The Azorius split cards Depose // Deploy and Warrant // Warden are amazing. Early they can be tempo, and later they create tokens to finish the game. So they count as creatures, but also fill the grave for Pteramander. Furthermore, they can be flashbacked with Mission Briefing--it's absolutely sick. Recast Deploy to gain more Thopters and gain huge amounts life; or recast Warden for another 4/4 flying vigilant.
Curious Obsession for cheap draw engine. Since all we have are flyers, good chance of it triggering for free draw. Favorable Winds pumps every creatures in this deck, since we only use flyers. Win on turn 5 more consistently. Dowsing Dagger can be both faster kill and ramp into bigger threats.
---
This Bant version is pure aggro, but still the same ridiculous midgame and endgame:
Esper is more controlling, but Azorius/Bant is more explosive. Where Resplendent Angel is OP.
However, Azorius version is harder to afford the discount to Pteramander; hence removed Pteramander in Azorius version. slight change to improve early game for UW:
Sphinx of Foresight will smooth out your opening hand, especially since this deck is low on lands, and great P/T for its cost. Prying Blade, then, creates extra sources of mana, to ramp into the more expensive spells--especially if wanting to flashback spells.
Esper aggro-control with focus on Surveil and filling graveyard with instants and sorceries. Finishers are Pteramander, Dimir Spybug, Warden--all of which can become dangerous 4/4 or 5/5 flyers; or a bunch of flying Thopter tokens via Deploy.
The spells perform one or more of these:
- surveil to improve your next draws
- control ala countermagic, discard, removal
- tempo to slow down opponent
- protection via counters (Siren Stormtamer), hexproof
- creature tokens as finishers
Paring the colors down to Azorius is also worth exploring, since the main finishers are WU. The core being Pteramander, Deploy, and Warden--along with Mission Briefing to recast those spells. Going this route, you do lose access to better surveil spells. Instead, looting (draw and discard) could replace surveil.
For Azorius version, probably consider blue with light splash of white. Mainly so Tempest Djinn can be included as another strong finisher; however it demands a lot of Islands for maximum power.
On another note, regardless of Esper or Azorius, could consider Curious Obsession for cheap draw engine. Since all we have are flyers, good chance of it triggering for free draw.
At that point, there would be very little difference between what you are doing and mono-blue tempo, which is already a thing. You could just slot Pteramander into mono-blue and call it a day.
seeing as how mono-blue tempo made only one top 16 in the last three SCG tournaments, mono-blue tempo seems like not a big deal and looks ripe for improvements.
yet you ignore the fact that new cards bring vastly improved tools for tempo and finishers. Azorius split cards + Mission Briefing is already vastly different than mono u by offering much stronger end game and card advantage.
pound for pound, mono u creatures present little pressure on opponent. whereas new Skies decks have more powerful threats all around.
seeing as how mono-blue tempo made only one top 16 in the last three SCG tournaments, mono-blue tempo seems like not a big deal and looks ripe for improvements.
The deck is still making tweaks. Deck might begin to use the 4 mana sphinx.
yet you ignore the fact that new cards bring vastly improved tools for tempo and finishers. Azorius split cards + Mission Briefing is already vastly different than mono u by offering much stronger end game and card advantage.
pound for pound, mono u creatures present little pressure on opponent. whereas new Skies decks have more powerful threats all around.
Pound for pound, mono-u isn't trying to put extreme pressure on an opponent. Mono-U's whole gameplan is Curious Obsession and Tempest Djinn
and as far as that skies deck...
no favorable winds??? yea I'll pass
and resplendent angel with 8 taplands...yea...no mission briefing a snapcaster mage without the body...yep...not seeing how that works.
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I don't want to derail too much, but I also was into more of a U/W aggro plan that relies on Dovin, who I think is way too good to not run in a deck like this. If you go t1 1 drop, t2 two one drops, and t3 dovin +1, the next turn you can already ult him. He has really, really good synergy with legion's landing and I think makes it so that it's very difficult for other aggro/midrange decks to stabilize.
