By Christina “cecillbill” Page 

The death of mono-decks has been greatly exaggerated. Or, rather, I should say that Mono-Water isn’t dead. In fact, it was far more successful at the Invitationals than some players originally forecasted—it has racked up at least two 1^st place finishes and at least five Top 4 finishes. Mono-Water can falter to several of the dominant Control strategies, but it’s a very competitive archetype with the potential to cause major upsets. The build hasn’t gained any essential cards in recent sets, but its established card choices haven’t lost an excessive amount of utility either. Although Mono-Water has a game plan that most players can telegraph from a mile away, mastering the strategy requires understanding how to exploit tempo gains and work with the limitations of temporary removal. Let’s take a closer look:

Big Blue Bounce

Created & played by: Dan Burkett
Decklist provided by: bt67
Event: Invitational OH, Newbury
Ranking: 1^st Place

Quantity	Creatures/Spells	Mana Cost	Civilization	Main Purpose
4	Aqua Guard	1		Defense/Evobait
4	Spiral Gate	2		Removal
3	Aqua Hulcus	3		Draw/Evobait
3	Angler Cluster	3		Defense
3	Aqua Jolter	3		Evobait
3	Crystal Memory	4		Tutor
2	Crystal Paladin	4		Finisher/Removal
3	Brain Serum	4		Draw
3	Teleportation	5		Removal
4	Corile	5		Removal
4	Aqua Surfer	6		Removal/Evobait
4	Crystal Lancer	6		Finisher

 

Mana Cost	Quantity Visual	Quantity Numerical
1	IIII	4
2	IIII	4
3	IIIIIIIII	9
4	IIIIIIII	8
5	IIIIIII	7
6	IIIIIIII	8

 

Civilization	# Of Creatures	# Of Spells	Total
	27	13	40

Playing The Deck – So, You Want Your Crystal Lancer, Eh?

Much like dedicate Control decks, the deck sets up early stability through 1 for 1 trades where it cannot hit/block and retain its creatures. If you’re facing a quick deck, then you want to start the game out by setting up defense. You can drop Guard early to starve off an attack, and once you have 2 mana Gate plays backup. Losing a few shields early isn’t too much a worry, and is likely to happen, as cards like Comet Missile ensure small blockers don’t stick. Since the deck packs 17 shield triggers and your opponent isn’t going to have shield negation online that early, the deck could gain some hitters, removal or fresh options off the trigger. Play defense by ear, and keep in mind that you may want to hold onto a copy of Guard for same turn evo’ing later.

By turn 3 if the field isn’t too threatening then Aqua Hulcus is the ideal drop. If more defense is needed then you could bounce a hitter with Gate and drop Guard, or drop Angler Cluster. Angler Cluster can keep a lot of things at bay. By mid game this deck wants hitters to stick so a Paladin drop can cause a few shield breaks, or bounce like Teleportation and Corile can help hitters sneak in hits. Trading Memory for Paladin with some hitters can lead to quicker shield advantage or Memory can initiate Lancer’s setup. If you have your stars in hand or have been hit with discard, Serum can speed through more of the deck to get things rolling faster.

By mid game, the deck wants to swift to using its card drawing and tempo robbing to lay down the beats with support from its finishers. Turn 5 Corile helps starve off spells/creatures that can answer creature plays, and Teleportation can get troublesome hitters off the board or clear a path for little Liquids to steal hits. Their tempo robbing effects are about throwing the opponent off track so the deck can build the necessary mana to play Lancer. And, it’s the turn were the deck can start to gain some 2 for 1s with its removal cards. You can also do things like bounce Hulcus for more draws where you have the luxury. Turn 6 can be seen as “wrap this up” with Lancer. In the least, you can bounce a hitter/blocker with Surfer or other bounce to pave the way for crucial hits or to delay an opponent’s plans. The deck basically wants to win by turn 7 or shortly thereafter, hopefully dropping more than one Liquid People Evo on the board.

Strengths – What’s Keeping Mono-Water Alive and Kicking?

The deck is compact (40 cards) while possessing several deck manipulation options, and is loaded with shield triggers to squeeze out mana advantage (43% of the deck). Those characteristics help to ensure that Evolutions come to hand quickly, and that an opponent slams at the risk of handing the deck the very cards it needs. The deck is very consistent.

