Unlikely Alliance – Kraum &#038; Silas

Spreading the Love - Battle of the Labs: Lab Maniacs vs Lotus Labs!

Historically Speaking - Rakdos and the Roman Gladiatorial Games

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pteramander" href="#" target="_blank">Pteramander</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.monsterart.co.uk/">Simon Dominic</a>)</h6>
<h1>It's Autumn in Ravnica</h1>
Greetings once again, and welcome to the article series that appeals to more formats than your average column. That’s right, it’s 60 to 100 coming at you strong once again with another Standard brew that the new Ravnica Allegiance set has brought into the world, and turning it into a 100-card Commander deck!
This one is undeniably powerful. How can I be so sure? Oh, you know, because this deck recently won a Star City Games Open event... oh, and because:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-29852 aligncenter" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/autumn-burchett-mythic-championship.jpg" alt="" width="534" height="356" />
<a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/2019MC1/finals-autumn-burchett-mono-blue-tempo-vs-yoshihiko-ikawa-esper">Autumn Burchett used this deck to take down the Mythic Championship!</a>
That's right - we're talking about Autumn's Mono-Blue Tempo. Let's look over the list they used to become a champion:
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Creatures]
*1 Mist-Cloaked Herald
*4 Merfolk Trickster
*4 Pteramander
*4 Siren Stormtamer
*4 Tempest Djinn
[/Creatures]
[Enchantments]
*4 Curious Obsession[/Enchantments]
[Spells]
*4 Dive Down
*4 Opt
*3 Spell Pierce
*1 Chart a Course
*2 Essence Capture
*1 Entrancing Melody
*1 Negate
*4 Wizard&#039;s Retort
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*19 Island
[/Lands]"></div>
<hr />
Sleek, fast, and just wonky enough to keep you on your toes. I love it. 
Every week it has been a blast to watch the Standard decks evolve; you can always bet that something new will come along, whether it's the five-color Gates deck, Jeskai Drakes making a comeback, or Esper Control slowing things down. This mono-blue deck picked up steam on Magic Arena, gathered quite the following from marquee players like <a href="https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1382326#paper">Kat Light</a> and other pros, and finally culminated in a spectacular finish at the first Mythic Championship. (Seriously, go watch the footage, it's a nail-biter.)
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Pteramander"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Curious Obsession"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Spell Pierce"></div></div>
If you have watched or played any games with this deck, it almost plays like a Modern <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Delver of Secrets" href="#" target="_blank">Delver of Secrets</a> strategy. Play a solid threat early, turn it sideways, and protect it with just enough defense that your opponent never gets the chance to establish themselves. This list plays a few more threats than the Legacy Delver decks, but playing a load of one- and two-mana creatures followed up with counterspells and other sources of protection isn’t a foreign concept to tempo players around the world. 
In fact, this week's deck is very near and dear to my heart, because one of the first real Modern decks I built was Merfolk, or, as I would often write on my decklists, "Mono-Blue Zoo." Standard's Mono-Blue Tempo isn't quite the tribal terror that Merfolk can be, but it definitely brings the beats in quick fashion, helped along by a bevy of really cool cards.
For example, one thing this deck does very well is keep resources available. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Curious Obsession" href="#" target="_blank">Curious Obsession</a> is almost a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Curiosity" href="#" target="_blank">Curiosity</a> for Standard players. Casting a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mist-Cloaked Herald" href="#" target="_blank">Mist-Cloaked Herald</a> and following it up next turn with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Curious Obsession" href="#" target="_blank">Curious Obsession</a> and a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Spell Pierce" href="#" target="_blank">Spell Pierce</a> to protect it has proven to be a very powerful way to start a game, making sure slower control decks can’t miss a beat. Even other aggro decks need to have answers quickly, or they risk falling behind. 
In Commander, we still can follow this blueprint to success. While the early turns of many Commander games start with some tapped lands, maybe a ramp spell or two, setting up engines and all that, we can instead turn the game into a race and see who can’t keep up. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pteramander" href="#" target="_blank">Pteramander</a> has worked its way into non-Standard formats, so why not welcome it into Commander as well? <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sol Ring" href="#" target="_blank">Sol Ring</a> is overrated, let’s play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gudul Lurker" href="#" target="_blank">Gudul Lurker</a> instead!