I was thinking something like this: 17 one drops, 8 of which are great at holding onto Curious Obsession for t1. You run Adanto Vanguard (duh) which has great synergy with Tetsuko (again, great synergy with Dovin), and then my three drop of choice was kinjalli's sunwing to prevent bigger decks from getting blockers down, but I could see history of benalia being better there.
Run a light disruption package of 4 counters - two anti-settle (admiral's orders) and 2 anti large creature, and we run the dowsing dagger both for more reach in the early game and later to power out the cards that we're drawing with curious obsession and Dovin. Finally, depose/deploy can be used on offense to get creatures through or later on to generate surprise attackers/gain life.
Esper is more controlling, but Azorius is more explosive. Where Resplendent Angel is OP.
However, Azorius version is harder to afford the discount to Pteramander; hence removed Pteramander in Azorius version. slight change to improve early game for UW:
Sphinx of Foresight will smooth out your opening hand, especially since this deck is low on lands, and great P/T for its cost. Prying Blade, then, creates extra sources of mana, to ramp into the more expensive spells--especially if wanting to flashback spells.
Ironically 3-color mana base is more fluid than 2-color. Added green lands to be able to activate Shalai, Voice of Plenty late game.
Upped the land count to 22. Instead of Opt, now using Nightveil Sprite to smooth out draws. Which is another early flyer to carry Curious Obsession. Combined with Sphinx of Foresight, that's a lot of scrying and surveiling every turn.
Kinjalli's Sunwing will slow down other aggro by disabling their haste. Not only that the maindeck has so much lifegain, even faster than they can deal damage.
I like that but I think the sideboard needs a plan for how to deal with the Gruul riot decks, maybe one of the 'sacrifice all creatures with power 4 or greater' cards?
Azorius Skies can race just as well as other aggro. Turn 6/7 goldfish, with a bunch of life gain to offset incoming damage. Dowsing Dagger can speed it up to turn 5 victory, maybe.
Resplendent Angel is an insane token generator. It's not even legendary. Imagine one, two, or more 4/4 flying vigilant tokens being created every turn. While gaining 5+ life every turn.
Kinjalli's Sunwing will render any haste useless. If you see a lot of haste decks, it can also fit in maindeck, replacing Nightveil Sprite.
Deputy of Detention exiles all nonland permanents with the same names. So target dangerous creatures, PWs, enchantments, tokens.
The left-halves of the split cards are also excellent at slowing down aggro.
Since Bant skies dont play much instants/sorceries, we may consider replacements for Mission Briefing. (Although it gets better value against control decks when you also use it to recast countermagic.)
Incubation / Incongruity: Incubation is cheap 1cc sorcery. Bant version plays enough creatures for this to hit/see a creature at 85-90% chance. Incongruity exiles at instant. Its controller gets a 3/3, but is better than let a 12/12 stay around. also takes care of recurring creatures.
Assure/Assemble: Permanent +1/+1 and saves a creature, but only one creature. Other half costs 6 whopping mana (even this deck can afford it), unfortunately the tokens dont fly.
Hydroid Krasis: With ramp from Dowsing Dagger, this can be really big easily and early. Life gain + card draw are exactly what this deck want. Trample will provide edge in the mirror match. Can replace Mission Briefing + Warden.
I agree with the earlier points. The blue/white version is basically just a bad version of mono blue tempo. Plays the same regardless of how you try to twist it. The bant version is worth checkin out now especially in light of the 2nd place showing this past weekend.
I definitely think resplendent angel could get nixed by something better. Maybe the Detention sphere guy
still harping on under-par mono blue tempo that never made it far into any serious tournament in last 4 months? many of the cards i mentioned have already seen more top 8/16 in one tournament than mono blue tempo in last 4 months.
talking about last weekend, cards mentioned in this topic that you guys dismissed were seen in the most recent top 8: depose, warrant, deputy of detention, healing hawk, shalai, angel of grace, lyra dawnbringer, settle the wreckage, unbreakable formation, absorb, thought erasure, discovery, dovin
actually i wanted to bring up dovin earlier after testing him. pretty quickly creates a squadron of 2/2 or 3/3 flyers with some favorable winds out. so i would recommend him maindeck.
