This is my first Standard Deck Creation on the forums so go easy and let me know not only what you think but how I can improve the deck and the list writing.
I was surprised to see no real competitive Mono Blue Standard going on at my local and from what I have seen thus far from the Origins Tour. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.
Here goes, hope fully this does not look terrible to you all.
So the idea is that You have ygood cheap defenders such as Guardians of Meletis to protect you early on otherwise if you dont draw those you'll be able to Canel spells.
If you get Quiet Contemplation our on the field then all your noncreature spells allow you to pay 1 to tap a "target" creature.
This is where [card]Willbreaker[/card} comes in.
With Willbreaker on the field card like Icy Blast will really screw over your opponents battlefield plans as you then take control of them. I mean they'll be tapped during your next turn but hey, your opponent no longer has monsters that have the Will power to fight for them any more (pun intended)
Meanwhile Sphinx's Tutelage will consitantly mill your opponent down. Combine that with Day's Undoing and watch your opponent cry as you claim 7 activations on Tutelage. (I found it easier to go one for one in the "draw seven cards" For example We both draw a card then activate Tutelage. Then Draw a card then activate again. Does that make sense?) I milled down one opponent 38 cards with this combo with 1 Tutelage and 1 Day's Undoing.
If your opponent is playing lots of flying then board out Guardians of Meletis for Monastery Flock
If you're up against quick aggro or surprise dashing decks then take your opponent by surprise by boarding in Nivix Barrier and Flash them in. If you have Willbreaker out at the same time then say hello to your new friend.
If up against Red Player Burn decks then keep Psychic Rebuttal in the deck otherwise if you're up against White or Black kill spells then board them out for Negate
This is my first Standard Deck Creation on the forums so go easy and let me know not only what you think but how I can improve the deck and the list writing.
I was surprised to see no real competitive Mono Blue Standard going on at my local and from what I have seen thus far from the Origins Tour. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.
Here goes, hope fully this does not look terrible to you all.
So the idea is that You have ygood cheap defenders such as Guardians of Meletis to protect you early on otherwise if you dont draw those you'll be able to Canel spells.
If you get Quiet Contemplation our on the field then all your noncreature spells allow you to pay 1 to tap a "target" creature.
This is where [card]Willbreaker[/card} comes in.
With Willbreaker on the field card like Icy Blast will really screw over your opponents battlefield plans as you then take control of them. I mean they'll be tapped during your next turn but hey, your opponent no longer has monsters that have the Will power to fight for them any more (pun intended)
Meanwhile Sphinx's Tutelage will consitantly mill your opponent down. Combine that with Day's Undoing and watch your opponent cry as you claim 7 activations on Tutelage. (I found it easier to go one for one in the "draw seven cards" For example We both draw a card then activate Tutelage. Then Draw a card then activate again. Does that make sense?) I milled down one opponent 38 cards with this combo with 1 Tutelage and 1 Day's Undoing.
If your opponent is playing lots of flying then board out Guardians of Meletis for Monastery Flock
If you're up against quick aggro or surprise dashing decks then take your opponent by surprise by boarding in Nivix Barrier and Flash them in. If you have Willbreaker out at the same time then say hello to your new friend.
If up against Red Player Burn decks then keep Psychic Rebuttal in the deck otherwise if you're up against White or Black kill spells then board them out for Negate
I've play tested against 2 friends and will be taking it to FNM tonight to see how it goes. Hopefully good.
Look forward to hearing eveyrones thoughts! Competitive or not?
First issue you need to know is that you will not get any mill triggers off of Day's Undoing. As soon as the cards are drawn the turn ends and all stacks go away.
I would play Bounding Krassis over the Guardians as you can flash it in as a suprise and it also targets for a Willbreaker steal.
Adding the mill as a wincon I would suggest upping the Tutelage to 4 and the Siege to 4 as well. Remember you can always choose Dragon's mode to make any spell targeting Willbreaker cost 2 more.
Send to sleep is also a good defensive card that can tap opponents creatures or steal them with Willbreaker.
Mizzium Meddler in the side can help with protecting Willbreaker and maybe an Evolutionary leap to help find her or sack the creatures you steal.
