In the current standard format blue has access to a lot of aggressively costed aggressive creatures.
That's a lot of guys that badly want to be turned sideways. Also, while we don't have Mana Leak in standard, there are a couple of decent options available to support the classic fish strategy of landing threats early and then using counters and bounce spells to keep the opponent from stabilizing. Siren Stormtamer shuts off Settle the Wreckage all by itself, which is very nice for anybody who wants to win the game by attacking.
There has been a quiet trickle of 5-0 mono-blue non-control decks showing up in the competitive standard league results. I figured we ought to have a thread to talk about whether this is going to be a "real" archetype going forward, discuss results with different takes on the deck, and compare builds.
(1) The decks on the more aggro side of things all like their Curious Obsessions. Seems like an automatic 3-of at least once you start packing Siren Stormtamer.
(2) I love the balls involved in playing Sky Skiff in a competitive league. That said, the Crane of Thrones build was from early in Dominaria standard. With Lyra and Walking Ballista everywhere in the format I wonder if the maindeck needs a little tweaking for the current meta.
(3) How many lands and artifacts do you need to have Zahid come down on turn four semi-consistently? Somebody call Frank Karsten.
I need to put some more reps in with the archetype before saying anything about matchups. The big three in standard right now IMO are BG Snek, UW Control, and red aggro. It'll be interesting to see how the different builds stack up.
First point: the main deck isn't really a tempo deck. It's just about the race. You have very little interaction (Walking Ballista and Siren Stormtamer are about it). The deck can put up a clock very quickly: triple one drop into a throne is 6 points a turn by itself. You have a few ok blockers but you don't really want to be blocking. It's not like you have any bombs that you're trying to delay the game in order to get to.
After boarding you can go much more into a tempo plan. I usually go down a couple of thrones and some one drops in exchange for interaction. Post-board games it is a lot harder to stick creatures on the board so getting to a throne doesn't pay off as consistently.
Curious Obsession is sweet. It's easy to time it so that you get at least one hit in and sometimes you can even protect it with Siren Stormtamer (and sometimes the opponent doesn't have removal). It can also incidentally move creatures out of easy Ballista/Chainwhirler/Abrade range.
I didn't love the Scavenger Grounds. You really want to keep your two land hands with this deck and island + Scavenger Grounds makes it a little tough to spew out all your one drops (and/or leave up Siren Stormtamer).
Matchups:
The control matchup felt good. We put decent pressure on them quickly, we're somewhat resilient to wraths, and we have access to countermagic to stop them from landing their stabilizing haymakers. It's still possible to lose, especially if you get flooded, but I had a very positive record here overall.
The midrange matchup was ok. It depended on the flavor of midrange but generally the formula of race then race plus counter worked all right.
The aggro matchups ranged from bad to very bad. The only ok-ish matchup was green stompy, as Unsummon is solid against them. The mono-red matchup felt nigh-unwinnable as soon as they landed a Goblin Chainwhirler, and the BW Vampires matchup felt utterly unwinnable from the start. Path of Mettle in the WR decks was also devastating. Those matchups really highlighted the fact that we don't have any catch-up cards. The sideboard is mostly set up to counter board against people responding to our ability to win the race; when up against a deck that can outrace us we don't really have much to work with.
Going forward I would want to try something like this:
The biggest change is the midrange sideboard package. In aggro matchups we often can't outrace our opponents and we can't rely on synergy between cards to win the game. In those situations you have to have access to bombs that can turn the tide. Tempest Djinn offers a lot of evasive power and toughness, while Karn offers either a stream of card advantage or what will be fairly beefy creatures. Honestly I'm not sure if it's enough without a board wipe of some kind, but I'll give it a shot once I take the plunge and buy some Karns.
The two Blink of an Eye are aimed at recovering a few of our percentage points against God-Pharaoh's Gift decks that we lost by ditching the graveyard hate. I also like the versatility of being able to hit enchantment based removal and planeswalkers.
ETA: Also, I should note that designing an aggro deck that takes advantage of Glint-Nest Crane was an act of genius. Not only was the card advantage great, but the artifacts are among the best cards in the deck so you're digging for the cards you really want. Turn four crane into throne feels so good.
ok, I'm playing a simic version of this deck, but I'm sure I'll have to go mono U on rotation if I want to keep playing this. Mono U tools look quite sweet but I'm doing very well with mine. It won me the Teferi mat . Nothing really interesting in Dominaria for it except unwind.
I didn't play it much (of 11 matches in two leagues I won 9) but it done quite well, can race most aggro decks well. My SB is now adjusted to fight Monsters and Mono B aggro which are the two decks I lost to. The Phoenix and Gifted Aetherborn can be major headaches.
Rishkar is awesome. I use him as an extra anthem and leaves a body on the ground to stop some aggression.
Hope of Ghirapur is another awesome tool. Once you know you have lethal next turn, you can blow it and do your thing almost undisturbed.
Curious obsession is awesome too. It gives an extra point of damage and at least one card. You're golden if you connect it more than once.
Unsummon is very versatile: Wrecks Gift, can kill Phoenix eggs, delays development, removes blockers and buys you time when you're getting low on health. As I'm always attacking big hits can be too punishing.
Throne looks like it could be an interesting addition.
I like the main deck Chart a Course. I'm also starting to think that you need 4+ slots of main deck interaction. We've got a lot of subtly different flavors of counter and bounce to choose from there (Spell Pierce/Admiral's Order/Lookout's Dispersal/Blink of an Eye/Unsummon). There are definitely times when I'd like to have a nice clean fatal push, though.
It's not working when I try to make a decklist Im new to this stuff, But I will post my Deck Screenshot
My Deck Is A Little different than these lists, I'm more focused on Playing some threats and tempoing them out until they are dead
Usually I'll play T1 Siren Storm tamer Into Turn 4 Tempest Djinn And Usually I can have enough follow up after that to win the game.
Or I will play T1 Hope Of Ghirapu And Sacrifice It On turn 3 After Swinging Then play a Tempest Djinn And they are unable to kill it on their following turn so it becomes really hard to win from there.