Yea, dovan is pretty nutty in the fliers deck. And i think most of us are on board with u/w fliers, just not in the itteration you had laid out. if you were gonna go u/w, i think it needs to be true to the fliers deck
Don't need to be so defensive though. Pretty sure most of us are all here for the same reason. If you don't like someones opinion, just ignore it.
I'm either leaning towards this or a simic merfolk build. Pretty close to the same gameplay. Just not sure which one can handle midgame better.
Thoughts?
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Aggro-control with flyers. Where Resplendent Angel is OP. Healer's Hawk is early target for the attachments. Its lifelink along with Deploy can trigger Resplendent Angel. Lyra Dawnbringer will trigger Resplendent Angel on her own; not to mention 10+ point life swing.
The Azorius split cards Depose // Deploy and Warrant // Warden are amazing. Early they can be tempo, and later they create tokens to finish the game. So they count as creatures, but also fill the grave for Pteramander. Furthermore, they can be flashbacked with Mission Briefing--it's absolutely sick. Recast Deploy to gain more Thopters and gain huge amounts life; or recast Warden for another 4/4 flying vigilant.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty will protect you and all your creatures, and Siren Stormtamer has similar effect if holding U.
Curious Obsession for cheap draw engine. Since all we have are flyers, good chance of it triggering for free draw. Favorable Winds pumps every creatures in this deck, since we only use flyers. Win on turn 5 more consistently. Dowsing Dagger can be both faster kill and ramp into bigger threats.
---
This Bant version is pure aggro, but still the same ridiculous midgame and endgame:
4 Healer's Hawk
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Nightveil Sprite
2 Kinjalli's Sunwing
4 Resplendent Angel
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
2 Lyra Dawnbringer
// 12 Other
4 Curious Obsession
4 Favorable Winds
4 Dowsing Dagger
4 Depose / Deploy
// 22 Lands
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Azorius Guildgate
4 Breeding Pool
4 Temple Garden
2 Incubation / Incongruity
4 Negate
2 Kinjalli's Sunwing
3 Deputy of Detention
2 Syncopate
2 Sleep
Playtest Bant Skies
---
Esper is more controlling, but Azorius/Bant is more explosive. Where Resplendent Angel is OP.
However, Azorius version is harder to afford the discount to Pteramander; hence removed Pteramander in Azorius version. slight change to improve early game for UW:
4 Healer's Hawk
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Resplendent Angel
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
4 Sphinx of Foresight
3 Prying Blade
4 Curious Obsession
// 16 Spells
4 Opt
4 Depose / Deploy
4 Warrant / Warden
4 Mission Briefing
2 Plains
5 Island
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Azorius Guildgate
Playtest Azorius Skies
Sphinx of Foresight will smooth out your opening hand, especially since this deck is low on lands, and great P/T for its cost. Prying Blade, then, creates extra sources of mana, to ramp into the more expensive spells--especially if wanting to flashback spells.
---
4 Pteramander
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Nightveil Sprite
4 Dimir Spybug
// 20 Lands
3 Island
4 Watery Grave
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shrine
2 Duress
4 Mission Briefing
4 Thought Erasure
4 Depose // Deploy
4 Discovery // Dispersal
4 Warrant // Warden
2 Sinister Sabotage
// Other
4 Curious Obsession
2 Duress
4 Negate
3 Consecrate // Consume
3 Deputy of Detention
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Nightveil Predator
Playtest Dimir Skies
Esper aggro-control with focus on Surveil and filling graveyard with instants and sorceries. Finishers are Pteramander, Dimir Spybug, Warden--all of which can become dangerous 4/4 or 5/5 flyers; or a bunch of flying Thopter tokens via Deploy.
The spells perform one or more of these:
- surveil to improve your next draws
- control ala countermagic, discard, removal
- tempo to slow down opponent
- protection via counters (Siren Stormtamer), hexproof
- creature tokens as finishers
For Azorius version, probably consider blue with light splash of white. Mainly so Tempest Djinn can be included as another strong finisher; however it demands a lot of Islands for maximum power.
Alternatively, forget Djinn and just play strong blue and/or white flyers. Resplendent Angel, Warkite Marauder, Shalai, Voice of Plenty (can be mainboard to protect your creatures, alongside Siren Stormtamer), Lyra Dawnbringer.
