First off, why Blue Aggro? Blue is very well positioned against the red and green based aggro/midrange decks going around right now and has a fantastic finisher in Thassa as a 3 drop 5/5 unblockable and Master of Waves that wins the game if not dealt with and is immune to the most common type of removal currently used(red). Blue also has the tools to beat control consistently post sideboard.
Creatures Cloudfin Raptor This is the 1 drop you want to hit every 1st turn. In this deck, it almost always ends up being a 2/3 on turn 3 and can grow as large as a 5/6 with flying.
Judge's Familiar A cheap flier that will usually get in for 2-4 damage and can protect your other creatures from removal, and makes your opponent play around it. I've had my opponent forget about it's ability several times too.
Tidebinder Mage It's stats aren't amazing, but the ability is great against most of the aggro and midrange decks currently being played. Tack on that it adds 2 devotion and you have a bear that's being severely underestimated currently. Even if it gets killed, it took out their creature for a turn and cost them a removal spell.
Frostburn Weird This is both the best aggressive and defensive creature in your deck. It's a wall that stops aggro in it's tracks and can win combat against most of the aggressive creatures currently being played while still being a strong clock when it goes on the offense as well as trading up with Loxodon Smiter and Blood Baron of Vizkopa. Add in that it evolves the Raptor up to a 3/4 and you have an outstanding 2 drop.
Nightveil Specter While a 2/3 for 3 isn't the greatest, this is a serious source of card advantage if left unchecked and provides 3 devotion as well as an evasive beater. On defense, it beats most of the aggressive creatures currently being played.
Thassa, God of the Sea She's relatively easy to turn on in this deck and a 5/5 unblockable turn 3 is pretty insane. Even when she's just an enchantment, smoothing your draws and making your other creatures unblockable is pretty sick, especially those tidebender mages you don't want to lose in combat.
Master of Waves This is the real reason to play this deck. If your opponent doesn't deal with this, they are likely just dead. It clogs up the board, letting you gain card advantage if your opponent tries attacking into the tokens and provides tremendous value for 4 mana. With just 1 tidebender or frostburn out, it can shut off azorious charm by holding master back while still swinging for 6. If you get 2 of them out at the same time, they multiply in power. Playing this turn 4 against RDW is usually just game.
Spells Cyclonic Rift A good utility spell to slow down your opponent's attack, bounce a Boros Reckoner in response to Fanatic, or EOT bounce a Detention Sphere giving you a surprise hasty threat. If the game goes long, overload is usually a blowout.
Rapid Hybridization The efficiency and utility of this card is amazing. Killing hard to deal with creatures is it's obvious use, but it can be used to turn an unneeded Judges Familiar into a surprise 3/3 or when used on an active Thassa, a Free 3/3. It makes a green creature which can stop Skylasher and Mistcutter.
Bident of Thassa While this is kind of slow against the aggro decks, it provides a lot of card advantage usually drawing you 2 cards the turn it comes down. If you land this and keep connecting with your evasive creatures, your opponent will find it very hard to win.
Jace, Architect of Thought It was a 1-2 of in the main of all of the successful Pro Tour Theros lists used in slowing down aggro decks and providing card advantage against the slower decks and they also all had 4 in the 75.
Domestication Stealing creatures has always been a blowout and even stealing one that you'll lose to remove a blocker or to hybridize it is worth it. It's weakness is that it's dead against control except one match where the idiot played Aetherling with no mana up
Other Sideboard Cards
Gainsay This comes in for the mirror where it counters everything and against control where it stops Sphinx's rev. They can often have trouble winning if you never let Rev resolve. It also stops Jace and Aetherling. If you're not worried about the mirror, Negate would be better.
Dissolve While this has a lot more utility than Gainsay, the other being easier to cast and still hitting what you want it to gives it the edge.
Dispel This shines in the mirror winning gainsay wars, against control, and is good against mono black stopping their removal.
Ratchet Bomb This comes in against green decks to kill mistcutter hydra. It has added utility against the fast Boros builds that play lots of 1 drops and chained to the rocks and any deck that seems to have a lot of tokens.
