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Editor: Sharon Van Der Werk. Monday 5th December 2005. |
 Draw, go By Nicolas Rolf Instead of talking about the deck that I recently played to my extended PTQ win, Dutch gifts, I'm going to walk you through what, for the format, could be considered a budget deck, but a powerful one. The format being extended, every deck you see in a top 8 at a GP, Pro tour and even PTQ will have those rather expensive duel lands and fetch lands in them, if you're anything like me, you're to poor to be bothered forking out the huge price for them. So, you've got 3 options, 1) Play affinity and risk losing turn 2 to a Kataki, War's Wage or Pernicious Deed, 2) Play the fragile desire deck or other rogue combo that doesn't use the duels 3) Read this article and play the scourge of all formats, mono blue Yep, that's right, mono blue control; a.k.a. much is viable in this format. If any of you had the unfortunate luck of playing me at the Gp in Melbourne you would have played a very crude and poorly built version of this archetype that looked something like this: 1 Annul 4 Hinder 18 Islands You don't have to look at that list for too long to figure out it was a pretty poor one, I couldn't get a hold of 4 Blinkmoth Nexus, so the mana base was altered to use quicksand's and a Keiga somehow… The deck as it is above has an almost un-losable matchup against goblins and affinity and most aggro decks in the format. The only problem is that it doesn't have a stellar matchup against most control decks because it runs a slue of cheap counters that don't compete to well into the late game. The main issue with this build is that it doesn't have a solid draw engine, Jushi may look good on paper, and he's ripping it up in standard, but he just doesn't cut it in extended due to all the main board creature hate that every deck runs in the format. This leaves the deck at a loss for good draw other than fact or fiction, which itself can be too costly to run as a 4 of if you plan on beating aggro game 1 consistently. Therefore there are three options to choose from, Gifts Ungiven, Thirst for Knowledge or changing you counter suite to incorporate Remand. Due to the way the format is turning out, control being tier 1 like always, with Psychatog, the new CAL deck and No stick, I believe that risking a less than stellar game 1 vs. aggro is worth it because its very hard to lose post board to them. So here's the updated deck list: 1 Annul 4 Remand 4 Hinder 2 Rewind 21 Island The changes to the list are as follows: -4 Condescend -3 Quicksand +3 Boomerang +2 Rewind +4 Remand +3 Island Now that that's done, I'm sure it looks like a complete change and not just modification of the original list. We'll start by going over the changes made to the land base of the deck. While Quicksand makes your game that much better vs. Boros Deck Wins, it does little else in every other matchup and ends up making your Vedalken Shackles weaker in most cases. That is something you don't want, as the shackles are critical in pretty much every single matchup that isn't combo, even tog, but ill get to that in a second. An extra islands was added because I found myself missing to many land drops in the first 5-6 turns which is a very bad thing, the Miren was thrown in for its synergy with Vedalken Shackles, take their creature and sac it for life. The selection of counter spells in the deck was changed to add in remand and rewind, I can't tell you just how good remand actually is, most of the time it acts as a time walk giving you an extra card and making the opponents turn as though it never happened. The rewinds were added to improve your game 1 vs. control decks and for its synergy with the draw spells in the deck, which are all at the same cost as Rewind, allowing you to counter and get a draw off on turn 4. The draw engine was changed to encompass everyone's favourite Gifts Ungiven and Fact or Fiction, this will make the matchup that much stronger vs. control decks and will allow you to implement your sideboard strategies easier in most matchups, and because they are instants you're always able to leave mana open during your opponents turn to counter things if need be. The final changes came to Meloku and echoing truth. So many times during the tournaments I've played this deck have I been wishing I could boomerang a land, be it a Stalking Stones, Blinkmoth Nexus or one of my own man lands, while I was holding an Echoing Truth in hand. Echoing Truth met the axe because of this and was replaced with the more versatile boomerang. Meloku was upped to a 3 of because he simply wins games, and works wonders vs. any aggro deck. Nothing in this deck really costs anything in monetary value except for the Vedalken Shackles, so it's a reasonably budget choice for this format and you'll find yourself winning quite a few games off it. There is also no reason that it can't go all the way at a ptq simply because of its rogue factor and strong core strategy. Course ending an article