Deploy with Resplendent Angel and two other creatures in play can make 6/6 worth of tokens.
On another note, regardless of Esper or Azorius, could consider Curious Obsession for cheap draw engine. Since all we have are flyers, good chance of it triggering for free draw.
4 Pteramander
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Resplendent Angel
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
// 23 Spells
4 Opt
4 Chart a Course
4 Mission Briefing
4 Depose // Deploy
4 Warrant // Warden
3 Sinister Sabotage
4 Curious Obsession
// 20 Lands
4 Island
2 Plains
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Meandering River
4 Negate
4 Remorseful Cleric
3 Deputy of Detention
1 Sinister Sabotage
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
2 Angel of Grace
seeing as how mono-blue tempo made only one top 16 in the last three SCG tournaments, mono-blue tempo seems like not a big deal and looks ripe for improvements.
yet you ignore the fact that new cards bring vastly improved tools for tempo and finishers. Azorius split cards + Mission Briefing is already vastly different than mono u by offering much stronger end game and card advantage.
pound for pound, mono u creatures present little pressure on opponent. whereas new Skies decks have more powerful threats all around.
For the most part they are.
The deck is still making tweaks. Deck might begin to use the 4 mana sphinx.
Pound for pound, mono-u isn't trying to put extreme pressure on an opponent. Mono-U's whole gameplan is Curious Obsession and Tempest Djinn
and as far as that skies deck...
no favorable winds??? yea I'll pass
and resplendent angel with 8 taplands...yea...no
mission briefing a snapcaster mage without the body...yep...not seeing how that works.
-Stay Frosty
so you admit they are different decks and have different gameplans.
I was thinking something like this: 17 one drops, 8 of which are great at holding onto Curious Obsession for t1. You run Adanto Vanguard (duh) which has great synergy with Tetsuko (again, great synergy with Dovin), and then my three drop of choice was kinjalli's sunwing to prevent bigger decks from getting blockers down, but I could see history of benalia being better there.
Run a light disruption package of 4 counters - two anti-settle (admiral's orders) and 2 anti large creature, and we run the dowsing dagger both for more reach in the early game and later to power out the cards that we're drawing with curious obsession and Dovin. Finally, depose/deploy can be used on offense to get creatures through or later on to generate surprise attackers/gain life.
3x Legion’s landing
4x Mist-Cloaked Herald
4x Siren Stormtamer
4x Skymarcher Aspirant
2x Dauntless Bodyguard
4x Adanto Vanguard
2x Tetsuko Umezawa
2x Kinjalli's Sunwing
2x admiral’s order
2x Essence Capture
Card Draw
4x Curious Obsession
Utility
2x Dowsing Dagger
2x Depose/Deploy
Planeswalkers
3x Dovin Grand Arbiter
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Hallowed Fountain
1x Memorial to Glory
6x Islands
5x Plains
However, Azorius version is harder to afford the discount to Pteramander; hence removed Pteramander in Azorius version. slight change to improve early game for UW:
4 Healer's Hawk
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Resplendent Angel
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
4 Sphinx of Foresight
3 Prying Blade
4 Curious Obsession
// 16 Spells
4 Opt
4 Depose / Deploy
4 Warrant / Warden
4 Mission Briefing
2 Plains
5 Island
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Azorius Guildgate
Healer's Hawk is early target for the mods (attachments). Its lifelink along with Deploy can trigger Resplendent Angel.
Sphinx of Foresight will smooth out your opening hand, especially since this deck is low on lands, and great P/T for its cost. Prying Blade, then, creates extra sources of mana, to ramp into the more expensive spells--especially if wanting to flashback spells.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty will protect all your creatures, and Siren Stormtamer will protect Shalai.
Dovin seems viable with Pteramander out of the picture. But seems a bit slow. I already have many sources of card draw and creature generation.
