Couldn't we just attack him and kill him?
I mean, sure, he will kill the Curious Obs by bounce, but then he is on 1, and any of our creatures will kill him?
And a Djinn will kill him quickly.
(Negate seems good too from the board.)
Sure, it is good against us, but, so is Ravenous Chupa, and spell pierce misses the dog entirely.
If an active SirenS is in play, they have to bounce the Obsession, and then he dies.
Teferi seems good against us, but no better than a lot of cards.
I do accept I could be wrong, I have not played it and you have.
We play lots of answer to Ravenous Chupacabra. Only negate/pierce doesn't answer him, everything else does. And given his 4 mana you can even counter him on curve with "wizardless" Retort.
Teferi is really annoying. A 3 cmc walker with 4+1 loyalty is too hard to deal via combat damage. And if the opponent untaps with it, it's over. So far I've only faced him out of SBs which is not that bad if you run 4x pierce and 4x negate vs. Esper.
I can agree with the others. The new Teferi is so so strong against us. I have't won a game that he resolved. The static is dumb and he is just built to beat our type of decks.
Teferi is painful because it's one extra card that we cannot let Esper resolve. I think it makes our match up vs. Esper worse but all in all we can still beat that deck.
I'm WAY more worried about Blast Zone. Blast Zone for 1 does not have any answer and hits us very hard by taking out the numerous 1 drops and obsession. We are also not fast enough to race what essentially is a CMC 4 card. And that is a card that will show up post-board in 100% of the match ups - if mono-u ever becomes a force again.
Okay, so what if we add a color? -4 Tempest Djinn, +4 something? How about Teferi? Can't complain about having an instant Entrancing Melody. Still want a power card, but there's lots of options now.
Okay, so what if we add a color? -4 Tempest Djinn, +4 something? How about Teferi? Can't complain about having an instant Entrancing Melody. Still want a power card, but there's lots of options now.
The problem is, if you're talking about cutting Tempest Djinn and adding a second color, it screws up pretty much every part of this deck and you should just run a different deck that is in those two colors. The cards in this deck work based on the premise that you can run a low land count, but always have an untapped blue source on T1 and two untapped blue sources on T2. That's why it's 19-20 Islands and no room for other nonsense. Adding other colors means you're not playing Djinn, one of the two fundamental cards of the deck, and not having those untapped blue sources means you can't land & protect Curious Obsession, the other fundamental card of the deck. There might be an aggro-control deck that runs blue and white, but it won't look anything like the deck we talk about in this thread.
Mono-blue is a meta deck. Best hope for the deck is to wait a few weeks and see if the meta blows in a different direction (e.g. Sultai becomes a factor again).
So, my early impression on Arena is that this deck utterly gets its teeth kicked in by Teferi, Time Raveler. You either have a Spell Pierce for it, or you lose. Only a few matches in, but it seems bad for us.
I agree,a resolved Teferi is almost unbeatable for Mono-U Tempo, the static ability renders all counterspells useless, and the -3 means they can bounce your Obsession-wearing critter with impunity, if your local meta has a lot of Teferis running around I wouldn't recommend bringing Mono-U to FNM or whatever, the only time Teferi won't wreck you is when you're so far ahead it's too late for the opponent.
With that being said, I think WAR has brought an excellent SB card for us in Kasmina's Transmutation, I personally run both Deep Freeze and Slimebind in my SB, since DF is just too slow against aggro decks. Kasmina's Transmutation virtually does the job of both cards for only 2 mana, so it seems like a versatile replacement for both and should free up at least one 1 SB slot, which could be taken by Narset, Parter of Veils. She's really good against the not-as-bad-for-us-as-his-cheaper-version Teferi or Jace, and sounds interesting in the mirror, U:Scry 1 isn't that good, and neither is playing a dumb aura that gives your creature +1/+1 and nothing else, all while you tutor counters up in case Narset can take a hit and survive. Lazotep Plating shouldn't ever substitute Dive Down, that 1 mana makes all the difference in the world, it is an amazing SB card however, making a big Banefire fizzle never gets old.
Finally, even though her 4 CMC seems prohibitive for the deck, maybe Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor deserves a 1-of spot in the 75. Her static ability is deceptively powerful when you're on the play in particular. Untap with her and those Spell Pierces are way harder to play around now.
Teferi is painful because it's one extra card that we cannot let Esper resolve. I think it makes our match up vs. Esper worse but all in all we can still beat that deck.