<hr />
<h2>The Setup</h2>
Now that we know what we’re trying to do, finding a commander to lead the crew of tiny terrors is key. There’re actually quite a few different commanders that jump out. Staying in mono-blue, we could go wide with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Talrand, Sky Summoner" href="#" target="_blank">Talrand, Sky Summoner</a> to capitalize on the spells we use to protect our team. Dropping a few cheap creatures and then holding up cantrips and counters isn’t a bad way to go. Alternatively, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thassa, God of the Sea" href="#" target="_blank">Thassa, God of the Sea</a> makes it a little easier to push damage through, plus she helps keep us off of dead draws even when she doesn’t directly affect the board too much. 
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Talrand Sky Summoner"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Thassa, God of the Sea"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Edric, Spymaster of Trest"></div></div>
We could also potentially open things up to multi-color commanders. Surely there’s some goon you know who plays an <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Edric, Spymaster of Trest" href="#" target="_blank">Edric, Spymaster of Trest</a> deck that turns tiny creatures sideways to draw fistfuls of cards so quickly you can't keep up. Well my friends, that's kind of the point, I guess. Make sure you have a ton of resources like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Counterspell" href="#" target="_blank">Counterspell</a> to protect your army, and swing like there is no tomorrow.
While all those are great choices for this style of commander deck, I don't think that the hate those three choices draw from the rest of the table is worth the hassle. Sometimes there are just some commanders that, while powerful, either aren't the most fun, or draw a ton of hate based off their reputation. Edric and Talrand are especially guilty of this.
If that's the case, we're going to go down a different path. Let's get us a recent legend who can help us quite a bit with all our twerpy little creatures.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive"></div></div>
Perfect. She's mono-blue and cares about the number "1." I'll be honest, at first, I overlooked the fact that <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive" href="#" target="_blank">Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive</a>'s ability cares about power or toughness. Once I started looking at the Top Cards on her EDHREC page, it all started to make sense. With cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tandem Lookout" href="#" target="_blank">Tandem Lookout</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Master of Waves" href="#" target="_blank">Master of Waves</a>, we could almost make a "2/1 Tribal" theme deck! I won't go that far down the rabbit hole, but it's a fun theme idea. In our case, it's a great start to make sure our opponents never get the chance to catch up with our pesky beaters. 
<hr />
<h2>Going big...err, little?</h2>
With <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive" href="#" target="_blank">Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive</a> at the helm of this tiny blue aggro deck, how do we want to up the ante? There are plenty of ways to do better than <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Curious Obsession" href="#" target="_blank">Curious Obsession</a> in a game of Commander. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Curiosity" href="#" target="_blank">Curiosity</a> is a good starting point, but even in a deck of little creatures, we can go a little bigger. How about <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Coastal Piracy" href="#" target="_blank">Coastal Piracy</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bident of Thassa" href="#" target="_blank">Bident of Thassa</a>? In the Standard version of this deck, we'd usually just focus on once creature to attack, to draw us cards, and to protect, but here in Commander, we can flood the field and draw four or five cards each combat step. Like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Curious Obsession" href="#" target="_blank">Curious Obsession</a>'s amazing card advantage in 1v1, Piracy and Bident will be instrumental in terms of overwhelming the table with resources.
