Valley Floodcaller has a ton of potential by giving all noncreature cards flash and having a Jeskai Ascendency like ability that lets otters and other Bloomburrow folk untap and effectively prowess. This deck is an attempt to leverage the Floodcaller's innate power and flexibility alongside other spells and even an old classic, Monastery Mentor.
The Primary Build Arounds
Three-drop creatures in Standard generally need to be excellent as the removal suite that targets them is loaded with efficient threats and sweepers. Fortunately, Valley Floodcaller dodges some of these elements by having flash and almost never appearing outside of your opponent's end step, and Monastery Mentor can dodge damage-based effects or Cut Down by using Prowess triggers to increase its toughness. Both of these threats also give other spells increased utility and, in the case of Mentor, a value snowball that is capable of rolling out of control and winning the game.
As is the case with so many jank brews, though, the cards we set out to build the deck around aren't always the most valuable members of the final list. For that, we have our secondary build around.
The Secondary Build Around
Caretaker's Talent is possibly the strongest Standard card to come out of Bloomburrow. The card enables a very powerful red/white control deck that often doesn't run a single creature in the main deck and, instead, focuses on generating tokens with Archangel Elspeth and Urabrask's Forge while simply out-drawing the opponent while beating them slowly with tokens.
Seeing how many cards a single Caretaker's Talent is able to draw in that deck, I decided to include it in this deck and, in the games I've played with it, it's proven to be the strongest card in the deck. If you can get multiple Caretaker's Talents down, the game will often devolve into clean one-for-one or even two-for-one trades that you can easily bounce back from.
It's also handy that Valley Floodcaller can allow you to flash in a Caretaker's Talent on the opponent's turn and surprise them by untapping any otters you have or simply drawing cards when you otherwise wouldn't. Note, if you flash it in on the opponent's turn, you won't be able to level it up right away.
The Supporting Cast
Given how critical it is to trigger Caretaker's Talent, additional token producers are critical. Stormchaser's Talent is one of the few one-drops that actually fits the deck and produces an otter to benefit from Floodcaller and be blue for convoke spells. Stormchaser's also can be leveled up to give inevitability in games when the cards don't cooperate or the opponent simply has all the answers to everything else we're doing.
Resolute Reinforcements is great as chump blockers to deal with early aggression, a flash Caretaker's Talent trigger even when Floodcaller is live, and additional bodies to pay convoke costs. The card isn't sexy by any means, but it does give us material on board and something to cast on turn two. It also synergizes with the two copies of Helping Hand we have in the deck that are intended to target Monastery Mentor and Valley Floodcaller.
Virtue of Loyalty is simply an excellent card that does all the things I outlined above while also giving us a five-drop bomb that can boost our team to close out the game in a pinch. If you've been playing on the ladder in the last year or so, you probably know how good this card can be.
The Interaction Suite
Disrupting our opponent's plan in the early game is crucial if we're going to be successful. So many midrange decks nowadays rely on curving out so we can predict this and place disruption along our curve to knock them off their gameplan. Since we're in blue/white, we have access to removal, counterspells, and sweepers, and we take advantage.
No More Lies is an incredible counterspell because it disincentivizes the opponent from playing anything in the early game. It is our primary plan on turn two in any game when we can have it, and multiples are welcome. The added bonus of the card going into exile means that cards with flashback or recursion are still quality targets with this. Rarely do you want to counter a Forsaken Miner, but No More Lies makes that a viable option if it lines up.
The Talents from Bloomburrow are all over Standard and a lot of the best removal spells in the format are enchantments (Leyline Binding, Temporary Lockdown). Get Lost is so incredibly reliable at taking those out you'll find it's almost never wrong to include if the deck you're building has white, so here it is.
Requisition Raid is an awkward card to read, but it plays beautifully in-game. For 1W, it's simply a disenchant, but for 4W it can be two disenchants and a team buff. The best mode, though, is often just 2W which allows you to destroy any artifact and any enchantment. Against the Boros Control decks, this can dismantle both the Urabrask's Forge and Caretaker's Talent as a clean two-for-one. The only downside to this card is that it's a Sorcery, but fortunately for us, Valley Floodcaller helps mitigate that downside and allows us to even cast it in response to enchantment removal like Temporary Lockdown that would otherwise blow us out.
The Misfits
Jace Reawakened and Beza, the Bounding Spring are both one-ofs in this build because they serve purposes that are relatively niche and not worth risking the ire of the legend rule. This deck wants to keep open mana for interaction while also resolving three-drop permanents for value. As such, it can take advantage of Jace's +1 plot mode almost every turn and that can lead to some explosive turn-five sequences and possibly a chance to pull damage that would otherwise hit our life total.
Beza, on the other hand, is more reactive by giving us a huge body and helping shore up whatever gaps we might have. In a very aggressive meta, a single card that can nearly stabilize the game can be absolutely huge.
Conclusion
So, is this deck good?
It was able to hang in best-of-three better than I expected for being a first draft of a tempo deck. I'm not 100% confident I've found the best 75 and will definitely tune as necessary, but I can promise the gameplay is riveting and fun. No two games I played were the same and we were able to out-tempo some opponents and beat them down fast while grinding deep into the late game against others. Even if this deck doesn't ultimately have the chops to compete at a high level, as a player who strives to learn from every game and improve my skills, this deck presents a lot of interesting interplay and opportunities for creativity within the game.
So, if you define good as interesting, challenging, and fun, then yes, the deck is very good. If you define good as generically powerful and easy to win with, probably not, but you'll be rewarded if you learn the ins and outs of this deck as you play it and other high-interaction decks moving forward.
Thanks for reading, and happy brewing!
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