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Blue is a bit of a new thing for me, but it came together very nicely. Another Standard format deck.
The focus here is an aggro deck: unblockable creatures to chip away at their life directly, with extra power through the Runechanter's Pike , and keeping your opponent's creatures from getting through (via Cancel s and Fog Bank s). I tried to avoid the usual Mill deck: they only have 20 life and at least 53 cards in their deck at the opening hand and I'd rather gouge at the 20 than the 53. The Reliquary Tower s are to keep up my card advantage while simultaneously providing mana.
Currently under renovation to include the RtR block. New cards will be swapping in and out frequently as playtesting continues.
As always, leave comments, suggestions, and criticisms; I'll take them all into consideration.
It's a pretty sweet deck! A fresh take on Delver is always welcome, and I think this one is quite nice. However, I would recommend taking out the Artful Dodge , seeing as 8 of the 12 creatures you have that can attack are unblockable anyway, and you have Tricks of the Trade . I could also see you cutting 1 Tricks, because with 18 lands, you won't hit that 4th land drop for a while, so it would just sit in your hand untill then. I would also say I think you have a few to many counterspells, I would recommend putting 2 Essence Scatter and 1 Negate , or vice versa, in the sideboard for specific matchups. I would recommend replacing those cards with 4 Unsummon and 3 card:Runechanter's Pike, and an Island . That helps deal with creatures that actually stick, and gets you some extra damage, and makes your 4th land drop a bit more reliable. You could keep the island out and keep in some counter magic if you wanted to, however.
In summary, my suggestions:
.+ 3 card:Runechanter's Pike
.+ 1 Island
Happy deckbuilding! +1
Thanks for the insight! I was just thinking today that the Artful Dodge s were a bit superfluous with everyone being unblockable anyway. A couple extra Island s won't hurt at all, and I liked Essence Scatter 's permanence over Unsummon , but it's definitely useful. I'll make some revisions and Deckcycle this again tomorrow for some additional feedback.
Maybe it is just me, but I really don't like Index , seems like card disadvantage and just library manipulation, since I see 8 unblockable creatures on your side and delvers that provides pretty good evasion, maybe consider one or two Curiosity . I'd even run something like Augur of Bolas over the Index and it does help fill your hand as well. Another possible thought is Think Twice since you can also use it's flashback and can cast it anytime since it is an instant. In addition 4 full Negate seems like it is too much, I'd even try adding one more Rewind
I'd try something like this just to remove the Index :
+4 Think Twice
=/I just took out my Curiosity cards last edit, but I think you have a point. I'll add a couple back in, since I don't need that many Index es. I can't stand Augur of Bolas , he just isn't worth it to me, but Think Twice should be a good replacement for a couple of my Negate s.
+1 I would definitely up it to 4 for Invisible Stalker . another card that owns with unblockable guys is card:Inquisitor's Flail. pop that on a stalker and your opponent is not too happy. i have a deck with a similar idea but u/g. can't touch this let me know what you think.
Sadly, Invisible Stalker is pretty weak to start with and hexproof is sadly limited (if it doesn't say "target", it can hit him). I much prefer Latch Seeker in numbers, as 2 more power is a fair price for 1 more U mana.
card:Inquisitor's Flail is certainly worth a look. Adding it to the maybeboard and I'll see if I can squeeze one or two into there.
That deck takes the fun out of magic, just saying.
Really? It's just an aggro deck. Yeah, it's unblockable with cancels, but a board wipe at the right time can slaughter it. Hell, protection from blue could be enough to keep it from winning. I'm just in it for fun, so hearing that my "just for fun" standard deck is a buzz-kill is...well...a buzz-kill =/
Not really @Shrodinger A+ on trolling though. You wanna see what takes the fun out of magic? Infect.
I like the deck. I agree with the Latch Seeker recommendation from above which it looks like you have 4 of. I don't know if Snapcaster Mage is in your scope or budget but I like having one of those around for use where needed.
+1
Snapcaster Mage would indeed be awesome with Thought Scour , but it's sadly not in my budget. And it kind of wrecks the feel of the deck to have a blockable creature in here that only serves to give me a little more delving ability.
So thanks for the recommendation, but I'll have to pass.
-2x Latch Seeker +1x Invisible Stalker +1x card:Runechanter's Pike
-2x Index -2x Negate +4x Syncopate or Cancel
Mono-Blue is about the long game, with you being in control the whole time. You don't need the extra 2 damage from Latch Seeker over Invisible Stalker because the reason you have unblockable is for card advantage with Curiosity and for that large creature once you drop card:Runechanter's Pike. Invisible Stalker is a lot harder to kill than Latch Seeker .
Index isn't very helpful as you don't have any miricle cards, so your only using it for Delver of Secrets Flip I assume, which isn't necessary when 1/3 of your deck is instants.
Also, consider Inaction Injunction for card draw over Thought Scour . You don't need the mill, but the detain can be extremely helpful to you. Also consider Cyclonic Rift over unsummon. It lets you unsummon any nonland perminant instead of just creatures, so you can unsummon pesky artifacts or enchantments as well. Also it's very useful late game with it's overlaod ability.
