Countdown to Regionals: Accelerated Blue Follow-Up
**In the first Accelerated Blue article, I presented my listing as if it was the best listing, and didn't seriously consider many alternatives outside sideboard tuning. Since then, everyone who asked about the deck has asked about their own variation: Seal of Removal , or Misdirection , or less land (very common), Annul maindeck, or other variants. I'll try to look at them here, stating the strengths and weaknesses of each option.
Variation 1: Running 26 or 27 lands.
Advantages: Less possibility of drawing too much mana, or more likely not enough to do early on. More action cards if matchups come down to trading spells and not who has more lands. Room in the maindeck for more options, generally Annul , opening up the sideboard. Not running a funny looking single Blasted Landscape.
Disadvantages: Less land in the matchups where land is virtually all that matters: Ponza, the mirror matchup. Slightly more mulligans, and slightly less ability to just have faith in drawing more lands. Generally, not quite enough land to almost always function normally without a Monolith; may force you to not play as many high cost spells like Palinchron.
I still support running 28 lands. The basic question is whether you have a significant advantage running more lands in the mirror matchup. Many advocates of running less land think that both players will normally have enough land, and the matchup will come down to spells instead. This isn't what I've found in practice, but I could have had odd draws or been matched up against odd variants. Basically the format comes down to two cases: Matchups where your deck is better, in which case having that much land makes your deck more reliable, and matchups where the decks are similar, in which case more land is an advantage. You can almost always use more land unless you get a lot of basics and the wrong set of spells on top of them. That doesn't mean you don't sideboard one land out sometimes, or in a pinch even two if you're lowering your curve and face no Rishadan Ports or Dust Bowls. The main advantage to me is that you gain one or two sideboard slots by maindecking Annuls, which I don't think is enough.
Variation 2: Opportunity over Stroke of Genius
Advantages: Six mana is about when you want to start using Stroke of Genius, and if you were going to tap six or seven mana, Opportunity is better. There is the theory that four cards should be enough to win with.
Disadvantages: Inability to Stroke for one or two in problematic situations, or situations where all you need is to survive and have spare mana. Inability to generate huge Strokes, especially if you have multiple Monoliths.
I think this one can go either way, although I prefer Stroke of Genius . The choice goes along with other choices in the deck in many ways. Running less land makes a bigger Stroke less likely, favoring Opportunity . So does not running Palinchron , since a large Stroke is no longer that much better than an Opportunity . I think the flexibility of Stroke makes losing the card at six mana worthwhile. Run whichever fits your style and variant of the deck.
Variation 3: No Palinchrons
Advantages: Palinchron costs seven mana, and that's a lot. It often isn't castable when you need it if you don't have a Monolith, or even with one if you need to use the Monolith earlier for another creature or a Treachery . Mana intensity of the deck and the need to use your Ports and Dust Bowls actively makes it unlikely that you can constantly keep up the mana to return it. The need to put the untapping of lands on the stack makes it easy to kill the Palinchron in response. Then there's the theory that the deck doesn't need this many creatures, and there's no question Masticore and Morphling come first. Cutting Palinchrons saves you a little sideboard space, since they do get sideboarded out a significant portion of the time and cutting them normally lets you bring in what would otherwise be sideboard cards, especially the fourth Masticore.
Disadvantages: This makes a Stroke or an Opportunity less of an advantage, since you no longer get to play the Palinchrons you draw out for free afterwards. Once you get to seven mana this is clearly a great card. It's the best way to use Monolith if you can wait until turn four, since you get to use the four mana from untapping to untap the Monolith and use it again. It gives you more damage sources and more variation in them. It lets you cast a threat without tapping out. Generally, it's better to draw one each of Palinchron and another creature than two of the same creature, unless they kill the first copy of the other one.
They seem to work out for me, but again I understand not running them. Some people plain old don't like them. Since I run them to a large extent because they've worked out for me, and based on my Magic instincts, I could be wrong here.
Variation 4: Annul maindeck.
