G/U Aggro-Control "No Soup for You" Before Odyssey came out I was a mostly R/G Beatdown type of player. I loved using cards like Shivan Wurm and Flametoungue Kavu to completely decimate my opponent. But for the heck of it, before Odyssey was released, I figured I would try out different strategies. Control was thought to be one of the decks that would die out in Type 2. At least that's what people thought in my area. But I figured I would try it anyway. Who knows maybe the deck would be quite decent. So I built a simple G/B/U deck that utilized Mystic Snake, Nightscape Familiar and other control oriented spells. Frankly, the deck was o.k; if I used it in a tournament it would be decent enough to do well in a tournament. It wouldn't come in first, but I wouldn't be embarrassed to use it. This deck sat on my shelf for at least two weeks. I never touched the deck for a while, but then Odyssey came out. When I bought a box I was amazed at the cards I could add. There was Werebear, the souped up Llanowar Elf. Or Chatter of the Squirrel the cheapest creature conjuring instant ever. Or even Wild Mongrel, the best bear ever. For one thing my main deck was quite slow even with the Familiar, so a few Werebear would be a perfect addition. Chatter of the Squirrel was another card that would help overrun the opponent. After days of testing and card switching I built this. "No Soup For You" Lands- 24 9x Islands 7x Forest 4x Archaeological Dig 2x Timberland Ruins 2x Seafloor Debris Creatures- 16 4x Wild Mongrel 3x Llanowar Elves 3x Werebear 3x Mystic Snake 3x Jungle Barrier Other- 20 4x Chatter of the Squirrel 4x Temporal Spring 4x Counterspell 4x Repulse 4x Aether Mutation So let's go over this deck. Mana: O.k. I know the first thing your going to say is, why aren't there any Yavimaya Coast? Well for one thing, I don't like them. Second, you have to lose one life for 1 mana, to me it just isn't worth it. With this deck there really isn't any problems with mana acceleration because you have Werebear and Llanowar Elves. So Seafloor Debris and Timberland Ruins are perfect additions instead. With them if you really need to you can sacrifice them for the needed mana. Creatures: In this deck, you would think that the mana accelerators or Mystic Snake are the staple, but they aren't. The real staple in this deck is Jungle Barrier, this card can single handedly prevent a big creature like Shivan Wurm from dealing any damage. Wild Mongrel is another important card in that if needed all you have to do is discard a few cards, get Mongrel's power and toughness up and either attack or block if needed. Plus with this card you can quickly get Threshold to power up Werebear. Spells: For any type two control deck there are two cards you must have. First Counterspell, that's a given. But the second is Repulse. It's a cheap card to get rid of that pesky fattie, or mana accelerator which is ticking the heck out of you. Since this deck is a Blue/Green the new creature generators are important. Chatter of the Squirrel is a good one because it is cheap. By at least turn three you can already have three to four creatures out. I was originally going with Elephant Ambush, but after testing it out constantly Aether Mutation is a better choice. Especially since this is a control. So Ambush is sitting in my Sideboard. This deck has faired pretty well. I've lost only twice with it. Both to fires, but even still I've beaten various fires decks with it as well. It just depends on whom you're playing. This deck is also relatively cheap; you could probably build one for only $20 tops. I have yet to test this in a tournament. But if I did, I wouldn't be surprised to come in the top 2. But when you play with this deck, the most important thing is to keep plenty of mana open. Because you will never know when the whole game will depend on you countering a spell or repulsing a single creature. Jeremy Mombourquette Mako_raptor101@hotmail.com