Real men play Type 1.

Pish. Real men play limited.

this

Specifically draft, none of that sealed league crap either.

Okay. It's been a long time, so... whatever let's me play whatever the heck I want, barring a deck full of Power Nine cards or some such nonsense.

Vintage. Vintage is only cool with casual decks.

Vintage and Legacy are casual, full set list decks.

Standard is a very small cardpool (as of now, I believe it is M10, Alara block, Zendikar block, and 10th edition.. plus one more, god why do I always forget?).

Extended is between the two.

As for high mana production in a blue deck.. with Urzatron out of Standard (IIRC, I forgot), it's hard to make blue decks 'go' fast. Honestly, Blue not exactly strong in Standard after the fiasco with Lorwyn and co making Blue an outrageously powerful control color for the limited card pool the Faerie deck was most efficient in. With that out of the way, Wizards is playing almost -too- safe with the entire color.. which really hurts Blue more than it usually does in Standard. As a general rule of thumb, Blue is a weak color in Limited, and often more difficult to work with in Standard due to the "everybody's fun matters" policy pretty much being counterproductive to the largest share of Blue's given utility. Worldwake is making the color look up though, which makes me happy.

You really don't need that much to run on, as a mono Blue deck in Standard. In Casual/Legacy, you should be using the Urzatron tri-set, or dual lands from Ravnica or Alpha/Beta/Unlimited, signets from Ravnica Block, etc. To be honest, producing exorbitant amounts of mana is more in the cards for Green, but it's not unheard of do in any other color. If you're running Type 2/Standard, have you considered splashing another color to keep yourself going until you can drop those big fatties (not that blue's beefy creatures are that efficient, cost-wise.. but that's a totally different discussion)?

Standard mono-blue has become a deck of beaters. The mana question is probably most relevant for blue, especially in the limited format.

There's nothing quite like the sweet screams of pain and panic when Lorthos comes to eat ally brains.

Lorthos sucks competitively, though.. you can't really deny that. He's an overcosted fatty - in 99% of Standard games, you will find the match over before you hit the high point to even play him. Of course, until Quest for Ula's Temple comes around. Sure, he does something gimmicky for the Johnny crowd, but in the end, he's kind of garbage.

Mono-blue's roots lie elsewhere - but with no 'good' instant speed card draw or 'good' control (lol Cancel :3), you'll find that you can never return to the eras of Draw Go or the 'so easy a caveman can play it' Meditate deck. A big fatty is only meant to be played after you've made your board position solid as a rock so the thing doesn't get eaten alive. Considering the state of countermagic in Standard, that means hitting 11 mana so you can Lorthos + Cancel the opponent's 1st response.. and then they hit their turn and nix him somehow anyways. It's going to be like that until Dispel rotates in.. and then you need to bank on them having nothing else after you Dispel whatever they throw at you at instant speed.


EDIT: This is discounting all other countermagic or bounce blue has at its disposal.. since it's in the same column as Cancel in terms of efficiency.
EDIT2: Yeah, mono-blue in Limited blows. However, using blue for the birdy ally is nice. I ran mono-black Vampires for a 6-0 at my first Zendikar draft when it came out, then again 6-0 as W/U Allies. Good god that's fun.

My Blue deck is kinda oldschool to be honest. Counterspells, Negates, Remove Souls, Unsummons, and only a few fatties. Everything is either flying, or unblockable.

Oh, also:



Nitpicking, but SBE (State-Based Effects) say that a 0/0 creature goes to the graveyard. The damage prevention effect will still occur if you can keep the toughness above 0, but once that toughness is 0, it goes to the graveyard. Hence why Phantom creatures -are- unique.

If you want a fun little casual card to prevent people from attacking you, try Propaganda. That way you can take out some creatures you'd use to block, and instead use them for more utility slots. Propaganda can take a very large toll on mana - you could also use Cumber Stone from the Alara Block, which is a very tasty card in itself. With enough slots open via removing blockers, you may have space to splash another color - green for mana production, maybe (Bloom Tender, Joiner Adept, Llanowar Elves? I'm missing a big one), or Harrow or Explosive Vegetation, Kodama's Reach, Rampant Growth, Borderland Ranger (VERY good common). I recall a cute Ramp Green deck I made for a friend, just for casual play, that ramped in to huge Chlorophants.

I have lots of enchantments that'll do that. It's a green/whitedeck after all

My problem with dual-colouring is that I'm trying to keep deck size low(It's only 50 cards right now, and I think that's pushing it a bit), that way it'll stay fast. And I tend to use force-tap puppeteers to keep any unfortunate suprises from being nasty. I'm looking for something more Mirari's Wake esque. Make it so those 4-5 mana I get on the field are able to keep up with chain counters and if I get Oona out, Millspam.

99% of decks are 60 cards.

If you want a card that can produce you a lot of blue mana, try High Tide.

I don't really know what to say about the whole 'millspam' thing, since Mill is honestly an inefficient way to win even compared to big fatties (unless you're running that beautiful creature known as TEPS/The Eternal Perfect Storm, whose ability to Mind's Desire in to 256x storm Brain Freeze made the combo-player in me feel complete forever).


EDIT: Actually.. the number may be lower at 80 or 90, due to those whacky Battle of Wits players out there.

The Milling isn't the win method. It's a nice side effect. Oona mills out X cards from the top of the opponents deck and removes them from the game. For each card removed in that manner, a 1/1 fairy token with flying is placed on the field in my control. That way, I can safely remove dangerous cards, and beef up my offense/defence.

Yeah, I play an Oona EDH deck (yes, I am that big of a jerk), so I know how good Oona is.

EDIT: My other EDH deck is a Vendilion Clique deck. Yes, you may hurt me now.

Only play rarely, and even then I stick to EDH 6-man games. Run Zur/Kaervek/Cromat/Jhoira as needed. Cromat and Kaervek less so since it's the deck and not the general that wins those games, and I do so like playing the general.

So, for those of you with your eyes on Worldwake: with the equipment coming out and the small pieces Kor is getting, do you think monowhite aggro or a Boros aggro setup would be viable in T2? I was thinking a straight up usage of equipment from Zendikar and WWK - perhaps I'd even do a full tri-color Naya/typical zoo colors (R/W/G) setup so I can run Behemoth Sledge, along with my Lightning Bolts and other red burn/utility. I could cut the red entirely, but I'd lose some good stuff out of Standard's red.

I'm making the call that it will be a solid deck, but will only touch Jund with the help of sideboard cards (Kor Firewalker, Marsh Threader) - any verdicts?

60 minimum!

I love Unglued decks...though I haven't played in a decade :/