Tag Team Colors

By Ryan Blightcutter

Are you tired of getting smacked with Tog decks all the time? Are you tired of being controlled by annoying decks like Trenches and Opposition decks? Fear not, with all the new sets that came out, it appears to see that U/G decks are poking out everywhere. And why? Well, sets like Odyssey has brought us the gamebreaking card Upheaval and the blue hate card Spellbane. And at first, yes, blue and green are enemy colors. But nowadays U/G decks works almost like a tag team. And for that reason, Odyssey brings us one of the best green cards like Wild Mongrel. Immune to Slay, Dark Banish, and Ghastly Demise, and the ability to change any color, gets bigger, and because he is a 2/2 for two and lets us discard great madness cards that Torment brings us such as Basking Rootwalla and the Levitation card Wonder that Judgement brings us. With all those combine, green! provides the beatsticks while blue lets you fill up your hand and also serves as backup with countermagic. As I mention with the Wonder, once this guy hits your graveyard, your creatures gain flying. Thats one thing that green lacks. U/G decks are solid and is affordable on the wallet. U/G comes in variant different ways. Some can be Draino, Liquid Tempo, Threshold, or one of my favorites, the Quiet Roar decks. All these decks have one goal and one goal only. To quickly beat your opponent before he or she can even stop and think about having threshold. It is a very aggressive deck and can be very challenging to defeat. Here is a deck that I have came up with that won me many games.



MAIN DECK

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Basking Rootwalla

3 Aquamoeba

3 Arrogant Wurm

3 Wonder

4 Aether Burst

4 Circular Logic

3 Deep Analysis

3 Quiet Speculation

3 Careful Study

4 Roar of the Wurm

11 Forests

11 Islands



SIDEBOARD

2 Upheaval

3 Moments Peace

4 Envelop

3 Seedtime

2 Tranquility

1 Wonder

The deck uses the fast Wild Mongrels to discard the Basking Rootwalla's and also gets the Wonder and Roar of the Wurms in your graveyard. Aquamoeba serves the same thing with the Wild Mongrel. Arrogant Wurm. Now this guy is a 4/4 Trample. I picture this guy as a 4/4 trample and haste for only 2 colorless and one green. Play him before your opponent's turn is over and next turn can attack. Also it this is better than the Werebear since it can be played easier and you don't have to wait for the threshold to come if you played Werebear. Can also pump up the Mongrel. Wonder serves as the "Levitation" for the deck. Once you have a horde of flying critters, it would be hard for your opponent to handle since they all fly. And also it gives your Roar of the Wurm tokens flying. Aether Burst either buys you time, saves one of your critters, or can take out you! r opponent's Roar of the Wurm tokens. Circular Logic is mainly a Counterspell for only one blue if you can find a way to discard it but of course there are plenty of ways to do that in this deck. It doesn't tie up with the mana and only cost one blue to play. Deep Analysis refills your hand and draws you the cards that you need. Quiet Speculation helps you find those Roar of the Wurms quickly so you can play their flashback out. Careful Study helps you draw and also play out madness cards and also helps get the Wonders and Roar of the Wurms in the Graveyard. The Roar of the Wurms are the non creature threats. The flashback is incredible and with Wonder in your graveyard it will wreck havok on your opponents. The eleven Islands and eleven Forests makes out the mana base. It really doesn't need any painlans since the deck has no problem with producing what you need.

The sideboard is really against other top-notch decks or against mirror matches. The Upheavals clears the board while you replay all your annoying critters while they can't do anything. Moments Peace is against a mirror match or against fast decks. It buys you time so you don't get killed that fast. Envelop helps you counter any other dangerous sorceries such as Upheaval, Roar of the Wurm or Mutilates, Breaking Point, etc. Seedtime is a Time Warp for only two if your opponents try to play any other blue spells during your turn. It also makes it harder for your opponents since they can't decide to counter any of your spells or not for you to have another turn. Tranquility gets rid of other enchantments such as Opposition, and those Elephant Guides. The fourth Wonder is against mirror decks and you can count on having that Wonder in your graveyard.

Against other top-notch decks, this deck performs pretty well. Tog decks are slow and it takes a little time to set it up before they start to control the board. This decks shoots out lightning fast to give Tog mages finding out solutions to deal with your fast threats. Usually Tog decks will have sideboard cards to deal with green. Hibernation returns all your critters back but just play them out again as fast as possible because he or she can only counter so many. Usually Tog decks can't handle flying critters so your best bet is to get your Wonder in the Graveyard. Other threats you might want to watch out for would be Haunting Echoes, which will take out any important cards in your graveyard and out of your deck. Others might use Decompose or Coffin Purge to deal with your Wonders.

Trenches are also slow to set up and is also a permission deck that has burn and countermagic as backup. Your best bet is to try to play out some critters the play some more at a time. Usually Trenches has a hard time against U/G. Simply just play threats after threats until you win.

Other U/G can be hard since you know you and your opponent is playing at the same speed so to slow him or her down simply sideboard Moments Peace. Also Seedtime could work or Envelop if they play Upheaval or other Roar of the Wurms.

I always thought that U/G would have it's chance to shine. They keep growing into stronger decks and will continue until it tops all other decks such as Tog that was wrecking havoc at almost every tournament scene. The deck is very aggressive and it doesn't cost that much to build. That is why I like to build U/G. It can top all those other expensive decks out there. You must give this deck a chance and you will be amazed what the deck can do. It is time for green blue decks to shine. It is really ironic that Torment was to help out black and Judgement help out red, white, green, but instead it had the most impact on blue green. Tog decks are dying out slowly but they are still there. Don't think that blue green will stop wrecking havoc now. It w! ill get stronger and harder to defeat than ever. Soon all those Tog decks you see on the topping the charts will change and out comes a deck that will reign. It will be blue green and it starts now. You will see decks from all sorts. Like the one Ken Ho played. And the Quiet Roar decks that people make. And maybe a little Draino here and there or maybe a simple threshold deck but it makes no difference because they are all U/G decks and it's time that all these decks that once ruled the charts will see themselves at the bottom of the ladder. Thank you for your time and please if you have any comments, suggestions, or any ways that can improve my deck, please do not hesitate to tell me.


-Ryan Blightcutter

Phyrexian_316@yahoo.com