Blue/white messiness

Blue/white, always affectionally referred to as Sky Deck by 15 year old Jed, is always a favorite. It's also easily the most garbled here in Dragons of Tarkir. The other color pairings are super straightforward. Red/green wants to build a huge board. Red/black wants to outrace you. White/green wants to throw +1/+1 counters everywhere. Blue/black is throwback to old school removal & control. But what on earth is blue/white?

There are two mechanics in blue white, Rebound and fake-prowess. Rebound is pretty straight-forward, cast the spell once get it again at the beginning of your next upkeep. Fake-prowess refers to creatures benefiting in some way from a non-creature spell being cast. Examples:

 

The link is pretty clear. Cast one rebound spell, get two triggers for free. Also synergizes nicely with the remaining Prowess from Fate Reforged. But is there actually a deck here? Let's list the Rebounders and the fake-prowess from DTK.

       

Six out of the eight explicitly interact with creatures (and I'm sure Void Squall will target a creature a vast majority of the time). The relatively high cost of each spell makes it hard on control decks. Hard to keep mana up to threaten counterspells, removal, and/or morphing. Also interesting is the concept of a rebounding combat trick. Obviously it's a 1 for 1 the first time it's cast, but the next time your opponent sees it coming. Feels very tempo-y, using an additional +2/+2 or protection from ____ to sneak in more damage.

Let's cover fake-prowess.

     

Not the world's strongest layout frankly.

Other tempo-ish cards of note:

          

 

As a reminder, here's what we got in Fate.

         

  

So... using rebound and a weird mixture of prowess triggers, fake-prowess synergies, and evasive creatures, you go over their defenses and beat them on tempo? That is a LOT of moving parts. It comes down to how reliably they get a 3/3, 4/4 landing on turn 5. Because that stops pretty much the whole team, and there aren't that many reliable fliers (most common fliers are 1 power). So my guess is that, unsurprisingly, answers for those roadblocks are going to be a premium. Reliable removal and hardcore tempo.

Thoughts?

Dragons Pre-release: I've got a good feeling about this...

Dragon's prelease! Best tournament of the season! I support the local gameshop and it's a bit of a cluster. And one jerk just took his pre release cards and LEFT to sell them on the internet. I"m pretty sure those people burn in hell.

Anyway, I picked Ojutai because blue/white for LIFE yo. And I'm kinda excited about my deck! Has a lot of rebound (cast spell second time at beginning of next upkeep) and some fun tempo beats. I am very worried about my near total lack of removal though. Here's the decklist.

  

       

   

 

      

14 creatures, 7 spells, 17 lands. I felt my curve was pretty low and very little in the realm of double-mana requirements until the 5/6 slot. I was cautiously optimistic about this assembly. Some fun synergies with rebound, Strongarm Monk's prowess-for-everybody, regular prowess, powering some Elusive Spellfists. Maybe get some spells back with the Loremaster. Hell, I even had two pretty saucy rares from my packs land right on theme.

So let's see what happens!

Game 1
Facing off against David who is very good, but a little pedantic. Son, it's a pre-release not a PTQ. But whatever. I keep a two lander curve out to 5 mana right on queue. But what's funny is that I still feel a little jammed up. Either I cast spells or I flip up my morphs; I can't do both. I get him down to 9 but he starts flipping up big creatures that I have no answer for.

 

I'm able to dink around a little, use some combat tricks but I get gunned down.

The second game has a very familiar ring to it. I keep a two lander and curve out very smoothly to 6 lands. It helps that I have my looter down. He lands a huge creature as his only board state and I pop it back with

Woo! Sweet tempo play! He's down to 7! Unfortunately he also casts this guy:

Ouch. And I'm staring at my void squall on the rebound. Am I really going to boomerang his dragon to give him ANOTHER free fight? My board state collapses and I have no answers.

(0-2)

Game 2
Alright, loser's bracket! Facing a green/white deck and I'm attacking pretty well through the air. Feeling good. Unfortunately, there's this guy

Basically everyone has their own game-breaking dragon. Except this guy gets +2/+2 from each of my rebound spells! Not... ideal really. And I don't have any answers at all. So he stabilizes, casts two more dragons

 

 and cuts me down.


Game two I double-mull but actually manage to get some decent board state with the Student of Ojutai throwing some heals and my own Shieldhide Dragon buffing my life total. Sadly he gets his Regent down again and steadily gains life and kills me. Sigh.

(0-2)

Game 3
Game three... is a bye. Apparently somebody picked up their pre-release cards and went to sell them online or something. I'm pretty those people go straight to hell.


So disappointing tournament performance. I think I had two fun deck ideas merged into one unholy monstrosity. Doesn't help that my promo card to blue/white was nearly totally unplayable. (by contrast the green/white promo was the giant Sunscorch Regent. Eff that guy) But if you're going to have a tempo play, have better tempo cards and immediate aggression. Limited morph. Or go full control with better removal and sticking a single threat. I think with the additions of counterspells and higher megamorph costs, there's room in limited for beefier control.

But we will see!

How did WotC beat the bubble?

Pretty fun story up on Planet Money. How did they avoid the beanie baby curse?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/03/11/392381112/episode-609-the-curse-of-the-black-lotus

I guess Fallen Empires was on purpose...?