Potent Deck Manipulation—Options coming to your hand sooner gives you chances to pre-plan plays more effectively, develop your mana having seen a wider selection of cards, and get the right cards in hand faster. About 23% of the deck is comprised of cards that thin it.

Aqua Hulcus—The quintessential Liquid People evobait that also functions as a deck thinner, Rush counter-attacker, and offense.

Brain Serum—It digs two cards deep into your deck, which gives you shots at seeing your key cards sooner. It’s even better if your opponent sets it off because of the mana advantage. More options = more ways to win.

Crystal Memory—Replaces itself with the best option from your deck. It’s essentially 3 additional copies of Crystal Lancer or Crystal Paladin, which are well-expected search plays. If you need evobait, an evo, removal, or a blocker, then Memory gets it.

Bounce—Bounce has declined in overall strength, but it has always been about wisely choosing targets. Bounce creates windows to attack or helps starve off attacks. It makes an opponent “waste” the mana he invested summoning a creature and wreck his tempo, provided that creature does not pack a CIP effect that can grant him further advantage. It also can be used to replay your own creature effects.

Corile—Hopefully starves off something that could answer the deck’s next turn Lancer drop. Undoing an opponent’s work wrecks his deck’s flow, and can be exploited by sneaking in an attack that results in shield or card advantage.

Teleportation—It’s classic 2 for 1 bounce, and the deck’s only option for handling multiple targets that aren’t blockers. It can be used defensively to prolong beats from two hitters, or offensively to slam blockers for uncontested hits.

Aqua Surfer—Surfer has awesome utility in a deck focused on the Liquid People evos—evobait, removal, hitter, and potential mana advantage. Your opponent triggers it, temporarily loses a guy while you gain a hitter than can swing next turn. It’s Spiral Gate with legs.

Spiral Gate—Whether it’s 2 mana or free Spiral Gate is solid. Offers up mana advantage when used on more expensive targets. Has solid utility at all stages of the duel.

Uniform Mana Base—It’s all Water mana 24/7. That means the only restriction to playing cards is having out the correct amount of mana. Careful consideration must still go into what hits the mana zone, but it’s a much less tedious task when you don’t have to balance civs. Ties into the deck flowing more smoothly, and Cluster being a 6000 power blocker all day long.

Stall—The idea is to last long enough to summon evasion finishers and wrap up the game. Blockers provide a way to save valuable resources—shields and creatures—and by you time to use your business spells that don’t deal with your opponent’s cards like Serum.

Aqua Guard—this 2000 power blocker is likely to suicide block many creatures, and with ample blocker kill floating it shouldn’t be expected to stick. But it’s only one mana, so the 1 for 1 trade if it’s able to kill a 2000 weenie is fine. It’s also the “same turn” evo material for turn 6 Paladin drop or turn 7 Lancer drop. Also solid late game.

Angler Cluster—It’s 3 mana for a 6000 power blocker…talk about stall! Cluster can starve off all sorts of creatures played throughout the duel, and most importantly, it can keep the 6000 power Cryptic Totem at bay. This deck really wants to get its mana advantage game going from the shields where it can, so discouraging attacks from Totem is a nice asset.

Resiliency via ST Creatures—back in the day Mono-Water trumped creature destruction tactics with Aqua Soldier. It was all about making your opponent waste turns, moves and resources trying to prevent you from swinging with it or bringing Lancer online. While Surfer and Jolter don’t offer that same trump action, they give the deck ways to get back into the summoning business or to bring on the beats following widespread removal if they come from the shields.

Aqua Jolter—There is nothing special about Jolter except for its ability to come for free off the trigger. It can breaks shields, destroy small creatures, and provide evo material.

Aqua Surfer—see above analysis under Bounce.

Solid Evobait Base—There are 14 evobait creatures in the deck (36% of the deck), and most are affordable. Some can come for free to help speed up evo summoning. With just 6 evos the deck should rarely want for evo material when Paladin or Lancer are in hand, provided one does not overextend much (lose huge field to sweepers) or isn’t hit relentlessly with hand discard.