Matchups
Green and or Red Based Aggro/Midrange- This is what this deck was designed to beat. Heavily in our favor. The versions with black such as Jund, and Junk are slightly harder, but still good.
UW/Esper Control- Game 1 is rough, but game 2 and 3 we have a very good plan and can run them out of resources while keeping them from resolving Rev. UW is a bit easier as they have a harder time dealing with master and don't have access to discard.
Black/Orzhov Midrange- One of our roughest matchups, but certainly not unwinable as seen in the top 8 of Pro Tour Theros. Tidebinder has no targets and all of their removal is live against Master of Waves. Thassa and her Bident are very important in this matchup.
Splashes
Many have advocated a splash and I've seen lists splashing all of the other colors. I personally feel like the Theros lands aren't very good for aggro decks and that adding another color would reduce consistency.
Pro Tour Theros has proven that Mono Blue Aggro is a main contender with 1st, 2nd, and a top 4 all piloting it.
These are two great articles from teamates of the French players who took first and 2nd at PT Theros.
Melissa DeTora here
Raphael Levy here
Who would have guessed all those hybrid creatures in RTR had a meaning ?
I do really enjoy the mono blue list. Imo the deck needs a more testing and brewing. Sometimes things just fail very hard, like drawing a bunch of raptors and familiars and nothing else (it's not like a bunch if 1/1 and 1/2 flyers gonna win any game).
Still, it's a archetype with a lot of potential but ppl are really giving it little attention (probably because it is too new).
Ironicly, I have won a game where all I got for quite a while was all 3 familiars, tidebinder, and a couple hands of binding. Keeping their entire team tapped is hilarious.
I have lost to a BW list, but that's the only game I've played against them. I haven't played against Dega yet, but the thread I was reading recommended Dreadbore over Hero's Demise which is very good for Master. Btw, Adam Yurchick just featured my decklist in an article on TCG Player http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=11423
I saw your list on the decks for Magic League. I have to say I'm very impressed. I love it.
Do you feel as though keeping their team tapped is more enticing than, say, cheap counterspells like Spell Rupture? Is that what the sideboard plan seems to be hinting at?
I started out testing Syncopate in the main, but I found I never had open mana for it against creature decks until the point in the game where Syncopate isn't as useful. Then I tried 2 maindeck dissolve and while they were useful, I ended up cutting them for Hands of Binding #4 and the 24th land right before the Master. Hands had consistently been the best spell in the deck against creatures. The 24th land was because I'd had several games where I had Master or Bident and had been stuck on 3 land and even flooding out is mitigated by being able to overload cyclonic rift.
Frostbreath is a possibility, but in a clogged board state, I think Blustersquall does more to win the game and hands of binding kind of does the same thing, only is a better long term solution.
I've been playing a similar list, except instead of tap/bounce, I'm playing with Jace/Counter. Personally, I've found getting damage through isn't really an issue with Thassa's ability.
For me at least, there are games where you just don't see a Thassa or Master. Jace may provide enough draw to find them, but locking down the board so your fliers can beat down has worked well for me.
While playing BWR I have tested it to my buddies Fish and BG tempo decks and it just trounces my BWR... I have to try to burn out all the creatures but all my hard to answere creatures like reckoner and blood baron blue can tap out easily...
His deck is so good. Removing of 1 cmc is removing of dead card in late stage of game. He add more enchantment as a removal to increase devotion to Blue.
Have you considered Nykthos? With such high Devotion to blue, this can lead to early Overloaded Blustersqualls and Cyclonic Rifts.
Yes, but I didn't include it for the same reason I didn't include Mutavualt in the main, it kills our early curve, specifically all of our 2 drops and 3 of our 3 drops unless we've curved out perfectly. Any 2 land hand with it will probably be unkeepable.
As to cutting the 1 drops, I'm not going to go in on that one quite yet. Outside of Sensory Deprivation, everything he added to the deck is slower than the options in my build, making it worse against the aggro matches which is the whole point of playing this deck for me in the first place. Also, with 5 lands that produce colorless and no early drops to make Nykthos break even on 3rd turn, I don't see how he ever plans on playing Nightveil turn 3.
