Flashy Fancy Flyers

Last week Wizards of the Coast updated the Banned & Restricted list, adding Attune with Aether, Rogue Refiner, Rampaging Ferocidon and Ramunap Ruins to the Standard ban list. While it is still early days, these changes have certainly shaken up the meta. God-Pharaoh’s Gift and Control decks have been seeing a lot of success in this new battlefield, while some strategies that have been kept down by Temur Energy and Ramunap Red have had their chance to shine. It has also given us brewers in the community an opportunity to try some new and exciting builds. I myself have had some success with a few new brews I’ve been tinkering with, and shockingly one of them is not an aggro deck. What’s more, it Blue! Yes it’s a brave new world and I’m facing it head on with a deck I like to call, Flashy Fancy Flyers.

Flashy Fancy Flyers is a mono blue tempo deck, that wins by resolving one or two flyers to chip away at your opponents life total while holding off opposing threats with counter and bounce effects. It can also sideboard into a pretty effective control strategy, making it a great deck to battle the multitude of God-Pharaoh’s Gift builds currently rampaging across the Standard leagues. What’s more the deck is surprising affordable, and I have been having quite a bit of success with it online

We start off with a full playset of Siren Stormtamer. A Flying Men with up side, this siren allows you to put on early game pressure, then gives you Not of this World on a stick once you have one of your better creatures on the board. We next move on to a playset of Skyship Plunderer and Storm Fleet Aerialist, as well as four copies Metallic Mimic. The Mimic might seem like an odd choice given it is not a flyer, but since a lot of our flyers are Pirates (spoilers), it allows you to put a quicker clock on your opponent. It also combos well with Skyship Plunderers ‘proliferate’ trigger.

We also run playsets of Nimble Obstructionist and Dreamcaller Siren to help out with the tempo strategy of the deck. Nimble Obstructionist might not be a Pirate, but as a 3/1 with flash for only three mana it certainly can put your opponent under pressure. You can also cycle it to Stifle your opponent, which in this world of triggered abilities is a great help. Dreamcaller Siren is our most expensive spell at four mana, but it can also be cast at instant speed to tap down two non-land permanents if we control another pirate. Perfect if you are facing an aggressive deck like Mono-Red.

For the non-creature spells we start with four copies of Unsummon. While blue might not have solid on board removal, it can still stem the bleeding or get a blocker out of the way when needed. It is also great against tokens strategies, that are seeing a bit of a resurgence. A playset of Lookout’s Dispersal does a passable job of imitating Mana Leak provided you control a pirate, while a couple of Opts give you some early card draw when you don’t have a Siren Stormtamer on turn one. Finally, a playset of Favorable Winds allows your army of flyers to force through the last few points of damage once you have established your board presence.

The mana base is nice and simple, twenty two Islands. For the sideboard we take full advantage of blues ability to play unfair magic, with a whole host of counter spells. Spell Pierce, Negate and Disallow help against control decks where bounce effects are less than useful. Essence Scatter, Expel from Orazca and Waterknot proved you with additional assistants for more creature based strategies, while Crook of Condemnation handles graveyard tomfoolery.

Creatures (24)
4 Siren Stormtamer
4 Skyship Plunderer
4 Storm Fleet Aerialist
4 Metallic Mimic
4 Nimble Obstructionist
4 Dreamcaller Siren
Spells (14)
2 Opt
4 Unsummon
4 Favorable Winds
4 Lookout’s Dispersal
Lands (22)
22 Island
Sideboard (15)
2 Spell Pierce
2 Essence Scatter
2 Expel from Orazca
2 Negate
2 Disallow
2 Waterknot
3 Crook of Condemnation

And there you have it, Flashy Fancy Flyers. The deck is a ton of fun to play, and has a more than favourable match up against the control decks of the format. It does struggle against aggressive deck like Mardu and Mono-Red, but the games are not unwinnable. But what do you think? Is this the kind of deck that you want to try for yourself? Maybe you would like to try it out at your local FNM. If so let us know in the comments below, and don’t forget to like a subscribe to keep up to date on all the goings on here at Master of Magics. But until next time remember, Good Luck and Have Fun.

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