Advantages: Provides a cheap, efficient counterspell if it can counter worthwhile spells, and you definitely could use more good counters. Aside from Faerie Conclave , you have no other first turn plays. Saves sideboard slots, since you have to go up to four after board. Lowers your rather high mana curve. There are very few decks that render Annul actually bad, mainly red burn decks, although it is suboptimal a lot more. Allows you to reduce your land count slightly if you want.
Disadvantages: Can be useless, even if it's not very likely, and that can be deadly to a deck with such a high land count. Stompy will normally have only one target, although it's a good one. In many ways, the low casting cost of Annul ends up being wasted with all your mana sources. Early on, saving mana for Annul when it doesn't hit very many spells can prevent you from being disruptive in other ways, such as Rishadan Port . Fitting Annul will normally require you to reduce your land count.
This probably comes down to a metagame call. If you know that you're facing a lot of decks where this is good, or you need those extra slots really badly, this makes sense. In a random field, however, I'd stay away. New York seems like good Annul territory right now. If you do maindeck Annul , stick to one or two unless the situation is seriously warped or evolves from where it is now.
Variation 5: Misdirection (maindeck or sideboard)
Advantages: Devastating against land destruction, helps win counter wars and especially steal Strokes (at a price), randomly beats other strategies. You can pay five mana for it a significant portion of the time.
Disadvantages: You normally have to pitch a blue card to cast it. Normally that's just a 2-for-1 problem, but here it's worse. You have 32 mana sources and 4 Powder Kegs, forcing you to pitch one of the remaining cards, none of which you want to pitch. It creates a serious nothing-to-do problem, both right away and later on. All it does against Bargain is stop a Soul Feast if they don't deal with it first, which shouldn't be significant that often.
I'm very opposed to this one. I understand the appeal of the card, but it's not suited to this deck. If decks vulnerable to it like Ponza become big I can see sideboarding this card if they find a way not to lose anyway.
Variation 6: More 4-cost counters - normally Rewind before Thwart .
Advantages: Thwart really helps against Bargain if you have the three Islands. Rewind does work well with Grim Monolith . Helps make the deck more stable, especially if more people start to adjust their play to the deck's lack of enough 'real' countermagic. Counters and especially real ones are a Good Thing, especially in a spread out field.
Disadvantages: Outside the Bargain matchup returning three Islands is a really high price to pay. To insure you even have three Islands requires a sacrifice in the mana base. These cards are lower quality than the high casting cost spells in the standard version of the deck, basically overpriced by a mana or more. Bargain has a decent shot at killing you before you reach 2UU. You don't want to hold back Morphling or Masticore to cast Rewind and Thwart . Rebel decks, one of your bigger problems, will often not need to cast spells once you get this kind of mana. Your high quality cards insure that by the time you get your mana, you've won unless you've lost control of the board, in which case counters are not the answer.
As you can probably tell, I'm very opposed to running more than one or two Rewinds here. A suggestion has been made to play none at all, and that makes a lot more sense to me. Even against Bargain I find myself looking at the Rewind during sideboarding, wondering if it's too slow even though I know the effect is really good. The extra space could make room for an extra Arcane Laboratory in the sideboard, moving a sideboard card into the maindeck. To quote the most recent advocate of this strategy: "I just really don't like Rewind."
Variation 7: More basic Islands
Advantages: Helps with Thwart , if you run it. Makes you safer against Dust Bowl , makes your mana more consistent. No more worries about a land coming in tapped when you least need it or one colorless land too many.
Disadvantages: The Faerie Conclaves really do help in races and other situations where the deck goes active. Your mana ratio really has to go down here, since you can get glutted much more easily. As mentioned above Thwart is not ideal regardless of Island count. The Rishadan Ports are key to stalling the situation into the long game and great in the mirror. At least three of the Dust Bowls have to stay. Where are the Islands coming from?
This one is here because players I respect have suggested it, but I think it's the best way to ruin the deck if taken seriously. Of course, cutting the Landscape for one more Island is fine if you want a little more blue in your deck, but that's as far as it should go.
If there is a Part III, which seems likely, it will deal with alternative sideboard choices.
All questions, comments, and responses welcomed at
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