The power of Titania's Song

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This is the first of many “Single Card Spotlight” posts that will come and we begin with the versatile card Tinania’s Song. This card don’t see very much play in Old School but it has it’s decks where it usually makes an appearance. But let’s get to that a little bit later and start with what the card actually says because I think many people actually miss one thing that is pretty unique with Titania’s Song, so here is the oracle text:

Each noncreature artifact loses all abilities and becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its converted mana cost. If Titania's Song leaves the battlefield, this effect continues until end of turn.

So, the card makes all NONCREATURE artifacts into creatures with power and toughness equal to their cmc. This part is the easy part and most people know about it. The second part is that the artifacts also lose all their abilities which means that a Jayemdae Tome becomes a 4/4 which can’t draw you cards.

The third part is what I don’t think everyone has noticed, because usually it doesn’t even matter. But the thing is that if You get rid of Titania’s Song it will still affect all the artifacts in play until end of turn. This is probably most important if you are staring down a lethal army of artifact creatures and want to disenchant the song. Then don’t try to do it on the opponent’s turn for some reason because they will still be able to attack you. Maybe not something that comes up all that often, but if it does and you do it the wrong way you will never forget it.

So what is this card good for? Usually it has two uses depending on the deck. Most often you see this card in Parfait style decks or other artifact heavy control decks where the Song is your endgame. After you’ve locked down the game with Icy Manipulators, Relic Barriers, Howling Mines and Winter Orbs or something like that, you drop this and swing for the kill.

As a side note I can say that I for one is not a big fan of this in hardcore lock down decks as it breaks your lock if you’re not able to kill them in one turn. And getting 20 cmc artifacts on the table could be quite hard. Usually you win anyway but why take a chance hehe.

The other use this card has is in mana denial decks (which is once again why Parfait is the deck that this sees play in the most). The reason for this is that Titania’s Song also can work as an Armageddon for moxen as they become 0/0 creatures and die as soon as it hits the board. So in a land destruction deck 1-2 Titania’s Song could actually be a thing. It also stops Mana Vaults and Fellwar Stones to generate mana but then you have to deal with them as creatures instead so be ready for that.

 

Titania’s Song, a wincon and mana denial card in one. With those short thoughts we end our first Single Card Spotlight 

Time Vault in Field of Dreams

Could Time Vault actually be good in this deck?

Could Time Vault actually be good in this deck?

One of my absolute favorite decks in old school is the not often seen Field of Dreams deck. Here in Stockholm we most often call it Kevin Costner after the movie Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner (thank you Per for coming up with that name!).

You can read more about the deck in the archetype section (here) but the main plan is to survive long enough until you can get both Field of Dreams and a Millstone on the table. After that you mill your opponent every time they have a card you don’t want them to draw on the top of their library. Two well proven strategies is to give them all mana or no mana (yes, this deck is pure evil (and yes, I like parenthesis)).

I’ve played this deck a few times before but never in a big tournament so I was thinking of taking this to the next big event in Sweden. Therefore, yesterday I once again sleeved it up and took it to our monthly pub gathering. This time with a new “super secret” tech, Time Vault.

This is the deck right now. Except for the Timetwister which I now have cut.

The plan with Time Vault was to help when you’ve got the lock in. Sometimes you only have one Millstone and if you mill away a good spell and two cards down there is another good spell you can be in trouble. Even with two Millstones this can happen so my plan was to use Time Vault to minimise the risk of the opponent drawing something good. So when I know the opponent is just going to draw a land or something else that doesn’t matter I let him take another turn and untap my Time Vault. Then if I’m in a spot later on when I’ve milled him but he still has a good card on top I can take another turn and another shot at it. It’s also quite good when you want to use all your mana for a Braingeyser or if you want to attack with Mishras but then have mana up for a Counterspell and some milling.

It worked a lot better than expected and with Field of Dreams the Time Vault actually became a good card, even without Millstone.

/Gordon