First off a bit of a disclaimer/explanation. I am a relatively new player to MTG. My general approach is to find effective decks I see being played and would like to try myself. However, many competitive decks have expensive cards within them. My approach is to try to create versions of these decks but at a much lower budget. I have a personal rule that I will not purchase any card above £2. Cards between £1 to £2 are my grey area and I have to be convinced they are necessary. This leads me to try to find slightly worse but financially more viable versions of cards that will perform the same function in a deck. I hope this approach is one others will benefit from allowing players who need to operate within financial constraints feasible decks.
OK folks, there is a bit of a story and context behind this one! So please do bare with me because I would really like to hear peoples opinions, suggestions and feedback on this one.
I have recently begun to go to a new shop in my hometown which is building up it's gaming community. I took along a pretty standard mono-blue tempo deck, which let's be honest, is not only comparatively cheap to put together but also very effective against several different decks. It's frustrating to play against but within a day of going to the shop two different people told me how I would not be popular playing it as there is another guy playing a Mono-Blue Tempo deck, beating everyone, and basically being a dick about it!
Whenever I hear someone is a dick it makes me want to knock them down a peg or two. whenever I create a deck I always try to think of what could be done better or to try to beat what I have created. I'll be honest I have obsessed far too much on this than I should have done, I just can't let it go. Can I create a deck specialised to combat and beat Blue-Mono Tempo, within my limit of no card worth more than £2, and at a cost comparable or cheaper than the cost of a Mono Blue Tempo?
I started off seeing if anything along the lines of using elves to ramp up mana combined with to your face spells of Red or using mana to support Blue's counter spelling could be done but I was unable to outrace Mono-Blue Tempo in all my attempts. this has lead me to go down the control route to see if I can control the battlefield out of Mono-Blue's ability. I have spent countless hours play-testing variations of this deck (Really more than anyone sane should have) and this deck seems the best bet. But, I would love others to check. At the moment I'm winning about 3 in four games against Mono-Blue-Tempo but that is me playing against myself and so I may well be not unbiased enough in my game play (It's always a little compromising when you can see both hands).
The problems of facing Mono-Blue Tempo
Central to mono-blue tempo winning is the power of their
Tempest Djinn
's once they have them out along with
Pteramander
, especially when they are protected by
Dive Down
,
Wizard's Retort
,
Spell Pierce
and sacrificing of
Siren Stormtamer
's. this is not to discount
Mist-Cloaked Herald
's with a Curios Obsession attached can actually whittle away life and create card draw. Once it has a foothold it is hard to shift and can quickly kill you off, especially when the Mono-Blue Player is smart and keeps some mana back each time to be able to use for protection on anything you use to remove any of his creatures.
This deck, it's theory
I tried looking at countering his countering spells. But found that with him being mono you will rarely win this battle so I got rid of any counter spells and went for pure removal. I go into a game knowing that he will be able to counter much of my removal with his counter spells but if I can stretch the game out I can burn through his removal spells and take them out the game, winning by sheer weight of numbers of removal.
Early in the game I have to be able to kill off his one drops.
Pteramander
,
Siren Stormtamer
,
Mist-Cloaked Herald
and even his
Merfolk Trickster
. Getting some easy quick black mana on the board to fuel quick uses of
Dead Weight
,
Moment of Craving
,
Cast Down
and even
Murder
while he does not have too much mana to counter is quite important. using white mana
Baffling End
is also helpful.
One of the key's to this deck is being able to use
Duress
to look at his hand and then remove any counter spells that would stop you casting
Unmoored Ego
as soon as possible to stop him being able to cast any
Tempest Djinn
taking these out the equation is a massive loss to a Mono-Blue-Tempo player. after the
Tempest Djinn
's I look to prioritise removing any
Spell Pierce
(in early game when you cannot afford 2 more mana on a spell),
Wizard's Retort
(mid to late game) and
Dive Down
. Backed up with
Ixalan's Binding
it is possible you can stretch the game out and really blunt his attack with having the
Tempest Djinn
's and then
Pteramander
's out the picture. the weakness of mono-Blue-tempo I went for is that it does not have any ability to get rid of any enchantments once they have landed. So once something is caught by
Ixalan's Binding
or
Baffling End
it is safely out the game.
Take Vengeance
,
Ritual of Soot
and
Golden Demise
are all there to help manage anything that gets through before you have been able to tie things down and can't get rid of them with earlier removal. don't forget that even if his tempest djin do get on the board you can use multiple
Dead Weight
's (if you have any left after use in early removal) to get rid of a
Tempest Djinn
as their toughness remains at 4.
Ritual of Soot
is effectivly a board wipe for him if you can get it used and landed as all of his creatures are mana 3 or less.
I have found once I have the board managed I am certain of victory, either waiting until I have drawn one of the
Chromium, the Mutable
(which note his counter spells cannot be used to prevent it from being cast, and once down he has no removal. although his, often only one,
Entrancing Melody
is a concern but again can often be removed from the equation by clever use of
Duress
in mid to late game). Or, as has often happened in my playtests him just drawing down to the end of his library having no creatures to hang other spells on (remembering
Unmoored Ego
's take several of his deck out the game, the
Ixalan's Binding
's stopping him casting a lot of cards and his
Opt
and
Chart a Course
quickening his draw.
Once in control of the board it either ends with him running out of library or 3 unopposed hits from
Chromium, the Mutable
.
For those who have made it to the end of this rather long essay I would like to thank you for sticking with my ramblings. I hope you have found it interesting and I would dearly love any and all thoughts opinions and suggestions. I feel the deck is effective yet think it may have a little more potential in it to make it a little more consistent. The lands is one area that I know would help it a lot but I have to keep with my no card more than £2 limit which means most of the muticolored land is coming in tapped, nullifying the decks potential a bit.
If any others could play-test this deck I would be very grateful. A second pair of eyes on it would help a lot.
