Over the Moon

Now let's draw cards. RML from NC (New Carthage? Nova Cotia? Nufflewad County? Nearly Canada? Perhaps North Carolina?) suggested the bizarre and slowly explosive card-drawing combo of Moonring Mirror and Teferi's Puzzle Box. Let's say you have N cards in your hand at the start of your turn with both of these permanents in play. You draw a card, so you're at N+1. One card goes under the Mirror. Then the Puzzle Box takes you for a whirl. You still have N+1 cards, but they're all different, and now there are N+2 cards under the Mirror. Next turn, you swap hands with the Mirror and do-si-do. Bow to your newly drawn card and you have N+3 while the Mirror has N+2, then do the Puzzle Box promenade until the Mirror has 2N+5 cards. Next turn, that number of cards plus one more will be in your hand and the Mirror will have 3N+10. This is, of course, a fantastic way to deck yourself. It's also just a theoretical number; play or discard some cards and you'll keep your library shredding somewhat in check. Oh, and to put 3N+10 in perspective, say N is 4. Reasonable number of cards to start out with in hand, right? If so, there are now 22 cards—more than a third of your deck—being hoarded by Moonring Mirror on turn 3 of this action, while you're holding 14 yourself.

RML's quandary was what to do next: “I don't really know what to do with all these cards. I mean, sure, you could just play them, but there's got to be something more. Maro maybe?” So I forwarded the email to Mark Rosewater, and… ooohhh, he meant the card! Right-o. When I have a ridiculous amount of cards in my hand, I somehow always think of Turbulent Dreams first. Jushi Apprentice came to mind as both a way to get more cards and a way to take advantage of the bounty. Maro and its friend Empyrial Plate are fine choices. I tried combining this deck with Tor-Erik Hokstad's Zur's Weirding-Honden of Cleansing Fire suggestion, and while I was able to achieve a lock in a couple of games, it was pretty clunky and expensive to put them together. I thought Hisoka, Minamo Sensei might do something with a swelled hand, but it didn't seem that useful. In the end, here's what I wound up with :

Creature (15)
3 Graceful Adept
4 Jushi Apprentice
4 Maro
4 Phantom Warrior

Sorcery (4)
4 Turbulent Dreams

Artifact (15)
3 Empyrial Plate
4 Moonring Mirror
2 Talisman of Progress
2 Talisman of Unity
4 Teferi's Puzzle Box

Enchantment (2)
2 Words of Wind

Land (24)
8 Forest
11 Island
2 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
3 Mirrodin's Core