Trying to make Academy work

My quest to discover new, off-meta decks continues. I decided to try a few decks built around Academy of the Mystic Arts. Primarily, this was because so many people say the card is terrible. I tend to agree, but I thought I'd give it a go just in case there was some hidden potential. TLDR: not really 😄, but tempo magic worked better.

Deck 1: Rats

This is deck is still in its infancy, and it will probably stay there because it's terrible.

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Academy wants you to play creatures with 1 health. So for the memes, why not rat rod? And if we are playing rat rod why not school teacher? So 2 win conditions:

1. We have lots of 1 hp creatures along with our rats to deal damage directly to face with school teacher.
2. Arcane Burst - preferably reduced multiple times by the Academy - can do 20 damage to the face in one turn.

Possible Deck Modifications

In any rat deck, you face the following two choices for finisher:

Form of Unity costs 10x Arcane Burst. For an off-meta deck, this has generally always led me to pick Arcane Burst (I don't own FoU). If you have both, FoU is the better card (hence why it costs 10x). A better rat deck would probably drop Academy and Arcane Burst in favor of FoU + School Teacher.

There are a few nice things about Burst, however. The damage ramps up linearly all the way to 10. Form of Unity with only 4 creatures on board takes a big hit in damage, and rats are trivially easy to clear.

And again, $1.50/card to play a meme deck sounds better than $10.

The deck chews through cards, so maybe some Crams or something else might help. It was a long shot anyway.

Gameplay

When I saw the GP I figured it was over, but I managed to pull it off. The one thing Anubians provided me was that missing card draw.

Don't be fooled, though. This deck loses. A lot.

Deck 2: Academy Tempo Magic

So I decided to try and put a second deck together. Still Academy, but this time supported by stronger magic cards as opposed to joke cards like Rod of Rodents.

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As it turns out, tempo magic has a lot of strong cards with 1 health.

They may not all be S tier (looking at your Thaumaturge), but on the whole they are pretty great. The echoes are excellent for Academy, Oni, and Pallas' Wand. They also help keep your hand full. Maybe full enough to make room for Leyhoard Hatchling, which is an amazing tempo card (probably dropping Form of Power for it).

The win condition for the deck is pretty straight forward: get in some chip damage to the face early game and then finish with Epiphany/Wyrmbreath/Schoolteacher. Versions of these decks exist and are very successful without Academy, but this deck leans into the 1 hp creatures to get the job done.

Gameplay

I got enough games played to finally get a recording of Academy actually making the difference! This was a tough game largely due to the leech in zombie decks.

Pallas turn 1 is obviously huge. It generates so much draw for me throughout the game. Thaumeturge does an admirable job controlling early aggression. Turn 2 I drop both but the hog doesn't go for the bait. The cheap echoes do generate another card from the wand, though. Very nice.

Also: there is such a thing as too many emotes. I'm all for the opening "hi" and occasionally "nice", but come on. We had to mute our friend here.

4 Mana
The other line to play was to use Tracking Bolt and GP to clear board. I thought to hold it expecting lots of zombies, but since I was holding Shaped Blast, I probably should have used it. Led to an awkward 5 mana turn.

6-7 Mana
We get jammed up in the 6-7 mana range. Unable to stabilize to get Academy on the Board. I also misplay at 6.5 By using Wymbreath instead of Starshold Bolt + GP. Wyrmbreath is for the face! Only use it on creatures as a last resort. Our saving grace is enough card draw to keep the spells flowing.

7.2 Mana
Finally get enough room to play Academy. A 5/8 frontline is no slouch. Even if it can't attack. Importantly, we can also get 2 1 hp creatures on the board same turn. This turns out to be huge.

8.3 Mana
This is a big turn. School teacher puts in work. At that point, we had drawn all of our cards, so we had to make a move quick. I actually used Pallas not realizing I was out of cards (whoops).

9 Mana!
It isn't until 9 mana that I'm able to finish. Luckily, my reduced Epiphany + Wyrmbreath got the job done.

Now, I'm not looking to play 15 minute games, but most of them aren't! Win or lose, it rarely goes beyond 7 mana. Leech just drug it out.

Conclusion

Academy is lackluster. It probably deserves the "Unplayable" tag most have given it. Definitely in competitive play. I can't even honestly say it's all that 'fun' in off-meta decks. The fun (to the extent it exists) is in trying to beat someone with a bad card. That doesn't last long. Magic actually doesn't have a ton of high-mana spells. There isn't a 9-mana-deal-20-to-face type of card. Second Shattering rewards being at 9 mana, but doesn't benefit from Academy much at all.

I gave it my best try. Maybe one of you will figure out something better. Or maybe they rework the card?