Just some off the top of my head thoughts. I will try to post with something more later.
BTW I am on my phone so I apologize for no card tags.
Your counters are subpar compared to what's available: Dissolve and Clash of Wills. Secondly you're running way too little land for a deck relying on a high curve. A control deck needs at least 26 lands. Third is aggro decks destroy this deck since it's too slow to set up and you don't have any removal. Your walls aren't going to do much when your opponent is playing creature after creature before you can even set up your Willbreaker/Blast combo, not to mention red has tons of burn. Fourth is you don't have any draw spells to dig for your combo pieces, like Dig Through Time, Anticipate, etc. You're playing Tutelage without any draw spells, which is just wrong. And finally against other control decks your deck just falls flat.
You have something there with the Willbreaker/Blast combo, but everything else needs work.
This is my first Standard Deck Creation on the forums so go easy and let me know not only what you think but how I can improve the deck and the list writing.
I was surprised to see no real competitive Mono Blue Standard going on at my local and from what I have seen thus far from the Origins Tour. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.
Here goes, hope fully this does not look terrible to you all.
So the idea is that You have ygood cheap defenders such as Guardians of Meletis to protect you early on otherwise if you dont draw those you'll be able to Canel spells.
If you get Quiet Contemplation our on the field then all your noncreature spells allow you to pay 1 to tap a "target" creature.
This is where [card]Willbreaker[/card} comes in.
With Willbreaker on the field card like Icy Blast will really screw over your opponents battlefield plans as you then take control of them. I mean they'll be tapped during your next turn but hey, your opponent no longer has monsters that have the Will power to fight for them any more (pun intended)
Meanwhile Sphinx's Tutelage will consitantly mill your opponent down. Combine that with Day's Undoing and watch your opponent cry as you claim 7 activations on Tutelage. (I found it easier to go one for one in the "draw seven cards" For example We both draw a card then activate Tutelage. Then Draw a card then activate again. Does that make sense?) I milled down one opponent 38 cards with this combo with 1 Tutelage and 1 Day's Undoing.
If your opponent is playing lots of flying then board out Guardians of Meletis for Monastery Flock
If you're up against quick aggro or surprise dashing decks then take your opponent by surprise by boarding in Nivix Barrier and Flash them in. If you have Willbreaker out at the same time then say hello to your new friend.
If up against Red Player Burn decks then keep Psychic Rebuttal in the deck otherwise if you're up against White or Black kill spells then board them out for Negate
I've play tested against 2 friends and will be taking it to FNM tonight to see how it goes. Hopefully good.
Look forward to hearing eveyrones thoughts! Competitive or not?
First issue you need to know is that you will not get any mill triggers off of Day's Undoing. As soon as the cards are drawn the turn ends and all stacks go away.
I would play Bounding Krassis over the Guardians as you can flash it in as a suprise and it also targets for a Willbreaker steal.
Adding the mill as a wincon I would suggest upping the Tutelage to 4 and the Siege to 4 as well. Remember you can always choose Dragon's mode to make any spell targeting Willbreaker cost 2 more.
Send to sleep is also a good defensive card that can tap opponents creatures or steal them with Willbreaker.
Mizzium Meddler in the side can help with protecting Willbreaker and maybe an Evolutionary leap to help find her or sack the creatures you steal.
Just some off the top of my head thoughts. I will try to post with something more later.
BTW I am on my phone so I apologize for no card tags.
To go with your Willbreaker sac idea, and still stay in mono-U, there are blue Sidisi Exploit cards.
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The following link is an invitation to join Pucatrade (card trading service though similar to TCGPLayer). If you follow the link then it awards me with tokens to exchange for actual cards. Thanks! https://pucatrade.com/invite/gift/86097
Thank you for pointing out the Day’s Undoing issue. I have swapped that card out now for Fascinate instead.
So I took the deck down to my local for FNM and played in the Modern side. Stupid I know but the guys that were playing that my mate and I knew were playing Modern so we thought, Stuff it.
The deck went okay, I think. There's something's I would still like to change I think. Just got to find the right way to do it, so it still matches my want's from the deck.
