This is just a try at making a mono-blue control deck centered on Tempest Djinn. I wanted to make a "fun" control deck that could hold its own without having to drop hundreds of dollars on splashing white or buying expensive planeswalkers. I think it's pretty fun, though it does need quite a bit of tweaking... I finally got a chance to play test the deck today, and it does okay-- except against mono-red aggro. Presumably, fast token decks and probably B/R aggro may also be problematic, but I haven't yet had a chance to test against those.
This is just a deck to try as an experiment. I do not expect it to be highly competitive. Suggestions are certainly welcome.
YES, this deck is supposed to be fun,
so I don't care how much splashing white or adding super expensive planeswalkers could make it so much better.
Deck Premise
The idea is to use Tempest Djinn as the main win condition, though Torrential Gearhulk certainly does a nice job as well. In my brief play testing against U/B Control and Mono-Red Aggro, Tempest Djinn was amazing! It can easily take over a game and swing for BIG damage. Very fun to play!
The rest of the deck is there to effectively stall (i.e., control) until the win conditions arrive.
Play Test Results
Against a mid-range deck, it seems to do fine. Against a moderate control strategy (like U/B Control with The Scarab God) it seems to do pretty well. Against Mono-Red Aggro (and presumably other aggro decks) not as well-- it's just a tad too slow. Tweaking is definitely necessary...
Initial Impressions
Fun AF to play! I'm not normally much of a control player, but this seemed entertaining to me. In short, I think I'll keep tweaking and try it at FNM in the near future. I don't really care if I win a lot with it-- this is a deck built for FUN and good game play, not necessarily to crush opponents or similar. Even if I lose, as long as there was interaction and it lasted more than 8 or 9 turns, I'll be quite happy with the deck! :-D
Final thought
Magic: The Gathering is GAME and I like to have fun playing the game. Winning isn't the only way to have fun. Yeah, it's fun to win, too, but I like just playing the game. It's okay to occasionally just play a deck that is built around a card I (or you!) think is fun or interesting, even if the deck won't win a lot. Did I get to play the card I wanted to play? Was the game at least somewhat competitive? Did I have fun? These are the questions that concern me. I think too many players have gotten away from this and feel that they need to constantly be trying to win and get that top, winning deck. I see too many of those same players just not having fun any more. I don't ever want to be like that, no matter how many wins I get as a result. I'd rather lose and have fun than win and not really like the game that much. I like to brew and create-- even sucky decks. I hope you enjoy this deck, even if it sucks. :-D