My win percentage has been extremely high with this deck going almost 20 wins and 3 losses. Goblin chainwhirler is an extremely hard card to beat and I lost 2 matches to that card. So I put 4 favorable winds in the sideboard to fight against this
Some games will look like, T1 play 1 drop, T2 chart a course, T3 either more tempo to stall or play a Djinn. And then enough follow up or tempo after that to kill them in the air
It's not working when I try to make a decklist Im new to this stuff, But I will post my Deck Screenshot
My Deck Is A Little different than these lists, I'm more focused on Playing some threats and tempoing them out until they are dead
Usually I'll play T1 Siren Storm tamer Into Turn 4 Tempest Djinn And Usually I can have enough follow up after that to win the game.
Or I will play T1 Hope Of Ghirapu And Sacrifice It On turn 3 After Swinging Then play a Tempest Djinn And they are unable to kill it on their following turn so it becomes really hard to win from there.
How are you liking the Merfolk Trickster? I've mostly seen it used in controlling decks as a pseudo-removal spell.
I've been playing a bit of a hybrid between the usual Favorable Winds build and the Throne build:
Went 3-2 in a league, losing two close 2-1 matches to GB (nailbiter game 3s, both of them). I actually took a match off of red aggro, which was nice. Curious Obsession is a house. Put it on a Tempest Djinn and you can fight through red's whole air force. Or put it on a Slither Blade and watch the card advantage pile up. My favorite was in a game against Bant Midrange that went turn three Curious Obsession on my guy, Admiral's Order to counter their Seal Away, then Spell Pierce to counter their Heart of Kiran. Tempo!
Do you find Zahid to be all right with just the 7 artifacts? Or do you just not mind paying six for him if need be? He is beefy enough to win most combats (barring Winding Constrictor shenanigans).
merfolk trickster has been really good at stalling / blocking and being a kill spell
In about 30 games I haven't yet had a problem casting Zahid, Djinn of the lamp. But I could just be getting lucky with that. Ive had 2 in my hand before after drawing a couple cards from the opening and was still able to get them down.
Im not too much of a fan of Throne of the God-Pharaoh And Curious Obsession Because I feel like the threats I have are able to win the game on their own so I devote those slots to more permission and tempo type cards. Admiral's Order seems really narrow in it's uses but I might have to test it out.
Select for inspection and negate are my current flex spots. I just added the select for inspection recently and Haven't tested too many games with them yet. I've gotten stuck with them a few times as a normal unsummon woulda been better in that spot. Before I had essence scatter and negate main deck over those.
One card I like a lot right now for the sideboard is Sorcerous Spyglass. Shuts off Heart of Kiran or the planeswalker of your choice and plays well with crane and Zahid.
Admiral's Order is consistently amazing against UW. For other matchups it's usually just Cancel. My draws usually set up pretty well to go one drop two drop three drop -> sit on the counter, so I don't mind having access to a couple of cancel. There are a lot of four and five mana megabombs in standard at the moment. Holding up an unconditional hard counter helps my peace of mind.
I don't like doing the Essence Scatter/Negate split because in the matchup where you really need counter magic (Esper and UW control) it's a real tossup whether it's more important to counter creatures (Lyra/Torrential Gearhulk) or spells (Teferi/Karn/Fumigate). Red puts you in a similar dilemma with Chandra/Glorybringer roulette.
I've been tweaking my list and managed a 5-0 in a friendly league. It helped that I saw good matchups (Sultai Constrictor midrange, UW control, UW Gifts, WB Knights Midrange, UB Improvise). In general I find that decks that don't put quick pressure on our life total are good matchups.
Besides being competitive I think this deck is quite fun to play. You have a lot of decisions to make in every game. Sometimes you dominate, but usually you have to walk a little bit of a tightrope to win the turn before your opponent can hit you for lethal. It's interesting and you get rewarded for knowing the meta.
ETA (5-21): Add a 4-1 competitive league to the tally, with only a loss in the fifth match to RB midrange stopping the 5-0 train. I will say that Rekindling Phoenix is a giant pain in the neck for this deck. It just blocks everything. It's a little janky but I'm going to try some Deep Freeze and see how it goes. It should also help with the stompy matchup a little bit.
Game plan: classic tempo deck plan of adjusting your clock and your opponent's clock so that you win a turn before they do. The sideboard is designed to tilt the deck one way or the other rather than shooting for silver bullets.
Round 1: GB Stompy (2-1)
I am on the draw and have a nice curve of Stormtamer into Crane into Curious Obsession + Swooper with double harvesters and spell pierce in hand. Opponent goes Scrounger into Brontodon into Brontodon, which makes the harvesters look a little silly. Opponent gets greedy on their turn 5: they play Ghalta and attack with their three guys. I crew up the harvester to block, anticipating he will sac the brontodon to kill a harvester. Instead he goes for a blossoming defense, tapping out. I spell pierce the defense, attack him for seven in the air, and play throne for the kill.
Game 2 he styles all over me with Steel Leaf Champion + Cartouche of Ambition + Heart of Kiran. Game 3 he again gets punished by tapping out for Ghalta and allowing me to unsummon ghalta and deep freeze his brontodon, stranding his Heart of Kiran without a crew.
Sideboard: -3 Throne, -1 Swooper, +1 Unsummon, +3 Deep Freeze.
Round 2: Grixis control (2-1)
Game one is a steady trickle of dudes dying to targeted removal/counters (with a couple of guys sticking). When he plays Scarab God I wind up unsummoning it twice while developing the board to the point that his god can't bail him out of dying. Game two he's a smidge faster with the targeted removal and his gearhulks eventually take it home. Game three he gets into an early hole and Deep Freeze keeps The Scarab God from digging him out of it.
Game one throne does good work helping my one drops outrace his Gifted Aetherborn. He burns Never on a Slither Blade and never draws an answer to Zahid. The game ends on turn 6, which is shockingly early in this matchup. He stays more creature heavy than I expect in game two and runs me over (Glint-Sleeve Siphoner + Curious Obsession on Gonti + 2 Gifted Aetherborn). Game three I have a good curve and he burns turn three casting dispossess on walking ballista. He never fully stabilizes (harvester is nice after Bontu's Last Reckoning) and it's on to 3-0.
