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Boosh's Deckbox of Tricks PRESENTS:

Flicker Me This

Welcome to another edition of Boosh’s Deckbox of Tricks, an article column I like to write to share my love of combos in Magic. Just to remind everyone, I am a Johnny. If you don’t know what that means, click here, read that article, then join me back here.

Today’s article concerns a concept near and dear to my heart: The concept of flickering.

What is flicker / flickering you might ask? Let me take you back to the time when Urza’s Legacy came out on paper. When the cards came out, I poured through the card list and came across the card Flicker. It is the predecessor to all flickering, kind of like the roman republic and democracy. Flickering is exiling a creature from the game, and then returning it to play immediately like with Flicker and Momentary Blink — or returning it to play at the beginning of the next end step, al lá Turn to Mist, and Liberate. All the other cards that have this ability owe their existence to the Urza’s Legacy card:

That’s when a lightning bolt hit a rack of chemicals and… I mean, uh, that’s when I discovered my love of flickering. From that day forth, an alter-ego of mine was created, and would spring out of the depths of my grey matter and enter the battlefield as your opponent from time to time. I am The Flickerer!

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My modus operandi is to take a worth-while creature, that has a triggered ability when it enters (or leaves) the battlefield, and ‘flicker’ it so I can gain that triggered ability again. A prime example is everyone’s favorite blue elemental, Mulldrifter. Using Momentary Blink, you can evoke the Mulldrifter, draw two cards, then cast the ‘Blink and draw two more, nullifying the sacrifice effect of the evoke—gaining four cards and the non-sacrificed Mulldrifter for the same price as a non-evoked Mulldrifter. See as far as the game goes, when the Mulldrifter Blinks out like that and flickers back into existence, it’s a different Mulldrifter and thus you don’t have to sacrifice it for the "first" Mulldrifter’s ability.

	+		= AWESOME

Of course, cards like Turn to Mist and Mistmeadow Witch can be employed to not only gain double-triggered-abilities from creatures, but to save any creature you control from certain doom (in reaction to a spell or combat damage), or it can get rid of a potential threat coming at you during an opponent’s attack.

Muah hahahaha.

Even M11 realized the latter potential: flicker-exile for defense; and created Mystifying Maze.

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The Flickerer's Utility Belt, a first-hand look:

Drink it in.

Behold The Flickerer’s tricks!

Flicker is the originator of this ability, but actually isn’t available online let.

Momentary Blink: fret not potential flickerers, Momentary Blink is better than Flicker in every way. It’s an instant, for the same converted mana cost, and it can even be flashbacked. And, as an instant, it is a natural imprint-fit for Isochron Scepter.

Moving out of the realm of instantaneous flicker…

Liberate: Coming out of the gate second to Flicker, from Invasion, this has the same CMC as Flicker, but is an instant and changes it from immediate re-entry onto the field to back on to the field at the beginning of the end step. Another candidate for Isochron Scepter.

Otherworldly Journey is a step up from Liberate as it pops your creature back onto the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 Counter—though if you plan on repeatedly flickering, that may not matter much. Another candidate for Isochron Scepter.

Turn to Mist: Liberate, now available at Common, and it’s for White and for Blue! Again, another candidate for Isochron Scepter.

Let’s pause for a moment. Look at that, 4 Instants, that essentially do the same thing: flicker. Isochron Scepter increases your flickering capabilities amazingly, and I highly recommend it for your various flicker-decks. I don’t think you need a full playset, but one or two thrown in your deck for splash can have some fun results.

The rest of the utility belt:

Ghostway: A great way to exile a bunch of your creatures en masse and then bring them back in at the beginning of the next end-step. Imagine, if you will, you have out two Cadaver Imps, two Solemn Simulacrums and a Loxodon Hierarch. You play Ghostway and when they all come flopping and tumbling back onto the battlefield, you gain two more creatures back from your graveyard, two more basic lands, and another 4 life. Ghostway can’t be imprinted on a scepter, but it does have the added bonus of combo-ing exceptionally well with Wrath of God, Damnation, or any other ‘Wrath clone.