One thing I am thinking about is making the 24th land a 4th Nightveil Specter because the Specter can help us hit our land drops. You still will usually hit 4 lands on 4th turn with 23 lands. Thoughts?
are mutavaults not really necessary for this kind of deck? im running 19islands and 3mutavaults and it really helps the control matchups preboard, and won me a lot during game1 against control
are mutavaults not really necessary for this kind of deck? im running 19islands and 3mutavaults and it really helps the control matchups preboard, and won me a lot during game1 against control
Mutavault is awkward because this deck needs UU on turn 2 to cast Frostburn Weird or Tidebinder Mage, and UUU on turn 3 to cast Nightveil Specter. 19 Island isn't enough to ensure double blue on turn 2.
I fiddled with my list a bit. I messed with the sideboard to try to get more resilience against Mono-Red, went up to 24 land, and added the fourth Thassa. (If I have one Thassa in play, I can scry away the others.)
Sensory Deprivation costing only one mana helps a lot against Mono-Red's small creature rush, and I've won a few matches against it, but I'm worried about the White Weenie matchup. Brave the Elements makes all my Auras fall off their team, Tidebinder Mage is just a bear, and Master of Waves doesn't have protection from Banisher Priest. Maybe Aetherize would help?
Cyclonic rift is a better utility spell. It can bounce creatures, but it really shines when bouncing something like Whip in response to their attack which could leave them facing lethal on the backswing. I have won several games by EoT Rifting a Detenion Sphere.
I'll try playing some test games with 2 Mutavualt in the main and see how it goes, but the thought of it with this creature base makes me cringe. Maybe it won't be as bad I think it will though. The one mono white list I played against the guy was on heroic and I didn't have any real way to deal with his Phalanax Leader and got ran over, but I didn't get any Master or Thassa either.
Ok, I tried over 100 test hands on MWS with 2 mutavualts and 22 islands, mulliganing unkeepable hands just to see if they messed with the curve as much as I thought. The one time out of all of those that it actually interfered with me casting on curve, it was the correct play in a vacuum anyways. 1st turn Raptor, 2nd turn Familiar evolving raptor, 3rd turn, draw 2nd island, tidebinder evolving raptor. A lack of lands in general was a LOT more common and after running a statistical analisys of it on MWS, there is a 2% chance of having a hand with 1 islnd and 1 mutavualt as the opener. Every hand I kept with a nightveil and mutavualt, I got the 3rd land by 3rd turn. It seemed terrible in theory, but I'm going to try 2 mutavualt main and an island in the board at states.
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Standard: Jeskai Control
Modern: UW Spirits
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Deck List
3 Judges Familiar
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Domestication
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Rapid Hybridization
20 Island
4 Mutavualt
3 Dispel
4 Gainsay
1 Dissolve
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Bident of Thassa
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Domestication
By Jérémy Dezani
Standard – Won Pro Tour Theros
3 Mutavault
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Master of Waves
4 Nightveil Specter
2 Omenspeaker
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Tidebinder Mage
2 Cyclonic Rift
1 Disperse
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Ætherling
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Mutavault
3 Negate
1 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Triton Tactics
3 Wall of Frost
By Sam Black
2nd at Pro Tour Theros
4 Mutavault
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Master of Waves
4 Nightveil Specter
1 Omenspeaker
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Tidebinder Mage
2 Cyclonic Rift
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Ætherling
1 Dissolve
3 Gainsay
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Negate
1 Omenspeaker
3 Rapid Hybridization
By Louis Scott-Vargas
1 Mutavault
1 Ætherling
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Master of Waves
4 Nightveil Specter
3 Thassa, God of the Sea
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Dissolve
2 Essence Scatter
2 Voyage's End
Card Choices
Cloudfin Raptor This is the 1 drop you want to hit every 1st turn. In this deck, it almost always ends up being a 2/3 on turn 3 and can grow as large as a 5/6 with flying.
