Subject: robodude's Eater of Days deck building challenge
       "I am not a part of the problem, I am a republican."
                    -President George W. Bush

Oh, Dubya, when will you learn?

Anywho, I was looking on a certain site one day (I won't say which because I don't think Scott or Doll...I mean Chris will let me[yes, I actually do remember before they were married and when she was called "Clefairy Doll"{"Doll" for short}]) and I saw...this:

Eater of Days
4
Artifact Creature-Leviathan
Flying, Trample
When Eater of Days comes into play, skip your next two turns
9/8

When I first saw it, I thought the following things:

1.  Whoa.

2.  Whoa.

3.  Whoa.

4.  Whoa.

5.  Whoa.

After I thought about it a little, I thought the following things:

1.  Whoa.

2.  Combo-liscious, but can it work in type 2?

3.  If you played Time Stretch the same turn (which would be really hard to do) would you just skip both of those turns?  Would the order in which you played them matter?

4.  Is there a kind of "huge creature, huge drawback" cycle going on in Mirrodin Block?

5.  Did I leave the iron on?

As with Leveler, you just need to know how to deal with it.

How not to lose to your opponent over a period of 3 turns
1.  2 Sterling Grove+Worship+Lightning Greaves
       The Good News:  You can live through direct damage (Greaves make Eater untargetable, Groves make Worship untargetable, Worship keeps you at 1, Groves make eachother untargetable).
       The Bad News:  1 Akroma's Vengeance/anything that causes you to lose life and you're screwed.

2.  Isochron Scepter with Final Fortune on it+Platinum Angel+Voltaic Key
       Repeat after me.  INFINITE TURNS!!!!
*Note: I'm not 100% sure that this will work.  In fact I'm not even 90%.  I'm about 72% sure.  We'll have to wait for the rulings to see.

3.  Spellweaver Helix with Time Walk and Time Stretch on it
       Works best if your playing casual with a bunch of people who have been playing forever and own multiple copies of these cards (well, Time Walk anyway)or a bunch of really rich newbs who bought anything that involves taking extra turns.
*Note:  I'm not sure about this one either.

4.  Stifle
       This one I am sure about.  Stifle the turn loss and swing away.

Because of my uncertainty about the skipping of turns gained by Time Walk, and the sheer riskiness of Sterling Groves, I'll do the Stifle combo.  This deck is casual, because all of the fun stuff that is in it is either non-Type 2, banned, or restricted.

20   Lands
4     Underground Sea
4     Tolarian Academy
4     Ancient Tomb
4     Polluted Delta
3     Islands

4     Creatures
4     Eater of Days

36   Spells
4     Black Lotus
4     Mox Diamond
4     Mox Jet
4     Demonic Tutor
4     Stifle
4     Ancestral Recall
4     Force of Will
4     Tinker
4     Lightning Greaves


Assuming that Eater of Days costs about as much as Leveler, this deck would cost $12,560 to make (my calcultor almost broke trying to do that).  Expensive perhaps, but then again, it does have almost half of the Power 9.

Here are the roles of the cards:

Mana Base:  32 Cards
Lands (d'uh)
Black Loutses
Moxen

Draw/Tutor:  16 Cards
Polluted Delta (tutor: lands)
Demonic Tutor (tutor: anything)
Tinker (tutor: Artifacts)
Ancestral Recall (draw)

Permission: 8(?) Cards
Force of Will
Stifle(?)

Win Condition:   12 Cards
Eater of Days
Stifle
Lightning Greaves

       With this deck, you can get the Eater out and swinging by turn 1 if you have a good hand.  Force of Will is in case you're playing a (four-letter word+suffix) Academy deck and they try to pin Ghitu Fire or Stroke of genius on you.

       My challenge to you, the readers, is to create you own Eater deck (any format) and submit it to me.  I'll post a few decks that I like or think are interesting in a later article.

       And, I know that I promisied to put the leveler deck ideas in, but, unfortunately, all of my old mail got deleted.  However I do remember some of the strategies.  They included:

Illusionary Mask,

Shared Fate,

Putting a ton of equipment on it and hoping that the damage gets through,

and one deck where the guy basically told me my deck wouldn't work and basically made a similar one.

To submit your decks or to yammer on about how absurd you think this is e-mail me at robodudermg@aol.com.  Any viruses will be sent back to the people who sent them.