I ended up drafting at my LGS last night, another 3-0 for the month and a super sweet Murder promo for the binder!! lol. But now the weeks's limited prep is over, we are on to standard. I ran a bunch of playtesting when I got home and noticed something particularly concerning.
With the influx of UR Arclight, I saw a proverbial boat load of UB Surveil all evening. Now, its possibly I am playing the matchup incorrectly, but I went head to head with it 4 times and went 1-3, and the 1 match win, all ego aside, I felt like I was probably just a more skilled veteran than the opposing mage. If you guys have any insight on this specific matchup, Id love to hear it.
They just simply have too many must counter spells. They are running golden demise MD, rit soot MD, vraska contempt MD, one version has thought erasure MD.
All your guys opinions on my white splash aside, I didnt even have a favorable matchup with Conclave Tribunal and Shalai out of the board. It feels super bad to tribunal 3 demons and still lose.
From what I have heard, UR Arclight doesnt want to see this deck either. So where UR has spiked in popularity and value, I would assume UB surveil takes a higher position in the meta, which could be really bad news for us I think.
Hard to make a comment. If you post a desklist maybe we can come up with a few ideas.
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Instant (14)
3 Cast Down
3 Essence Scatter
2 Fungal Infection
1 Moment of Craving
1 Negate
4 Vraska's Contempt
Enchantment (7)
2 Arguel's Blood Fast
4 Disinformation Campaign
1 The Eldest Reborn
Land (25)
2 Dimir Guildgate
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Field of Ruin
6 Island
7 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
60 Cards
Sideboard (15)
1 Fungal Infection
1 Moment of Craving
2 Negate
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Disdainful Stroke
3 Duress
1 Search for Azcanta
4 Thief of Sanity
Not sure why I had to post this for you to make a comment though. I would have to guess you have probably seen this, and in conjunction with my description, probably could have deduced something lol.
I must have misread. Thought you were still running Mono-U with white splash. If that is not the case then carry-on.
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@jacobk you seem to almost always board out a couple opts and pierces. Is this just because they are the flex spots? Why in the mirror did you leave in 2 dive down? To win a combat?
@jacobk you seem to almost always board out a couple opts and pierces. Is this just because they are the flex spots? Why in the mirror did you leave in 2 dive down? To win a combat?
Opt and Spell Pierce are the flex slots. Anything that I'm siding in for a specific matchup should be better than an all purpose tool like Opt. As for Spell Pierce, while I like the card a lot the post board games tend to go longer and it's not great late. I don't mind paying one mana more for an appropriate hard counter.
Dive Down in the mirror is a combat trick, can block a Warkite Marauder trigger, and defends against Merfolk Trickster. The trickster can cause a lot of blowouts (dropping a djinn to zero power, tapping your only attacker while it's wearing an obsession, eating stormtamer and herald). I like having a one mana answer to Trickster tricks. Dive Down also defends against Exclusion Mage.
The mirror is funny. It can be this really interesting game of cat and mouse with all the small attackers and Merfolk Trickster shenanigans, or it can be a stupid runaway where one player puts two Curious Obsessions on his Mist-Cloaked Herald on turn two and the other just has no answer.
Not sure about context, maybe Warkite the Tocatli to Mage something?
War-Kite makes the Exclusion mages better.
That is one of the reasons Nassif was playing the exclusion mages.
The reason War Kite helps the exclusion mages, is because the 2/2 body on the mage becomes a threat. Keeping TWO blockers home is really not that easy, especially if both of them need to fly to stop the warkite. And if the game stalls like that, mistcloaks are still getting through.
And another bounce mage will break the stall, or another War Kite, or a trickster.
War Kite & exclusion mage really synergise.
War-kite pointing at a Tocatli, then a trickster entering before blockers, is rude. So is bouncing the Lyra that was just tapped in the second main faze.
.
Also, Dive Down seems better than Spell pierce, mostly, on turn 2.
Dive down in general seems better.
.
The reason Splashes do not work in this deck is because the best single card in it is the Tempest Djinn.
Unanswered, Tempest Djinn can, and does, just win.
Obsession can just, and does, just lose the game (sometimes).
Which kinda leads to "TL/DR" from above.
- I did read the Ben Friedman article, and do agree with it.
I do not fit the mold described above.
RedTwister-> "Combo, which is not an archetype but a win condition" I played 'New Perspectives' in last Standard, all standard, and it was awesome.
I played it because it was the only Combo in the format, and doing it, exploring it, and tweaking it was way cool.
If you think that is a 'Win Condition', you is way, way, way wrong.