Two extremely close nailbiters. In game one we get into a standoff with two Aethersphere Harvesters and a bunch of little guys on my side and a bunch of knights, scroungers, and a Heart of Kiran on his side. There's a lot of math involved but eventually the lifelink on the harvesters tilts things my way and I'm able to pip out the win. Game two he goes much more controlling. He gets a Gideon of the Trials and a Karn going but doesn't have any creatures out and Sorcerous Spyglass shut down his Heart of Kiran (right before he drew Karn). I'm able to use Throne and Harvester to drain him out. Game two ends on a magic: the puzzling note. I have Slither Blade with Curious Obsession (damage prevented by Gideon), Crane, Harvester in play and Throne + Ballista in hand. He has Angel of Sanctions in play and is tapped out at 7 life. I crew up Harvester with Slither Blade and send in the crane and the harvester. He blocks the Crane and goes to 4. Ballista, re-crew, throne, stop on the end step, throne takes him to one and the ping ends it.
Game one he has two Cranes and two Gates, stymieing my early assault for long enough to get gifts going. He still winds up in a situation where he's dead on board if he can't get exactly walking ballista and verdurous gearhulk in the graveyard to kill me... so he mills seven with rivulet and minister, hits gearhulk and ballista and kills me from 26. Games two and three both feature Curious Obsession just running away with the game. UG Gifts doesn't run any removal AFAIK, so a turn 2 swooper + double obsession and then a turn 1 slither blade into double obsession both go completely unchecked.
Nice! I'm a little skeptical about splashing green just for Rishkar. Tempest Djinn is a hell of a 3-drop if your lands are all islands.
Of course, Dominaria and Tempest Djinn made this mono U much more viable and I'm going into it on rotation. My build is pre-Dominarian so there was nothing so impactful in terms of putting damage on the table in U. Rishkar has some other occasional upsides, like proliferation with Skyship Plunderer and mana production,
Admiral's order was in place of Unwind for me. When you cast it for U, is awesome, but when you don't, it's kind of burdensome in such an aggressive build. I'm quite happy with Unwind in its place.
Quote from jacobk »
ETA (5-21): Add a 4-1 competitive league to the tally, with only a loss in the fifth match to RB midrange stopping the 5-0 train. I will say that Rekindling Phoenix is a giant pain in the neck for this deck. It just blocks everything. It's a little janky but I'm going to try some Deep Freeze and see how it goes. It should also help with the stompy matchup a little bit.
The Phoenix is nasty. It and Gifted Aetherborn are my two reasons to run Ambuscade, but even Ambuscade alone is not enough to deal with it for good: You either need a warkite marauder trigger or an extra unsummon on the egg. Waterknot sounds like a possibility against nasty creatures, but I'm not sold at it much at all.
The Phoenix is nasty. It and Gifted Aetherborn are my two reasons to run Ambuscade, but even Ambuscade alone is not enough to deal with it for good: You either need a warkite marauder trigger or an extra unsummon on the egg. Waterknot sounds like a possibility against nasty creatures, but I'm not sold at it much at all.
After playing with it for a while I can confirm that Deep Freeze is awesome in this deck. It's basically a blue Thopter Arrest. Scarab God, Lyra, Phoenix... they all freeze quite nicely.
One nice thing about this deck is that other than the Walking Ballista it costs about twenty bucks to pick it up and try it out. Even if you don't like it you should be able to find a home for your ballistas, too.
I'm thinking about picking up Mono Blue Favorable Winds (mainly because I don't like the idea of playing so many */1 in a Goblin Chainwhirler Meta) can someone help convince to change my mind and run the throne version? I don't really understand the appeal of throne in this list mainly because you don't really have that many cards to help you tap down your own dorks.
I'm thinking about picking up Mono Blue Favorable Winds (mainly because I don't like the idea of playing so many */1 in a Goblin Chainwhirler Meta) can someone help convince to change my mind and run the throne version? I don't really understand the appeal of throne in this list mainly because you don't really have that many cards to help you tap down your own dorks.
I agree that you definitely have to be aware of Chainwhirler and Walking Ballista in today's standard. I've been happy with a throne build tweaked to remove most of the x/1 creatures:
I have personally had good success with this in competitive leagues. I haven't seen any of the Favorable Winds builds pop up in tournament results or competitive league results.
As for a more concrete list of reasons to prefer going with the Throne, I can offer a few:
Glint-Nest Crane. This is the big one. When it hits it not only offers card advantage but also gives you one of the better cards in your deck. A creature that digs four cards deep looking for your anthem effect is quite nice. The 3 toughness comes in handy from time to time as well.
Slither Blade. A one drop with two toughness that walks right past fliers.
Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp. IMO he's a little too slow for standard right now. But on the other hand there are times when you really want a 5/6 flier for four mana. If you're going to play him then the throne build gets him down more consistently.
Throne trickeration. With Favorable Winds you are stuck winning through the combat step. With the throne you can get damage through during a board stall with vehicle tapping shenanigans. You can also get people sometimes by dropping the throne post combat.
On the other hand, Favorable Winds stacks and sometimes lets you win in combat. I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference.
Obstructionist and Plunderer are casualties of the Chainwhirler epidemic.
Have we at all thought about adding red to the deck? No not blue red wizards but keeping the deck in the direction it is now. Whirler virtuoso, the removal cards, and glorybringer among a few other cards come to mind.
I would still be keeping the main core theme of the deck in tact especially since you really only need 3-5 islands to make the djin strong. so you dont have to worry too much about him. very minor red splash for the essential cards.
The cards that would tempt me out of red would be Rekindling Phoenix and Abrade. After jamming a lot of leagues with this deck the matchup that really scares me is a red deck with a good curve. Being able to interact efficiently with their threats and in turn play threats they can't interact with efficiently would be a big help.
Personally I think Aether Meltdown + Tempest Djinn is a little better than Abrade + Phoenix, though it's close. Add in the nice simple mana base and I'm content with mono blue.