Mono-blue control has to be my favorite play style, even with all these tripple color strategies coming out, so I hope you have fun with it, this looks like it could be a fun deck!
Thanks for the feedback! I haven't updated this deck in a bit to include the Gatecrash cards and I don't think I even did anything with RtR either. This was less a control deck and more an aggro deck to start with though; focus on hammering at their life before they can mount a defense and countering anything that might really screw me over. But with the new cards and mechanics, I can see this getting really nasty by removing the mill and bringing in some detain or cipher cards. Hands of Binding in particular is a great one that I need to fit in, since I can poke and lock down a creature indefinitely.
Remember that when a card is Ciphered, it's exiled. Meaning it doesn't help card:Runechanter's Pike at all, so technically you're running only 14 instant/sorcery cards which is pretty low to be running 4x card:Runechanter's Pike.
I'd drop 2 of them and look into adding 2x Talrand, Sky Summoner and or 2x Stolen Identity . Cipher spells work really great with Talrand because every time you hit their life with cipher, you're actually casting that spell again, so Talrand will pop out a 2/2 flying drake every time you swing with a cipher'd guy.
Point well made. Cutting them down by half gives me the same effect unless they have more than two creatures that I cannot let attack and that I wasn't able to remove. Stolen Identity is pretty heavy on the mana, but may be worth it. Talrand, Sky Summoner is definitely worth a look. Thanks for the suggestions.
@ Saljen
Thankyou for pointing that out!!! I never put those two together like that before!!! Talrand, Sky Summoner + Ciphered stuff is legit!!!
I used my favorite deck at the last FNM deck:zacolys-rainy-day-deck. It works similarly, being mono-blue un-blockable. I love the un-blockable mechanic! That puts the FUN in Magic for me.
Your deck looks like it's a bit heavier on damage and on counter spells. Mine is slower with more emphasis on card draw and mass creature control.
You might like some of my side-boarding options, and there was some great discussion on some of those cards in the comments.
Good luck man! I like the deck! +1
@user:2zacoly
And since the drake tokens all have flying, there's a very good chance they will also bypass my opponent's blockers. The snowballing effect there is brutal.
@user:2zacoly
Very nice deck! I honestly couldn't care less if they decide to hit me with anything that doesn't have trample or a nasty effect attached. Fog Bank nullifies the damage outright and prevents most sneaky effects from kicking in. Dissipate and Cyclonic Rift remove anything I need to disappear and the detain/lockdown from Inaction Injunction and Hands of Binding keep the persistent critters pacified. So that leaves me free to abuse unblockable and cipher to hammer their life directly and continue the lockdown.
You might have a problem against Geist of Saint Traft.
@shcboomer
Everyone has a problem with Geist of Saint Traft. But it's expensive and rare, so I doubt I'll be running into one while playing with my friends. Besides, an overloaded Cyclonic Rift would throw him and his tokens off the board. This is assuming I don't just counter it with Dissipate while it's still a spell and thus not protected by hexproof.
And just to clear this up for anyone interested: I'm not worried about enemy creatures. I can either block them outright with Fog Banks or have an Invisible Stalker/Latch Seeker equipped with Runechanter's Pike smack it down, since they gain First Strike. And that's assuming I can't target them for removal/lockdown or counter them as they enter. So the only creature that I have to worry about is a creature with more than 2 power, Trample, First or Double Strike, and Hexproof. Or creature tokens that spawn after I declare blockers (e.g. Traft's angels).
And I feel slightly stupid now, because Traft's angels are created when he attacks, which is before I declare blockers. So I can just have a Fog Bank block the angel token if nothing else. Even easier to counter than I originally thought.
I don't think 16 instants and sorceries are enough to effectively flip Delver of Secrets Flip or power Runechanter's Pike, so drop Curiosity for Think Twice. Twenty probably still isn't enough, but it's better than 16.
Also, consider dropping a single Runechanter's Pike for another Island. All the Pikes in the world won't help you if you get mana screwed and can't cast any spells.
Definitely worth a look. And Delver of Secrets Flip is primarily to have a nice 1 drop early on that has the potential to get big while letting me check the top of my library. It's a nice thing to have, but not top priority. Still, I could certainly trim down the Curiosity for some other useful instants. Thanks for pointing it out.As for the Runechanter's Pikes, you raise a good point. Most likely, I'll only be snapping one or two onto my Invisible Stalkers for some heavy hits. The weak pokes prior along with that should be enough to finish them quickly enough and I could stand some more mana now that I'm packing a card with Overload.Thanks for the feedback!
| Date added | 9 months |
| Last updated | 2 months |
| Legal formats | Commander / EDH, Extended, Legacy, Modern, Standard, Vintage |
| Sets | |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.32 |
| Top rank | #23 on 2012-09-04 |
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Can't Touch This MonoBlue
masalo says...
drop Staff of Nin 6 is too much for 18 lands
drop Artful Dodge and Tricks of the Trade everything you have has evasion, this is useless
throw in 2-3 card:Runechanter's Pike and 4 Thought Scour to feed the pike and draw cards.
4 Unsummon are great to save your own creatures or control theirs, plus it helps delver and the pike
with those changes this deck will be a nice very cheap deck
August 31, 2012 7:19 p.m.