Explorer UW lotus approach revised

Always a work in progress, this deck has made slight modifications to be more hyper focused on achieving its goals; abusing lotus field and casting approach. 

UW lotus decks are really good at creating a ton of mana quickly, but a lot of the deck lists I've seen are basically UW control shells with Big Mana. Adding in the blue spells that abuse lotus field, namely pore over the pages, rewind and finale of revelation seems a logical next step for the deck. I don't believe dovins veto or memeory deluge truly fit these decks as well as the abusers and whatever utility they provide is paled in comparison to untapping lands. Mechanically these 3 better fit our game plan and work with our counter strategy of having an absurd amount of mana always readily available. Things like absorb and supreme verdict ask too much of our mana base as often we are only running lotus's and would leave us wasting mana needlessly so single color cards are easier to run. 

Utilizing these, I have cut Teferi out completely as though he compliments the deck he is an easy target for removal and rarely survives long enough to matter. Once I drop blue and white mana or a lotus it's assumed to be coming and is an easy counter so I just dropped the two I was running. This isn't a control deck so I don't need to be beholden to all the choices that would make sense for UW control. Whenever I drew him I felt inclined to play him and waste counters on his protection and they are better suited elsewhere.

 

Emergance zone is a hedge in a lot of situations. The only thing better than casting farewell or pore over the pages is doing so at instant speed. This also impacts second sun and finale as I can sit on the mana or rewind/pore into either after the opponent is tapped out on thier turn. Second Sun can be played around by the opponent but they never anticipate it coming in at instant speed on thier turn. It's a niche strategy 100% but running a second land that taps for colorless does not hurt the deck as much as the goal is multiple lotus fields anyway. Casting finale for 10UU on your opponents end step is demoralizing when you can follow it up with whatever you need to win the game and is the premier lotus abuse. Emergence zone is a key component and differentiatior in this deck and it is poised to actually have a serious impact late game limiting our opponents options espically in a control matchup. When it works, it really, really works. 

Settle is in the deck over doomskar as it plays at instant speed, exiles and punishes creature decks. With emergence the instant is less of an issue but exiling is premier removal. Akin to not running teferi I appear as a control deck so the assumption of doomskar is there already; settle is rarely accounted for.

Its 28 total lands with a nice stash of lands that have utility late game or help keep us alive if we wiff on lotus field. Ondu inversion is the best escape hatch late game and an easy land drop early game. Sulundi vision plays extremely well with approach and since the deck is almost entirely instants or sorceries it's has plenty of targets. 

As this is a lotus field list it has the same weakness as other similar decks; lotus field or bust. It's a glass cannon strategy as there are no defense strategies outside of wipes, absence or march so it needs to be hyper focused on step one of getting lotus' online and then finding Approach. I have cut just about everything out that does not play into this and it is able to consistently enact its goals. An approach deck asks the same thing as a lotus field deck in that you have to be solely committed to the game plan and the two strategies work well together. The renowned simic lotus field deck runs the same win con it just takes a more indirect approach to getting there but is also just a ramp deck with a payoff. Running the white removal/wraith package lends this deck a control adjacent strategy along with rewind and discont but it is much more of a ramp deck.