Planar Guide: Here’s a creature that’s a one-time-use Ghostway, but a Ghostway that works for all players’ creatures in the game. It can be used in response to a Damnation, but it spares the other creatures on the board too. Nevertheless, he’s a chump-blocker at one mana, and can be employed in a similar vein as a Ghostway. Simply activate him when you have out an Imperial Recruiter, a Pilgrim’s Eye and a Flametongue Kavu, and watch the triggered ability fun-times when they all re-enter the battlefield at the beginning of the end step.

Flickerwisp is a 3/1 flying creature that acts as a Turn to Mist, except that it can target any permanent. You can flicker out an opponent’s planeswalker that has more loyalty counter son it than it started out with; you can flicker out a Beastmaster Ascension and get rid of all its quest counters; You can flicker out your opponent’s Darksteel Forge so you can then cast Wrath of God and slaughter all their previously indestructible artifact creatures. This is the only card with the flickering ability that can target a noncreature permanent.

Flickerform: This handy aura makes one creature repeatedly flicker-able. Popping it on something like a Cloudgoat Ranger  will ensure that it produces a ton of kithkin tokens if you can flicker it out any turn you have four mana available. The best part about this card? You can block with your Cloudgoat Ranger then activate your Flickerform!

Mistmeadow Witch : This can target any creature on the battlefield, making Mistmeadow Witch both a creature-Flickerform, and a creature-Mystifying Maze. The only drawback here is that this card has to go into a deck with both blue and white mana capabilities. Momentary Blink’s flashback cost shares this ability. With the Shards of Alara tri-color lands and various other ways to splash mana, this is a drawback that can be overcome. Still, this card will probably see the least appearances in flicker decks that aren’t firmly committed to both blue and white manabases.

Lastly, not least, and particularly dear to my heart:

Galepowder Mage. My goodness, do I love this card! Attack with the ‘Mage, and you can either flicker an opponent’s potential blocker, or you can flicker out one of your creatures—say, a Siege-Gang Commander, and then after combat, when it pops back into play, you gain three more goblins. If you slap a Whispersilk Cloak or any other card to make it unblockable, well then you have a repeatable flicker ability that can’t miss. He is The Flickerer’s greatest henchman.
 

BUT WAIT! Did you notice the synergy rippling through the utility belt cards, before we even get into any other cards that work alongside them? Flickerwisp itself can be flickered through various means. That means Flickerwisp, which can target creature and noncreature permanents to flicker, can be repeatedly used through other flicker means. I feel like I’m starting to sound like I’m a smurf except instead of saying ‘smurf’ a thousand times, I say ‘flicker’.

…. In any event, The best possible combo here, in my humble opinion is: enchanting a .

Here’s a story from my own experience. Turn one for my opponent, Mountain. Turn one for me, Plains. Turn two for opponent, Island. Turn two for me, Plains. Turn three for my opponent, Izzet Boilerworks: he pops his Mountain back to his hand. Turn three for me, Plains, then Flickerwisp targeting his Izzet Boilerworks. When it pops back onto the field at the beginning of the end step, he has to return his Island to his hand. On his forth turn, he puts back out his Mountain. On My fourth turn, I put out Plains then I put out flickerform enchanting my Flickerwisp, and I swing for three damage. On his fifth turn, he puts out his Island, and passes. From this point on, during every one of his upkeeps, after I swing for three damage with my Flickerwisp on my turn, I ‘flicker’ out my Flickerwisp targeting his Izzet Boilerworks... As the game progresses and he can’t play any more lands due to my chicanery, he concedes and tells me what a horrifying combo that turned out to be. Now I recognize that as particularly awful; that is, messing with someone’s land-base. The opportunity presented itself, and I took it, and luckily my opponent saw the potential of the combo, and took it with a (virtual) grin.

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As you can see, White is a crucial part of this stratagem. As such, each deck you make with this mechanic must be partially white—that’s just pretty much how flicker works. It’s a (mostly) White mechanic.

I’ve decided to showcase here six Classic decks that exploit flickering in all its glory. The first is mono-white; the other five are all double-colored, with one-half of the deck as White. I’ve put together one of every color combination with White, and one more that uses flicker in a surprising manner.