Finishers with Evasion—With Memory the deck essentially has 9 ways pull a finisher that can swing uncontested. When Paladin or Lancer come online your opponent is super hard-pressed to find an answer to them if it’s not already time to scoop. Evasion + speed = ultimate pressure because there’s nothing you can do to stop their hits once they drop, save having Lu Gila out.

 

Crystal Paladin—It’s functionally unblockable for a turn. Even if your opponent techs Lu Gila to stop it from swinging, Paladin is sweet because all blockers are bounced so your field can get in hits. It bounces your blockers too, but late game it’s not that big of an issue with Guard being so cheap to re-summon. 

Crystal Lancer—Crystal Lancer is nearly unanimously agreed upon as an auto-inclusion for Mono-Water. Crystal Lancer is a mono-Water deck’s coup de force—the moment it hits the battle zone your opponent is placed on a definite clock to get rid of it. Evasion sans summoning sickness + 8000 power is nice. Evasion sans summoning sickness + 8000 power + Double Breaker is sweet.

Weaknesses

Mono-Water packs many tactics that mirror Control and Aggro decks, but it can’t perform those tactics as well as decks dedicated to them (though it can be on par with/surpass Control decks in terms of deck manipulation). Bounce’s shortcomings become pronounced when facing Control decks that pack many CIP effect creatures or Speed/Swarm decks that have ample ways to trump blockers. The key to beating a Mono-Water deck lies in exploiting its weaknesses, and obstructing its Evo-lead path to victory. 

Can’t Control You For Long

This deck can have a struggle winning the long game when facing Control decks packing permanent kill and hand discard, and can face issues with Swarms that can trump blockers because the removal doesn’t slam a field and it can’t prevent plays with discard. The only removal card that can handle more than one non-blocker creature is Teleportation, and it’s a temporary solution. So, it can be difficult to starve off swarms. 

Bounce Is A Temporary Solution

Whatever you bounce can come back. If your bounce options are exhausted, pitched or don’t come up fast enough an opponent can gain solid footing and turn the tables on you.   

Evolution-based Strategy

Mono-Water can win without Lancer or Paladin sticking around for long. But, things often do boil down to dropping one of them for the final blow. When your primary win conditions are Evolutions it leaves more room for an opponent to disrupt your plans with sweepers and hand discard that nails evobait and evo-filled hands.  

No Board Manipulation or Recursion

Because this deck doesn’t run Emeral or Thrash Crawler the trigger action will be based on luck, and cards placed in the mana zone are lost options. Also, once cards hit the graveyard they’re lost options. Nice thing here is that the most important cards are maxed for increased chances at drawing/tutoring more copies, and that trigger cards almost make up half the deck. Water doesn’t have any graveyard recursion that helps mono-Water decks—you can’t tackle that problem without dipping into another civ and losing Angler’s main benefit.  

The Near Future of Mono-Water

Okay, someone will play Mono-Water at the Continental Championship. Many of the new threats coming in Epic Dragons of Hyperchaos have summoning sickness. So, mono-Water has answers to several of them with bounce. At first glance, I don’t see cards in Epic that are “definite must-haves” for the build, but it can’t hurt to test things as some of its Water cards are intriguing and can fit in the build. Post-Epic competitive Mono-Water decks will likely retain their Liquid People Evo focus, though builds will vary in how much bounce, draw, and bait/evos they run and whether or not they splash. Someone might try out Water’s other race Evos like the Cyber Lord one coming in Epic, or give the Liquid People’s Crystal Jouster a chance, or tech weird cards. You never know these things for certain. Just don’t expect mono-Water to go away.  

What’s Up Next?

We’ll take a look at a Darkness/Fire Weenie Rush deck that blitzed an Invitational in Houston. You can play with 12 Braid Claws…stay tuned!  

If you decide to netdeck the decks covered in this article series or use some of the ideas contained in the decks, I highly recommend that you conduct proper testing and metagaming of the decks before you run them in tourneys. If you have any questions or requests, then hit me up with an email at: pojodmgirl@hotmail.com. 

 “I’m gonna watch some Catherine Denueve movies…with nachos.”

 

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