minutes for a lame roller coaster in an overcrowded and expensive amusement park is not fun, queueing spells is fun. With enough cards suspended, your turns explode into a frenzy of effects. A functional two headed giant sometimes will fall flat as a duel deck. While the deck I built for this article never really worked in duels, I found the deck really gained steam with the extra couple of turns you often have in a two headed giant game.

Unfortunately Time Spiral did not stand up to the test of time. Take Back to the Future II for example. For those that have not seen the movie, the time travel adventure of Back to the Future II takes the characters from 1985 to 2015, a thirty year leap forward in time. Thirty years can really seem amazing. For example, what if you told a person from the seventies that their entire record collection will fit into the palm of their hand? An iPod would seem pretty amazing to a person with giant discs that play roughly forty five minutes of music. 2015 is around the corner and the technology imagined in “Back to the Future II” is not really exactly as they thought. Flying cars are not in regular use, weather is not computer controlled, and my childhood dream of owning an hover board is not yet fulfilled. Time Spiral feels the same way. Why suspend a Greater Gargadon when you can Dramatic Entrance a (Progentius)? Why use Heroes Remembered when there are other life gains with more immediate effects?

I like these card because they each have a rolling effect. They all go right back into the queue after they are used. In the amusement park analogy, these cards are the group that really loves that two minute roller coaster ride and do not mind the forty five minute wait. Why are they delusional enough to ride the Matterhorn five times a day? Maybe their father thought they were losers when they were a child and they wanted to break the roller coaster record to prove their dad wrong. The rolling cards make me want to create a suspend deck (I can make a suspend deck father! Why won't you love me!?!!). I thought that if I could get any sequence of these cards to fire every single turn, my deck could be ridiculously powerful. They all worked with each other. The problem was getting them in sequence. For the deck in this article, I decided to only use Arc Blade, Reality Strobe, and Festering March. I mention the others so you know what options you have.

Rawhide!
By Draconias

Creatures(13): 3 Deep-Sea Kraken 3 Keldon Halberdier 3 Greater Gargadon 2 Nihilith 2 Jhoira of the Ghitu Sorcery(14) 2 Ancestral Vision 4 Arc Blade 2 Solar Tide 3 Reality Strobe 3 Festering March Enchantment(4): 4 Paradox Haze

Instant(6): 4 Dust of Moments 2 Fury Charm Land(23): 3 Vivid Crag 3 Vivid Creek 2 Vivid Marsh 4 Terramorphic Expanse 3 Island 3 Mountain 2 Plains 2 Swamp

I call this deck "Rawhide!" because it reminds me of the Blues Brothers (rolling, rolling, rolling, keep them doggies moving, Rawhide!). Once the deck starts rolling the game becomes a chaotic mess of effects (much like when the Blue Brothers preformed behind the chicken wire, bottles being shattered everywhere, the audience screaming). Two headed giant gives you leeway to make decks that are a little slower to achieve their full potential. You not only start with more life but you have a partner that will win you the game while you arrange your iTunes music list. The creatures of this deck are not nearly as fun as the mayhem. The spells Arc Blade, Festering March, and Reality Strobe function really well when they go off at the same time.

In two headed giant, decks take a different life. If you are too weak in the beginning, you might not survive. If you are too powerful, you might play out all your cards and not make the death blow. Then you will be at the mercy of slower but more sustainable deck. I wanted to create a suspend deck with spells that never left play (unless of course they are countered), so I would always be powerful. I also realized that Festering March combined with Arc Blade could take out any three toughness creature if they fired on the same turn. Then I realized the more of these spells that go off at the same time, the more you will control the game. Basically Festering March takes out the creatures. Arc Blade will help for the higher toughness ones as well direct damage if you have already cleared the board. Reality Strobe covers anything the first two can not take out. The key is getting them to go off each turn. You can do that with your support cards.



Paradox Haze is the best card for the deck. Two Paradox Hazes and the queueing spells will fire every turn. The problem with Paradox Haze is that your opponents have this strange condition where they like to win so they will blast it out of existence if they have the chance. Personally I think they should target their partner’s Megrim but they never listen to me. Dust of Moments is useful when Paradox Haze fails. However Dust is even more deadly when Paradox Haze is in play. For example during one of the games I played, I got Festering March, Reality Strobe, and Arc Blade to fire twice in one turn. For the other team that was -2/-2, 4 direct damage, and two bounce backs in one turn. I was playing against elves so I caused a miniature apocalypse for the other team as the armies dwindled away in one turn. The best part is next turn when the effects happened again! The power of suspend is not really the individual effects, there are plenty of cheap ways to give other creatures -1/-1, bounce back to the hand, and cause 2 damage, but few of them give you the cards back every turn.

When I created the deck I was tempted to add a few land drawing cards like Search for Tomorrow or Kodama's Reach. I realized that I really did not need the extra mana because I only need three to suspend almost any card in the deck. The key was not getting the mana sooner but getting the cards suspended sooner. Once they were suspended Fury Charm, Dust of Moments and Paradox Haze did all the work for me. The land grab might be useful in the beginning but after I had three mana on the table I did not need anymore to play my arsenal. Jhoira of the Ghitu helped more for teasing out destruction cards. Although on the occasion, I could suspend two cards for four mana. She was worth having her there. If I were to make the deck more focused on her, I would probably use more cards that normally do not have suspend like Time Stretch.

Mass destruction cards are very useful in two headed giant. They can save you if the game is not going in your favor. Wrath of God and Damnation are good examples of cards in use but their price always prevented me from purchasing them. This deck needed a mass destruction card. Because my deck was slower than most I would be overwhelmed like a boy band in a middle school by power creature decks. In the spirit of budget I decided to seek out a destruction card that would not cost a lot. I settled on Solar Tide, not only inexpensive, the card works like a Wrath of God. Sacrificing two lands really does not hurt this deck since you only need three lands to play almost any card. Mass destruction is the reset switch for two headed giant. Cards that are suspended do not get wiped away during the reset. Remember to sacrifice your own creatures to speed up the Greater Gargadon. My brain was frolicking in a field with deep fried candy bars on a stick one game, and I missed the opportunity after a Damnation to clear all but one counter from my Greater Gargadon. I lost the game as a result, stupid deep fried candy bars on a stick.

Ancestral Vision is expensive but you can substitute other cheaper drawing cards. Tidings is good because you gain the most amount of cards at the time you will need them. In the beginning you really do not need to draw. You will be suspending your spells and playing the Paradox Hazes. However near the middle, you might run out of cards to suspend. Drawing large amounts of cards will help you refill the hand. In a deck where you play most of your spells for a low casting cost, you will eventually empty your hand faster than you can draw. Tidings will help you keep the cards flowing later in the game, and will not cost you a lot of money.

On a final note there are plenty of other time counter tricks. The vanishing Chronozoa with Paradox Haze and Dust of Moments is a powerful combo. Cyclical Evolution and Chronomantic Escape can create a great way to attack and defend for a creature deck. Rift Elemental and Timecrafting can make you a red deck that burns through those time counters (add some Rift Bolts, Shivan Meteors, and Pardic Dragons to taste!). The possibilities are endless with the variety of cards out there. The point is find a style of deck building that is fun for you. Budget deck building is about the fun of the game. Build a deck and enjoy!