One of the reasons I like this deck is because it is actually quite different to the other decks out there.
Not as different as 'New Perspectives', i mean, SO NOT DIFFERENT, but, it seems to be the only non boring deck in standard.
When people play the cards you are describing, like (field of ruin), it is cool why they mana screw themselves because it doesn't work on us.
.
Red Twister "Even if we accept the conflation of card types with deck archetypes, I don't understand how you can say there are no enchantments in standard when Seal Away, History of Benalia, Legion's Landing, and Ixalan's Binding are all over the place. Our whole deck wouldn't be a thing without... Curious Obsession."
See, that is quite funny.
I am ending up at this deck because the format is so narrow.
Look and you will find me trying to NOT play Curious obsession. Blue Danube is me typing to myself about playing Standard Blue WITHOUT obsession. Trying to get Zahid to work, but it doesn't because of the lack of playable artifacts, and there is a complete lack of playable Big Blue anything. And that everyone must focus on stopping creatures.
And, all of the cards you list as being enchantments, are not really enchantments.
History of Benalia - Is creatures, and a bonus pump
Legion's Landing - Is a creature, and then a slow way to make more creatures
Seal Away - is creature kill
Ixalan's Binding - is creature kill, or rarely Planewalker Kill
What they aint is 'New Perspectives', or Sylvan Library, or 'Battle of Wits' or Land Tax or 'Oath of X'
They are just make creatures, or kill creatures.
All of the Blue cards in sideboards for this deck are counterspells, or ways to annoy their creatures.
Metamorphic Alteration is the only one that stands out.
My point is, any player that main decks artifact kill, is making a bad choice.
Same with specialist enchantment kill.
In this format, people ONLY win when their opponents life hits Zero, and yet devoted maindeck life gain is bad.
I really, really, hate planeswalkers, and the effects they have had on standard.
Playing New Perspectives for 2 years in Standard was a blast. Blowing new players minds with the possibilities of what can win tournaments, was ace. Just going 2/2 was also SO much fun as the opponents brain would still leak out their ears.
This deck is not like that, but it does work different to the other decks out there.
Mono Blue Tempo is a lot more in your face and directly rude.
No, Dodge, No, Fly-over, Ignore, Win!
. . . Is a very different game plan to Sprint or Snowball.
A real weakness of This deck though, is it rarely recovers. Once the opponent is in control, they stay in control.
That is what the Entrancing Melody was good at, but, with 20-21 land, it is just too difficult to use. And the big creatures are rarely worth taking, if they can be seen.
That is why Opt should NEVER be sideboarded.
One land, with 2 or 3 One drops is a keeper, probably, provided U-Tempo has an Opt.
Certainly is a keeper if the hand has already been reduced to 6 cards.
Anyone tried out Unwind? Or is this too expensive...
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Anyone tried out Unwind? Or is this too expensive...
I tried it back with Sai and Inspiring Statuary. I think the only deck that would want it is some kind of big blue machine that looks to Unwind a planeswalker and then cast Chemister's Insight. We just don't need that much mana except for counterspells. 99% of the time, when I'm countering multiple non-creature spells in a turn it's because of a counter war. In that scenario Unwind either won't resolve or the untapping will be superfluous.
I ran into it twice in my last two leagues. If it's at all competitive, I expect it to stick around. I wound up going 1-2, although in one of the matches I goofed in the third game. This is a matchup where you want to trade off your early guys on defense unless you have an obsessed Herald getting in, and just rely on Djinn to anchor things. Their fast starts are really fast (Loxodon on five guys turn three followed by Benalish Marshal turn four is a beating). Since their main strategies are "go wide" and "go wider," if you can get them into a board stall then Sleep gets them pretty good.
I ran into it twice in my last two leagues. If it's at all competitive, I expect it to stick around. I wound up going 1-2, although in one of the matches I goofed in the third game. This is a matchup where you want to trade off your early guys on defense unless you have an obsessed Herald getting in, and just rely on Djinn to anchor things. Their fast starts are really fast (Loxodon on five guys turn three followed by Benalish Marshal turn four is a beating). Since their main strategies are "go wide" and "go wider," if you can get them into a board stall then Sleep gets them pretty good.
Yea, I hear ya on white weenie. Suppose, it was a matter of time though. There was mono-white knight list that came out I think a week or 2 ago, that used history of benalia into venerated luxodon and this is probably a more slimmed down budget version of that list. Saprolings/elves would be other groups that would implement this kinda thinking.