To round it off, I’ve made one final deck in a different format: Pauper. Flicker can impact an all-commons format as well. Seven decks exploring the same concept.

In my last article, I tried to chronicle, like an Archivist, every potential combo-card that could apply to Stuffy Doll, and then I presented some decks with sparse explanations. I don’t think I could really chronicle every single good or great or mediocre creature that has a ‘leaves the battlefield’ or ‘enters the battlefield’ ability, without both missing a huge chunk of them (I’m sure) and making this article ridiculously long. Instead, I’ll present you the deck lists, explain why they were built, throw in a match report or two, and let you use Daily MTG’s Gatherer, or the MTGOtraders’s search function, and find any creatures I may have missed and build your own awesome & unexpected flicker decks.

I do want to talk about a few select cards, though, that you will see in most every one of these decks.

	Duplicant is a great creature-removal card in colorless, artifact-creature form. In decks that feature blue or green heavily—decks that don’t have natural creature removal, he becomes your saving grace, and, obviously, he's great in any deck. Such a great card to flicker again and again. Reveillark is an absolutely awesome white creature, hands down, that has a triggered ability when it ‘leaves’ play, thus activating when you flicker it. Since each flicker deck uses white, Reveillark fits into all of them. So many of the other creatures worth flickering are power 2 (examples: Aven Riftwatcher, Solemn Simulacrum, Murderous Redcap, Ravenous Rats, the above mentioned Duplicant... you get the idea), that if they end up in your graveyard somehow, Reveillark's gonna bring 'em back to the battlefield.
	Solemn Simulacrum, and Pilgrim’s Eye are colorless artifact creatures—and thus can be popped into any flicker deck, helping you ramp up your mana (potentially over and over again). Soul Warden, Essence Warden, Auriok Champion, Soul’s Attendant, Angelic Chorus: with all this flickering going on, we’re gonna want to exploit this set of cards to gain a lot of life. Not every deck down below uses these—but they could definitely fit into any of them.

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Boosh's Disclaimers

I run with a 23-card land-base in most of these decks. I know most folks prefer 24 cards, but everyone of these decks uses creatures that can land/mana-ramp your mana-base with enters the battlefield triggered abilities, or there’s card-draw in various forms, so I find the 23 lands to be more than adequate. Sometimes, personally, I like to build decks that are bigger than 60 cards. They may be less competitive, but they are often times more fun. ALL the decks presented here are 60-card decks, so they can be played casually or competitively. For one of my match-ups, ironically the only one I remembered to take a screen shot of, I need to let you all know that I used a slightly fatter mono-white deck then the one listed below, I mistakenly played with the 67-card version, but the overall point is still there. If I don’t get permission to include a name in a screen shot of a magic match, then I block out the opponent’s name with a pink censor bar.

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DASTARDLY DECK DEVIATIONS

Cloudgoat Ranger is probably one of my absolute favorite white creatures created in recent years. In a regular mono-white deck, it’s a nice threat that increases your ‘field presence (as in you get a lot of creatures for a value price) at a cost of five mana. When you can flicker this creature, it pops out three tokens per flicker. I included a Captain of the Watch, which costs slightly more in terms of mana, but gives its soldier tokens and the kithkin-soldier tokens +1/+1 and since it brings tokens into play, you can flicker it as well.

Wall of Omens is an absolute great white remake of Wall of Blossoms, and can be flickered for repeated card-draw advantage. Soul Warden is exploited in this deck, as is Solemn Simulacrum, Reveillark & Duplicant.

Aven Riftwatcher is also a soldier, so it gets the bonus from the Captain, and can net you a ton of life-gain. Wrath of God is included in order to fully exploit flicker and Ghostway effects—and Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Mistveil Plains help you recoup cards sent to the graveyard (alongside your Reveillark).

Glacial Fortress rounds out the mana base, so you can fully exploit the flashback feature of Momentary Blink, and Meadowboon can be flickered over and over to beef up your various soldier tokens with +1/+1 counters.

I played a few matches with this build, and snagged some screenshots of a particularly great game (from my side) of a 67-card deck variation on this. (it has two more Captain of the Watch, another Flickerform, three more Plains, and another Aven Riftwatcher-- but I put in a Teroh's Faithfull -- instead, which is more or less the same thing, but something else nifty to flicker).

