Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 09:06:57 -0400 From: "Thomas F. Guevin" Subject: Mono Blue is Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight (PTQ report) During preparation for the Paris PT, I tried a mono-blue weenie deck to combat the glut of red and black decks in Arena. To fight stupors, I had 4 inspiration - to fight ghosts and knights, I had 4 man o wars and 4 knights of the mist starting and 4 undo in the sideboard. So even though the black weenie player had 4 nekrataals - I had eight (twelve). Against red I had the knights of the mist against the lancers as well as 4 merfolk seers and 4 dissipates to be sure I didn't lose card advantage to hammers. I gave the deck up because it didn't have the X spell - without a torch or drain life I just didn't have a finisher, when the red and black decks did. Shortly before Paris, Hammer showed me his bloom deck, and I made several decks to try to beat it - the most success I had was a 12 counter deck, with red for frenetic efreets, torches and incinerates. The blue was floodgate, waterspout and rainbows. The deck did ok against bloom until the 4 city of solitude came in - then it had no chance. So I went with bloom in Paris, and barely missed the cut at 4-2. Jason Gordon and Dave Humpheries were able to build blue decks that finished in the top 9. Basically to beat bloom/solitude they had 4 flood plains and 4 disenchants in the sideboard. Gordon's deck was offense oriented with waterspouts, cloud elementals, man o wars, boomerang and flooded shoreline. The undo did in most slower creature decks. Humpherys took a different approach playing a defensive control deck with mangara's blessing, 12 counters, 4 foreshadow and inspiration. His only creatures were floodgates, man o wars and rainbow efreet. So when I crapped out for the 4th PT in a row and needed to requalify, the first thing I looked at was Humpherys' style blue deck. The deck performed well - especially against any slower deck. The problem was that the ultra-speed decks just crushed me because I didn't have any big critters. Also the increase in the number of flyers like fledging djinn, morinfen and falcons (yeah right!), and the presence of abeyance meant just winning with Rainbows would be more difficult. Given that I had success playing different version of mono-blue in type 2 at the regionals and local tournaments, I felt confortable going with it again. I just couldn't decide on a final version. So what did I do? - I went to the tournament and tried to tweak my deck there. Not owning any abeyance, and given the diminished power of bloom I figured splashing white wasn't necessary. So 10 minutes before the tourney with the help of several people include Bachman, Schneider, and even Nate Clarke (the three were not playing in the qualifer, but the side tourneys), we came up with this deck. Creatures (20): 4 Man o War, 3 Knights of Mist, 2 Serrated Biskelion, 4 Cloud Elemental, 4 Waterspout Djinn, 3 Floodgate Spells (17): 4 Memory Lapse, 4 Dissipate, 3 Foreshadow, 4 Impulse, 2 Boomerang Land (23): 19 Island, 4 Quicksand Sideboard (15): 1 Floodgate, 1 Knight of Mist, 2 Serrated Biskelion, 3 Rainbow Efreet, 2 Suq'ata Firewalker, 4 Undo, 2 Dream Tides It was a turbo-counter deck with lots of creatures - similar in concept to the type 1 deck I played at the Dallas pro tour. What I liked most about the deck was that you didn't have to have a lot of counters to win - you could easily win with just creatures - the counters were there for hammer control and slowing your opponent down (time walk). Also the reduced counters made me less vulnerable to abeyance. In retrospect I would have changed several things in the deck, especially the main deck configuration, but I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what should change... Oh and Darwin Kastle says to add Sage Owls instead of Impulse - I'll also leave that to the reader to determine if that change should be made... To make a long story short I went 8-0-1 in matches with the deck. I beat these decks in order: red/green large critter, white/blue control, red/blue frenetic/spout, falcon armor, mono black big critter, red/black LD, mono black big critter, red/black discard-burn. I didn't run into any mono-red celerity decks which are the bane of this deck. The key to winning for me was understanding all the decks out there because of extensive playing testing, and knowing how to sideboard well to win. Before sideboarding the deck went 5-3 in games. After sideboarding it went 11-0. Big cards I saw - urborg stalker (four mana for basically a 3/4 that you can't nekrataal), urborg justice (with stairwell), aether flash (with afterlife), empirial armor (with memory lapse and ward of lights), abeyance (general annoyance), morinfen (big fast flyer). I was surpised at the sheer variety of decks out there, and give credit to wizards for creating such an open environment. So I extended my qualifer match record to 20-0-3. Pretty decent - I've only had to attend three qualifiers and have landed three spots. Jim Lemire got the other spot in Chicago. I'll see you there or at the Nationals. -Tom Guevin tguevin@ctron.com