Wouldn't Surge Mare help in this kinda matchup to slow them down? Seems the only good news is that they aren't packing in things like Ajani/Shalai/sweepers.
Side note: I wonder if a flyers list will spawn off of this since 4 cards in here are flyers.
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Yea, I hear ya on white weenie. Suppose, it was a matter of time though. There was mono-white knight list that came out I think a week or 2 ago, that used history of benalia into venerated luxodon and this is probably a more slimmed down budget version of that list. Saprolings/elves would be other groups that would implement this kinda thinking.
Wouldn't Surge Mare help in this kinda matchup to slow them down? Seems the only good news is that they aren't packing in things like Ajani/Shalai/sweepers.
Side note: I wonder if a flyers list will spawn off of this since 4 cards in here are flyers.
My gut instinct is that these 18 land decks have a hard time putting up consistent results, but I guess we'll see. I honestly think they left out History of Benalia because it's too slow, which is kind of nuts.
Surge Mare helps a little, but the evasion is a problem. The MVP out of the board is Exclusion Mage, bouncing tokens and guys with +1/+1 counters. Trickster can get some good ambushes but all the pumping going around can make it tougher than usual to snipe for value.
The plethora of fliers can also make racing them tricky, as they can go wide and leave a chump blocker back to intercept your djinn on the crack back. Marauder can screw that up but it's tough to keep Marauders around when all hands are being called up on deck for blocking duty.
I think skillful play can get us to 50/50 in the matchup while we wait for the more controlling decks to adjust and hate it out of the meta.
Fortunately, we pack the Disdainful Stroke and Negate action needed to keep it in check. Honestly I think the bogles plan weakens their usual go wide strategy in a way that makes our matchup better as long as we don't get got by the enchantment. Just be aware of it. You may think you have a dominating board position, but a flying, vigilant, lifelink Carnage Tyrant can flip a game state in a hurry.
Fortunately, we pack the Disdainful Stroke and Negate action needed to keep it in check. Honestly I think the bogles plan weakens their usual go wide strategy in a way that makes our matchup better as long as we don't get got by the enchantment. Just be aware of it. You may think you have a dominating board position, but a flying, vigilant, lifelink Carnage Tyrant can flip a game state in a hurry.
I thought about that, only Vine Mare/Carnage Tyrant would be the real problems, but seems like a waste of mana. Seems more like a gotcha then anything.
"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."
Plan A is definitely get a Djinn & protect it. The thing is a beast.
Curious obsession only got cast once, but I was only playing 2. Just can't find the rest. Not playing the herald either, but, I think that might actually be the right decision, especially if ya only playing 2 obsession.
Mana Flood & mana screw are just so common in this deck (compared to what I normally play).
Die-ing while holding 3 spell pierce & a Wiz counter was disappointing in the final game.
Spell Pierce was awesome, and awful.
Djinn + Spell pierce sucks when they play a 4th land and Lava Coil the Djinn
Dive down was just better, except against Deafening Clarion, which did seem to (not) get cast a lot.
I was surprised that Essence Scatter got boarded out twice. Played against Jeskai & Thousand Year Storm, so, yeah.
Surge Mare got board in against Jeskai! (But it hid)
.
Flamekin is way strong in red, which beat me.
Not sure this deck can reliably beat red when on the draw.
.
Confirmed a lot of my suspicions.
This is can be a hard deck to play well, and the hardest part is knowing when to mulligan.
This Version needs more grunt (and 2 obsessions Obv)
So much NO!
Adding the Mist-cloak (&2 extra Obsessions) is obviously the differences between me and the mainstream You.
I got the Heralds (had to actually trade for them, none of the 3 stores had em), but, don't wanna add all 4.
22 land is too many, but, I did get an Island free 7, and Two single Island draws as well.
And 6 Island +Djinn
And 5 Island +2 counters (hint, draw 3 Djinn)
The sideboard is also, well, a bit scattered.
4 Negate - was good
3 Exclusion Mage - Never sideboarded
2 Surge Mare - One went in, once
1 Spell Pierce - Great, and sucked bad
1 Entrancing Melody - in Once against Red, hid
2 Syncopate - In once, fine
1 Horns***gle - In once against red on the play
1 Dreamcaller Siren - Sideboard twice, unseen
Entrancing Melody is good for Flamekin, Warboss, hasty . . .The problem is getting the mana. Reducing to 20 land makes this too unreliable. I spoze that is why the Obsession is worth pumping the number of 1 drops to carry it. I can see how that allows 1-2 Land hands to work more.