Took my deck to the PPTQ and I fared quite well earning a 9th place, which is far more than I thought I was getting. I went 4-2 and wasn't helped by the fact that I'm rather unused to more competitive enviroments. Lots of people liked the deck. I misplaced my sideboard somehow and I ended up building one from scratch.
I got a game lost because I realizxed just before playing that I had some cards off the deck and had to correct my decklist. Game one went swiftly, with Hope of Ghirapur into storm fleet aerialist folowed by a couple of quick drops and ended up achieving a board state my opponent kept trying to fend off to no avail. I sacced the Hope of Ghirapur as soon as I got another (which I sacced on next turn) and he couldn't do much during his turn. Game 2 was a bit slower, but I started with three siren stormtamer and that limited his answers quite a bit. In the end, he started to force me into saccing the stormtames but it was already too late.
Match 2: BR Aggro (2-1)
First game was such a race. I ended up killing him before the turn before he would kill me with just a few creatures the help of Rishkar, peema renegade and Favorable winds. Game two I kept a hand too light on creatures and he controlled my board like a champ, then he killed me splendorously, by chaining three Chandra, torch of Defiance and finishing me with a Glorybringer next turn. last game I started with a couple of counters and managed to slightly develop while hitting him with denial and he couldn't recover from such a tempo loss.
Match 3: WU Teferi (1-2)
First game I was behaving too casual for my opponent's expectations and he called the judge on me when I said "ok" to a seal and then wanted to counter. It was a big hit. The game dragged a lot until I was at 11 lands and he finally could place his Teferi lock. game two we both started slow and I got a big boos of board state when he spent his turn playing search for Azcanta. that was enough to chip his life away little by little. Game three also dragged a lot with me playing a threat, getting a couple of points chipped off, then getting it responded but in the end he got to play Lyra Dawnbringer. I distracted Lyra with a Nissa, steward of Elements that I ultied on play because I could deal more damage than he could gain, but a settle the wreckage set my demise and I couldn't recover.
Match 4: RG Elves (2-0)
This was quick, I started very violently and played practically undisturbed and killed him rather fast. On game two I countered a couple of plays in first couple of turns and he ended up conceding.
Match 5: BR Aggro (1-2)
Game one was close. My son who was kibitzing later told me that I lost because I missed a Skyship plunderer trigger and left my Storm fleet aerialist withing XChandra-Glorybringer range and that's exactly how I died. On game two it was close too, but when I magaed to put my aerialists out of Chandra-Glorybringer range things got complicated for my opponent and couldn't handle it. Game three was bad. I drew seven cards and mulliganed into 6 of those seven cards (in the same order!). I got mystic and decided to take it as a sign and kept it. I had no creatures but a couple of counters. It didn't work: She wrecked me by dumping Hazoret and the Phoenix in the table in the same turn and I couldn't do much about it.
Match 6: WU Teferi
Game one was the same tango of hitting and getting responded, I ended up winning with the help of my rather useless unsummons than I used a couple of times to save a creature and recast (I got raid for an aerialist with the attack of the same aerialist XD) and ended up winning after a lenghty process with the help of a couple of Favorable winds stacked that made everything easier. On game two it was something similar, but Lyra appeared at some point and wrecked me. On game three I was getting slowed by Gideon but I kept pushing until he was forced to use the emblem. Then I stacked two Favorable winds and hit for exactly what I needed.
All aorund, rather happy. Couple of thoughts:
Matchups against br is fair and rather good against WU.
Rishkar is awesome at stablishing board presence.
Favorable winds stack nicely.
Skyship plunderer can add a lot of value.
Nobody sees Nimble Obstructionist cycling ability coming.
Admiral's order is very useful against WU.
Warkite Marauder and Dreamcaller siren didn't shine at all for me. .
I have also found the Warkite Marauder to be underwhelming. I don't think I ever had one survive long enough to attack in a matchup where its ability would be relevant.
In other news, user macintosh put up a competitive league 5-0 with the Throne 2.0 build. I'm still finding the Rx aggro matchups to be shaky (especially the awful RW Path of Mettle nightmare). Other than that I don't see any reason this can't be a tier archetype.
I 4-1 an league running nebraskabrandon's list. Is it just me or does 21 creatures seem incorrect for an aggro build? I kinda wanna jam in Skyship Plunderer with an 4x Storm Fleet Aerialist for more blocking fun times vs Rx Aggro.
Marauder + Ballista is a beautiful dream. I played three or four leagues with both of them as four-ofs and it just never happened. Even just getting to untap with a Marauder in play was rare. Chainwhirlers and Ballistas are everywhere.
Going hard on the two drops is an option. Unfortunately the bulk of them are 2/1s. I can't emphasize enough how bad it feels for Chainwhirler to come down, wrath your board, and then attack for 3 first strike damage every turn. Trying to block against Rx aggro is a giant pain anyways with all the removal they have.
I do think there are some interesting blue-based artifact decks running around. I don't think anyone has completely cracked that deck yet. Plunderer could actually be kind of interesting a deck with Metallic Mimic and Karn.
In the current standard format blue has access to a lot of aggressively costed aggressive creatures.
That's a lot of guys that badly want to be turned sideways. Also, while we don't have Mana Leak in standard, there are a couple of decent options available to support the classic fish strategy of landing threats early and then using counters and bounce spells to keep the opponent from stabilizing. Siren Stormtamer shuts off Settle the Wreckage all by itself, which is very nice for anybody who wants to win the game by attacking.
There has been a quiet trickle of 5-0 mono-blue non-control decks showing up in the competitive standard league results. I figured we ought to have a thread to talk about whether this is going to be a "real" archetype going forward, discuss results with different takes on the deck, and compare builds.
