“Welcome, welcome! We are glad to have so many students returning to the Academy this year as we finally reopen the doors! As some of you may know, we did have a bit of a temporal mishap, and while we have cleaned up and incorporated fascinating new facilities in our rebuilding, students are cautioned to be vigilant and not to wander into any restricted areas.

We wouldn’t want any of you being held back due to walking into a slow-time bubble and missing a semester of classes, would we?

This year there will be an emphasis on enchantments taught throughout the Academy, and we have a number of skilled researchers and instructors to aid you. The highlight of this years activities will the a grand tournament, where students will compete in a battle of wits to earn their place among the most distinguished mages and secure an extended lease on life - a slow-water potion brewed by Mr. Barrin.

Mr. Barrin also asked me to remind all students that the lotus gardens are off-limits to all unauthorized persons and that policy will be enforced lethally.

Now, I know it’s been a long day just traveling to the island but step lively and hurry to your quarters, your classes begin in just five minutes! Don’t fret though! After calculating the amount of time wasted with rest, we have built the dormitories in fast-time rifts! Sleep well students, I expect brilliant things from you all this year.”

It’s time for all students to be heading back to school, and I decided to craft a casual multiplayer deck based around Magic’s most famous school, Tolarian Academy, to celebrate. I loved college and this is a great time of the year for students. The university is filled with interesting events in the evenings as the weather is still warm and inviting. You reconnect with friends and social groups after the long summer. You get to eyeball all of the projects and topics that you’ll be exploring for the next three months, and begin plotting your strategy to ace your classes while still having time to get your Magic game on. It’s wonderful.

So, here we are, watching the first class of the freshly rebuilt Tolarian Academy be greeted back to school. They seem to have a monster of a year before them, complete with temporal features both dangerous and advantageous, depending on the cunning of the students and faculty.

Now when I originally began designing this list, I had it in mind to craft an EDH list, but I quickly scrapped that idea when I noticed that the most important card, Tolarian Academy, was on the EDH banned list. How depressing! But I understand the reasoning behind it. Being that my whole theme was based around this card, I would have to alter the format in mind.

The monstrous deck that resulted is a vintage legal, casual multiplayer deck. I’ll be first to admit that it is not the most competitive deck, but it sure is fun, even if you get a slow start. First of all, one of the planned ways to win is Battle of Wits. This is the main reason to have a 260 card deck. Yes, 260 cards. That may seem like a silly thing, but if your opponents don’t take you seriously, you are going to win right out from under their noses.

"Tolarian Back to School Special"

• Creature (60)
• 3 Academy Rector
• 2 Academy Researchers
• 3 AEther Adept
• 2 Archivist
• 3 Auramancer
• 1 Barrin, Master Wizard
• 3 Blinding Mage
• 2 Bottle Gnomes
• 1 Braids, Conjurer Adept
• 4 Chronozoa
• 4 Disruptive Student
• 1 Ertai, Wizard Adept
• 1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 2 Hapless Researcher
• 1 Karn, Silver Golem
• 2 Lost Auramancers
• 1 Magus of the Moat
• 3 Mnemonic Wall
• 2 Patron Wizard
• 1 Rayne, Academy Chancellor
• 3 Scrivener
• 2 Stern Proctor
• 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 2 Temporal Adept
• 2 Tolarian Emissary
• 2 Tolarian Entrancer
• 2 Tolarian Sentinel
• 2 Treasure Hunter
• 2 Wizard Mentor

• Instants (24)
• 4 Counterspell
• 1 Enlightened Tutor
• 1 Ertai's Meddling
• 4 Impulse
• 1 Mystical Tutor
• 2 Opportunity
• 3 Ovinize
• 4 Rewind
• 2 Snap
• 1 Time Stop
• 1 Words of Wisdom

• Artifacts (19)
• 2 Barrin's Codex
• 1 Book of Rass
• 3 Cloud Key
• 1 Crystal Chimes
• 4 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Jayemdae Tome
• 2 Urza's Incubator
• 1 Voltaic Key
• 4 Worn Powerstone