But, mana flood is just a killer. Only the Djinn can pull out of those. An Obsessed creature will get there, I spoze, but it really is all eggs in that one basket, and a mana flood will mean you don't have the counters.
The 2 cost mistveil's seem especially effective against red.
The War Kites seem better in general, but seem worse against red.
As always I focus on what beat me. A couple of Diamond Mare seems OK, but, they just dont seem to fit the Obsessed theme at all. One Drop / Obsess + DD/SP = win. . . So When would the DMare get good? Same with casting a Djinn on turn 3/4. The DMare just seems out of place, especially if I draw two.
Maybe Mystic Archeologist is worth playing, against the big slow decks anyway.
2/1 with a win condition bolted on seems good for 1U
seems like selective snare would be deece against the white weenie deck.
That's a good call. I'll probably put one in for one exclusion mage in the sideboard. It's possible they could run out some kind of awkward bird/human/vampire trio, but they do have a lot of creature type overlap (birds, vampires, soldiers).
What is Obv in having 2 Obsessions if the rest of us want more than 4?
Sigh.
Reading is hard.
Me-> "Curious obsession only got cast once, but I was only playing 2. Just can't find the rest. Not playing the herald either, but, I think that might actually be the right decision, especially if ya only playing 2 obsession."
Me-> "This Version needs more grunt (and 2 obsessions Obv)"
Would it be crazy to have a black splash to add in Thief of Sanity? This deck does a fantastic job of protecting him so that he starts shredding away people's cards (seriously, it's great casting opponents' spells) based on my limited playtesting.
However, adding in any other colors makes Tempest Djinn so much weaker. And, as has obviously been noted, the Djinn is one of the most important cards to the deck. Is there any way to profitably take advantage of a Red or Black splash? the mana is really good in Standard right now and I'd hate to see these excellent Dimir and Izzet cards go to waste if possible. Enigma Drake seems almost tailor-made for this deck, but I could be wrong.
Somebody did 5-0 with a Dimir version a while back. It was discussed on this thread. Hoogland has a Dimir pirates list that looks pretty sweet. I was really impressed with Kitesail Freebooter out of the black splash. Thief of Sanity was very disappointing. With the Djinn, if you get it in play and keep it alive it will win most races for you. The thief is harder to keep alive and you have to run well on its hits in order to win the race. I vividly remember losing a close game where the Thief cleared six lands off my opponent's deck in running turns.
It's almost a nonbo with Curious Obsession. If you want to keep up countermagic it's hard to deploy your hand and the card from the Thief. I mean, it's a good problem to have, but it's not the VALUE EXPLOSION that you imagine when those two cards are working together.
I tried to make an Izzet version work. The big problem was that while the Enigma Drake does a decent djinn impression, it's just not the same. The secondary problem was that the big switch was to play Lightning Strike over Merfolk Trickster and I kept getting shredded by Adanto Vanguard.
The main thing I got out of it is that a one-of Mission Briefing is solid in a deck that runs a varied suite of instants. If they reprint Vapor Snag in the next set I'd look at fitting a Briefing or two into mono-blue.
I think we did go over that splashing isn't too effective.
Though I did notice that in decks running the drakes they are starting to combo that up with maximize velocity to get a 1 hit kill because the drakes can move in immediately for the kill. I think the problem for us is that our drakes aren't big enough and adding in maximize velocity takes away slots from other cards.
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My MTG Arena testing shows exactly what you've indicated here. While the Thief is exceptional against the Control matchup, screwing up the mana base to get another color just isn't worth it. There were at least two games where I was playing the Mirror match and my Thief was totally outclassed by the Djinn.
Hello
I played a pptq two weeks ago and I did not have time to post the report.
It was a small event, between 14-16 players (4 bg's, some ur's and only me mono blue).
I finished the Swiss unbeaten, only losing in the final.
Here is a small report:
Match 1 Mono Black Agroo
G1: Weird game, but I got a huge advantage attacking with Mist-Cloaked Herald and Curious Obsession. It was relatively difficult, I bought a few creatures.
G2: Keep with 1 land and opt, I never bought the second
G3: Opponent got 4 turns with 2 lands, got to do Mist-Cloaked Herald and Curious Obsession and protect him. Tight win
Match 2: BG
G1: My opponent stopped in the fourth land, I developed the game well, with several draws and Djim
G2: He opened very strong, with elemental and jadelight, but as the surge mare stopped the attacks and gave me the chance to do the board and win.