I'm WAY more worried about Blast Zone. Blast Zone for 1 does not have any answer and hits us very hard by taking out the numerous 1 drops and obsession. We are also not fast enough to race what essentially is a CMC 4 card. And that is a card that will show up post-board in 100% of the match ups - if mono-u ever becomes a force again.
War is really, really bad news for this deck :/
Does Repudiate // Replicate help, perhaps? Might be tough to keep the two mana open once they hit three lands, but it IS a valid counter to BZ and a huge tempo boost if we pull it off.
Lazotep Plating shouldn't ever substitute Dive Down, that 1 mana makes all the difference in the world, it is an amazing SB card however, making a big Banefire fizzle never gets old.
What for the lich's mastery decks?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
I think I just played against a deck that may be the spiritual successor to mono-blue tempo.
It was Blue-White and had Faerie Miscreant, Siren Stormtamer, Healer's Hawk, Deputy of Detention, Elite Guardmage, Baffling End to take care of any early things I played, Absorb, Dovin's Veto, and that new draw spell that cares about flying. Most of it's cards come from the newer sets so after rotation Blue-White Fliers/Tempo may be a new thing to try out.
Also the London Mulligan Rule is live in arena and it works so stinkin' well with the Sphinx
Some of those cards sound underwhelming, but U/W seems like a good direction to go in for most archetypes right now. Tempo? Go U/W with Teferi. Control? U/W with Teferi. Mono-Red? Eh they might even want to think about moving into Teferi too
I wasn't saying anything about changing, especially now while we still have our deck. I was just saying I played against a deck that seemed like ours in spirit and will still have many of its pieces after rotation. Mono Blue as it currently stands will basically disappear after rotation since we lose over half of it, so if people are interested in a deck of this style some sort of white/blue variant may be a good direction to go (and I agree a lot of the cards in the deck I played against seemed underwhelming, but there's lots of room for experimentation in those colors)
Ooh, can you post a list? Is it still roughly the same or were there any changes in the one that won Red Bull Qualifier 1?
That spirits deck I don't think is going to stick around very long. Though, I think we will move away from tempo in favor of a more Aggro stance, we lost most of the cheap counters that made the deck effective.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
It's bad, and Blast Zone isn't even seeing much play right now. Teferi is still everywhere though.
So I found myself uninspired to build a new standard deck, and ended up running this for the last few weeks at the local FNM and standard nights. Went 3-1 or 4-0 every time, so I can't say I regret it.
Of note, I did put three copies of Repudiate // Replicate in, and it has been amazing. Maybe it's just my local meta, but I HAVE been seeing Blast Zone played a decent bit (sometimes out of the board). Countering a random PW activation has also been pretty back-breaking. Sadly, doesn't work on Threeferi's bounce, but as long as there's more than one creature on the board, he still dies the same turn he comes down.
How are people finding U Tempo now? I felt that Teferi would kill the deck, but he just means you need to have counters up on turn 3 for those frequent Esper matchups. Less people are running counterspells and to a lesser extent instants due to Teferi so we have more game here than before.
We also picked up the Ghost Pirate. A 1/1 flash flier with late game draw is a big deal IMO. I've run him into red decks which would mountain+shock a traditional 1 drop, but instead we wait for them to play their T2 and then flash him in.
Post rotation theres posibility that Ghost Pirate and the +1 counter on other peoples turns merfolk could form a similar deck to what we have here, but with the loss of curious obsession in particular I'm not sure what, if any, blue based tempo is going to pick up the reigns when this deck is gone.
Edit: Wow, just got Ceratops'd. Uncounterable, pro blue, reach? Love that this type of colour hate is back in the game. I thought their new philosophy was to reduce the number of non-games?
I think there is no doubt the deck dies post-rotation as Obsession and Tempest Djinn are the two corner stones of the deck.
I've tried to make UG work but I'm not hopeful. The are a few cards that I like a lot in that deck but it lacks the staples (cheap, reliable counter spells) to bind the whole thing together.
Outside of blue we get Feather who's already strong right now and could be dominating post-rotation. The only thing holding that deck back is because Feather plays both the Djin and the Obsession part. I feel better having 8 strong cards instead of 4 over the top ones.
How are people finding U Tempo now? I felt that Teferi would kill the deck, but he just means you need to have counters up on turn 3 for those frequent Esper matchups. Less people are running counterspells and to a lesser extent instants due to Teferi so we have more game here than before.
We also picked up the Ghost Pirate. A 1/1 flash flier with late game draw is a big deal IMO. I've run him into red decks which would mountain+shock a traditional 1 drop, but instead we wait for them to play their T2 and then flash him in.