It's a shame blue doesn't have much in the way of double strike, though from a design perspective, that's probably a good thing; decks like this, with lots of "when this creature deals combat damage to a player" abilities, would very quickly get out of hand. Naturally, priority one is to draw cards with our little creatures, but there are lots of other effects we can make use of as well. [el]Mistblade Shinobi[/el] and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sigil of Sleep" href="#" target="_blank">Sigil of Sleep</a> are two peas in the same bouncing pod, given how well they're able to keep enemy creatures off the table. (Just be careful not to poke the <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Brago, King Eternal" href="#" target="_blank">Brago, King Eternal</a> player's creatures, otherwise that might backfire.) If you can stack those bounce effects with a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Riptide Pilferer" href="#" target="_blank">Riptide Pilferer</a>, returning a creature and then forcing the player to discard that card, you surely have a nice disruptive gameplan to go along with your own card advantage engines.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sigil of Sleep"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mistblade Shinobi"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Riptide Pilferer"></div></div>
In fact, we shouldn't stop there. We can go for some massive damage triggers. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Quietus Spike" href="#" target="_blank">Quietus Spike</a> is one of the biggest and scariest on-hit effects we can add, making even the <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Soul Warden" href="#" target="_blank">Soul Warden</a> player nervous. Our little creatures will appreciate the big loss of life, putting them in much closer reach of dealing lethal damage.
We can also always just draw a mass of cards off one creature. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Surrakar Spellblade" href="#" target="_blank">Surrakar Spellblade</a> is one of the most expensive cards in the deck (three whole mana?!?!) but it's a powerful option when combined with all our low-drop, easy-to-cast spells. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rootwater Thief" href="#" target="_blank">Rootwater Thief</a> also does a fine job in the damage-dealt triggers by making sure that even the scariest threats our opponents have in their decks will never see the light of day. Anyone who says "One damage isn't that much" obviously never played against a deck like this!
Now, let's take a peek at this Tetsuko "Death by a Thousand Cuts" Umezawa brew!
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="Tetsuko Blue Beaters" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Commander]Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive[/Commander]
[Creatures]
*1 Artificer&#039;s Assistant
*1 Gudul Lurker
*1 Hypnotic Siren
*1 Mist-Cloaked Herald
*1 Mistcaller
*1 Pteramander
*1 Signal Pest
*1 Siren Stormtamer
*1 Slither Blade
*1 Triton Shorestalker
*1 Aether Figment
*1 Blighted Agent
*1 Coral Fighters
*1 Elusive Spellfist
*1 Ichorclaw Myr
*1 Invisible Stalker
*1 Looter il-Kor
*1 Merfolk Trickster
*1 Necropede
*1 Riptide Pilferer
*1 Rootwater Thief
*1 Wharf Infiltrator
*1 Balshan Beguiler
*1 Chasm SKulker
*1 Jhessian Thief
*1 Mistblade Shinobi
*1 Scroll Thief
*1 Surrakar Spellblade
*1 Thassa, God of the Sea
*1 Master of Waves
*1 Viral Drake
[/Creatures]
[Instants]
*1 Pongify
*1 Rapid Hybridization
*1 Swan Song
*1 Cyclonic Rift
*1 Disdainful Stroke
*1 Negate
*1 Reality Shift
*1 Capsize
*1 Disallow
*1 Wizard&#039;s Retort
*1 Evacuation
*1 Dig Through Time
[/Instants]
[Sorceries]
*1 Ponder
*1 Chart a Course
*1 Arm with Aether
*1 Treasure Cruise
[/Sorceries]
[Artifacts]
*1 Elixir of Immortality
*1 Meekstone
*1 Captain&#039;s Claws
*1 Sapphire Medallion
*1 Thought Vessel
*1 Kefnet&#039;s Monument
*1 Quietus Spike
[/Artifacts]
[Enchantments]
*1 Aqueous Form
*1 Curiosity
*1 Curious Obsession
*1 Sigil of Sleep
*1 Search for Azcanta
*1 Deep Freeze
*1 Imprisoned in the Moon
*1 Propaganda
*1 Bident of Thassa
*1 Coastal Piracy
[/Enchantments]
[Lands]
*1 Contested War Zone
*31 Island
*1 Lonely Sandbar
*1 Remote Isle
[/Lands]"></div>

<hr />
There you go folks. A quick-hitting, card-drawing, bounce-housing son of a gun. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Pteramander" href="#" target="_blank">Pteramander</a> will feel right at home with its peers.
What do you all think? Are <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sapphire Medallion" href="#" target="_blank">Sapphire Medallion</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kefnet&#039;s Monument" href="#" target="_blank">Kefnet&#039;s Monument</a> wasted here or are they a fine chance to make the fast even faster? Should we keep the mana curve this low, to keep the deck as aggressive as possible, or are there some high-cost spells we ought to squeeze in? Are there any synergies I'm overlooking? Let me know in the comments!

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Unlikely Alliance – Kraum & Silas

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