The Iona ban is absolutely ridiculous. She's so innocuous I was laughing when I read the announcement. I still think Paradox Engine is fine and shouldn't be banned, but at least that card *was* legit broken if you're that kind of player. Banning Iona is just a sign to me that the rules committee has completely lost touch.
One vote of no confidence from me. I think Wizards should take the reins and come up with a ban list that makes at least a *little* bit of sense.
Painter + Iona = lock everyone out.
Iona has already a bad reputation, this hard lock is too much.
Other thing that ppl seems to forget is that rip usually get put right into the game by zur, then tutor for helm and win, in most cases RIP is like in the command zone, so is a less fragile and more easy to assemble combo.
Yes there are some christmas magic land scenarios where you can assemble your two card combo by turn three, as you can flash hulk turn two, one can win the game right there one turn earlier, the other mills just one player a turn later.... if the more hardcore combo isn't banned, why the other should be???
Also is more versatile, being up to four cards means it can be used as a double entomb, negating the side effect of someone putting that piece that you need in the grave on your hand.
i don't focus in archetipes when building decks, i prefer to go with a mechanic or a synergy that i find cool and build a deck around that.
So my answer is : i usually don't have an issue with any archetype, maybe all in combo decks, are kinda boring.
¿how has been performing for you?
I'm still getting the last parts of the deck together, i'm using jace tms and aminatou together with liliana vess as my PW suite mainly as top deck manipulation and getting stuff out of my hand.
With Paradox Engine and mana rocks + Crystal Shard, you could repeatedly return/recast Rona to exile/play a 0/1 cc cantrip artifact, proceed to draw your whole library (in Conjurer's Bauble's case, you can get non-historic cards back to the library for it to be found). Rona's option to revive used up cards is one reason why I like her, and why I feel that she's been overlooked by people.
I think is easier with PE + mana rocks + Top you can draw your whole deck by drawing with top, exile top with rona, and cast top triggering PE.
But PE combo with anything so...
Painter + Iona = lock everyone out.
Iona has already a bad reputation, this hard lock is too much.
Other thing that ppl seems to forget is that rip usually get put right into the game by zur, then tutor for helm and win, in most cases RIP is like in the command zone, so is a less fragile and more easy to assemble combo.
Yes there are some christmas magic land scenarios where you can assemble your two card combo by turn three, as you can flash hulk turn two, one can win the game right there one turn earlier, the other mills just one player a turn later.... if the more hardcore combo isn't banned, why the other should be???
But that is already a thing with RIP+Helm, and that combo is eldrazi proof.
I use the infinite isochron scepter / dramatic reversal combo for exiling libraries with circu.
I'm also testing stuff like metallurgic summonings and docent of perfection, so i can amass a large amount of tokens just by controlling the board.
Hope it helps.
Swamp, Chrome mox Dark Ritual, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Songs of the damned, Morality Shift.
Draw some random colored card, play swamp-ritual-crypt-vault-mox for 8 mana and morality shift and songs of the damned, then i have 33 black mana, narcomoeba entered the bf from grave, unearth rotting rats, play gravecrawler from grave, sac the 3 creatures for dread return targeting necrotic ooze, activate the haste of the blighted bat on the ooze, activate the fb of Dralnu, lich lord on yawgmoth's will and cast it, then cast living death draining all with gray merchant of asphodel, or cast a huge torment of hailfire, or in the next player upkeep sac some creatures including corpse augur, draw my library and win with laboratory maniac.
Very unlikely to happen...
So my answer is : i usually don't have an issue with any archetype, maybe all in combo decks, are kinda boring.
Adding all the stifle effect i could find for protecting me from dying from the mastery and for protecting my graveyard.
I added Morality Shift and laboratory maniac for the lols.
I'm still getting the last parts of the deck together, i'm using jace tms and aminatou together with liliana vess as my PW suite mainly as top deck manipulation and getting stuff out of my hand.
B - Prison
R - Control
W - Reanimator
G - Stax
U - Ramp
I think is easier with PE + mana rocks + Top you can draw your whole deck by drawing with top, exile top with rona, and cast top triggering PE.
But PE combo with anything so...