Can Bloomburrow's Biggest Fish Revive Mono-Blue Tempo?

Posted on September 23, 2024

When Delver of Secrets, Slip Out the Back, and Spell Pierce left Standard last month, it seems like Mono-Blue tempo went with it. In a Standard metagame dominated by aggressive Red decks, ramp decks looking to play Atraxa as soon as possible, and midrange decks loaded with targeted removal, it seemed like we would be putting our Haughty Djinns in the bulk box, waiting to spring into action as a part of our next spellslinger commander deck. There is one card in Bloomburrow, however, that may be a ray of hope for the archetype, and it is a big catch.

Eluge, the Shoreless Sea is a four-cost legendary elemental fish that requires three Blue mana to cast, but it is well worth the ambitious cost. Eluge's power and toughness are each equal to the number of islands you control, and when it enters or attacks it puts a flood counter on a land, turning it into an island as long as the counter stays on it. It also makes your first instant or sorcery each turn cost one generic or one Blue less for each flood counter among islands you control, potentially a huge discount if you can protect and attack with your fish.

Eluge's big body and mana reduction ability make it an amazing card for a deck like Mono-Blue tempo, which hopes to draw cards, counter spells, and eventually finish the game with a big creature. To this end, our deck is full of cantrips to help sculpt the perfect hand, counterspells and bounce spells to disrupt our opponent, and threats that can close out the game in two or three big attacks.

Our threats are pretty straight-forward: four copies each of Haughty Djinn and Eluge. Haughty Djinn has been a staple of Mono-Blue since its release 2 years ago, and it will continue to hold up the archetype until it rotates next year. It is a three-mana */4 with flying that makes all our instant and sorceries cost one less and its power is equal to the number of instant of sorceries in our graveyard. There isn't much more to say about this one, the card can hit for a lot of damage in the air and makes our counterspells cheaper. Eluge may not hit for as much damage right away, but after putting two flood counters on our lands its cost reduction can help us run away with the game. Free counterspells and cantrips are nothing to sneeze at, even if they require a little setup. We also run Tishana's Tidebinder, which is a decent threat but is way more useful as a stifle to deal with Planeswalkers, Atraxa, or other annoying abilities.

One thing I like about this deck is how versatile our counterspells are. While counterspells like Negate and Disdainful Stroke sit in our sideboard for the specific matches they're good in, all our main deck counterspells give us additional utility. Phantom Interference and Three Steps Ahead both make use of Thunder Junction's Spree mechanic, allowing us to counter any spell while drawing cards and making bodies. The 2/2 spirit is a little underwhelming, but using Three Steps Ahead to both counter a spell and copy a Haughty Djinn will likely win us the game on the following turn with twice as much power in the air. Confounding Riddle is another card I've been high on since its release in Lost Caverns of Ixalan. It's essentially an upgraded Supreme Will, countering spells unless their controller pays four mana or digging four cards deep for any card and dumping the rest in our graveyard to power up Haughty Djinns. Into the Flood Maw is one of the few main deck ways we have to deal with the board, bouncing any creature our opponent controls for one mana and even any non-land permanents as well if we gift them a fish.

The cantrips are nothing too special unfortunately, but we seem to get new cantrips every set so I'm excited to see how this portion of the deck will change over the next two years. Impulse and Sleight of Hand both give us options and let us grab the best cards for any given scenario, and while Deduce doesn't let us choose the cards we draw, it lets us go up a card thanks to the clue it leaves behind. While not a cantrip per se, If the game runs late Flow of Knowledge is an excellent way to refill our hand, especially with Eluge turning the handful of non-island lands we run into islands.

Since we're a mono-color deck, our sideboard plan is pretty simple. We have a couple more counterspells in the previously mentioned Negate and Disdainful Stroke, and to better deal with Standard's many aggro decks we have a narrow-but-effective counterspell in Minor Misstep. It only counters spells with mana value one or less, which may seem too narrow, but it counters every pump spell, nearly every early-game threat such as Heartfire Hero or Monastery Swiftspear, and most importantly Burn Together, the fling spell that usually ends games on turn three. For the token and convoke decks, we actually have a few options for board wipes thanks to Karn's Sylex or the Filigree Sylex. Either option works, with Karn's Sylex being slower but destroying more stuff and the Filigree Sylex being more narrow but cheaper. Finally, we have a card solely to deal with two of the cards we struggle with the most: Atraxa and Sheoldred. Eaten by Piranhas turns the enchanted creature into a 1/1 fish with no abilities, which shuts off Sheoldred's life drain abilities and Atraxa's keyword soup while turning them into insignificant creatures. Other sideboard options to consider include Blue Sun's Twilight, Bitter Chill, Rona's Vortex, and Cryptic Coat.