4 Healer's Hawk
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Nightveil Sprite
4 Resplendent Angel
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
4 Sphinx of Foresight
// Spells
4 Mission Briefing
4 Depose / Deploy
4 Warrant / Warden
4 Curious Obsession
// Lands
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Temple Garden
4 Breeding Pool
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Island
2 Remorseful Cleric
4 Negate
4 Kinjalli's Sunwing
2 Sinister Sabotage
3 Deputy of Detention
Ironically 3-color mana base is more fluid than 2-color. Added green lands to be able to activate Shalai, Voice of Plenty late game.
Upped the land count to 22. Instead of Opt, now using Nightveil Sprite to smooth out draws. Which is another early flyer to carry Curious Obsession. Combined with Sphinx of Foresight, that's a lot of scrying and surveiling every turn.
Kinjalli's Sunwing will slow down other aggro by disabling their haste. Not only that the maindeck has so much lifegain, even faster than they can deal damage.
Resplendent Angel is an insane token generator. It's not even legendary. Imagine one, two, or more 4/4 flying vigilant tokens being created every turn. While gaining 5+ life every turn.
Kinjalli's Sunwing will render any haste useless. If you see a lot of haste decks, it can also fit in maindeck, replacing Nightveil Sprite.
Deputy of Detention exiles all nonland permanents with the same names. So target dangerous creatures, PWs, enchantments, tokens.
The left-halves of the split cards are also excellent at slowing down aggro.
Perhaps you mean nontargeted mass removal. I haven't looked too hard, but it shouldn't be a problem for UW, if you really feel the need. Maybe Citywide Bust, Slaughter the Strong, Sleep. Defensively, there's Unbreakable Formation. These can substitute Mission Briefing.
Since Bant skies dont play much instants/sorceries, we may consider replacements for Mission Briefing. (Although it gets better value against control decks when you also use it to recast countermagic.)
Incubation / Incongruity: Incubation is cheap 1cc sorcery. Bant version plays enough creatures for this to hit/see a creature at 85-90% chance. Incongruity exiles at instant. Its controller gets a 3/3, but is better than let a 12/12 stay around. also takes care of recurring creatures.
Assure/Assemble: Permanent +1/+1 and saves a creature, but only one creature. Other half costs 6 whopping mana (even this deck can afford it), unfortunately the tokens dont fly.
Unbreakable Formation: Mass indestructible, with option to permanent pump.
Favorable Winds: Pumps every creatures in this deck, since we only use flyers. Win on turn 5 more consistently.
Absorb: More life gain while denying opponent.
Hydroid Krasis: With ramp from Dowsing Dagger, this can be really big easily and early. Life gain + card draw are exactly what this deck want. Trample will provide edge in the mirror match. Can replace Mission Briefing + Warden.
Settle the Wreckage: One-sided wrath.
Sleep: Allows two alpha attacks. Provide edge in the mirror match.
Lyra Dawnbringer will trigger Resplendent Angel on her own. Not to mention 10+ point life swing.
---
This Bant version is pure aggro, but still the same ridiculous midgame and endgame:
4 Healer's Hawk
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Nightveil Sprite
2 Kinjalli's Sunwing
4 Resplendent Angel
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Lyra Dawnbringer
1 Hydroid Krasis
// Other
4 Curious Obsession
4 Favorable Winds
4 Dowsing Dagger
4 Depose / Deploy
// Lands
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Azorius Guildgate
4 Breeding Pool
4 Temple Garden
2 Incubation / Incongruity
4 Negate
2 Kinjalli's Sunwing
3 Deputy of Detention
2 Syncopate
2 Sleep
I definitely think
resplendent angel could get nixed by something better. Maybe the Detention sphere guy
talking about last weekend, cards mentioned in this topic that you guys dismissed were seen in the most recent top 8: depose, warrant, deputy of detention, healing hawk, shalai, angel of grace, lyra dawnbringer, settle the wreckage, unbreakable formation, absorb, thought erasure, discovery, dovin
actually i wanted to bring up dovin earlier after testing him. pretty quickly creates a squadron of 2/2 or 3/3 flyers with some favorable winds out. so i would recommend him maindeck.
Don't need to be so defensive though. Pretty sure most of us are all here for the same reason. If you don't like someones opinion, just ignore it.
I'm either leaning towards this or a simic merfolk build. Pretty close to the same gameplay. Just not sure which one can handle midgame better.
Thoughts?