A competitive flavour deck that will steal my opponent’s creatures to defend and attack for me whilst milling the answers from them.
Match one UB Zombies / loss 2/1
First game: Loss , just took a little too much damage to constantly. All though I managed to get him down to 5 LP within a couple of turns from 20 I was already too close within lethal damage range.
Second game: Win, Big turn around this time, controlled everything very well. Cancel and Negated any kill spells and managed to mill out all the books in his library. Pun.
Third game: Loss, surprisingly enough I was out milled. Those damn deck eating zombies.
Match Two Red Burn/Aggro loss 2/1
First Game Loss by dashing aggro
Second game Win by Mill. Sphinx’s Tutelage was out on the 3rd turn. This match was interesting as my opponent was going bright red in the face with rage when I Willbreaker/Icy Blast combo’d Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh and other creatures. He played some burn spell to kill Willbreaker to which I played negated. He then played a second burn spell to kill WIllbreaker. He took the card back. I then played Fascinated him for 6 cards and Tutelage’d every one of those I drew. He had one card left and I was tapped out. With 9 life left to go, he picked up his last card and dealt out 8 damage before passing the turn.
I drew my card and passed the turn back to win.
Third Game Burned and burned again. He didn't worry about burning creatures anymore, just burning me. Oh well. My islands fizzled up nicely.
Match Three Selesnya Life Gain Win 2/0
Game One My opponent played Serra Ascendant and managed to get over 40 life within a couple of turns. I played WIllbreaker and he ignored it. I then played Crippling Chill to tap and steal then draw a card to tutelage some mill. He then played an Angel card that had Lifelink and "when this creature attack, creatures you control get a 1/1 counter." I then stole that as well. Then attacked and lifelink’d my way to victory while continuing to mill the answers from his deck each turn.
Game two: Pure mill. He attacked with some flying to which I morphed up Monastery Flock to block. With Quiet Contemplation and Jace's Sanctum on the field I ended up being able to counter spells and tap a creature for the price of just the spell's original cost. It held back my opponent from attacking me while I milled him down to nothing.
Match Four Some kind of White Artefact deck loss 2/0
Game one: Got slammed by a 1 drop creature who ended up with 10/10 double strike and trample. I had nothing.
Game two Similar thing to the above.
All in all, I had fun with the deck. Once the ball got rolling I was able to hold off the enemy well enough and able to Cancel anything they through at me.
I realise that (as mentioned above) my deck list is “subpar” or may not be viable against a Tier 1 deck but I feel that the deck has a great mechanic. Once it got rolling my opponents had the look of men with broken wills.
However. Out of the big suggestions up above I will invest into some Mizzium Meddler and Dissolve.
I also have taken note of the “ mana issue” and found that the Mage-Ring Network was sufficient in aiding the mana build up. Leaving mana open during your opponents turn in a staple with Blue and I found that always kept the opponent wary and if I didn’t have to counter I could tap to store Mana in the Mage-Ring Network
Also, I am unsure about Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time as they do not allow me “draw” the cards but rather “put them into my hand.” I say this because I don’t want to end in a wording of the cards war at FNM or with mates. Fascinate seems to fill the big Sphinx’s Tutelage mill combo slot very well. Not only Drawing me X cards but also placing more than the maximum in my opponents hand ready for a little bit of discard on their part too, to go along with the milled cards too.
So in the end, the main aim of this deck is to
1: Mill my opponent each turn.
2: Tap down his creatures consistently then steal and attack with them.
What do you guys think? Anyone got any extra constructive criticism?
Perhaps, so I’ve made some more adjustment which has helped speed the deck up a little bit more. Now is it is definitely not Mono Blue anymore I suppose we’ll just call it UB Mill.
I found this list to be a lot more competitive, especially against Mono Red.
All the extra Scry’s and draws really help out now. If I land Despise or Duress early game I can disrupt their hands a little bit. At FNM I even had a moment where I Duress’d an Outpost Siege and noticed a Thunderbreak Regent in my opponents hand , so next turn I Infinite Obliteration all of them and exiled all 4 from his library and hand.
As long as I manage to get tutelage and lands and play it on the third turn, I can usually mill out my opponents answers. The bomb combo for the deck I found was about mid game.