like that isn't going to work so ill delve into some matchup analysis for those of you who don't want to tough it out and play blindly in tournaments like us Tasmanians do. We'll start with the easier matchups, affinity and goblins. Against goblins, you want to make sure your opening grip has Force Spike, Boomerang or Vedalken Shackles otherwise ship it back because there's no way you can deal with the chance of a resolved turn 2 Goblin Piledriver. Worst case scenario is they go turn 1 Goblin Piledriver, but you don't lose straight off in that situation, if you kept 1 of the above cards in your hand you can last that extra turn you need to stabilize in order to take control of the game with Shackles. The must counter card of this match is your opponents Goblin Ringleader. A resolved Ringleader can spell the end for whatever control of the board you have, as it usually nets them 2-4 new threats that you won't be able to deal with. The other matchup, affinity is the easiest one you can get; if your opponent opens with an artifact land you can pretty much sign the slip already unless it's a tricky tog player. You pretty much follow the same plan as goblins, if you're on the play; anything will do in your opening handy, within reason of course. If you're on the draw you'll want to make sure you have something that counters cheaply, like a counterspell, remand, force spike or annul. You don't want to see an Arcbound Ravager across the table facing you as it makes blocking hard and shackling even harder. The thing to remember against affinity is that they will always drop their threat 2 nd turn unless they run Chrome Moxen, so don't waste the spike on a first turn play to attempt to slow them down. A resolved Thought cast in this match isn't too bad for you as the only things to worry about are the Ravagers and Cranial Platings. The rest is just Meloku or shackles fodder. The next matchup you will encounter plenty of at a ptq is Psychatog. There are at current 3 main builds of the Psychatog deck: Madness tog, Blue/Black Tog and Dredge-a-tog. Probably the easiest one to beat out of the above is madness tog so I'll start with that. This match will come down to whether or not you have Shackles or Meloku. So under no circumstances should you let them resolve an Umezawa's Jitte, because that foils all key plans in this match and makes winning near impossible. Psychatog, the creature, is surprisingly easy to beat, thanks to the miracle of Vedalken shackles. Its natural power is only 1, so each time you try to take over it, they either have to empty their graveyard or hand in order to protect it and they can't keep that up for longer than a turn or 2. If you obtain control of their tog winning becomes a lot easier then it was at the beginning of the match. The one card to watch in this matchup is circular logic, always be sure to think twice before going all in if your opponent has mana open enough to cast it. Also conserving hinders for their few dredge spells can be a good way of slowing them down because they play few shuffle effects. Basically play this matchup as a normal aggro matchup, but watch for the logics and you should be right. The 50/50 matchup is plain blue/black tog. The deck runs 10-14 counters and wins via playing a Psychatog with counters to back it up. It's not unusual for the first 6 turns of this matchup to be “land, go”. Once one of you decides to start playing spells a counter war will ensue, that you should be able to win, because you play more than them. Like all tog matchups you can win this one simply by resolving a shackles and keeping it in play. An even easier way to win this matchup, however, is by out countering them when they play their Psychatog's, they only have 4 and if you can counter all 4 then they can do very little against you. If you're lucky enough to resolve a Gifts Ungiven in this match you'll want to go for, Gifts, Fact or Fiction, Rewind and Counterspell. All your opponent can do is draw cards and counter stuff until they drop 1 of 4 togs. As long as you can deal with one of those togs, you'll have no problem taking this matchup, but don't engage in a counter war unless you know you can win, because if you lose they will gain to much card advantage which is critical in these control vs. control matchups. Another thing to note is that keeping a 7 land hand in this matchup isn't actually bad, as long as you don't let on that you kept it, bluff by making them think you have counter magic while staying ahead on land drops. The hardest of the tog decks for you to beat is Dredge-a-tog. Their draw engine is better than yours and they have genesis, constantly recurring threats that make you cry. To win this matchup you need to play incredibly tightly, and keeping shackles in play is your only hope. If at some point they try to resolve Genesis, let them, your best hope is to take it with Vedalken Shackles and thus lock out any chance they have of recurring threats with it. Most dredge-a-tog decks run main board Pernicious Deeds