Date:         Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:48:10 -0400
From: Shih-Jen Hsu <jen@JOLT.ATT.COM>
Subject:      no subject (file transmission)

Wow, imagine my surprise seeing my name (Hi Locutus!) in a magic post :)
I recently been reading up on abeyance decks - Pacifico and Weissman, and
decided to try my own deck to test out abeyance and gerrard's wisdoms.
My deck is more prisonesque than anything else.  I dont have the deck with
me (since I am at work :) but I will try to list the deck from memory :

4 Abeyance             - Just super.  Another "broken" card.
4 howling mines        - Absolutely essential.  need this or the anvil to
3 anvils of bogarden   -   start the speed.  anvil allows me to not discard
                       -   and wisdom for lots of life
4 arcane denials       - A player started to NOT draw for his countered spell:)
4 wraths               - Since I am giving my oppoent so many cards, need to
                       -   clear lots of creatures at once.  Also must need
                       -   for creature reset on turn 3/4, and for prowhite
                       -   or untargettables.
3 STPs                 - For drive throughs
2 Exiles               - For drive thrus and life.
4 Icy's                - No comment
3 Winter Orbs          - For slowing the game down or actually lock.
4 marble diamonds      - For winter orb freedom.  Reach wrath faster.
2 Gaea's blessing      - Good card.  Get back my needed wisdom or arcanes.
1 Paradigm shift       - Didn't need this.
1 Serenity             - Better than disenchant, esp in this deck.  4 for a
                       -   diamond?  6 for a disk?
1 Disenchant           - Very useful.  I had tons more in the sideboard.

4 Quicksands
4 adakar wastes
some mix of city of brass/undiscovered
rest are plains

Comments :

I think this deck needs to be tuned more, specifically mana ratio.  It was
about 63-65 cards, but since 6 were "fasttrips" I thought it was ok.  The
speciality lands like counting quicksand as part mana and undiscovered
kinda slowed me down.

Untargettables hurt.  Overall, the only creatures that hurt me were the
centaurs.

Paradigm shift was never needed.  I never had to use it to prevent myself
from being decked.  I always had way more cards in my library than my oppoent
since they always draw for the howl or anvil first.

Absolutely essential to get a howl or anvil early, since that just brings
more howls and anvils.  Anvil is very nice to get large wisdoms.

Since my deck was not focused on abeyances, and didn't have "must counter"
cards, they were nice to slow my oppoent down but not critical.  Now if I
added Armageddons or something, even if they were drawing lots of lands,
it would still slow them down for rebuilding land.

Direct damage hurt.  Or maybe I was just too greedy and dont want to wisdom
for a "measly" 8 life :)

I might start a serrated arrow in the main deck, since I played against a lot
of weenies (or kill birds/elves).

Gerrard's wisdoms are just broken, more so in this deck.  Getting 10+ life
for 1 card is easy in this deck, and common to get 14+.  More decks are
not meant for that kind of staying power to kill 50 or so life.

I should add another island sanctuary in the main deck.  Won games when I
got it down.  Also helps self decking.

I felt bad when I abeyanced someone 3 times in a row :)  I love it especially
when I drew an abeyance from an abeyance.

Anyways, hope this deck helps people for something.  Comments are welcome.
My id is jen@jolt.att.com.

Jen