Popping down Fascination and getting Sphinx’s Tutelage activations for each card I draw. Whilst leaving enough mana open to then play Dark Deal.
That combo ended 3 games for me.
Anyway, it all depends on the cards I can draw and if I draw them before my opponent kills me lol
One thing i was playing around with when I was tinkering with a mill deck was my sideboard. If burn is a weak spot for you an Orb of Warding or wo might be helpful. Also remember the siege in dragon mode can definatly slow a red player down if they are running burn. One of the Archive (cant remember its name right now) that double your card draw and your life gain might not be bad either. Works really great with Radiant Fountain.
Yeah the sideboard is crucial for this type of deck lol
Yeah, I managed to get 2 going in Dragon mode against a red burn deck. All of a sudden those wil slashed were cost 5CMC lol
Yeah I've been looking at that and trying to figure out if there's a spot for it for me but does it only let you draw 2 instead of one during your draw step or when ever you draw a card besides the one in your draw step?
So if I Fascinate for 4 cards would I then draw 8?
Yeah the sideboard is crucial for this type of deck lol
Yeah, I managed to get 2 going in Dragon mode against a red burn deck. All of a sudden those wil slashed were cost 5CMC lol
Yeah I've been looking at that and trying to figure out if there's a spot for it for me but does it only let you draw 2 instead of one during your draw step or when ever you draw a card besides the one in your draw step?
So if I Fascinate for 4 cards would I then draw 8?
Exactly. Any draw after your first is doubled. For example if you have two sieges out in Khans mode you would draw 5 and discard 2.
Think about Dark Deal. I loved doing that. "We discard our hands. I draw 12 and you mill at least 24 :::insert evil laugh and dodge flipped table:::"
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This is my first Standard Deck Creation on the forums so go easy and let me know not only what you think but how I can improve the deck and the list writing.
I was surprised to see no real competitive Mono Blue Standard going on at my local and from what I have seen thus far from the Origins Tour. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.
Here goes, hope fully this does not look terrible to you all.
16 Island
4 Tranquil Cove
3 Mage-Ring Network
Instants
4 Cancel
4 Icy Blast
4 Psychic Rebuttal
Enchantments
3 Sphinx's Tutelage
2 Jace's Sanctum
2 Skywise Teachings
2 Quiet Contemplation
2 Mirror Mockery
1 Monastery Siege
2 Clone Legion
1 Day's Undoing
Creatures
4 Guardians of Meletis
2 Mage-Ring Responder
2 Willbreaker
2 Mindscour Dragon
4 Nivix Barrier
4 Monastery Flock
4 Negate
2 Ojutai, Soul of Winter
So the idea is that You have ygood cheap defenders such as Guardians of Meletis to protect you early on otherwise if you dont draw those you'll be able to Canel spells.
If you get Quiet Contemplation our on the field then all your noncreature spells allow you to pay 1 to tap a "target" creature.
This is where [card]Willbreaker[/card} comes in.
With Willbreaker on the field card like Icy Blast will really screw over your opponents battlefield plans as you then take control of them. I mean they'll be tapped during your next turn but hey, your opponent no longer has monsters that have the Will power to fight for them any more (pun intended)
Meanwhile Sphinx's Tutelage will consitantly mill your opponent down. Combine that with Day's Undoing and watch your opponent cry as you claim 7 activations on Tutelage. (I found it easier to go one for one in the "draw seven cards" For example We both draw a card then activate Tutelage. Then Draw a card then activate again. Does that make sense?) I milled down one opponent 38 cards with this combo with 1 Tutelage and 1 Day's Undoing.
If your opponent is playing lots of flying then board out Guardians of Meletis for Monastery Flock
If you're up against quick aggro or surprise dashing decks then take your opponent by surprise by boarding in Nivix Barrier and Flash them in. If you have Willbreaker out at the same time then say hello to your new friend.
If up against Red Player Burn decks then keep Psychic Rebuttal in the deck otherwise if you're up against White or Black kill spells then board them out for Negate
You can also swap Ojutai, Soul of Winter in for the Mage-Ring Responder to fly over non flying decks and tap creatures for a nice Willbreaker combo again.
