I want to try to make a mono-blue draw-go counter deck. I might splash red for bolt and electrolyze and white for path and lightning helix but I don't want to go that direction and want to stick close to mono-blue if possible.
I don't have any Snapcaster Mage but I might be able to trade/sell my playset of Verdant Catacombs or Misty Rainforest to get some. I know fetches are always going to be great, but Snapcasters seem pretty awesome.
Other than Snapcasters, what will I need to survive the modern metagame? What can monoblue do vs Burn? How do I stop splinter twin combo?
It is likely impossible to make a good mono-blue counter deck but there are some pretty good cards in modern and I think I can do something decent enough.
What good blue cards do you think are needed to make mono-blue decent?
Mono-U is tough but you might look into Ninja, Bear, Delver. Its closest I've seen to a competitive Mono-U deck and its not even a control deck. Its technically a tempo deck but I think that works best for Mono-U. Its really hard to maintain full board control until you have eight mana (five for a creature and 2-3 for counters to protect it) and then continue to maintain control while you take the next four turns or so to try and win. Its easier to drop a 1 or 2 drop while holding up mana for a counter. That's why Delver of Secrets is so good. Its something you can do on turn 1 or cast later in the game and still be able to hold your mana for counters. Ninja, Bear, Delver also runs Phantasmal Bear because it is the second strongest blue 1-drop because their aren't a lot of strong blue 1-drops.
The deck just kinds of builds itself from there. Delver wants Serum Visions. Counterspells want Gitaxian Probe so you know if its safe to play a threat or if you need to hold mana. Phantasmal Bear is another strong 1 drop. Mana Leak is a strong counter. Dissolve is pretty good too because of the Scry. Vapor Snag is one of the few ways blue has of dealing with resolved creatures and it helps get you there with the 1 damage it provides.
Monastery Siege is actually really good against burn so that's a good sideboard card. Steel Sabotage is another decent sideboard card for Affinity and it can be helpful against Tron to some degree. Kiora's Dismissal is pretty good against Boggles and offers some benefits against Splinter Twin. I'd also include some number of Dismember for decks where you need a hard kill spell.
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Man, I'd love to try building a Mono Blue Snow deck with Scrying Sheets to help smooth out the draws.
I think the biggest issue with Mono Blue Control as an archetype in Modern is that Mono Blue is lacking on removal. You can have a lot of counters, but you're not going to be able to counter everything, and what you don't counter will usually go the distance and kill you. So you can either play a more tempo game and work at not removing the opponent's creatures or threats but delaying them until you win with a Delver or another threat, or you can move to a more artifact based approach, like in Mono Blue Tron.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Rather than snapcaster mage, you could try a trick from tron's book and run 4 relic of progenitus main. At worst, it cantrips for 2 mana (I like it better than think twice, actually. It fulfills the same role of 1 card for 2 mana initially, but can shrink goyfs and similar to manageable size) and also helps deal with flashback spells like lingering souls which are traditionally very strong against counterspells. It's also pretty solid against other decks running snapcaster mages...and delve. It does pretty horrible things to grixis control as well.
I would likewise think that as a primarily reactive control deck, you would want 4 anticipate. Digging for answers is needed badly in such a deck, and while impulse it is not, it is pretty solid for modern.
If you were doing the tron approach, then definitely you would want some amount of cyclonic rift. Overloaded, it can be very rough for an opponent to deal with for a turn or two. Burn is a very large chunk of the metagame, so you'll probably want dragon's claw in the sideboard as well as maybe some dispels. Admittedly, dragon's claw can be a really narrow answer.
The answer is "a way to NOT die to aggro". Mono-blue Tron plays stuff like AEtherize (no joke) for that purpose. There's also Dismember, but having to pay 4 life makes it counterproductive.
Try Hydrolash, it's one of my pet jank cards from Origins. It does a decent budget Cryptic Command impression.
Blue does have some removal in Reality Shift. I'm not sure its great but its at least okay. Its like a blue Beast Within and that sees play.
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I don't have any Snapcaster Mage but I might be able to trade/sell my playset of Verdant Catacombs or Misty Rainforest to get some. I know fetches are always going to be great, but Snapcasters seem pretty awesome.
Other than Snapcasters, what will I need to survive the modern metagame? What can monoblue do vs Burn? How do I stop splinter twin combo?
It is likely impossible to make a good mono-blue counter deck but there are some pretty good cards in modern and I think I can do something decent enough.
What good blue cards do you think are needed to make mono-blue decent?
4 Spell Snare
4 Mana Leak OR Rune Snag
4 Dissolve
4 Vedalken Shackles
4 Think Twice
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Jace's Ingenuity
4 Repeal
4 Into the Roil
1 Volition Reins
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Steel Hellkite
21 Islands
4 Ghost Quarter
The deck just kinds of builds itself from there. Delver wants Serum Visions. Counterspells want Gitaxian Probe so you know if its safe to play a threat or if you need to hold mana. Phantasmal Bear is another strong 1 drop. Mana Leak is a strong counter. Dissolve is pretty good too because of the Scry. Vapor Snag is one of the few ways blue has of dealing with resolved creatures and it helps get you there with the 1 damage it provides.
Monastery Siege is actually really good against burn so that's a good sideboard card. Steel Sabotage is another decent sideboard card for Affinity and it can be helpful against Tron to some degree. Kiora's Dismissal is pretty good against Boggles and offers some benefits against Splinter Twin. I'd also include some number of Dismember for decks where you need a hard kill spell.
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I think the biggest issue with Mono Blue Control as an archetype in Modern is that Mono Blue is lacking on removal. You can have a lot of counters, but you're not going to be able to counter everything, and what you don't counter will usually go the distance and kill you. So you can either play a more tempo game and work at not removing the opponent's creatures or threats but delaying them until you win with a Delver or another threat, or you can move to a more artifact based approach, like in Mono Blue Tron.
I would likewise think that as a primarily reactive control deck, you would want 4 anticipate. Digging for answers is needed badly in such a deck, and while impulse it is not, it is pretty solid for modern.
If you were doing the tron approach, then definitely you would want some amount of cyclonic rift. Overloaded, it can be very rough for an opponent to deal with for a turn or two. Burn is a very large chunk of the metagame, so you'll probably want dragon's claw in the sideboard as well as maybe some dispels. Admittedly, dragon's claw can be a really narrow answer.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Try Hydrolash, it's one of my pet jank cards from Origins. It does a decent budget Cryptic Command impression.
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Big Johnny.
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