Match 3: Gb Steel Leaf
G1: Opponent started slow, i taped the llanowar with the merfolk, made genius quickly followed by the mage and was never threatened
G2: Opponent started strong but managed to hold with Scatter, mage and surge mare
Match 4 Mono Red
G1: I managed to be very fast and protect my creatures, I countered the biggest threats: Frenzy and phoenix
G2: He opened it strong but had to play 3 burns to kill the siren (his mistake), good for me, a couple of geniuses won
Semi: BG
G1: I was able to quickly connect and protect siren + obsession, I beat Genius.
G2: Surge mare shine again, holding the elemental + jadelight and attacking after stabilizing with mage.
Final: BG
G1: Mull 5 - It was really bad, I made 2 creatures that died in the curve.
G2: Mull 6 - I play the game but I suffered with a very high number of removals and excess planeswalker
Highlights:
Surge Mare: I knew the card in this forum and she was sensational! Thank you
Opt: I cut the Trace Route to play at isntant speed and I liked it a lot
Now I would like your help, I think of changing the list into small things:
- 2 Nightveil Sprite
+ 1 Warkite Marauder
+ 1 Dive Down
And I thought of adapting the side similar to Nassif but with Surge mare, what do you think?
I need ideads to play mirror, at the moment my plan would be:
- 3 Dive Down
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 1 Opt
+ 3 Surge Mare
+ 1 Exclusion Mage
+ 2 Sleep
I think we did go over that splashing isn't too effective.
Though I did notice that in decks running the drakes they are starting to combo that up with maximize velocity to get a 1 hit kill because the drakes can move in immediately for the kill. I think the problem for us is that our drakes aren't big enough and adding in maximize velocity takes away slots from other cards.
I've noticed the same thing. I wish there was a cheaper Hard Counterspell that could stop these early type of plays. Is Syncopate good enough to replace Spell Pierce? Or at least do some sort of split?
Hard to make a comment. If you post a desklist maybe we can come up with a few ideas.
-Stay Frosty
4 Doom Whisperer
2 Dream Eater
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
Sorcery (7)
3 Ritual of Soot
4 Thought Erasure
Instant (14)
3 Cast Down
3 Essence Scatter
2 Fungal Infection
1 Moment of Craving
1 Negate
4 Vraska's Contempt
Enchantment (7)
2 Arguel's Blood Fast
4 Disinformation Campaign
1 The Eldest Reborn
Land (25)
2 Dimir Guildgate
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Field of Ruin
6 Island
7 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
60 Cards
Sideboard (15)
1 Fungal Infection
1 Moment of Craving
2 Negate
1 The Eldest Reborn
2 Disdainful Stroke
3 Duress
1 Search for Azcanta
4 Thief of Sanity
Not sure why I had to post this for you to make a comment though. I would have to guess you have probably seen this, and in conjunction with my description, probably could have deduced something lol.
-Stay Frosty
What am I missing here?
Opt and Spell Pierce are the flex slots. Anything that I'm siding in for a specific matchup should be better than an all purpose tool like Opt. As for Spell Pierce, while I like the card a lot the post board games tend to go longer and it's not great late. I don't mind paying one mana more for an appropriate hard counter.
Dive Down in the mirror is a combat trick, can block a Warkite Marauder trigger, and defends against Merfolk Trickster. The trickster can cause a lot of blowouts (dropping a djinn to zero power, tapping your only attacker while it's wearing an obsession, eating stormtamer and herald). I like having a one mana answer to Trickster tricks. Dive Down also defends against Exclusion Mage.
The mirror is funny. It can be this really interesting game of cat and mouse with all the small attackers and Merfolk Trickster shenanigans, or it can be a stupid runaway where one player puts two Curious Obsessions on his Mist-Cloaked Herald on turn two and the other just has no answer.
War-Kite makes the Exclusion mages better.
That is one of the reasons Nassif was playing the exclusion mages.
The reason War Kite helps the exclusion mages, is because the 2/2 body on the mage becomes a threat. Keeping TWO blockers home is really not that easy, especially if both of them need to fly to stop the warkite. And if the game stalls like that, mistcloaks are still getting through.
And another bounce mage will break the stall, or another War Kite, or a trickster.
War Kite & exclusion mage really synergise.
War-kite pointing at a Tocatli, then a trickster entering before blockers, is rude. So is bouncing the Lyra that was just tapped in the second main faze.
.
Also, Dive Down seems better than Spell pierce, mostly, on turn 2.
Dive down in general seems better.
.
The reason Splashes do not work in this deck is because the best single card in it is the Tempest Djinn.
Unanswered, Tempest Djinn can, and does, just win.
Obsession can just, and does, just lose the game (sometimes).
Which kinda leads to "TL/DR" from above.