Post rotation theres posibility that Ghost Pirate and the +1 counter on other peoples turns merfolk could form a similar deck to what we have here, but with the loss of curious obsession in particular I'm not sure what, if any, blue based tempo is going to pick up the reigns when this deck is gone.
Edit: Wow, just got Ceratops'd. Uncounterable, pro blue, reach? Love that this type of colour hate is back in the game. I thought their new philosophy was to reduce the number of non-games?
I ran this again tonight for FNM, went 3-1 (lost to Feather + Reckless Rage, combo is just silly). I swapped in 4x Spectral Sailor for 4x Mist-cloaked Herald, and replaced the Replicate // Repudiates with Tale's End, which is just a straight upgrade (now counters Threeferi AND Blast Zone eruption).
It was fun, but I think I'm done with this deck. There are some other weird combinations I want to play with for the short window that we have before rotation, but for anyone still interested in running mono blue, I think it's still a solid choice.
2-1 Beat dinosaurs, but, I REALLY shouldn't have. Opponent just didn't realise Shifting Triceratops can have reach. He only bought them yesterday. The card is HORRENDOUS for us. He was playing four and drew them. Its obscene. We swapped decks and played some more, and I stomped my Blue deck with his Dinosaurs.
2-1 Beat Nicol Bolas. Just. well made home brew version. Odd draws on both sides. Easily could have gone the other way. Ritual of soot and Cry are backbreaking. Sphinx was a real star.
2-0 Beat Red. He got flooded, and he missed a couple of tricks. Newer player. Sphinx was awesome in the second game. We played another 4 games and I taught him a lot of his decks tricks and timing.
Chainwhirler is much less effective now than I am only playing 4x Stormtamers as my only 1 defense creatures, after boarding.
Curious obsession was important in 2 wins, and not sighted much else.
I haven't updated it in months. Not sure I would want to.
None of the cards listed above seem stronger.
Sure, lots of them are playable.
I don't know how I feel about Brineborn, but I wasn't liking Pteramander and the fourth Djinn, and I wanted a little extra Pirate for Lookout's Dispersal and focusing on a more flash-centric approach. The lack of evasion is pretty bad, though, and it doesn't power up quite as much as you would hope. If you draw it without many cards in hand, it is a flash 2/1.
I'll probably move back towards the Autumn Burchett/Ross Merriam lists.
Mono-Red is still tough, albeit a little better, but I think Ross showed that we can technically beat anything.
I've found mono blue still has serious game in 1v1, but in bo3 I'm not a fan of that damn pro blue dinosaur being boarded in. Its almost "5 mana, win", though I did manage to beat it in one game where I was massively ahead by the time it dropped.
Been jamming Feather Black instead, and finally got my noob a** out of gold. Feels like the deck that will take the 'niche' that monoU was in before. Its faster than blue, has more tricks, but has less consistent draw and the tricks lack the brute force of counterspells.
Found myself doing much better against aggressive decks, *way* better against red, and operating at a strong and consistent level instead of a very strong but inconsistent level against control. The midrangy matchups seem worse than blue typically is, but again the floor is higher and the ceiling lower.
I've found mono blue still has serious game in 1v1, but in bo3 I'm not a fan of that damn pro blue dinosaur being boarded in. Its almost "5 mana, win", though I did manage to beat it in one game where I was massively ahead by the time it dropped.
what are you talking about...could just play Transmogrifying Wand out of the board for that. Shifty can't do anything against that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
@Mimicvat and kysg Aether Gust should be a 3-of in the sideboard. It doesn't deal with a resolved one, but it sure does put one on the stack back on top of their deck (it doesn't counter, so "cannot be countered" is irrelevant) and it time walks them. Much better than Transmogrifying Wand.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard
Tempo Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Why does Wizard's Retort not work?
Couldn't we just attack him and kill him?
I mean, sure, he will kill the Curious Obs by bounce, but then he is on 1, and any of our creatures will kill him?
And a Djinn will kill him quickly.
(Negate seems good too from the board.)
Sure, it is good against us, but, so is Ravenous Chupa, and spell pierce misses the dog entirely.
If an active SirenS is in play, they have to bounce the Obsession, and then he dies.
Teferi seems good against us, but no better than a lot of cards.
I do accept I could be wrong, I have not played it and you have.