The first matchup I played against (playing the strict 60-card version presented above) was Elf-bomb. For those of you who don’t know, Elf-bomb is a deck archetype which uses really cheap elves, and Glimpse of Nature to draw through most of their deck and flood the battlefield with elves. This deck is remarkably fast, so I was slaughtered.

The second matchup I played against was a white-black Zombies decks. It employed Gempalm Polluter, Stillmoon Cavalier, and a host of other zombie spells. Flooding his side of the field with zombies, every time he’d attack, I’d block, and use a flicker effect to save my blocker. I was lucky to get out an Aven Riftwatcher early on, Momentary Blinking it a couple times to gain some excess life, which was promptly decreased by Gempalm Polluter. I managed to Oblivion Ring his (Lord of Undead), and he couldn’t recur the Gempalm. Luckily, I drew my one copy of Wrath of God, flickered my Reveillark with a Otherworldly Journey, and then at the beginning of the end step, I snagged back a Kor Cartographer and an Aven Riftwatcher, and my opponent’s battlefield was still clear. On his turn he cast a Stillmoon Cavalier, but its protection from white ability didn’t phase me, as I easily swept over him with my 5/4 (has a counter on it, remember) Reveillark and Aven Riftwatcher, killing him first.

My third matchup was jund. Vengevine promptly kicked my sorry-butt despite my flicker-tricks. I managed to stave off death for a while, but ultimately succumbed.

Later on, I played my 67-card variation:

Here's a prime example of most everything going right. Playing against a Blue & Green Snake Deck-build, I had out an Isochron Scepter imprinted with a Turn to Mist, so I could flicker a creature every turn. That's how I have extra kithkin tokens. As you can see I had out the Faithful and Riftwatcher, bringing me up to 26 life, and every turn I could make tokens, or gain life. I opted to gain excess tokens, and I slowly overran my opponent with kithkin.

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Behold! Flickering Treefolk for fun and profit!

Treefolk Harbinger is the MVP here, he can not only search up forests for mana ramp, even the Breeding Pool (which can be used to activate Momentary Blink's flashback cost), but also all the other Treefolk with enters-the-battlefield abilities:

Woodfall Primus - which destroys noncreature permanents.

Wickerbough Elder - which deals with enchantments and artifacts.

Deadwood Treefolk - which helps you recur creatures from your graveyard.

Ambassador Oak - which can net you some extra Elf creature tokens when you flicker it.

Regal Force and Masked Admirers gain you card draw; Farhaven Elf gets you more mana alongside your Treefolk Harbingers; Cloudthresher deals with flying; and Juniper Order Ranger simultaneously pumps itself and whatever you flicker.

Duplicant cleans up any creatures bothering you, doing what the other noncreature-permanent destroyers can't. Terastodon is yet another way to deal with pesky noncreature-permanents.

I'd include my favorite new-ish green creature, Acidic Slime, but I'm pretty sure lands, artifacts, and enchantments can be dealt with by the creatures already included in this deck-build.

Angelic Chorus is used here, because Treefolk have huge toughness values, and will help net you a lot of life-gain.

I've had this deck built for a while, and have been playing with it for quite some time, but didn't find any time to actively play it for some match results, you'll just have to take my word on its effectiveness. Just do your best to hold out for enough mana to cast your huge green creatures, attack and stomp your opponent, and flicker everything for their enters-the-battlefield abilities.

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This deck is all about abusing black creatures that have triggered abilities when they enter the 'field, but before we continue you should note I didn't include discard in this deck. Discard has its place, and it's usually not in any of my decks (unless I'm playing Standard aggressively: Blightning). You could exploit cards like Ravenous Rats with flicker effects in order to make your opponent discard a lot of cards, but I didn't go that route.

Belfry Spirit & Skeletal Vampire: Flickering these = tons of bat tokens!

Cadaver Imp: Here’s a great little common creature, that’s recently come out. He can be flickered to snag back any creatures in your graveyard, and often-times he can swoop over to ping your opponent for 1 damage in combat.