Notable decklists so far:
3 Hope of Ghirapur
4 Mist-Cloaked Herald
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Warkite Marauder
4 Glint-Nest Crane
4 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
4 Aethersphere Harvester
3 Curious Obsession
2 Ipnu Rivulet
16 Island
2 Scavenger Grounds
3 Sentinel Totem
4 Spell Pierce
4 Unsummon
2 Admiral's Order
2 Chart a Course
2 Hope of Ghirapu
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Aether Swooper
4 Storm Fleet Aerialist
3 Warkite Marauder
2 Nimble Obstructionist
4 Tempest Djinn
2 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
2 Lookout's Dispersal
1 Aethersphere Harvester
3 Curious Obsession
4 Favorable Winds
2 Ipnu Rivulet
19 Island
1 Scavenger Grounds
3 Spell Pierce
3 Unsummon
3 Admiral's Order
1 Aethersphere Harvester
1 Lookout's Dispersal
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Baral's Expertise
1 River's Rebuke
3 Storm Fleet Aerialist
4 Warkite Marauder
4 Nimble Obstructionist
4 Tempest Djinn
2 Dreamcaller Siren
4 Lookout's Dispersal
4 Curious Obsession
4 Favorable Winds
23 Island
2 Select for Inspection
1 Blink of an Eye
2 Essence Scatter
3 Negate
4 Deep Freeze
1 Dreamcaller Siren
2 Glyph Keeper
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Aether Swooper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Tempest Djinn
2 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
4 Walking Ballista
3 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
1 Spell Pierce
2 Unsummon
3 Curious Obsession
1 Tempest Djinn
2 Spell Pierce
2 Admiral's Order
2 Unsummon
2 Chart a Course
1 River's Rebuke
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Deep Freeze
A few thoughts jump to mind:
(1) The decks on the more aggro side of things all like their Curious Obsessions. Seems like an automatic 3-of at least once you start packing Siren Stormtamer.
(2) I love the balls involved in playing Sky Skiff in a competitive league. That said, the Crane of Thrones build was from early in Dominaria standard. With Lyra and Walking Ballista everywhere in the format I wonder if the maindeck needs a little tweaking for the current meta.
(3) How many lands and artifacts do you need to have Zahid come down on turn four semi-consistently? Somebody call Frank Karsten.
I need to put some more reps in with the archetype before saying anything about matchups. The big three in standard right now IMO are BG Snek, UW Control, and red aggro. It'll be interesting to see how the different builds stack up.
3 Hope of Ghirapur
4 Mist-Cloaked Herald
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Warkite Marauder
4 Glint-Nest Crane
4 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
4 Aethersphere Harvester
3 Curious Obsession
2 Ipnu Rivulet
16 Island
2 Scavenger Grounds
3 Sentinel Totem
4 Spell Pierce
4 Unsummon
2 Admiral's Order
2 Chart a Course
First point: the main deck isn't really a tempo deck. It's just about the race. You have very little interaction (Walking Ballista and Siren Stormtamer are about it). The deck can put up a clock very quickly: triple one drop into a throne is 6 points a turn by itself. You have a few ok blockers but you don't really want to be blocking. It's not like you have any bombs that you're trying to delay the game in order to get to.
After boarding you can go much more into a tempo plan. I usually go down a couple of thrones and some one drops in exchange for interaction. Post-board games it is a lot harder to stick creatures on the board so getting to a throne doesn't pay off as consistently.
Curious Obsession is sweet. It's easy to time it so that you get at least one hit in and sometimes you can even protect it with Siren Stormtamer (and sometimes the opponent doesn't have removal). It can also incidentally move creatures out of easy Ballista/Chainwhirler/Abrade range.
I didn't love the Scavenger Grounds. You really want to keep your two land hands with this deck and island + Scavenger Grounds makes it a little tough to spew out all your one drops (and/or leave up Siren Stormtamer).
Matchups:
The control matchup felt good. We put decent pressure on them quickly, we're somewhat resilient to wraths, and we have access to countermagic to stop them from landing their stabilizing haymakers. It's still possible to lose, especially if you get flooded, but I had a very positive record here overall.
The midrange matchup was ok. It depended on the flavor of midrange but generally the formula of race then race plus counter worked all right.
The aggro matchups ranged from bad to very bad. The only ok-ish matchup was green stompy, as Unsummon is solid against them. The mono-red matchup felt nigh-unwinnable as soon as they landed a Goblin Chainwhirler, and the BW Vampires matchup felt utterly unwinnable from the start. Path of Mettle in the WR decks was also devastating. Those matchups really highlighted the fact that we don't have any catch-up cards. The sideboard is mostly set up to counter board against people responding to our ability to win the race; when up against a deck that can outrace us we don't really have much to work with.
Going forward I would want to try something like this:
2 Hope of Ghirapur
4 Mist-Cloaked Herald
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Aether Swooper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
4 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
4 Aethersphere Harvester
4 Curious Obsession
20 Island
2 Island
4 Tempest Djinn
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Blink of an Eye
2 Spell Pierce
1 Unsummon
2 Admiral's Order
Aether Swooper is in for Warkite Marauder purely for the two toughness. I like it a little better than Storm Fleet Aerialist because it generates an extra body for the throne and for crewing purposes.
The biggest change is the midrange sideboard package. In aggro matchups we often can't outrace our opponents and we can't rely on synergy between cards to win the game. In those situations you have to have access to bombs that can turn the tide. Tempest Djinn offers a lot of evasive power and toughness, while Karn offers either a stream of card advantage or what will be fairly beefy creatures. Honestly I'm not sure if it's enough without a board wipe of some kind, but I'll give it a shot once I take the plunge and buy some Karns.
The two Blink of an Eye are aimed at recovering a few of our percentage points against God-Pharaoh's Gift decks that we lost by ditching the graveyard hate. I also like the versatility of being able to hit enchantment based removal and planeswalkers.
It's possible that the islands should be Field of Ruin. We could use a way to interact with Path of Mettle/Search for Azcanta. It hurts the Tempest Djinn efficiency a little bit, but I don't think it would be too bad in practice.
ETA: Also, I should note that designing an aggro deck that takes advantage of Glint-Nest Crane was an act of genius. Not only was the card advantage great, but the artifacts are among the best cards in the deck so you're digging for the cards you really want. Turn four crane into throne feels so good.
