After two weeks or good hard work on the Standard environment, U/G madness has begun to remind me very much or something I have seen before: Accelerated Blue.

This story should start at an OBC qualifier. I went 1-3 on a terrible day where I was uttering obscenities almost every single time I exhaled. I ended up dragging my Constructed and Composite rankings (where so much of my ego is invested) below 1800. I dropped and soon had found a different ride home than I had arrived with, too sour and dejected to see how my friends would finish... And I didn't touch a magic card for six weeks, other than to sell a whole bunch of them on eBay. Didn't visit a Magic web site to see what was new. Turns out Kai won another Pro Tour.

About three weeks ago, I came back with a renewed interest to test Standard and play with all new cards. Many times now over the years now I have found that I enjoy the game more after a good break from it. I turned almost all of my attention to the new Standard, and here's what I found. U/G madness is The Deck To Beat. It should be showing up at Standard tournaments more frequently than any other deck out there. If you are not a fan of U/G, don't write me off just yet; don't quit reading. If you have a deck that posts a better than 50% record against U/G which has been demonstrated in repetitive testing including after sideboarding and does not get scorched by the bulk of the rest of the field, I would love to hear about it at solobraniff@yahoo.com.

Back in the winter of 99-00 Accelerated Blue became a very dominant Deck To Beat. Between Grim Monolith and Masticore and Morphling, it was summoning monsters much faster than an opponent playing Stompy would like to see. It backed up those creatures with a small number of counters, usually around eight (there were very few good counters at the time).... But you could always count on them drawing at least one or two, so a one-card answer to Morphling, like Wrath of God, would be prevented from resolving. It also had a bit of utility, like Boomerang, that prevented you from winning off something odd like a Worship.

Now back to this season: U/G summons the biggest monsters the fastest, in Arrogant Wurm and Roar of the Wurm. It does so the most consistently since it has the madness enablers from the block and Merfolk Looter. Plus, in the spirit of the Morphling, they all fly. They become"unblockable" at least a turn faster than a team relying on Glory does... And it backs that fast monster plan up with Circular Logic and Counterspell. It gains tempo advantage with Aether Burst, it packs a sideboard full of utility, and results from the State/Province Championships confirm that this deck is winning tournaments and placing people in the top 8 more frequently than any other deck.

In fact, good luck trying to race this deck with anything, let alone Glory; Sligh will very likely be going for the"burnout" plan after the U/G fourth turn... And possibly even sooner, at the sight of Wild Mongrel and the smaller Arrogant variety of Wurm.

So how do you beat U/G? I don't know exactly how. But let me get back to Accelerated Blue, because I think there is something valuable to be learned there.

In the middle of the winter of 99-00, Nemesis was released. By the time Regionals was a month away, Accelerated Blue was dead. Completely dead, no pulse. A new deck had emerged that trashed Accelerated Blue: Replenish. It did so by overloading AccBlue's small number of counters. Replenish just had too many spells that could not be allowed to resolve. Parallax Tide would"mana short" the AccBlue deck for multiple turns and allow Replenish to go in and operate. Parallax Wave would make short work of a Masticore, and put a Morphling controller to a tough decision. Let the Morphling be taken out of play, or get"mana shorted" to keep it? Remove counter from Wave, phase out Morphling. Untargetable. Put it on the stack. Remove counter from Wave, phase out Morphling. Untargetable. Repeat. The result is the AccBlue player tapped too many of their islands to counterspell. Then you cast Opalescence, and see if the AccBlue player likes that thing coming into play. Turn 2 Seal of Cleansing kept the opponent from using a Monolith on turn 3.

Even Attunement was bad news for AccBlue. While it was card disadvantage for the user, it dug up new threats and/or filled the grave with a big future problem. Which brings us to the most devastating card of all: Replenish. When one resolved, the odds of winning the game became better than 90%.

Now how do we compare Replenish to our deck building options of today?

Kind of unfair, isn't it?

Nemesis brought some very powerful cards in to join some of the broken cards from Urza's Saga. Replenish was not even built to hose AccBlue, but built as a great all-around deck in it's own right. But obviously, Nemesis was not just released, and modern Standard has nothing on the power level of Replenish. But that does not mean that strategy can not be explored - how can I put together a large group of spells bad for U/G's health. Can I do so and still have a somewhat proactive deck that can beat other decks as well?

The lesson is there: Overloading the small number of counters is one way to beat the deck. Please do not say I am going to be able to solve the problem with one card."I'm going to stop his team by casting Wrath of God." Wrong. Accelerated Blue and U/G madness are basically Fish decks; they put down a clock, then prevent you from resolving spells that will stop the clock. Whenever the deck to beat is a"fish" deck, do not try to win a tournament by casting Wrath of God alone.

A legitimate, but not necessarily powerful strategy, is to try to deal with threats on more of a one-for-one basis. The Psychatog deck that Zev Gurwitz played at NY States this year is a good example. In my hands, it puts up percentages 55%-60% U/G, 45%-40% Tog. Not too bad, and the percentage probably improves in Gurwitz's hands. It has four Smothers and four Aether Bursts to deal with threats individually. While these are not really powerful spells, the U/G deck certainly can't counter them all - and if they do try to counter them all, they won't have the counter to stop an Upheaval.

Mono Black Control uses a similar strategy: A whole bunch of one-for-one removal spells. After all the Chainer's Edicts, Innocent Bloods, and Smothers, Mutilate is just a one-for-one as well. Unfortunately, MBC posts a miserable overall record against the rest of the field - at least in my hands.

Wake uses an interesting strategy, and it's one that could be considered overloading the counters. I like Pat Chapin's Michigan States deck. It buys a lot of time. Quiet Speculation for multiple Moment's Peaces while the opponent taps out for Mongrel or Looter or Roar, whatever... Then"Fog" until you have built a significant mana base. When you build enough mana, you can cast more than one spell per turn. One of two spells will usually resolve. Hopefully, you can do this for Wake or with Wake on the board, since your threatening spells are expensive. If your opponent gives you any opportunity to get Wake on the board, like tapping out for a Roar, don't pass it up to cast anything else.

Don't just try to pick up this deck and play it at a tournament that is important to you. Get a lot of practice with it first in games that are not important to you; it's a very powerful deck, but it's very easy to mess up.

If you have made it this far, you can see I don't have a new deck for you to beat U/G madness. I'm not holding out on you; I don't have such a deck. But I do have that deck building idea: Overload the counters, or at least match the threats on a one-for-one basis. That is what I am now working with and you may want to think about too.

At any rate, trust me - U/G is the deck to beat.

Mike Braniff