Marsh Flitter: this guy makes Goblin tokens, and makes even more Goblin tokens if you Flicker him. If you need to do extra damage, you can even sacrifice a Murderous Redcap to the ‘Flitter. Murderous Redcap itself can be flickered for extra damage dealing.

Highway Robber: It can be flickered to severely tip the life-total scales. Nekrataal can be exploited to murder a lot of creatures. Angel of Despair works in a similar vein, but can get rid of anything.

Finally, Ghost Council of Orzhova is thrown into the deck mix. It can be flickered with your various instants,  for a lesser Highway Robber ability. However, it can also self-flicker, if you sacrifice a bat token to it, or perhaps a Solemn Simulacrum than you can grab back later with a Cadaver Imp.

As always, the mana-base reflects some blue, so you can flashback your Momentary Blinks.

Some other cards that could have been included are Keening Banshee, or Howling Banshee for added fun, but I didn't add them to my build. As always, feel free to use my deck-build as a skeleton for your own flicker deck.

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Some fun synergies in this deck-build.

(Sun Ce, Young Conqueror), Man-o'-war and Kederekt Leviathan can all be used and flickered to return your opponent's creatures to their hands, and change the scales of balance on the battlefield. Sun Ce even has horsemanship, essentially making it unblockable and helping yo whittle away your opponent's life total.

Scrivener helps you recoup your various flicker-instants. Mistmeadow Witch is another creature to add more flickering capabilities to your deck.

Cryptic Annelid, Sea Gate Oracle and Mulldrifter help your card-draw, and can help you cycle through your deck to find the combo-cards you need. On a similar note, Djinn of Wishes can be played, and after you use up its wish counters, you can flicker it to have it enter the battlefield with three more wish counters, also helping you cycle through your deck.

Lone Missionary is a solo-inclusion as a life-gainer that can be flickered for excess life.

A great little combo here is Shapeshifter's Marrow. This enchantment can hose your opponent's creature from the top of their library, and then you can flicker it (since it's now a creature) to repeat the process!

Finally, after all the Ghostways and the Kederekt Leviathan there's gonna be a few times where the battlefield is completely empty. Activate your Celestial Colonnade during these times and sneak in some damage.

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I happen to love the color combination of White and Red. It just always seems to work out great. It's a balance of removal, burn and lifegain and it usually makes me smile more than frustrate me.

Dong Zhou, the Tyrant, Murderous Redcap, Siege-Gang Commander, and Furystoke Giant are burn in creature-form, and are easily flickerable for added burn. Siege-Gang Commander, when flickered a few times, throws out a bunch of Goblin tokens that up-the-ante of the burn capabilities of Furystoke Giant. Murderous Redcap can be sacrificed to Siege-Gang Commander's ability, for added damage as well.

Meadowboon is awesome in this deck; if you flicker it, it'll pop +1/+1 counters on your Murderous Redcaps and your Furystoke Giant, potentially after they have -1/-1 counters on them from their Persist ability, allowing them to Persist again.

Imperial Recruiter can search up tons of the creatures in this deck, and Duergar Hedge-Mage becomes a flickerable Disenchant.

To exploit a similar effect to flickering, I included one Shimmer and one Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Popping in a temporary token also gives you a doubled triggered-ability effect; and Shimmer can even deal with/kill an opponent's legendary creature.

I doubled-up on Isochron Scepter in this deck-build, and since there's two, I threw in a couple of the greatest white-red card ever made: Lightning Helix. Imprint that on your Scepter and net a 3-life advantage and do 3 damage to something, every turn.

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Bonus Flicker FUN: MORPH

A Fun fact about flicker?: It gives you a free Morph effect. Just cast Akroma in this blue/white build, face-down, for 3 colorless mana, and then cast Momentary Blink on it... it comes back onto the battlefield face-up. That's a 6/6 flier with a host of other abilities that cost you only 5 mana!

I included a mana-base that could deal with the various colors in this deck with the off-chance you might not pull a flicker effect spell or one of your Ixidor, Reality Sculptors (that can also flip your beefy morph creatures).

