Single Scoop: Bounce Tribal (Standard, Magic Arena)
While the format is still new and fresh, I wanted to try to get some bounce house fun in with an Azorius Deck that is pretty greedy but a lot of fun. With how sweet Skyclave Apparition is, I had to pair it up with Niambi, Esteemed Speaker.
Gameplan
The deck is centered around getting tons of value off of bouncing both our opponent's stuff and ours.
The engine is fragile but it is a lot of fun once the engine gets going. Niambi has some serious value when she's able to save one of our threats from removal. Even more so if it's an adventure card as we can fizzle their creature half of the spell! Being able to save something like a Barrin and then gaining some life along the way is great and since we do run a decent number of legendaries, her activated ability can come into play when we're Barrin flooded or anything like that. Thassa blinking tons of our creatures over time is oozing with value but doesn't do a lot on her own so I didn't run a full playset. I also have a singleton Yorion, Sky Nomad for blinking non-creature permanents like Confounding Conundrum and Elspeth Conquers Death. I was debating on going up to an eighty card deck but I didn't want too much air in the deck as I want the best chances of seeing my engine pieces throughout a game. Thus leading me to staying at 60 cards.
Now, let's take a look at the sweet "enters the battlefield" effects
So the cards we're blinking aren't crazy power levels but are just sweet value creatures. Barrin rewards us for bouncing our own cards but can also be used as a defensive play to make opponents stumble long enough. We've also got the sweet new Skyclave Apparition which interacts quite nicely with Niambi, Esteemed Speaker. With Niambi, we can return the Apparition back to our hand with the ETB on the stack thus giving our opponents a 0/0 token and then permanently exiling cards like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. I'm also trying some fun ones like Legion Angel and Squad Commander because the deck naturally has a full party at times. The Squad Commander can generate us an army on its own but when we've got wizards and clerics, getting six power for four mana is a sweet deal.
Archon of Emeria was brought in for a soft lock on opponents. We'll usually try to maneuver our opponent's turns to a point where they're playing one spell a turn as we constantly bounce their lone threat with Barrin, Tolarian Archmage and Brazen Borrower. We've also got a loop where we can keep sending Brazen Borrower back to our hand once we've got our flicker/bounce engine online.
Conclusion
The deck is far from tier one but it's a lot of fun to play once the engine gets going. This deck is definitely a product of the early weeks when tons of decks are running around. I think the deck needs more closers to be considered anywhere near tier 2. For the early access event, I tried a version that added red so we could play Terror of the Peaks to constantly burn opponents whenever we blink or bounce anything of ours. Maybe there's a more powerful version in Jeskai so that'll be worth a look. For right now, this is just a for funsies deck. Also, any deck playing blue and can follow up with some kind of clock, I highly recommend playing Confounding Conundrum. If your mana base can afford it, I'd recommend four copies of Field of Ruin to keep the ramp decks in check!
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