They have gone by a number of names: Accelerated Blue, Blue Skies, MUC; but no matter the name, Blue decks have been dominating Magic tournaments since the game was introduced nearly twelve years ago. The current Type Two format, with the recent bannings having come into effect, is in a state of flux; it is a format where you can pick up any sixty cards and perform admirably. I wish to demonstrate how a Mono Blue Control deck can be a strong metagame choice for the newest, most diverse format to grace Friday Night Magic since Invasion Block rotated out.

What is it that Mono Blue decks provide that other archetypes, such as Blue/White or even Blue/Green Control builds lack? There are, in fact, a number of reasons to chose a mono color deck over a dual color deck, but consistency is the first and foremost. Mono Blue decks will rarely have to concern themselves with having double Blue mana on turn 3 for Hinder on your opponent's mana acceleration or threat, followed by double White mana on turn 4 for Wrath of God or double Green mana on turn 5 for Plow Under to stall their production.

This color consistency comes at a cost, however; the most obvious of which being a lack of options. You will not have access to a turn 4, 5 or even 6 Wrath of God if you are not running a White component, nor will you have access to Plow Under and Rude Awakening without a significant Green component. I wish to argue that this loss in variability is made up for by the sheer ability to stop your opponents' plans and establish control far more quickly than expected.

The decklist I'm going to provide is from the most recent high-level Type Two tournament: French Regionals. This list was piloted by none other than Gabriel Nassif to second place at the Regionals where he was in attendance. The March 20, 2005 bannings were in effect for this tournament, so all of the metagame choices made when building this deck take the new variable format into account.

4 Stalking Stones
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
15 Island

4 Thieving Magpie
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Chrome Mox
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
4 Boomerang
4 Mana Leak
4 Hinder
4 Vedalken Shackles
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Time Stop
2 Bribery

Sideboard
1 Time Stop
2 Annul
4 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Evacuation
3 Spectral Shift
2 Temporal Adept
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

As you can easily tell, this build is designed specifically to beat the Tooth and Nail matchup; and it was proven to do so easily, as Nassif played no fewer than two Tooth and Nail decks in the elimination portion of the event. The deck is capable of mana leaking a second-turn Sylvan Scrying even on the draw, thanks to the presence of Chrome Mox, and is able to follow that up with a turn 2 Thirst for Knowledge and turn 3 Thieving Magpie. This blazingly fast control aspect of the deck allows the player to out power the Tooth players he faced, countering significant threats, and bouncing others.

Taking the French Regionals example, one can argue that Nassif made the proper metagame choice, focusing on Tooth and Nail rather than the control mirror. His deck is poorly equipped to face a Blue control mirror, as partly evidenced by his losing effort in the finals against an opposing Mono Blue Control deck. If your metagame is expected to be more control heavy with fewer Tooth and Nail decks, you might be able to justify relegating Time Stop into the sideboard for a more efficient counter, and taking the Moxen out of the deck altogether, for they are most effective in countering the first or second turn land acceleration spells that Tooth and Nail is famous for.

Red decks are generally a problem for mono Blue decks, as the threat density of decks focused around land destruction is often higher than average for control decks. You have the advantage in Game 1, as they will not have Boil in their maindeck, and you are able to recover very quickly from their Land Destruction, thanks to both Wayfarer's Bauble and Chrome Mox. You are able to counter their vital threats, and sit back on mana advantage while waiting on your game-winning Meloku the Clouded Mirror to show up and end the game in a hurry.

The problem with Ponza comes after Game 1 has been completed. Ponza will sideboard in at least 3 Boil, with the goal of having it in hand for the end of your turn 4. Nassif's deck looks to have a decent chance of recovering from a turn 4 Boil for all four of his lands; he can bring in Spectral Shifts from the board, and he has Chrome Moxen and Wayfarer's Bauble to recover in record time, while Ponza was forced to remove additional threat in order to make room for Boils in the first place. The difficulty remains that they are able to Boil at the end of your turn after you have tapped out to play Thieving Magpie. This can be combated through the use of Disrupting Shoal, allowing you to tap out, while retaining a four-mana spell in your hand to counter Boils from your opponents.