due to people's insecurity game 1 vs. affinity. It's advised that you don't let them resolve this or let them resolve it knowing that you can boomerang it later on when you go for a Vedalken Shackles or Meloku. Hinders are important in this matchup as they can stop the opponent from dredging, I would consider a strong sideboard plan for this match because its easily your worst, but ill get to sideboard options later. The one strong combo deck in the format, heartbeat desire, can be problematic. You see, most people haven't ever bothered to work this out, but you can't just counter a Mind's Desire, because its storm ability still triggers. That doesn't mean this matchup is necessarily a bad one, it just means you need to play carefully. Always make sure you've got the mana to counter their heartbeat of spring. Double mana might sound nice, but it doesn't help you at all, it just lets your opponent resolve more threats than you can counter, which is something you never want to happen. Just work up nice and slowly until you can animate your Stalking Stones and swing with that for the win. I wouldn't recommend tapping 5 lands for Meloku unless you are sure they have no way of playing more threats then you can counter. The must counter of this matchup is Cunning Wish, if they resolve that card they will go for a Mana Short or Seedtime and that'll be the end of you. The one aggro deck that can give you fits in this format is Boros Deck Wins, a.k.a white/red aggro. Quick beats combined with burn will always be hard for a dedicated control deck to beat. Counter their land destruction and Grim Lavamancers, leave the rest to Meloku and your Vedalken Shackles. The burn is hard for you to race though and setting up a Miren, the Moaning Well + Shackles combo could be a good idea. You ideally want to stay as far away from burn as you can and tapping out 5 th turn for a Meloku is one of the worst things you can do, because most r/w players run Flametongue Kavu's, although lately the players have been cutting the Kavu from main deck if you know you opponent has done this then by all means tap out for the Meloku, otherwise, play it safe, you've got plenty of time. Your worst possible matchup in extended is the aggro rock decks that are gaining popularity lately. They run a myriad of aggressive cheap threats that do more then just damage you quickly. Hypnotic specter destroys your hand, the Troll Ascetic is un-targetable and dark confidant puts them ahead on threats. You can't rely on Shackles to take you all the way in this matchup because of Putrefy, so you can't play Vedalken Shackles until at least 5 th turn when you can play it and have counter mana open. Counter their 3 drops, because those are the most destructive things to you development. The game is basically going to come down to how many counters you can muster to how many threats they can drop, you should also be weary of whether or not they run Ink-eyes, Servant of Oni in their list because that can give them a 5/4 un-counterable beater. Those are all the matchups you should have to worry about for a ptq. By this point I'm sure you probably wondering why I haven't given you a sideboard for the deck, this is because mono blue is a metagame deck, you can't have a set sideboard for it. You need to work out which matchups worry you and sideboard accordingly for those. But for those of you to lazy to make your own sideboard, if I was to play in a ptq tomorrow I would use the following list: 3 Annul 1 Stifle That's how my sideboard would look, there is nothing for goblins because no one really plays that anymore, if you are expecting it though, run 4 Essence Leak in place of the 4 Callous Oppressor. Sideboarding: Goblins -1 Annul -2 Rewind
Affinity -2 Rewind -4 Hinder -1 Boomerang
+3 Annul Madness Tog -2 Rewind -4 Hinder -1 Counterspell
Blue/Black Tog -3 Boomerang -1 Annul -1 Force Spike
+1 Steamclaw Dredge-a-Tog -3 Boomerang -1 Annul +1 Steamclaw Heartbeat Desire -1 Annul +1 Stifle +1 Steamclaw Boros Deck Wins -1 Annul -4 Hinder -2 Rewind Aggro Rock -2 Rewind -4 Hinder There you have it, that's generally how you should sideboard for those matchups with mono blue. Hindering Touch is your amazing counter all vs. other control decks and if you can fit a few more in the board you probably should, but only if you know control is going to be played virulently at your event. I do seriously urge you to make you own sideboard for local metagames though as it will improve you matchups immensely. Well if you've stayed on this long I hope you've been swayed to play mono blue at a ptq or extended tournament near you, because as well as being competitive and rogue, its also reasonably cheap to build compared to all the other decks. If any of the cards in the deck are too expensive for you to afford, wizards loves blue so there are usually plenty of substitutes. Best of luck during this extended season and I hope this article helped you decide what to play. Cheers, The Co.
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