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Storm Fleet Aerialist
3 Skyship Plunderer
3 Warkite Marauder
3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
1 Nimble obstructionist
2 Dreamcaller siren
4 Unsummon
3 Curious Obsession
4 Chart a Course
4 Favorable Winds
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Forest
3 Hinterland Harbor
11 Island
2 Snare Thopter
2 Curator of Mysteries
2 Ambuscade
3 Larger than Life
3 Blossoming Defense
1 Sentinel Totem
2 Unwind
I didn't play it much (of 11 matches in two leagues I won 9) but it done quite well, can race most aggro decks well. My SB is now adjusted to fight Monsters and Mono B aggro which are the two decks I lost to. The Phoenix and Gifted Aetherborn can be major headaches.
Rishkar is awesome. I use him as an extra anthem and leaves a body on the ground to stop some aggression.
Hope of Ghirapur is another awesome tool. Once you know you have lethal next turn, you can blow it and do your thing almost undisturbed.
Curious obsession is awesome too. It gives an extra point of damage and at least one card. You're golden if you connect it more than once.
Unsummon is very versatile: Wrecks Gift, can kill Phoenix eggs, delays development, removes blockers and buys you time when you're getting low on health. As I'm always attacking big hits can be too punishing.
Throne looks like it could be an interesting addition.
I think there are two reasons to go with Throne over Favorable Winds: (1) it works with the evasive non-flying 1-drops Mist-Cloaked Herald and Slither Blade and (2) you can dig for it with Glint-Nest Crane. Favorable Winds makes your creatures fight better with other creatures, protects against Walking Ballista/Goblin Chainwhirler, and stacks.
I like the main deck Chart a Course. I'm also starting to think that you need 4+ slots of main deck interaction. We've got a lot of subtly different flavors of counter and bounce to choose from there (Spell Pierce/Admiral's Order/Lookout's Dispersal/Blink of an Eye/Unsummon). There are definitely times when I'd like to have a nice clean fatal push, though.
My Deck Is A Little different than these lists, I'm more focused on Playing some threats and tempoing them out until they are dead
Usually I'll play T1 Siren Storm tamer Into Turn 4 Tempest Djinn And Usually I can have enough follow up after that to win the game.
Or I will play T1 Hope Of Ghirapu And Sacrifice It On turn 3 After Swinging Then play a Tempest Djinn And they are unable to kill it on their following turn so it becomes really hard to win from there.
My win percentage has been extremely high with this deck going almost 20 wins and 3 losses. Goblin chainwhirler is an extremely hard card to beat and I lost 2 matches to that card. So I put 4 favorable winds in the sideboard to fight against this
Some games will look like, T1 play 1 drop, T2 chart a course, T3 either more tempo to stall or play a Djinn. And then enough follow up or tempo after that to kill them in the air
Aether swooper really helps getting a Turn 4 Zahid, Djinn of the lamp
I've been playing a bit of a hybrid between the usual Favorable Winds build and the Throne build:
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Aether Swooper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Tempest Djinn
2 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
4 Walking Ballista
3 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
2 Admiral's Order
1 Blink of an Eye
3 Curious Obsession
3 Spell Pierce
1 Admiral's Order
2 Blink of an Eye
1 Unsummon
1 Tempest Djinn
3 Sentinel Totem
2 Chart a Course
2 River's Rebuke
Do you find Zahid to be all right with just the 7 artifacts? Or do you just not mind paying six for him if need be? He is beefy enough to win most combats (barring Winding Constrictor shenanigans).
In about 30 games I haven't yet had a problem casting Zahid, Djinn of the lamp. But I could just be getting lucky with that. Ive had 2 in my hand before after drawing a couple cards from the opening and was still able to get them down.
Im not too much of a fan of Throne of the God-Pharaoh And Curious Obsession Because I feel like the threats I have are able to win the game on their own so I devote those slots to more permission and tempo type cards. Admiral's Order seems really narrow in it's uses but I might have to test it out.
Select for inspection and negate are my current flex spots. I just added the select for inspection recently and Haven't tested too many games with them yet. I've gotten stuck with them a few times as a normal unsummon woulda been better in that spot. Before I had essence scatter and negate main deck over those.
Admiral's Order is consistently amazing against UW. For other matchups it's usually just Cancel. My draws usually set up pretty well to go one drop two drop three drop -> sit on the counter, so I don't mind having access to a couple of cancel. There are a lot of four and five mana megabombs in standard at the moment. Holding up an unconditional hard counter helps my peace of mind.
I don't like doing the Essence Scatter/Negate split because in the matchup where you really need counter magic (Esper and UW control) it's a real tossup whether it's more important to counter creatures (Lyra/Torrential Gearhulk) or spells (Teferi/Karn/Fumigate). Red puts you in a similar dilemma with Chandra/Glorybringer roulette.
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Aether Swooper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Tempest Djinn
2 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
4 Walking Ballista
3 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
1 Admiral's Order
2 Blink of an Eye
3 Curious Obsession
3 Spell Pierce
1 Admiral's Order
2 Unsummon
1 Tempest Djinn
2 Sentinel Totem
2 Chart a Course
2 River's Rebuke
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
Spell Pierce has really been growing on me lately. I'm thinking of putting it into the maindeck in place of Admiral's Order. It feels so good to hit that turn four Vraska's Contempt or Karn.
Besides being competitive I think this deck is quite fun to play. You have a lot of decisions to make in every game. Sometimes you dominate, but usually you have to walk a little bit of a tightrope to win the turn before your opponent can hit you for lethal. It's interesting and you get rewarded for knowing the meta.
ETA (5-21): Add a 4-1 competitive league to the tally, with only a loss in the fifth match to RB midrange stopping the 5-0 train. I will say that Rekindling Phoenix is a giant pain in the neck for this deck. It just blocks everything. It's a little janky but I'm going to try some Deep Freeze and see how it goes. It should also help with the stompy matchup a little bit.
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Aether Swooper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Tempest Djinn
2 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
4 Walking Ballista
3 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
1 Spell Pierce
2 Unsummon
3 Curious Obsession
1 Tempest Djinn
2 Spell Pierce
2 Admiral's Order
2 Unsummon
2 Chart a Course
1 River's Rebuke
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Deep Freeze
Game plan: classic tempo deck plan of adjusting your clock and your opponent's clock so that you win a turn before they do. The sideboard is designed to tilt the deck one way or the other rather than shooting for silver bullets.