Also about Disrupting Shoal in a build like this; you are aggressively tapping your mana in order to control the table at the expense of your ability to effectively control the stack. The side effect of this is that you have a large number of dense mana costs (two and three most notably). This dense network of casting costs allows Disrupting Shoal to be most effective; allowing you to easily tap out for your Magpie or your Vedalken Shackles and still have an effective counterspell on your opponent's early turns. This idea has only been moderately tested, and while testing has shown it is a strong ability (especially against Green decks that focus on turn 2 or 3 Sakura-Tribe Elders, Eternal Witnesses, and Kodama's Reaches), the author is not willing to put money on the effectiveness of this strategy as the metagame shifts.

Another of the main decks that Mono Blue has to look out for is "The Aggro" deck in the format. Right now it looks like White Weenie will be taking that spot, at least for the coming weeks, as it is able to generate large amounts of dense threats and uses global enchantments and equipment to make its dense threats even more effective. Against White Weenie, your main plays should be countering Hokori, Dust Drinker, managing Umezawa's Jitte and preventing Glorious Anthem from having an impact. Should you be able to perform those three things, you should have little trouble.

Sideboarding against White Weenie is straightforward and effective, bringing in the four Threads of Disloyalty and the Evacuation in exchange for the two Time Stops, the two Bribery, and a single Thirst for Knowledge. This takes out the majority of your otherwise dead cards and replaces them with cards that will be effective both in transferring the balance of power, as well as providing a huge tempo boost thanks to the instant speed Evacuation. After sideboarding, assuming an average hand, you should be able to win your final two games with relative ease.

The third main archetype I will be covering is Green-based control. This deck has five different variations, one for each dual-color possibility, plus mono-Green as well. Green-based control is all based on a single concept: Land. The decks unanimously seek to gain as much land advantage over their opponents as possible, eventually finishing them off with a Rude Awakening, or a large threat (example: Kokusho, the Evening Star), much akin to Control decks of old.

Often you will find your Mana Leaks incapable of countering any spells after the fifth turn or so; this is to be expected, as your Green-playing opponent will have spent their entire first five turns doing nothing but playing land and smiling with a huge grin on their face as they prepare to cast rude awakening for the win. You can combat this through a play that used to be considered a huge mistake: counter their mana accelerants. A well placed Mana Leak on Kodama's Reach can not only keep them from accelerating further, they could also have been depending upon that mana to continue to make land drops.

Against Green-based control, you generally want to have to sideboard in specific cards to deal with the specific threats you see. For example, against G/R Kiki Control, you will want to bring in Evacuation in place of a Time Stop; but against a deck like U/G control, you would be more inclined to bring in your Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Evacuations, and Annuls in exchange for Time Stops, Solemn Simulacrum, and a single Thirst for Knowledge. The variability of Green-Control means that you are going to have to find the right balance between counterspells and bounce effects to retain control in a difficult matchup.

Key plays to look out for against the Green-Control matchup include counterspelling their second-turn Sakura-Tribe Elder (or third-turn Kodama's Reach), countering their early Plow Under, and having an Evacuation in hand for when they cast an entwined Rude Awakening.

This final archetype that I will discuss here is Tooth and Nail, the matchup that this build has maindeck all of its hate for. Tooth and Nail depends on having a major mana boost early in the game, and being able to retain that advantage until turn 5 or 6 when it can cast a nine-mana sorcery. The goal of Mono Blue (especially an unorthodox build of Mono Blue) in this matchup is to prevent that acceleration boost from ever occurring, through effective employment of your few counterspells, as well as your Boomerangs to stall out their mana production in alternate ways.

Against Tooth and Nail, your sideboarding is simple and straightforward, bringing in additional bounce effects (in this case Temporal Adept), and additional counterspell effects (in this case Time Stop), in exchange for two of your Vedalken Shackles and two of your Wayfarer's Baubles. Key plays to look out for in this matchup include countering early Mana Acceleration (specifically Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sylvan Scrying), countering Plow Under and Tooth and Nail (if possible), and bouncing Boseiju to your opponent's hand each turn (if possible).

In this article, I wanted to point out a deck (and a build) that has been flying under the radar of a lot of players since the bannings were announced, and to provide some solid answers to a lot of the questions that have been brought up surrounding this unorthodox build of the deck. [To be fair, matt submitted this before we published more MUC articles - Knut] Gabe Nassif and Terence Merle des Isles were both able to take Mono Blue Control to the top tables of their Regional Championships, and ended up walking away from the event first and second. I hope that with my help, you will be able to do the same with Mono Blue Control.

Thank you for your time,

Matthew Henderson
Esternaefil

P.S.: Big props to the boys in #scg; you make the game more fun!