Judge's Familiar A cheap flier that will usually get in for 2-4 damage and can protect your other creatures from removal, and makes your opponent play around it. I've had my opponent forget about it's ability several times too.
Tidebinder Mage It's stats aren't amazing, but the ability is great against most of the aggro and midrange decks currently being played. Tack on that it adds 2 devotion and you have a bear that's being severely underestimated currently. Even if it gets killed, it took out their creature for a turn and cost them a removal spell.
Frostburn Weird This is both the best aggressive and defensive creature in your deck. It's a wall that stops aggro in it's tracks and can win combat against most of the aggressive creatures currently being played while still being a strong clock when it goes on the offense as well as trading up with Loxodon Smiter and Blood Baron of Vizkopa. Add in that it evolves the Raptor up to a 3/4 and you have an outstanding 2 drop.
Nightveil Specter While a 2/3 for 3 isn't the greatest, this is a serious source of card advantage if left unchecked and provides 3 devotion as well as an evasive beater. On defense, it beats most of the aggressive creatures currently being played.
Thassa, God of the Sea She's relatively easy to turn on in this deck and a 5/5 unblockable turn 3 is pretty insane. Even when she's just an enchantment, smoothing your draws and making your other creatures unblockable is pretty sick, especially those tidebender mages you don't want to lose in combat.
Master of Waves This is the real reason to play this deck. If your opponent doesn't deal with this, they are likely just dead. It clogs up the board, letting you gain card advantage if your opponent tries attacking into the tokens and provides tremendous value for 4 mana. With just 1 tidebender or frostburn out, it can shut off azorious charm by holding master back while still swinging for 6. If you get 2 of them out at the same time, they multiply in power. Playing this turn 4 against RDW is usually just game.
Spells
Cyclonic Rift A good utility spell to slow down your opponent's attack, bounce a Boros Reckoner in response to Fanatic, or EOT bounce a Detention Sphere giving you a surprise hasty threat. If the game goes long, overload is usually a blowout.
Rapid Hybridization The efficiency and utility of this card is amazing. Killing hard to deal with creatures is it's obvious use, but it can be used to turn an unneeded Judges Familiar into a surprise 3/3 or when used on an active Thassa, a Free 3/3. It makes a green creature which can stop Skylasher and Mistcutter.
Bident of Thassa While this is kind of slow against the aggro decks, it provides a lot of card advantage usually drawing you 2 cards the turn it comes down. If you land this and keep connecting with your evasive creatures, your opponent will find it very hard to win.
Jace, Architect of Thought It was a 1-2 of in the main of all of the successful Pro Tour Theros lists used in slowing down aggro decks and providing card advantage against the slower decks and they also all had 4 in the 75.
Domestication Stealing creatures has always been a blowout and even stealing one that you'll lose to remove a blocker or to hybridize it is worth it. It's weakness is that it's dead against control except one match where the idiot played Aetherling with no mana up
Other Sideboard Cards
Gainsay This comes in for the mirror where it counters everything and against control where it stops Sphinx's rev. They can often have trouble winning if you never let Rev resolve. It also stops Jace and Aetherling. If you're not worried about the mirror, Negate would be better.
Dissolve While this has a lot more utility than Gainsay, the other being easier to cast and still hitting what you want it to gives it the edge.
Dispel This shines in the mirror winning gainsay wars, against control, and is good against mono black stopping their removal.
Ratchet Bomb This comes in against green decks to kill mistcutter hydra. It has added utility against the fast Boros builds that play lots of 1 drops and chained to the rocks and any deck that seems to have a lot of tokens.
Matchups
Green and or Red Based Aggro/Midrange- This is what this deck was designed to beat. Heavily in our favor. The versions with black such as Jund, and Junk are slightly harder, but still good.
UW/Esper Control- Game 1 is rough, but game 2 and 3 we have a very good plan and can run them out of resources while keeping them from resolving Rev. UW is a bit easier as they have a harder time dealing with master and don't have access to discard.