Teferi is really annoying. A 3 cmc walker with 4+1 loyalty is too hard to deal via combat damage. And if the opponent untaps with it, it's over. So far I've only faced him out of SBs which is not that bad if you run 4x pierce and 4x negate vs. Esper.
Hopefully people won't start MBing it.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
I'm WAY more worried about Blast Zone. Blast Zone for 1 does not have any answer and hits us very hard by taking out the numerous 1 drops and obsession. We are also not fast enough to race what essentially is a CMC 4 card. And that is a card that will show up post-board in 100% of the match ups - if mono-u ever becomes a force again.
War is really, really bad news for this deck :/
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
The problem is, if you're talking about cutting Tempest Djinn and adding a second color, it screws up pretty much every part of this deck and you should just run a different deck that is in those two colors. The cards in this deck work based on the premise that you can run a low land count, but always have an untapped blue source on T1 and two untapped blue sources on T2. That's why it's 19-20 Islands and no room for other nonsense. Adding other colors means you're not playing Djinn, one of the two fundamental cards of the deck, and not having those untapped blue sources means you can't land & protect Curious Obsession, the other fundamental card of the deck. There might be an aggro-control deck that runs blue and white, but it won't look anything like the deck we talk about in this thread.
Mono-blue is a meta deck. Best hope for the deck is to wait a few weeks and see if the meta blows in a different direction (e.g. Sultai becomes a factor again).
I agree,a resolved Teferi is almost unbeatable for Mono-U Tempo, the static ability renders all counterspells useless, and the -3 means they can bounce your Obsession-wearing critter with impunity, if your local meta has a lot of Teferis running around I wouldn't recommend bringing Mono-U to FNM or whatever, the only time Teferi won't wreck you is when you're so far ahead it's too late for the opponent.
With that being said, I think WAR has brought an excellent SB card for us in Kasmina's Transmutation, I personally run both Deep Freeze and Slimebind in my SB, since DF is just too slow against aggro decks. Kasmina's Transmutation virtually does the job of both cards for only 2 mana, so it seems like a versatile replacement for both and should free up at least one 1 SB slot, which could be taken by Narset, Parter of Veils. She's really good against the not-as-bad-for-us-as-his-cheaper-version Teferi or Jace, and sounds interesting in the mirror, U:Scry 1 isn't that good, and neither is playing a dumb aura that gives your creature +1/+1 and nothing else, all while you tutor counters up in case Narset can take a hit and survive.
Lazotep Plating shouldn't ever substitute Dive Down, that 1 mana makes all the difference in the world, it is an amazing SB card however, making a big Banefire fizzle never gets old.
Finally, even though her 4 CMC seems prohibitive for the deck, maybe Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor deserves a 1-of spot in the 75. Her static ability is deceptively powerful when you're on the play in particular. Untap with her and those Spell Pierces are way harder to play around now.
Does Repudiate // Replicate help, perhaps? Might be tough to keep the two mana open once they hit three lands, but it IS a valid counter to BZ and a huge tempo boost if we pull it off.
What for the lich's mastery decks?
-Stay Frosty
It was Blue-White and had Faerie Miscreant, Siren Stormtamer, Healer's Hawk, Deputy of Detention, Elite Guardmage, Baffling End to take care of any early things I played, Absorb, Dovin's Veto, and that new draw spell that cares about flying. Most of it's cards come from the newer sets so after rotation Blue-White Fliers/Tempo may be a new thing to try out.
Also the London Mulligan Rule is live in arena and it works so stinkin' well with the Sphinx
Deck is still great and obv unrespected.
Ooh, can you post a list? Is it still roughly the same or were there any changes in the one that won Red Bull Qualifier 1?
-Stay Frosty
So I found myself uninspired to build a new standard deck, and ended up running this for the last few weeks at the local FNM and standard nights. Went 3-1 or 4-0 every time, so I can't say I regret it.
Of note, I did put three copies of Repudiate // Replicate in, and it has been amazing. Maybe it's just my local meta, but I HAVE been seeing Blast Zone played a decent bit (sometimes out of the board). Countering a random PW activation has also been pretty back-breaking. Sadly, doesn't work on Threeferi's bounce, but as long as there's more than one creature on the board, he still dies the same turn he comes down.
We also picked up the Ghost Pirate. A 1/1 flash flier with late game draw is a big deal IMO. I've run him into red decks which would mountain+shock a traditional 1 drop, but instead we wait for them to play their T2 and then flash him in.
