AKA "Whale on your Ass"
Blue has this paradox, in which it offers a great selection of massive sea-monsters, but lacks the mana resources to really pour them out like green does, making a proper sea-monster deck difficult.
Patron of the Moon
breaks through this barrier by vomiting land onto the board like it's going out of fashion. So the basic idea of this deck is just to play a green-type "smack 'em up with fatties" strategy using blue resources, which has the double advantage of (1) avoiding the annoyingness of super-broken blue strategies, and (2) being really fun. However, this being Blue, a few fishy durdle moves that end up with all your opponents scooping in a hurry are kind of unavoidable.
As you may notice the deck is super sea-oriented, and funnily enough when it gets going it takes on a distinctly "rising tide" quality that can make your opponents feel like King Cnut. First your hand gets flooded with cards (via stuff like
Recurring Insight
,
Seer's Sundial
,
Blue Sun's Zenith
and
Mind Spring
), then the board gets flooded with lands, and the sequence repeats in cycles of ever-greater magnitude. Finally terrible beasts emerge from the waters as your opponents' creatures are swept away in the deluge (
Scourge of Fleets
,
Whelming Wave
,
Wash Out
etc).
As stated, the object of the deck is to kick ass rather than combo off, so evil synergies (other than the very general Patron + card draw combo and the occasional infinite mana scam) are few and far between. The deck does have a few ways to end the game quickly late on, which obviously revolve around land.
Sunder
can unbalance the game in moments with the Patron in play, and the
Adventuring Gear
can turn the Patron into an instant kill under the right circumstances. The master facilitator for this kind of land abuse (which also works with the
Seer's Sundial
at a pinch) is
Oboro Breezecaller
. The
Flooded Shoreline
makes a passable alternative that can also recycle your ETBs. The secret fishy santa is without doubt the
Pearl Lake Ancient
, who can also provide the Patron with plenty of ammo (as well as being terrifically hard to kill).
But when the chips are really down your ultimate super-move is
Uyo, Silent Prophet
,
High Tide
and any card draw spell. Two copies of
High Tide
is usually enough to soak up a counterspell, then you just have to get lucky enough to go grab
Amulet of Vigor
or
Trinket Mage
off the copied card draw spells. From there it goes totally nuts as you might imagine, since every mana you still have floating gets you three, and every copy you make of a spell allows you to float a bunch of mana. Before you know it you're
Capsize
ing the crap out the board and saying goodnight. I call it the "Mega-Tsunami"!!!
Other star players in the deck are the
Kederekt Leviathan
, who kind of resets the game, almost universally in your favour given the land dumps that characterize the deck, and unlike the more effective and conventional
Cyclonic Rift
, can recycle itself from the graveyard, as well as being bounce-able with the various return-to-hand triggers in the deck (or for maximum fun a
Fated Infatuation
on the end of your opponent's turn).
Diluvian Primordial
and
Chancellor of the Spires
make great utility cards that can fill in some of the inevitable gaps in the mono-colour defenses. They mostly serve to hijack your opponents' removal in emergencies.
All in all, despite early vulnerability and lack of extra turns, counterspells and other super-annoying strategies the deck is still pretty powerful. The longer the game goes on, the greater your chances of working up an insurmountable advantage in both mana and cards, and hard- or impossible-to-block creatures are ten-a-penny. But the strategy is kind of clunky, which I feel balances the deck and avoids the air of inevitability which so often characterizes blue decks (plus it's cheap).
Suitably sea-based and fishy suggestions welcome!
Patron of the Moon
Combos...
~With
Amulet of Vigor
~
~Without the Amulet~
...And just one Patron-free combo...
Nemesis colours: Green-Red, due to the combination of agro, ramp and direct damage.
Opening Hand Faves:
Druidic Satchel
,
Ghirapur Orrery
,
Sigiled Starfish
,
Thawing Glaciers
,
Thought Vessel
RATINGS (n/10)
-Offense-
Combat Damage-----------3
Commander Damage-----5
Evasion----------------------5
Direct Damage-------------0
Mill----------------------------0
Win Condition---------------7
Surprise Factor-------------7
Versatility--------------------4
-Defense-
Combat Defense-----------5
Life Gain---------------------2
Spot Removal---------------1*
Wipes-------------------------5
Win-Con Disruption--------7
Versatility---------------------4
Redundancy-----------------4