Djinn of wishes is back, because with such big fattie creatures abound, of varying mana costs, you can use its wish counter ability to hopefully slap one into play that way. Ghostway and Planar Guide are used here so you can bring back a bunch of morphed creatures back into play face-up at the same time.

All the big, best beefy morph creatures are here, in this deck, hopefully allowing you to overrun your opponents with creature-stomp. If I play flicker, and blue's involved, then I automatically include Mulldrifter.

Angelic Chorus is used here again, because when you flicker out your morphed Akroma, when it comes back into play face-up, it certainly is satisfying to ALSO gain 6 life.

Morphing for free is just another way to exploit flickering.

The first matchup I played with this deck was against an all black discard deck. My opponent made me discard a lot of my beefy morphs, but also some of my Momentary Blinks. Luckily I held out long enough to be able to evoke a Mulldrifter, then flashback one of the Blinks. From the added card draw, I could overcome the discard, and put out an Exalted Angel morphed, and then Turn to Mist it, eventually breaking through my opponent's defenses and swooping through for the win.

My second matchup was against a Totem-armor Green White deck. I had to use one of my Turn to Mists on my opponent's creatures, removing a bunch of the auras on it. However, my opponent got out a Uril, the Miststalker, enchanted it with Pollenbright Wings, and that, unfortunately, was my downfall.

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PAUPER!:

The only probelm with this deck-build, in terms of flickering and The Flickerer's MO, is that only Turn to Mist and Momentary Blink are commons, and thus able to be popped in a pauper deck. I overcome this, by using a distant cousin of flicker: bounce. Bouncing permanents back to your hand allows you to gain double enters-the-battlefield effects as well, but you have to cast it again. I tried to avoid using flicker's distant cousin in all the other builds, because this article is about flicker, not bounce, but for this pauper build, I had to meld the two.

Regress rounds out the flicker effects here. Regress can be used on your own Oblivion Rings or Wormfang Drakes, thus allowing you to flicker through unconventional means. Kor Skyfisher also lets you bounce a permanent you control.

Here's an example. Cast Man-o'-War, slap your opponent's creature back to their hand. Cast Wormfang Drake and exile the Man-o'-War. Now, Regress your Wormfang Drake, and Man-o'-War enters the fray again, bouncing something else-- potentially your own Aven Riftwatcher for even more lifegain.

Titanic Bulvox is the hugest Morph creature available to you in pauper, and if you morph it on turn three, then 'Blink it on turn four, you have a 7/4 Trample in a format riddled with low power/toughness creatures, on turn four!

Aquamorph Entity, a solo-inclusion, can be cast as a 5/1, then you can attack with it, and durin your defense phase of your opponent's combat, you can Momentary Blink it, and have it come back into play as a 1/5 powerhouse blocker.

My first matchup with this, in pauper, was against mono-black pauper discard, and my game never got off the ground. I promptly lost.

However, I played another match (best 2 of 3 is what I mean, when I say match) against a deck that featured aggressive mono-white weenies.

The first game I was totally stomped, despite all of my tricks allowing me to last as long as possible.

The second game dragged on and my opponent didn't get enough land, so my tricks could be cast without a hitch, and I decimated my opponent.

The third match, the tie-breaker, wound up like this:

Even though my opponent has 21 life, he's expended all of his resources; and I have an army of creatures. I have a flashbackable Momentary Blink in my graveyard, and my opponent knows he's done for, and thanks me for the game.

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As you can see, all of these decks have their strengths and flaws. I, personally, love the concept of flickering and love playing flicker-decks. It's especially satisfying playing it in Two-Headed Giant, as having 40 life allows you more time to set up your combos.

I hope you enjoyed reading my article, and checking out the various things you can do with flickering. I hope you use this article as a basis to make your own flicker deck; I look forward to playing it, and don't see it as often as other archetypes, even less than Stuffy Doll deck-builds.

Keep your eyes open and your ears peeled, because, before you know it, your magic game might have the unexpected appearance of...... The Flickerer!!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

~The Flickerer (aka Boosh)

(AtomicBoosh on MTGO and the PureMTGO forums, leader of the clan The Guild of Calamitous Intent)
(by the way, all the images here, besides the match images, were created by me in Photoshop... please don't use them without my permission! thanks!)