- I did read the Ben Friedman article, and do agree with it.
I do not fit the mold described above.
RedTwister-> "Combo, which is not an archetype but a win condition"
I played it because it was the only Combo in the format, and doing it, exploring it, and tweaking it was way cool.
If you think that is a 'Win Condition', you is way, way, way wrong.
One of the reasons I like this deck is because it is actually quite different to the other decks out there.
Not as different as 'New Perspectives', i mean, SO NOT DIFFERENT, but, it seems to be the only non boring deck in standard.
When people play the cards you are describing, like (field of ruin), it is cool why they mana screw themselves because it doesn't work on us.
.
Red Twister "Even if we accept the conflation of card types with deck archetypes, I don't understand how you can say there are no enchantments in standard when Seal Away, History of Benalia, Legion's Landing, and Ixalan's Binding are all over the place. Our whole deck wouldn't be a thing without... Curious Obsession."
See, that is quite funny.
I am ending up at this deck because the format is so narrow.
Look and you will find me trying to NOT play Curious obsession. Blue Danube is me typing to myself about playing Standard Blue WITHOUT obsession. Trying to get Zahid to work, but it doesn't because of the lack of playable artifacts, and there is a complete lack of playable Big Blue anything. And that everyone must focus on stopping creatures.
And, all of the cards you list as being enchantments, are not really enchantments.
History of Benalia - Is creatures, and a bonus pump
Legion's Landing - Is a creature, and then a slow way to make more creatures
Seal Away - is creature kill
Ixalan's Binding - is creature kill, or rarely Planewalker Kill
What they aint is 'New Perspectives', or Sylvan Library, or 'Battle of Wits' or Land Tax or 'Oath of X'
They are just make creatures, or kill creatures.
All of the Blue cards in sideboards for this deck are counterspells, or ways to annoy their creatures.
Metamorphic Alteration is the only one that stands out.
My point is, any player that main decks artifact kill, is making a bad choice.
Same with specialist enchantment kill.
In this format, people ONLY win when their opponents life hits Zero, and yet devoted maindeck life gain is bad.
I really, really, hate planeswalkers, and the effects they have had on standard.
Playing New Perspectives for 2 years in Standard was a blast. Blowing new players minds with the possibilities of what can win tournaments, was ace. Just going 2/2 was also SO much fun as the opponents brain would still leak out their ears.
This deck is not like that, but it does work different to the other decks out there.
Mono Blue Tempo is a lot more in your face and directly rude.
No, Dodge, No, Fly-over, Ignore, Win!
. . . Is a very different game plan to Sprint or Snowball.
A real weakness of This deck though, is it rarely recovers. Once the opponent is in control, they stay in control.
That is what the Entrancing Melody was good at, but, with 20-21 land, it is just too difficult to use. And the big creatures are rarely worth taking, if they can be seen.
That is why Opt should NEVER be sideboarded.
One land, with 2 or 3 One drops is a keeper, probably, provided U-Tempo has an Opt.
Certainly is a keeper if the hand has already been reduced to 6 cards.
-Stay Frosty
I tried it back with Sai and Inspiring Statuary. I think the only deck that would want it is some kind of big blue machine that looks to Unwind a planeswalker and then cast Chemister's Insight. We just don't need that much mana except for counterspells. 99% of the time, when I'm countering multiple non-creature spells in a turn it's because of a counter war. In that scenario Unwind either won't resolve or the untapping will be superfluous.
In metagame news, we are no longer the cheapest 5-0 competitive deck. Keep an eye out for this white weenie-fest: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1433367#paper
I ran into it twice in my last two leagues. If it's at all competitive, I expect it to stick around. I wound up going 1-2, although in one of the matches I goofed in the third game. This is a matchup where you want to trade off your early guys on defense unless you have an obsessed Herald getting in, and just rely on Djinn to anchor things. Their fast starts are really fast (Loxodon on five guys turn three followed by Benalish Marshal turn four is a beating). Since their main strategies are "go wide" and "go wider," if you can get them into a board stall then Sleep gets them pretty good.
Yea, I hear ya on white weenie. Suppose, it was a matter of time though. There was mono-white knight list that came out I think a week or 2 ago, that used history of benalia into venerated luxodon and this is probably a more slimmed down budget version of that list. Saprolings/elves would be other groups that would implement this kinda thinking.
Wouldn't Surge Mare help in this kinda matchup to slow them down? Seems the only good news is that they aren't packing in things like Ajani/Shalai/sweepers.
Side note: I wonder if a flyers list will spawn off of this since 4 cards in here are flyers.
