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