Extended Academy deck
Academy is a blue-based combo deck which warped the metagame during the Combo Winter of 1998-99.
Primarily the deck would try to put some artifacts into play together with Tolarian Academy which would then in turn produce large quantities of mana. Mind Over Matter would then be used to to repeatedly untap Academy for more mana. Cards to discard to Mind Over Matter would be drawn via Time Spiral and Windfall or occasionally a Stroke of Genius targeting oneself. Once enough mana was produced, a Stroke of Genius would be casted targeting the opponent, forcing him to draw more than his library contains.
While the deck was relatively shortlived since Mind Over Matter and Windfall would be banned not long after, there is still some discussion how the deck was to be built correctly. Tommi Hovi won Pro Tour Rome in 1998 with a straight forward approach and did not even play Wasteland maindeck in a format dominated by Academy decks, Mike Flores declared Team CMU member Erik Lauer's approach which used Vampiric Tutor and only played one Stroke and one Mind Over Matter the 4th best Extended deck of all time.[1] Another thing to note about using City of Brass gave the deck a wide variety of sideboard options. Lauer's deck including sideboard features cards of all five colors.
Permanents (20)