Post rotation theres posibility that Ghost Pirate and the +1 counter on other peoples turns merfolk could form a similar deck to what we have here, but with the loss of curious obsession in particular I'm not sure what, if any, blue based tempo is going to pick up the reigns when this deck is gone.
Edit: Wow, just got Ceratops'd. Uncounterable, pro blue, reach? Love that this type of colour hate is back in the game. I thought their new philosophy was to reduce the number of non-games?
I've tried to make UG work but I'm not hopeful. The are a few cards that I like a lot in that deck but it lacks the staples (cheap, reliable counter spells) to bind the whole thing together.
Outside of blue we get Feather who's already strong right now and could be dominating post-rotation. The only thing holding that deck back is because Feather plays both the Djin and the Obsession part. I feel better having 8 strong cards instead of 4 over the top ones.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
I ran this again tonight for FNM, went 3-1 (lost to Feather + Reckless Rage, combo is just silly). I swapped in 4x Spectral Sailor for 4x Mist-cloaked Herald, and replaced the Replicate // Repudiates with Tale's End, which is just a straight upgrade (now counters Threeferi AND Blast Zone eruption).
It was fun, but I think I'm done with this deck. There are some other weird combinations I want to play with for the short window that we have before rotation, but for anyone still interested in running mono blue, I think it's still a solid choice.
4 Pteramander
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Tempest Djinn
2 Sphinx of Foresight
3 Dive Down
4 Opt
3 Spell Pierce
4 Wizard's Retort
4 Curious Obsession
2 Chart a Course
2 Essence Capture
2 Entrancing Melody
4 Essence Capture
4 Negate
2 Surge Mare
1 Dive Down
2 Kasmina's Transmutation
Went 3-0 in a tiny tournament
2-1 Beat dinosaurs, but, I REALLY shouldn't have. Opponent just didn't realise Shifting Triceratops can have reach. He only bought them yesterday. The card is HORRENDOUS for us. He was playing four and drew them. Its obscene. We swapped decks and played some more, and I stomped my Blue deck with his Dinosaurs.
2-1 Beat Nicol Bolas. Just. well made home brew version. Odd draws on both sides. Easily could have gone the other way. Ritual of soot and Cry are backbreaking. Sphinx was a real star.
2-0 Beat Red. He got flooded, and he missed a couple of tricks. Newer player. Sphinx was awesome in the second game. We played another 4 games and I taught him a lot of his decks tricks and timing.
Chainwhirler is much less effective now than I am only playing 4x Stormtamers as my only 1 defense creatures, after boarding.
Curious obsession was important in 2 wins, and not sighted much else.
I haven't updated it in months. Not sure I would want to.
None of the cards listed above seem stronger.
Sure, lots of them are playable.
I've been doing some testing with this:
4 Merfolk Trickster
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Spectral Sailor
3 Tempest Djinn
3 Brineborn Cutthroat
Lands (20)
20 Island
Spells (22)
4 Curious Obsession
3 Dive Down
3 Lookout's Dispersal
1 Negate
4 Opt
3 Spell Pierce
1 Unsummon
3 Wizard's Retort
3 Cerulean Drake
1 Surge Mare
2 Aether Gust
2 Essence Capture
3 Negate
1 Tale's End
3 Entrancing Melody
I don't know how I feel about Brineborn, but I wasn't liking Pteramander and the fourth Djinn, and I wanted a little extra Pirate for Lookout's Dispersal and focusing on a more flash-centric approach. The lack of evasion is pretty bad, though, and it doesn't power up quite as much as you would hope. If you draw it without many cards in hand, it is a flash 2/1.
I'll probably move back towards the Autumn Burchett/Ross Merriam lists.
Mono-Red is still tough, albeit a little better, but I think Ross showed that we can technically beat anything.
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
Been jamming Feather Black instead, and finally got my noob a** out of gold. Feels like the deck that will take the 'niche' that monoU was in before. Its faster than blue, has more tricks, but has less consistent draw and the tricks lack the brute force of counterspells.
Found myself doing much better against aggressive decks, *way* better against red, and operating at a strong and consistent level instead of a very strong but inconsistent level against control. The midrangy matchups seem worse than blue typically is, but again the floor is higher and the ceiling lower.
what are you talking about...could just play Transmogrifying Wand out of the board for that. Shifty can't do anything against that.
-Stay Frosty
Aether Gust should be a 3-of in the sideboard. It doesn't deal with a resolved one, but it sure does put one on the stack back on top of their deck (it doesn't counter, so "cannot be countered" is irrelevant) and it time walks them. Much better than Transmogrifying Wand.
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.