-Stay Frosty
My gut instinct is that these 18 land decks have a hard time putting up consistent results, but I guess we'll see. I honestly think they left out History of Benalia because it's too slow, which is kind of nuts.
Surge Mare helps a little, but the evasion is a problem. The MVP out of the board is Exclusion Mage, bouncing tokens and guys with +1/+1 counters. Trickster can get some good ambushes but all the pumping going around can make it tougher than usual to snipe for value.
The plethora of fliers can also make racing them tricky, as they can go wide and leave a chump blocker back to intercept your djinn on the crack back. Marauder can screw that up but it's tough to keep Marauders around when all hands are being called up on deck for blocking duty.
I think skillful play can get us to 50/50 in the matchup while we wait for the more controlling decks to adjust and hate it out of the meta.
Fortunately, we pack the Disdainful Stroke and Negate action needed to keep it in check. Honestly I think the bogles plan weakens their usual go wide strategy in a way that makes our matchup better as long as we don't get got by the enchantment. Just be aware of it. You may think you have a dominating board position, but a flying, vigilant, lifelink Carnage Tyrant can flip a game state in a hurry.
I thought about that, only Vine Mare/Carnage Tyrant would be the real problems, but seems like a waste of mana. Seems more like a gotcha then anything.
Also Wizard's Retort would deal with this along with Admiral's Order
-Stay Frosty
Plan A is definitely get a Djinn & protect it. The thing is a beast.
Curious obsession only got cast once, but I was only playing 2. Just can't find the rest. Not playing the herald either, but, I think that might actually be the right decision, especially if ya only playing 2 obsession.
Mana Flood & mana screw are just so common in this deck (compared to what I normally play).
Die-ing while holding 3 spell pierce & a Wiz counter was disappointing in the final game.
Spell Pierce was awesome, and awful.
Djinn + Spell pierce sucks when they play a 4th land and Lava Coil the Djinn
Dive down was just better, except against Deafening Clarion, which did seem to (not) get cast a lot.
I was surprised that Essence Scatter got boarded out twice. Played against Jeskai & Thousand Year Storm, so, yeah.
Surge Mare got board in against Jeskai! (But it hid)
.
Flamekin is way strong in red, which beat me.
Not sure this deck can reliably beat red when on the draw.
.
Confirmed a lot of my suspicions.
This is can be a hard deck to play well, and the hardest part is knowing when to mulligan.
This Version needs more grunt (and 2 obsessions Obv)
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Warkite Marauder
4 Merfolk Trickster
4 Tempest Djinn
2 Curious Obsession
4 Opt
4 Dive Down
2 Spell Pierce
4 Wizard's Retort
4 Essence Scatter
4 Negate
3 Exclusion Mage
2 Surge Mare
1 Spell Pierce
1 Entrancing Melody
2 Syncopate
1 Horns***gle
1 Dreamcaller Siren
So much NO!
Adding the Mist-cloak (&2 extra Obsessions) is obviously the differences between me and the mainstream You.
I got the Heralds (had to actually trade for them, none of the 3 stores had em), but, don't wanna add all 4.
22 land is too many, but, I did get an Island free 7, and Two single Island draws as well.
And 6 Island +Djinn
And 5 Island +2 counters (hint, draw 3 Djinn)
The sideboard is also, well, a bit scattered.
4 Negate - was good
3 Exclusion Mage - Never sideboarded
2 Surge Mare - One went in, once
1 Spell Pierce - Great, and sucked bad
1 Entrancing Melody - in Once against Red, hid
2 Syncopate - In once, fine
1 Horns***gle - In once against red on the play
1 Dreamcaller Siren - Sideboard twice, unseen
Entrancing Melody is good for Flamekin, Warboss, hasty . . .The problem is getting the mana. Reducing to 20 land makes this too unreliable. I spoze that is why the Obsession is worth pumping the number of 1 drops to carry it. I can see how that allows 1-2 Land hands to work more.
But, mana flood is just a killer. Only the Djinn can pull out of those. An Obsessed creature will get there, I spoze, but it really is all eggs in that one basket, and a mana flood will mean you don't have the counters.
The 2 cost mistveil's seem especially effective against red.
The War Kites seem better in general, but seem worse against red.
As always I focus on what beat me. A couple of Diamond Mare seems OK, but, they just dont seem to fit the Obsessed theme at all. One Drop / Obsess + DD/SP = win. . . So When would the DMare get good? Same with casting a Djinn on turn 3/4. The DMare just seems out of place, especially if I draw two.