Black/Orzhov Midrange- One of our roughest matchups, but certainly not unwinable as seen in the top 8 of Pro Tour Theros. Tidebinder has no targets and all of their removal is live against Master of Waves. Thassa and her Bident are very important in this matchup.
Splashes
Many have advocated a splash and I've seen lists splashing all of the other colors. I personally feel like the Theros lands aren't very good for aggro decks and that adding another color would reduce consistency.
Pro Tour Theros has proven that Mono Blue Aggro is a main contender with 1st, 2nd, and a top 4 all piloting it.
These are two great articles from teamates of the French players who took first and 2nd at PT Theros.
Melissa DeTora here
Raphael Levy here
Modern: UW Spirits
I do really enjoy the mono blue list. Imo the deck needs a more testing and brewing. Sometimes things just fail very hard, like drawing a bunch of raptors and familiars and nothing else (it's not like a bunch if 1/1 and 1/2 flyers gonna win any game).
Still, it's a archetype with a lot of potential but ppl are really giving it little attention (probably because it is too new).
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Modern: UW Spirits
Modern: UW Spirits
Do you feel as though keeping their team tapped is more enticing than, say, cheap counterspells like Spell Rupture? Is that what the sideboard plan seems to be hinting at?
"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than 'good job'." -Terrance Fletcher, Whiplash (2014)
Modern: UW Spirits
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Nightveil Specter
3 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
4 Vaporkin
4 Frost Breath
4 Dissolve
2 Voyage's End
21 Island
2 Mutavault
4 Syncopate
4 Wall of Frost
4 Stealer of Secrets
3 Ratchet Bomb
Nobody else has tried Frost Breath? It seems better than Blustersquall to me, because it keeps the creatures tapped for an extra turn.
Modern: UW Spirits
Modern: UW Spirits
"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than 'good job'." -Terrance Fletcher, Whiplash (2014)
EDH
BU LazavUB
GU Momir VigUG
Found Mono Blue at Standard Daily MTGO.
His deck is so good. Removing of 1 cmc is removing of dead card in late stage of game. He add more enchantment as a removal to increase devotion to Blue.
60 cards
19 Island
2 Mutavault
3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
24 lands
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Master of Waves
4 Nightveil Specter
3 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Tidebinder Mage
19 creatures
3 Cyclonic Rift
4 Dissolve
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Sensory Deprivation
17 other spells
4 Gainsay
3 Jace, Memory Adept
4 Millstone
4 Negate
15 sideboard cards
Yes, but I didn't include it for the same reason I didn't include Mutavualt in the main, it kills our early curve, specifically all of our 2 drops and 3 of our 3 drops unless we've curved out perfectly. Any 2 land hand with it will probably be unkeepable.
As to cutting the 1 drops, I'm not going to go in on that one quite yet. Outside of Sensory Deprivation, everything he added to the deck is slower than the options in my build, making it worse against the aggro matches which is the whole point of playing this deck for me in the first place. Also, with 5 lands that produce colorless and no early drops to make Nykthos break even on 3rd turn, I don't see how he ever plans on playing Nightveil turn 3.
Modern: UW Spirits
Modern: UW Spirits
Mutavault is awkward because this deck needs UU on turn 2 to cast Frostburn Weird or Tidebinder Mage, and UUU on turn 3 to cast Nightveil Specter. 19 Island isn't enough to ensure double blue on turn 2.
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
4 Claustrophobia
2 Frost Breath
2 Voyage's End
21 Island
3 Mutavault
4 Wall of Frost
2 Cancel
1 Mutavault
4 Sensory Deprivation
4 Ratchet Bomb
Rift is instant?
Rift doesn't leave bodies behind if you are attempting a blowout?
Why would you even compare the two?
I'll try playing some test games with 2 Mutavualt in the main and see how it goes, but the thought of it with this creature base makes me cringe. Maybe it won't be as bad I think it will though. The one mono white list I played against the guy was on heroic and I didn't have any real way to deal with his Phalanax Leader and got ran over, but I didn't get any Master or Thassa either.
Modern: UW Spirits
Modern: UW Spirits