Round 1: GB Stompy (2-1)
I am on the draw and have a nice curve of Stormtamer into Crane into Curious Obsession + Swooper with double harvesters and spell pierce in hand. Opponent goes Scrounger into Brontodon into Brontodon, which makes the harvesters look a little silly. Opponent gets greedy on their turn 5: they play Ghalta and attack with their three guys. I crew up the harvester to block, anticipating he will sac the brontodon to kill a harvester. Instead he goes for a blossoming defense, tapping out. I spell pierce the defense, attack him for seven in the air, and play throne for the kill.
Game 2 he styles all over me with Steel Leaf Champion + Cartouche of Ambition + Heart of Kiran. Game 3 he again gets punished by tapping out for Ghalta and allowing me to unsummon ghalta and deep freeze his brontodon, stranding his Heart of Kiran without a crew.
Sideboard: -3 Throne, -1 Swooper, +1 Unsummon, +3 Deep Freeze.
Round 2: Grixis control (2-1)
Game one is a steady trickle of dudes dying to targeted removal/counters (with a couple of guys sticking). When he plays Scarab God I wind up unsummoning it twice while developing the board to the point that his god can't bail him out of dying. Game two he's a smidge faster with the targeted removal and his gearhulks eventually take it home. Game three he gets into an early hole and Deep Freeze keeps The Scarab God from digging him out of it.
Sideboard: -3 Throne, -1 Ballista, -1 Swooper, -2 Unsummon, +2 Spell Pierce, +2 Deep Freeze, +2 Admiral's Orders, +1 Tempest Djinn.
Round 3: Mono black control (2-1)
Game one throne does good work helping my one drops outrace his Gifted Aetherborn. He burns Never on a Slither Blade and never draws an answer to Zahid. The game ends on turn 6, which is shockingly early in this matchup. He stays more creature heavy than I expect in game two and runs me over (Glint-Sleeve Siphoner + Curious Obsession on Gonti + 2 Gifted Aetherborn). Game three I have a good curve and he burns turn three casting dispossess on walking ballista. He never fully stabilizes (harvester is nice after Bontu's Last Reckoning) and it's on to 3-0.
Sideboard: -2 Throne, -2 Unsummon, -1 Ballista, -1 Curious Obsession, +2 Chart a Course, +2 Deep Freeze, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Tempest Djinn
Round 4: BW Knights Midrange (2-0)
Two extremely close nailbiters. In game one we get into a standoff with two Aethersphere Harvesters and a bunch of little guys on my side and a bunch of knights, scroungers, and a Heart of Kiran on his side. There's a lot of math involved but eventually the lifelink on the harvesters tilts things my way and I'm able to pip out the win. Game two he goes much more controlling. He gets a Gideon of the Trials and a Karn going but doesn't have any creatures out and Sorcerous Spyglass shut down his Heart of Kiran (right before he drew Karn). I'm able to use Throne and Harvester to drain him out. Game two ends on a magic: the puzzling note. I have Slither Blade with Curious Obsession (damage prevented by Gideon), Crane, Harvester in play and Throne + Ballista in hand. He has Angel of Sanctions in play and is tapped out at 7 life. I crew up Harvester with Slither Blade and send in the crane and the harvester. He blocks the Crane and goes to 4. Ballista, re-crew, throne, stop on the end step, throne takes him to one and the ping ends it.
Sideboard: -1 Throne, -2 Unsummon, -1 Ballista, -1 Swooper, +2 Spell Pierce, +1 Tempest Djinn, +2 Sorcerous Spyglass
Round 5: UG Gifts (2-1)
Game one he has two Cranes and two Gates, stymieing my early assault for long enough to get gifts going. He still winds up in a situation where he's dead on board if he can't get exactly walking ballista and verdurous gearhulk in the graveyard to kill me... so he mills seven with rivulet and minister, hits gearhulk and ballista and kills me from 26. Games two and three both feature Curious Obsession just running away with the game. UG Gifts doesn't run any removal AFAIK, so a turn 2 swooper + double obsession and then a turn 1 slither blade into double obsession both go completely unchecked.
Sideboard: -1 Throne, -1 Ballista, +1 Djinn, +1 River's Rebuke.
Of course, Dominaria and Tempest Djinn made this mono U much more viable and I'm going into it on rotation. My build is pre-Dominarian so there was nothing so impactful in terms of putting damage on the table in U. Rishkar has some other occasional upsides, like proliferation with Skyship Plunderer and mana production,
Admiral's order was in place of Unwind for me. When you cast it for U, is awesome, but when you don't, it's kind of burdensome in such an aggressive build. I'm quite happy with Unwind in its place.
The Phoenix is nasty. It and Gifted Aetherborn are my two reasons to run Ambuscade, but even Ambuscade alone is not enough to deal with it for good: You either need a warkite marauder trigger or an extra unsummon on the egg. Waterknot sounds like a possibility against nasty creatures, but I'm not sold at it much at all.
After playing with it for a while I can confirm that Deep Freeze is awesome in this deck. It's basically a blue Thopter Arrest. Scarab God, Lyra, Phoenix... they all freeze quite nicely.
One nice thing about this deck is that other than the Walking Ballista it costs about twenty bucks to pick it up and try it out. Even if you don't like it you should be able to find a home for your ballistas, too.
EDIT: If we're racing all the time why not run Skyship Plunderer and Nimble Obstructionist more over Storm Fleet Aerialist.
Dreamcaller Siren abilities sound amazing.
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I agree that you definitely have to be aware of Chainwhirler and Walking Ballista in today's standard. I've been happy with a throne build tweaked to remove most of the x/1 creatures:
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Slither Blade
4 Aether Swooper
4 Glint-Nest Crane
4 Tempest Djinn
1 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
4 Walking Ballista
3 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
1 Spell Pierce
2 Unsummon
3 Curious Obsession
1 Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
2 Spell Pierce
2 Admiral's Order
2 Unsummon
1 Chart a Course
2 Aether Meltdown
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Deep Freeze
I have personally had good success with this in competitive leagues. I haven't seen any of the Favorable Winds builds pop up in tournament results or competitive league results.