Maybe Mystic Archeologist is worth playing, against the big slow decks anyway.
2/1 with a win condition bolted on seems good for 1U
That's a good call. I'll probably put one in for one exclusion mage in the sideboard. It's possible they could run out some kind of awkward bird/human/vampire trio, but they do have a lot of creature type overlap (birds, vampires, soldiers).
Sigh.
Reading is hard.
Me-> "Curious obsession only got cast once, but I was only playing 2. Just can't find the rest. Not playing the herald either, but, I think that might actually be the right decision, especially if ya only playing 2 obsession."
Me-> "This Version needs more grunt (and 2 obsessions Obv)"
Hey Giraffe.
Do you eat words often?
However, adding in any other colors makes Tempest Djinn so much weaker. And, as has obviously been noted, the Djinn is one of the most important cards to the deck. Is there any way to profitably take advantage of a Red or Black splash? the mana is really good in Standard right now and I'd hate to see these excellent Dimir and Izzet cards go to waste if possible. Enigma Drake seems almost tailor-made for this deck, but I could be wrong.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
It's almost a nonbo with Curious Obsession. If you want to keep up countermagic it's hard to deploy your hand and the card from the Thief. I mean, it's a good problem to have, but it's not the VALUE EXPLOSION that you imagine when those two cards are working together.
I tried to make an Izzet version work. The big problem was that while the Enigma Drake does a decent djinn impression, it's just not the same. The secondary problem was that the big switch was to play Lightning Strike over Merfolk Trickster and I kept getting shredded by Adanto Vanguard.
The main thing I got out of it is that a one-of Mission Briefing is solid in a deck that runs a varied suite of instants. If they reprint Vapor Snag in the next set I'd look at fitting a Briefing or two into mono-blue.
Though I did notice that in decks running the drakes they are starting to combo that up with maximize velocity to get a 1 hit kill because the drakes can move in immediately for the kill. I think the problem for us is that our drakes aren't big enough and adding in maximize velocity takes away slots from other cards.
-Stay Frosty
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I played a pptq two weeks ago and I did not have time to post the report.
It was a small event, between 14-16 players (4 bg's, some ur's and only me mono blue).
I finished the Swiss unbeaten, only losing in the final.
Here is a small report:
Match 1 Mono Black Agroo
G1: Weird game, but I got a huge advantage attacking with Mist-Cloaked Herald and Curious Obsession. It was relatively difficult, I bought a few creatures.
G2: Keep with 1 land and opt, I never bought the second
G3: Opponent got 4 turns with 2 lands, got to do Mist-Cloaked Herald and Curious Obsession and protect him. Tight win
Match 2: BG
G1: My opponent stopped in the fourth land, I developed the game well, with several draws and Djim
G2: He opened very strong, with elemental and jadelight, but as the surge mare stopped the attacks and gave me the chance to do the board and win.
Match 3: Gb Steel Leaf
G1: Opponent started slow, i taped the llanowar with the merfolk, made genius quickly followed by the mage and was never threatened
G2: Opponent started strong but managed to hold with Scatter, mage and surge mare
Match 4 Mono Red
G1: I managed to be very fast and protect my creatures, I countered the biggest threats: Frenzy and phoenix
G2: He opened it strong but had to play 3 burns to kill the siren (his mistake), good for me, a couple of geniuses won
Semi: BG
G1: I was able to quickly connect and protect siren + obsession, I beat Genius.
G2: Surge mare shine again, holding the elemental + jadelight and attacking after stabilizing with mage.
Final: BG
G1: Mull 5 - It was really bad, I made 2 creatures that died in the curve.
G2: Mull 6 - I play the game but I suffered with a very high number of removals and excess planeswalker
Highlights:
Surge Mare: I knew the card in this forum and she was sensational! Thank you
Opt: I cut the Trace Route to play at isntant speed and I liked it a lot
My list:
https://deckstats.net/decks/74507/1117646-mono-blue-20-usd/
Now I would like your help, I think of changing the list into small things:
- 2 Nightveil Sprite
+ 1 Warkite Marauder
+ 1 Dive Down
And I thought of adapting the side similar to Nassif but with Surge mare, what do you think?
I need ideads to play mirror, at the moment my plan would be:
- 3 Dive Down
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 1 Opt
+ 3 Surge Mare
+ 1 Exclusion Mage
+ 2 Sleep
I've noticed the same thing. I wish there was a cheaper Hard Counterspell that could stop these early type of plays. Is Syncopate good enough to replace Spell Pierce? Or at least do some sort of split?
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager