The Turbofog archetype has recently caught my eye and gained my interest enough for me to build a deck. I intend this to be the first article in a series about Turbofog in my current Standard metagame. At the time of writing I am yet to play the deck so in future articles I plan to discuss how it performs and evolves to answer questions other archetypes pose it. For now I’ll summarise the archetype, discuss building decisions and explain why I made the decisions I made. Turbofog has a long history and is the subject of a wealth of writing already available elsewhere on the web.

It’s a control deck based around two key  strategies: milling your opponent as the primary kill condition using accelerated card draw effects and the prevention of damage through fog effects. In fact it’s these combined strategies that gives the archetype its name – turbo for increased card draw and fog for, well, fog. The accelerated card draw provides the added advantage of ensuring you draw into more fogs. The current Standard, M2010 and Alara, offers four main fog effects. Fog and Tanglesap from green and Safe Passage and Angelsong from white, all of which are efficient instants having a converted mana cost of 3 or less. Tanglesap has the limitation of not preventing damage from creatures with trample, which could become an opportunity or a threat, depending on my metagame and the build decisions I make with my deck. Safe Passage has the bonus of only preventing damage to you and your creatures – damage dealt to your opponents and creatures controlled by them is dealt as usual. All four of these cards are commons and are easy to source.

The the turbo engine there are two main cards available: Howling Mine and Font of Mythos. Both are artifacts and both give your opponents the increased draw first, maximising the chance of milling them before yourself. For my build each of the fogs are an easy 4-of. It’s been suggested in other forums that the limitation on Tanglesap represents too much of a risk and that running it in Standard is folly due to the format having creatures like Baloth Woodcrasher and Child of Alara. I am yet to see trample make a big impact in my metagame so I will run four. Howling Mine is a 4-of also, as it’s so easy to cast. Font of Mythos less so, as it’s unplayable before turn 6 (it costs 4 mana and the deck requires 2 open mana sources for fogs during the opponent’s turn) so I’ll be running two. If I get my entire turbo engine on-line that’s a total draw of 9 cards per turn.

The core of my deck consists of 22 cards, all but two of which are playable by turn 3. With a projected mana-base requirement of 22 to 24 lands, depending on the rest of my build, I have 14 to 16 slots to fill to either answer threats in my existing metagame or further develop my turbofog theme. The Jund archetype has made its presence felt on the pro tour circuit with decks performing superbly well. Locally, however, Jund is yet to filter down in a meaningful way. White Weenie is an efficient powerhouse as is mono-black vampire. Both depend on combat damage so are not too much of a worry. I’ve also seen a slickly built Bant exhalted deck as well as UB control. Getting my turbo cards on the the battlefield, let alone staying there, could be a problem. Red burn is also a siugnificant concern – it’s only a matter of time before burn finds a competitive deck in Standard and this deck so far will lose to it instantly. The other 14 to 16 cards need to provide me  with either efficient answers to threats like these and an efficient secondary kill condition, and I don’t believe that either green and white alone cut the mustard. It’s time to look for a third colour.

The obvious choices open to me are to run either a Bant or Naya mana-base. Red would offer me a wealth of burn spells, ranging from the heavy Lava Axe to the efficient Punishing Fire. However, I’d need to be able to inflict 20 damage consistently and efficiently, otherwise a burn strategy would be pointless. Blue offers efficient counters and removal in the shape of Negate and the beautifully versatile Bant Charm, providing answers to a control match-up and a red burn strategy. In addition I’d have the option of extending my milling engine with Archive Trap and Jace Beleren. A Planeswalker on the board would also offer my opponent an alternative target combat and burn damage at, in a round about way extending my fog strategy. It’s true that either Chandra Nalaar or Chandra Ablaze would off the same, but I’d be unlikely to be able to use her effectively given the density of green and white in the deck so far and the distinct lack of direct damage. As an added bonus, blue provides two sneaky tricks in Zendikar that could be useful in a Tubofog deck. Quest for Ancient Secrets represents a layer of defence against milling myself. The rare land Magosi, the Waterveil could be used to ensure my opponent is a whole extra turn closer to milling than me: add an eon counter to it and never take back the turn. Mid-game this would leave me with a library 4 to 8 cards larger than my opponent’s, that difference becoming larger each time I used Magosi’s charge ability.

Blue seems like a solid third colour choice.

Jace is a mid- to late-game card so does not need to be run as a full playset. That said, he is likely to draw fire, combat and removal so will need 2 to three copies. Negate and Bant Charm are easy 4-ofs in the main deck; I want to be able to answer counters and burns. Additionally, the charm can remove annoying creatures and artifacts with stifling abilities. So far my deck list looks like this:

For my first build I’m going to assume a mana-base of 23 lands, leaving me with 4 card slots to fill. Zendikar introduced the intriguing Quest cycle: common expeditions, uncommon quests and rare ascensions. The white Luminarch Ascension seems almost designed for this deck: get the deck doing what it’s designed to do and gain the ability to summon angels at instant speed. Conveniently this card provides our secondary kill condition (would you want to face down a hoard of 4/4 fliers?) as well as a defensive wall to hold attacking creatures at bay. Four of these seems like a must for this deck.

My mana-base is going to need to support a complicated array of casting costs, including 1UU for Jace Beleren and UGW for the Bant Charms. Fetch lands like Bant Panorama or Misty Rainforest look indispensable for mana-fixing. Along with Bant’s multicolour land, Seaside Citadel, to provide a smoother mana-base. Despite my low mana curve I’d rather pay a life to fetch an untapped basic land than pay 1 mana to fetch it tapped: Misty Rainforest gets the pick here. 4 Rainforests and 4 Citadels leaves me with 15 land slots. Magosi, the Waterveil is to tempting to pass up. Two seems like a sensible decision – its miss a turn ability is a mid–game play at the earliest and as a mana source coming into play tapped is too much of a limitation to run more. I’m not comfortable with 13 basic lands but as a starting point for play-testing it seems at least playable. Jace’s mana cost makes me want to run exetra Islands so I’m playing 5 of them alongside 4 each of Plains and Forests. Over all, including the non-basic lands, I have 15 blue sources, 12 green sources and 8 white sources in a reasonably smooth base.

I’ll leave the sideboard and how it performed in matchups for future articles, but for now I’m reasonably happy with this deck. I’m confident it can answer most applicable threats whilst sufficiently wearing out the opponent. Expect an update soon.