As for a more concrete list of reasons to prefer going with the Throne, I can offer a few:
Obstructionist and Plunderer are casualties of the Chainwhirler epidemic.
It might be worth losing Tempest Djinn for Fiery Cannonade or Settle the Wreckage ((though WW is troubling))... Fiery Cannonade would be amazing if that Token deck ever really becomes a thing.
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The cards that would tempt me out of red would be Rekindling Phoenix and Abrade. After jamming a lot of leagues with this deck the matchup that really scares me is a red deck with a good curve. Being able to interact efficiently with their threats and in turn play threats they can't interact with efficiently would be a big help.
Personally I think Aether Meltdown + Tempest Djinn is a little better than Abrade + Phoenix, though it's close. Add in the nice simple mana base and I'm content with mono blue.
match 1: WU Teferi (2-1)
I got a game lost because I realizxed just before playing that I had some cards off the deck and had to correct my decklist. Game one went swiftly, with Hope of Ghirapur into storm fleet aerialist folowed by a couple of quick drops and ended up achieving a board state my opponent kept trying to fend off to no avail. I sacced the Hope of Ghirapur as soon as I got another (which I sacced on next turn) and he couldn't do much during his turn. Game 2 was a bit slower, but I started with three siren stormtamer and that limited his answers quite a bit. In the end, he started to force me into saccing the stormtames but it was already too late.
Match 2: BR Aggro (2-1)
First game was such a race. I ended up killing him before the turn before he would kill me with just a few creatures the help of Rishkar, peema renegade and Favorable winds. Game two I kept a hand too light on creatures and he controlled my board like a champ, then he killed me splendorously, by chaining three Chandra, torch of Defiance and finishing me with a Glorybringer next turn. last game I started with a couple of counters and managed to slightly develop while hitting him with denial and he couldn't recover from such a tempo loss.
Match 3: WU Teferi (1-2)
First game I was behaving too casual for my opponent's expectations and he called the judge on me when I said "ok" to a seal and then wanted to counter. It was a big hit. The game dragged a lot until I was at 11 lands and he finally could place his Teferi lock. game two we both started slow and I got a big boos of board state when he spent his turn playing search for Azcanta. that was enough to chip his life away little by little. Game three also dragged a lot with me playing a threat, getting a couple of points chipped off, then getting it responded but in the end he got to play Lyra Dawnbringer. I distracted Lyra with a Nissa, steward of Elements that I ultied on play because I could deal more damage than he could gain, but a settle the wreckage set my demise and I couldn't recover.
Match 4: RG Elves (2-0)
This was quick, I started very violently and played practically undisturbed and killed him rather fast. On game two I countered a couple of plays in first couple of turns and he ended up conceding.
Match 5: BR Aggro (1-2)
Game one was close. My son who was kibitzing later told me that I lost because I missed a Skyship plunderer trigger and left my Storm fleet aerialist withing XChandra-Glorybringer range and that's exactly how I died. On game two it was close too, but when I magaed to put my aerialists out of Chandra-Glorybringer range things got complicated for my opponent and couldn't handle it. Game three was bad. I drew seven cards and mulliganed into 6 of those seven cards (in the same order!). I got mystic and decided to take it as a sign and kept it. I had no creatures but a couple of counters. It didn't work: She wrecked me by dumping Hazoret and the Phoenix in the table in the same turn and I couldn't do much about it.
Match 6: WU Teferi
Game one was the same tango of hitting and getting responded, I ended up winning with the help of my rather useless unsummons than I used a couple of times to save a creature and recast (I got raid for an aerialist with the attack of the same aerialist XD) and ended up winning after a lenghty process with the help of a couple of Favorable winds stacked that made everything easier. On game two it was something similar, but Lyra appeared at some point and wrecked me. On game three I was getting slowed by Gideon but I kept pushing until he was forced to use the emblem. Then I stacked two Favorable winds and hit for exactly what I needed.
All aorund, rather happy. Couple of thoughts:
Matchups against br is fair and rather good against WU.
Rishkar is awesome at stablishing board presence.
Favorable winds stack nicely.
Skyship plunderer can add a lot of value.
Nobody sees Nimble Obstructionist cycling ability coming.
Admiral's order is very useful against WU.
Warkite Marauder and Dreamcaller siren didn't shine at all for me. .
I have also found the Warkite Marauder to be underwhelming. I don't think I ever had one survive long enough to attack in a matchup where its ability would be relevant.
In other news, user macintosh put up a competitive league 5-0 with the Throne 2.0 build. I'm still finding the Rx aggro matchups to be shaky (especially the awful RW Path of Mettle nightmare). Other than that I don't see any reason this can't be a tier archetype.
I was hoping you Throne players were sniping 0/1 with Warkite Marauder & Walking Ballista.
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https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1118861#online an interesting 5-0 take on mono blue
- - -
I 4-1 an league running nebraskabrandon's list. Is it just me or does 21 creatures seem incorrect for an aggro build? I kinda wanna jam in Skyship Plunderer with an 4x Storm Fleet Aerialist for more blocking fun times vs Rx Aggro.
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Going hard on the two drops is an option. Unfortunately the bulk of them are 2/1s. I can't emphasize enough how bad it feels for Chainwhirler to come down, wrath your board, and then attack for 3 first strike damage every turn. Trying to block against Rx aggro is a giant pain anyways with all the removal they have.
I do think there are some interesting blue-based artifact decks running around. I don't think anyone has completely cracked that deck yet. Plunderer could actually be kind of interesting a deck with Metallic Mimic and Karn.
Terrible Video Report:
G1 Green Stompy vs Blue Skies Standard LE 37
G2 UW Control vs Blue Skies Standard LE 37
G3 UR Gift vs Blue Skies Standard LE 37
G4 Approach vs Blue Skies Standard LE 37
G5 Mono Red Aggro vs Blue Skies Standard LE 37
I've since tried a number of variations but I think I like at least 56/60 of this set up.
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