While preparing for the standard section of Worlds competition, Randy Buehler and I constructed many deck types. Unfortunately the format is very well known and we were unable to make a successful new archtype. Randy thought the expected decks in the format would be Cuneo Blue, White Weenie and Pros Bloom. I thought Sligh would probably be more popular than White Weenie. After some testing we decided Cuneo Blue could beat most of the decks in our large guantlet, though the very agressive decks (such as Sligh and Suicide Black) gave the blue deck a lot of problems. I decided that I wanted to play 26 land rather than the typical 24, allowing me to Impulse for whatever spell I needed early on rather than spending my Impulse getting a land. Some more testing led me to believe that the Steel Golems were not good against our gauntlet ; against WW playing a Steel Golem is risking an armored creature. The only matchups where the Golems excelled were against the hyper agressive decks, and against a well played hyper agressive deck the Golem version tended to lose. I decided we should try removing the Golems. However the deck still needed a way to win, I decided that a Rainbow Efreet would be the best. The Rainbow gives many slower decks a lot of difficulty, and the Rainbow works very well with the Disks. The blue deck became 21 counters, 26 land, 4 Whispers, 4 Impulse, 4 Disk, and 1 Rainbow. Randy and I fiddled with the exact mix of permission. With all the land and cheaper counters, the deck usually got to a point where Dismiss worked well. So we agreed on 4 Dismiss. 4 Force Spike quickly became an obvious choice. However we disagreed on the other counters ; I did not like the idea of having many Mana Leaks in a deck with 4 Force Spikes, but Randy eventually convinced me that in the midgame we could throw all these weaker counters to Forbid. However this required 3 Forbids which made me weary of the Hammer (since Forbid and Dissipate competeded for the 3 mana permission slots). Soon we agreed that the only expected deck that our Blue deck was weak against was Sligh. Randy was willing to play the Blue deck at that point, but I was not. I searched for a good sideboard card to complement Hydroblast. I decided Steel Golems and Bottle Gnomes would not be sufficient, and came upon Sea Sprites. After some testing, we decided Sea Sprites were actually better against our sligh deck than Hydroblast. I wanted to sideboard at least 7 cards against Sligh so the sideboard had 4 Sea Sprite, 3 Hydroblast. Sea Sprite seemed a little silly, but I remembered Dave Price commenting something to the effect of "deciding top level players would not stoop to playing Freewind Falcons" at '97 US Nationals. Well I was definately willing to "stoop" if that is what it took to have a reasonable matchup against Sligh. The complement of the sideboard was not as hard to fill out. Wastelands are very powerful against other Blue Disk decks (since uncounterable Stalking Stones are crucial, as is simply failing to miss an early land drop) and Pros Bloom (where their sideboard cards against blue often require off colored mana). Capsize allows our deck to reuse the disk against a slower permanent based deck (such as a green creature deck). Some cards remained problem cards (such as River Boa when backed by Wastelands, and Sirocco), but we simply hoped to not encounter these. There was a little slack in the sideboard, but when we got to Worlds we decided that there would be many Cuneo Blue and Sligh decks, and used our last two sideboard slots on a 4th Hydroblast, and a Grindstone (the latter of which did not seem worth the slot in retrospect). Here is a listing of the deck we played: Land (26): 4 Stalking Stones 4 Quicksand 18 Island Permission (21): 4 Force Spike 4 Counterspell 1 Memory Lapse 3 Mana Leak 3 Forbid 2 Dissipate 4 Dismiss Other (13): 4 Nevinyrral's Disk 4 Impulse 4 Whispers of the Muse 1 Rainbow Efreet Sideboard (15): 4 Hyrdoblast 4 Sea Sprite 2 Capsize 4 Wasteland 1 GrindstoneWhen playing the deck, the early strategy involves countering almost any spell you can. For example, a Wall of Roots or a Bird of Paradise is a card I almost always counter in the early going ; if my opponent has more mana available than I do, I will become unable to counter all the threats he can present in one turn. After I build up to about 4 mana, I will often use quicksands for creature control, trying to hold off on playing a Disk when possible (since I have to tap my mana, letting my opponent cast any spells he wishes). When under severe preassure I cast a Disk as soon as possible. I try to gain a little card advantage using Dismiss, then eventually gain total control via Whispers of the Muse. Even when sideboarding against a very agressive deck, I tend to leave all my Whispers in (since my main midgame plan is still to gain control through Whispers). If I am bringing in either the Sea Sprites or the Capsizes I tend to take the Rainbow out. The Sea Sprites give me enough ways to win (and the Rainbow is too slow against most red decks). When I bring the Capsizes in, I don't want to draw Capsizes and Rainbow in my opening hand (since they are both rather slow), and I know that eventually I can protect a Stalking Stone with a Capsize. While this deck is rather homogenous (just lots and lots of land and counters), I still find it rather enjoyable to play. I don't think this style of deck takes nearly as long to win with as a deck that uses Gaea's recursion to win ; a Rainbow or a Stalking Stone typically just takes 7 turns to win with after you have established control. Erik Lauer Team CMU -Jeff Donais |
Subject: CMU Blue
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 16:34:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Erik Lauer