New for Ikoria Standard. This may just be the resurrection of mono-U Tempo as a thing. Ignore the competition meter; it's a joke. No idea what the 7-mana entry for Lutri in the chart is, either; the most you could find would be Brazen Borrower including its Adventure spell at 5 mana. No individual casting costs over 3 mana unless you count the activation of Castle Vantress (or possibly Entrancing Lyre). This throws the average CMC off as well; the actual value, based on the printed casting costs and not counting Petty Theft, activations, or cost reductions, is 2.03. Based on the Card Kingdom values, it comes in at just barely more than budget; 80% of the cost is in the Brazen Borrowers and Sea-Dasher Octopi. (For once Card Kingdom is coming in less than TCGPlayer.)
There are three additions from the new set: Cunning Nightbonder makes flashing in those other creatures much easier and prevents countering. Sea-Dasher Octopus is the new semi-Curious Obsession or an attacker in its own right. And Lutri can double up on an Opt, Unsummon, or Petty Theft or, in rare instances, allow a double counter (i.e. against Lucky Clovered Adventure spells or Expansion//Explosion in its first incarnation, or in counter wars). Every creature has Flash, except for the Cerulean Drakes in the SB.
You may want to adjust the counterspell suite to your particular taste, but this has been a good general spread for me in testing for game 1. In the SB, Aether Gust is mostly for those pesky Gruul, mono-R, and mono-G matchups, Cerulean Drake helps cover against mono-R and Gruul, Mu Yanling provides additional threats, particularly against control, Sorcerous Spyglass and the additional counters help deal with control, sac, and other key cards, and Grafdigger's Cage messes up graveyard-dependent decks. Entrancing Lyre is there particularly for nasties like Shifting Ceratops that are inimical to blue or occasional problem creatures with Reach. It also comes in handy against Priest of Forgotten Gods and Ajani's Pridemate.
The deck has been pretty decent in testing. Be sure to cast the spell you want to copy, then flash in Lutri in response. Note that Lutri is not a Companion here. Often you'll want to get Cutthroat down before casting Cunning Nightbonder to catch the extra +1/+1 counter; just be sure it's at a time when opponent can't counter it. My favorite move is to wait for that nicely-mutated big boi that opponent has spent turns setting up to attack and Unsummon or Petty Theft it back to their hand.
I'm becoming less than satisfied with Lutri; he's slow and very seldom doubles much of anything. The next step in the experiment is to replace him with the 4th Nightbonder and Sea-Dasher.
