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 spent countless hours play-testing variations of this control deck (Really more than anyone sane should have) but I just felt it wasn't quite consistent enough as a pure ant-blue Tempo counter for me to really be satisfied with. It was only when I checked and say the counters to flying that green has that I was able to revert back to my go green strategy to create mana alongside the comparatively cheap green flying removal spells that form the basis of this deck. I have now tested it several times myself as well as testing it against other players and at the time of writing it seems very solid against mono blue tempo. But, I would love others to check. At the moment I'm winning about 3 in four games against Mono-Blue-Tempo.
How Mono-Blue works
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 and it's theory
Unsuprisingly, having at least a green and black mana source in your opening hand is important. first turns I try to lay an
Llanowar Elves
as soon as possible. It just means I can create mana as fast as possible to power my spells.
Incubation Druid
is very nice for this as soon as possible too, especially when I can adapt it and get it to a 3/5 which actually turns helpful to attack with when I am not needing to use it as a mana source. With the quick accumulation of a man pool the plumet,
Crushing Canopy
and
Pierce the Sky
can all be used to kill off any of his flying creatures. Hit them hard and as early as you can with these. He may be able to counter these spells but you have more of them than he has counters, plus spare mana and you can burn through his counter spells quickly. One of the beauty of this deck is the mana pool you have and the low cost of these spells. He may have to revert to using
Spell Pierce
but you will often find you can find the extra two mana to land them. Early game you are using these to hit Ptermander and
Siren Stormtamer
. Don't be afraod of this. hit them as fast as you can on the turn after he has cast them. It forces him to either sacrifice them or use the counter spells he really wants to keep to protect his
Tempest Djinn
's later. Either way it is a win for you. It is tempting to use
Dead Weight
or
Moment of Craving
on these creatures but resist.
Dead Weight
and
Moment of Craving
hold back for use against the
Mist-Cloaked Herald
and when he flashes in his
Merfolk Trickster
's. some of these coupled with
Curious Obsession
can actually be quite awkward to deal with and chip away at you as well as allow him to draw.
Kraul Harpooner
and
Wall of Vines
are really nice to give you some protection against any of his 1/1 flyers in early game, and
Kraul Harpooner
's ability to fight on entry can be really useful to also clear his board. I have found that you can basically clear everything he puts down, nullifying his ability to attack, and quite amusingly frustrate the player who is deliberately running a deck designed to frustrate you!
With the board very much in your control you can drop
Strength of the Pack
expensive in mana but you probably have plenty to spare. Even if he has got some
Tempest Djinn
on the board this gives
Kraul Harpooner
an attack of 5 enough to kill of his
Tempest Djinn
no matter what it's power is, it's toughness is kept at 4. a sacrifice he won't like to make. But with the board relatively clear and your
Llanowar Elves
and
Incubation Druid
's now having a respectable 3 and 2 attack they can also start to swing to cause damage to him, you will probably find around this point that you are out of cards, but so is he and you have creatures on the battlefield when he does not. we are happy to play the play whatever I draw next game. It's a trade in which you have the advantage.
As I said before I would be open and grateful for any opinions and feedback and even tests of this deck. i'm tempted to add
Duress
or
Rabid Bite
into the deck somewhere but with it working so well I'm hesitant to remove anything to accommodate them.
Duress
is probably the most likely to be added. The ability to see his hand and then remove one of his counter spells just prior to playing a removal spell can be very useful.