• Enchantments (42)
• 1 Arcane Laboratory
• 1 Aura of Silence
• 3 Battle of Wits
• 1 Cast Through Time
• 2 Confiscate
• 2 Control Magic
• 2 Copy Artifact
• 1 Hanna's Custody
• 2 Hermetic Study
• 1 Levitation
• 1 March of the Machines
• 2 Mind Control
• 1 Moat
• 4 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Opposition
• 2 Persuasion
• 2 Private Research
• 1 Pursuit of Knowledge
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Second Chance
• 2 Slow Motion
• 2 Take Possession
• 2 Teferi's Moat
• 3 Temporal Isolation
• 1 Treachery

• Sorceries (24)
• 3 Chronomantic Escape
• 1 Idyllic Tutor
• 2 Open the Vaults
• 1 Personal Tutor
• 3 Relearn
• 3 Replenish
• 2 Temporal Fissure
• 3 Tidings
• 1 Time Stretch
• 2 Time Warp
• 2 Wash Out
• 1 Windfall

• Lands (91)
• 2 Academy Ruins
• 4 Calciform Pools
• 4 Coastal Tower
• 4 Faerie Conclave
• 4 Forbidding Watchtower
• 39 Island
• 4 Lotus Vale
• 25 Plains
• 4 Tolaria West
• 1 Tolarian Academy

Buy This Deck Export text format

Forty-two enchantments in this deck allow you a number of options as you work the table to set-up your win. With cards like Academy Rector, Lost Auramancers, Enlightened Tutor and Idyllic Tutor, you have a very high likeliehood of being able to tutor up a copy of Battle of Wits without much difficulty. Should you be countered when playing Battle of Wits or should it be destroyed before you’re glorious upkeep, you can try again thanks to Replenish, Open the Vaults, Auramancer, or reload it into your library with Elixir of Immortality.

If there should be a reason you can’t search up the Battle of Wits, you can play the long game with creatures like Chonozoa, an assortment of legendary creatures related to the school, and time manipulating effects to allow you extra turns. Using Mnemonic devices and Relearning vital lessons, you can cast advantage gaining spells over and over again to help you lock in your win.

There are also a few cards that will help you protect your win-condition and edge out certain annoying or devestating cards that often crop up in a multiplayer game, thanks to Disruptive Student, Counterspell, Rewind, and Ertai, Wizard Adept.

Those who wander into the basements will find one of Urza’s strange artifacts, Urza’s Incubator, where he is hard at work attempting to raise a new race. Lucky for you, there are only a few creatures who are not Human. Should you stumble across the Incubator, you’ll only have to pay full price for Karn, Silver Golem, Mnemonic Wall, Bottle Gnomes, and Chornozoa.

This year’s focus on enchantments, while allowing us the Battle of Wits win condition, also allows us to have a toolbox of other effects that synergy nicely with the abilities of many of the academy’s inhabitants. Being able to reuse enchantments after they’ve been destroyed, fetching them up and sneaking them into play allow the academy’s defenders to gain control of the intruders forces and turn them back on each other.

Another mode of defense employed is simply denying access by locking up the school behind defensive moats and methods of returning creatures back into the aether they came from. Then, when the opportunity arises, Levitation allows the students to overcome their own defenses and strike down their harassers.

Take a look at the list of cards and take in the flavor of the Tolarian Academy. With so many talented students, talented faculty and powerful enchantments and artifacts at their disposal, I think you will enjoy marshaling their forces and utilizing the quirky fractures in time as the Academy fights back against any intruders who may be trying to take a stroll through Tolaria’s prized garden, the Lotus Vale.

Bonus feature: No doubt you noticed certain cards from Tolaria’s future included in the list, but there is also a strange new student, who traveled all the way from Otaria (and through a temporal rift between universes), to become a researcher at the Academy. Enjoy!