I've play tested against 2 friends and will be taking it to FNM tonight to see how it goes. Hopefully good.
Look forward to hearing eveyrones thoughts! Competitive or not?
First issue you need to know is that you will not get any mill triggers off of Day's Undoing. As soon as the cards are drawn the turn ends and all stacks go away.
I would play Bounding Krassis over the Guardians as you can flash it in as a suprise and it also targets for a Willbreaker steal.
Adding the mill as a wincon I would suggest upping the Tutelage to 4 and the Siege to 4 as well. Remember you can always choose Dragon's mode to make any spell targeting Willbreaker cost 2 more.
Send to sleep is also a good defensive card that can tap opponents creatures or steal them with Willbreaker.
Mizzium Meddler in the side can help with protecting Willbreaker and maybe an Evolutionary leap to help find her or sack the creatures you steal.
Just some off the top of my head thoughts. I will try to post with something more later.
BTW I am on my phone so I apologize for no card tags.
You have something there with the Willbreaker/Blast combo, but everything else needs work.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
To go with your Willbreaker sac idea, and still stay in mono-U, there are blue Sidisi Exploit cards.
https://pucatrade.com/invite/gift/86097
So I took the deck down to my local for FNM and played in the Modern side. Stupid I know but the guys that were playing that my mate and I knew were playing Modern so we thought, Stuff it.
Here's the list
16 Island
3 Tranquil Cove
3 Mage-Ring Network
Instants
4 Cancel
4 Icy Blast
4 Negate
Enchantments
3 Sphinx's Tutelage
2 Jace's Sanctum
1 Quiet Contemplation
2 Crippling Chill
2 Monastery Siege
1 Clone Legion
2 Fascination
Creatures
2 Guardians of Meletis
2 Mage-Ring Responder
4 Willbreaker
2 Nivix Barrier
2 Monastery Flock
2 Dreadwaters
4 Psychic Rebuttal
2 Mindscour Dragon
2 Crippling Chill
2 Ojutai, Soul of Winter
The deck went okay, I think. There's something's I would still like to change I think. Just got to find the right way to do it, so it still matches my want's from the deck.
A competitive flavour deck that will steal my opponent’s creatures to defend and attack for me whilst milling the answers from them.
Match one UB Zombies / loss 2/1
First game: Loss , just took a little too much damage to constantly. All though I managed to get him down to 5 LP within a couple of turns from 20 I was already too close within lethal damage range.
Second game: Win, Big turn around this time, controlled everything very well. Cancel and Negated any kill spells and managed to mill out all the books in his library. Pun.
Third game: Loss, surprisingly enough I was out milled. Those damn deck eating zombies.
Match Two Red Burn/Aggro loss 2/1
First Game Loss by dashing aggro
Second game Win by Mill. Sphinx’s Tutelage was out on the 3rd turn. This match was interesting as my opponent was going bright red in the face with rage when I Willbreaker/Icy Blast combo’d Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh and other creatures. He played some burn spell to kill Willbreaker to which I played negated. He then played a second burn spell to kill WIllbreaker. He took the card back. I then played Fascinated him for 6 cards and Tutelage’d every one of those I drew. He had one card left and I was tapped out. With 9 life left to go, he picked up his last card and dealt out 8 damage before passing the turn.
I drew my card and passed the turn back to win.
Third Game Burned and burned again. He didn't worry about burning creatures anymore, just burning me. Oh well. My islands fizzled up nicely.
Match Three Selesnya Life Gain Win 2/0
Game One My opponent played Serra Ascendant and managed to get over 40 life within a couple of turns. I played WIllbreaker and he ignored it. I then played Crippling Chill to tap and steal then draw a card to tutelage some mill. He then played an Angel card that had Lifelink and "when this creature attack, creatures you control get a 1/1 counter." I then stole that as well. Then attacked and lifelink’d my way to victory while continuing to mill the answers from his deck each turn.
Game two: Pure mill. He attacked with some flying to which I morphed up Monastery Flock to block. With Quiet Contemplation and Jace's Sanctum on the field I ended up being able to counter spells and tap a creature for the price of just the spell's original cost. It held back my opponent from attacking me while I milled him down to nothing.
