Last week I highlighted Tomoharu Saitou’s U/R Flash deck. As luck would have it, there is another home for all of you that are addicted to 2/1 fliers for two, just so things don’t get too stale. Hugo Terra took his U/W Aggro deck to a Top 8 finish at #SCGATL last weekend, choosing to supplement his fliers with the white cards that have been dominating Standard over a month and some underappreciated cards that have yet to find a home.
Reflector Mage. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Declaration in Stone. These cards need no introduction nor any additional praise. They all fit well into this deck’s aggressive game plan, either generating tempo or applying plenty of pressure on your opponent’s life total. I imagine Gideon emblems occur a lot in this deck since you do not protect it particularly well on the ground and pumping your fliers helps in the inevitable race.
I say inevitable because this deck is going to force races whenever possible since it’s so well-equipped to win one. Invocation of Saint Traft applies an incredible amount of pressure, as anyone who was playing in the Delver days of Standard can imagine. Notably, the numbers on Invocation work well with your cheap flyers since a single attack with a 2/1 followed by an Invocation puts your opponent exactly on a three-turn clock. When your opponent is that short on time, each counterspell and Reflector Mage is devastating since they will have to ignore their offense and focus only on playing defense.
And when your opponent is playing defense, Bygone Bishop is there to punish them. This is a card the folks in Roanoke were quite high on in our initial testing of the format, functioning similarly to Tireless Tracker. But the Bishop has not gone on to achieve the same success as its green cousin, perhaps because it does not become as large a threat or because it has yet to find an appropriate home. It plays very well in this deck, turning all your small creatures into cantrips so you can play a longer game in the face of disruption. Clues also play well with counterspells since they represent another way to use the mana you leave up if your opponent does not play into your Spell Shrivel or Clash of Wills.
So while your opponent is trying to protect their life total, Bygone Bishop will accumulate a nice collection of Clues that you can sacrifice at your leisure to find more threats, more interaction, more everything. When your opponent finally feels safe to turn the corner, you’re well-stocked to mount another offensive or to Reflector Mage them into oblivion.
The last interesting addition to the deck is Essence Flux. It serves as a great tempo spell, countering a potential removal spell, effectively untapping a creature to make a surprise block, or becoming the world’s best Unsummon when it targets Reflector Mage. And don’t forget that you can animate your Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, attack with it, then blink it after combat to get a second activation!
This deck has plenty of small tactical tricks you can play on your opponent where the UR list takes a more brute-force approach with burn spells. Proper sequencing and tight play is absolutely necessary to succeed with a deck like this, as you are often only winning by inches. But there is no denying the power that adding white gives the deck. So go forth, little birdies, and fly… Gideon has your back.
How are there so many 2/1 fliers in Standard and yet none of them are actually Birds? Flavor Judge!
Creatures (17)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (15)
Sideboard
