Mono Blue aggro has been a known quantity in the standard cycle since the very first time a Curious Obsession was put on a Mist-Cloaked Herald. Once Ravnica Allegiance was brought into the fold, the deck started to become a mainstay with the new additions of Pteramander and Essence Capture. The rise in popularity had a major boost do to Pro Tour Champion and MPL member Alexander Hayne’s hold on the #1 Mythic Ranking on MTGA using solely Mono Blue.
In the week leading up to SCG Dallas Fort Worth, Mono Blue was the talk of the town, meriting an almost 2 hour show by The GAM Podcast on the archetype. Even with the deck being a known quantity, Robert Wagner was able to take down the entire event using Hayne’s exact 75.
At the time the deck punished Esper Control for its clunky removal suite and easy to interrupt threats. A tempo deck with cheap counterspells was the perfect deck to take down the event.
Moving forward, Mono Blue became a staple in the format. At the first Mythic Championship in February, 3 of the top 8 competitors were on various iterations of Mono Blue. After many tense matches Autumn Burchett became the first Mythic Champion piloting Mono Blue.
Then the deck fell off. War of the Spark introduced us to Teferi, Time Raveler, a planeswalker who’s static ability both warps the Standard landscape and debilitates Mono U’s main gameplan of stick a threat, protect it while gaining incremental advantage, stick more threats. Losing all the instant speed protection the deck relies so heavily on due to Teferi’s static is back breaking. So why revisit the deck? Teferi, Time Raveler is still legal AND Narset’s static also stifles the deck’s ability to gain advantage. I think the answer lies in the new cards from Core Set 2020.
To kick off the discussion let’s look at one of the many lists Autumn Burchett has been trying out on their stream:
M20 Shake-up :
This little pirate is a sweet addition to the 1-drop blue creature card pool. Flying is such a powerful ability that, when combined with flash, most likely edges out Mist-Cloaked Herald for good. Oh, did I mention that this card also draws more cards late game or when you need answers? Reminiscent of Azure Mage, the second ability costing 4 means you will only be activating it when the game has ground out, but don’t be fooled, there are plenty of ways to scrape out a close game with Mono Blue and drawing extra cards definitely helps. Spectral Sailor also gives us a way to punish a patient opponent who didn’t cast their threat into our open mana representing countermagic. Instead of us not using our mana either that turn, we get to draw a card. It is notable, although not as much in this configuration, that Spectral Sailor is a pirate. Lookout’s Dispersal is mostly a speculative card in this list, but it may be worth exploring a more pirate-heavy list with a greater number of dispersal alongside some copies of Warkite Marauder.
Most of the time Winged Words is a Chart a Course without the discard. We don’t have any Arclight Phoenix we plan on pitching, so the extra card is all that matters. Chart a Course has fluctuated in numbers from 1-3 from one Mono Blue list to another throughout its standard life. Now that every creature sans Merfolk Trickster has flying, a card like this seems completely reasonable as a 1-of, and maybe I’ll try out more in the future.
An oldie but a goodie. This card is...interesting. It’s very hard to tell if setting an opponent back one turn is worth it, especially with most creatures in Standard generating value when they enter the battlefield. I think an effect like this could be powerful, but it definitely depends on the meta. If the meta becomes more Gruul centric with Rekindling Phoenix, then Unsummon could get a look. I don’t think I’d ever want this as a 4-of, and in the maindeck it can be awkward. However, it is worth noting that you can save your own creatures from removal, so it is not completely dead vs. control.
Ah, a controversial card. First off, Wizards decided to throw us a curveball by bringing back the strong, and sometimes obnoxious, protection ability. It’s debatable whether this card is actually good enough to merit standard play. My initial thoughts are that it is good enough, in Mono Blue specifically. This deck is historically weak to Mono Red, and the ability to block a large Runaway Steam-Kin or a Goblin Chainwhirler alone makes the Drake quite strong. It is also a good carrier of a Curious Obsession. You will only be cashing the flier in to counter a spell a small amount of the time ideally, but when you have to a 2-mana counter isn’t too bad, especially in a matchup where we cut most of our copies of Wizard’s Retort.
I haven’t been too thrilled about this card. More often than not this has been equivalent to a 2-mana unsummon-esque effect. That said, I think out of all the new cards Aether Gust may be the most meta-dependent and this early in the format it’s too hard to make many judgement calls. The most obvious place where this card shines is vs. Rekindling Phoenix. The only ways to deal with Phoenix before Gust lied in Merfolk Trickster after attackers are declared lose-ability shenanigans or by using Entrancing Melody, often on the 0/1 token created by trading off creatures. If Phoenix sees an uptick, Aether Gust maybe be strong for that week. The card can be strong against Nexus as well. Other than that we will just have to wait and see if this card is the answer Mono Blue is looking for.
In true Mono Blue fashion we are looking at adding only a single rare to our deck. This card may look like a corner case card akin to Squelch or Trickbind which see little, if any modern play. But don’t let these comparisons fool you. This card is HUGE in the matchups where it is relevant. It’s an all star against control, where it is often Counterspell vs. their most important threats. It is also worth noting this card can cleanly deal with the War of the Spark God-Eternals and can be an answer to a Blast Zone activation. I might bump the number of these in sideboard up to 2 moving forward as I come across more of its use-cases. It has certainly shined in my testing so far.
M20 has definitely given quite the shakeup to the Mono Blue archetype. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a revival, but a second chance might be a place to start. The landscape of Standard has changed a lot with the printing of War of the Spark. With M20 now up to bat, i’m excited to see if Mono Blue can go the distance.
Feel free to send me your take on Mono Blue or to ask any questions. You can find me on Facebook or on Twitter @jeremy_langevin.