Match Four Some kind of White Artefact deck loss 2/0
Game one: Got slammed by a 1 drop creature who ended up with 10/10 double strike and trample. I had nothing.
Game two Similar thing to the above.
All in all, I had fun with the deck. Once the ball got rolling I was able to hold off the enemy well enough and able to Cancel anything they through at me.
I realise that (as mentioned above) my deck list is “subpar” or may not be viable against a Tier 1 deck but I feel that the deck has a great mechanic. Once it got rolling my opponents had the look of men with broken wills.
However. Out of the big suggestions up above I will invest into some Mizzium Meddler and Dissolve.
I also have taken note of the “ mana issue” and found that the Mage-Ring Network was sufficient in aiding the mana build up. Leaving mana open during your opponents turn in a staple with Blue and I found that always kept the opponent wary and if I didn’t have to counter I could tap to store Mana in the Mage-Ring Network
Also, I am unsure about Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time as they do not allow me “draw” the cards but rather “put them into my hand.” I say this because I don’t want to end in a wording of the cards war at FNM or with mates. Fascinate seems to fill the big Sphinx’s Tutelage mill combo slot very well. Not only Drawing me X cards but also placing more than the maximum in my opponents hand ready for a little bit of discard on their part too, to go along with the milled cards too.
So in the end, the main aim of this deck is to
1: Mill my opponent each turn.
2: Tap down his creatures consistently then steal and attack with them.
What do you guys think? Anyone got any extra constructive criticism?
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
I'm trying to set it up for pure standard play as I normally play mono black aggro for standard.
I'm going to take your suggestion of Dissolve though. Will take out Negate to add them in.
Also wanting to put in the Mizzium Meddler
Just remember that if you are playing in Modern, your deck can have a ton of better cards to play with that won't even break the bank.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
9 Island
3 Swamps
4 Dismal Backwater
3 Tranquil Cove
3 Mage-Ring Network
4 Evolving Wilds
Instants
4 Dissolve
4 Icy Blast
2 Calculated Dismissal
2 Clash Of Wills
4 Crippling Chill
4 Sphinx's Tutelage
2 Jace's Sanctum
Sorceries
2 Talent of the Telepath
2 Fascination
2 Read the Bones
2 Dark Deal
1 Despise
1 Duress
Creatures
1 Willbreaker
2 Hangarback Walker
Artifacts
1 Orbs of Warding
2 Prism Ring
2 Willbreaker
2 Clone Legion
2 Mage-Ring Responder
2 Infinite Obliteration
2 Sign in Blood
1 Duress
1 Despise
2 Monastery Siege
I found this list to be a lot more competitive, especially against Mono Red.
All the extra Scry’s and draws really help out now. If I land Despise or Duress early game I can disrupt their hands a little bit. At FNM I even had a moment where I Duress’d an Outpost Siege and noticed a Thunderbreak Regent in my opponents hand , so next turn I Infinite Obliteration all of them and exiled all 4 from his library and hand.
As long as I manage to get tutelage and lands and play it on the third turn, I can usually mill out my opponents answers.
The bomb combo for the deck I found was about mid game.
Popping down Fascination and getting Sphinx’s Tutelage activations for each card I draw. Whilst leaving enough mana open to then play Dark Deal.
That combo ended 3 games for me.
Anyway, it all depends on the cards I can draw and if I draw them before my opponent kills me lol
edit: Just saw the orb in your list DOH!
Yeah, I managed to get 2 going in Dragon mode against a red burn deck. All of a sudden those wil slashed were cost 5CMC lol
Yeah I've been looking at that and trying to figure out if there's a spot for it for me but does it only let you draw 2 instead of one during your draw step or when ever you draw a card besides the one in your draw step?
So if I Fascinate for 4 cards would I then draw 8?
Exactly. Any draw after your first is doubled. For example if you have two sieges out in Khans mode you would draw 5 and discard 2.
Think about Dark Deal. I loved doing that. "We discard our hands. I draw 12 and you mill at least 24 :::insert evil laugh and dodge flipped table:::"