Definitely Drawing *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH Casual Combo Mill Mono-Blue Multiplayer Tap/Untap

NV_1980

Artifact (17)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Crawlspace
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Folio of Fancies
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Library of Leng
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Nyx Lotus
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Instant (11)

• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Opt
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Stroke of Genius
• 1x Tolarian Winds

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Jace, Memory Adept
• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

Land (35)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Halimar Depths
• 1x Homeward Path
• 20x Island
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Terrain Generator

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Counterbalance
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Jace's Erasure
• 1x Memory Erosion
• 1x Mind Over Matter
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Pemmin's Aura
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Psychic Corrosion
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Sphinx's Tutelage

Commander (1)

Creature (14)

• 1x Ancient Silver Dragon
• 1x Bruvac the Grandiloquent
• 1x Chasm Skulker
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Faerie Mastermind
• 1x Fleet Swallower
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Toothy, Imaginary Friend
• 1x Tribute Mage
• 1x Trinket Mage

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Enter the Infinite
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Fractured Sanity
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Maddening Cacophony
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Traumatize

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Welcome to Definitely Drawing {U}!

Hi there! Welcome to the primer of my mono-blue, reactionary, card-advantage and mill deck, commanded by Arcanis the Omnipotent. It has been designed to provide a ton of draw that simultaneously impacts opposing decks in a negative way. I play this deck in casual formats. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course I welcome anyone to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this primer; I hope you will enjoy it!

Why Arcanis?

Tap to draw three cards, with no other downsides other than Arcanis’s casting cost, is pretty strong. Especially when I include mechanisms to untap him, so that he can be utilized multiple times per turn. Blue offers the perfect selection of cards for this, along with a vast arsenal of draw- and filter spells to augment the boons Arcanis can offer me. To top it off, with a mana-reserve at hand, I can return him to my hand when he’s targeted by hostile spells/abilities, and prevent recasting him from becoming more expensive.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I use the following ten parameters to determine the strength of the deck. For each, I allocate a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad); when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck (maximum score is 50 points).

• Mana: indicates the availability of mana sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Interaction: indicates how much this deck can mess with opponents’ board states and turn-phases.
• Resilience: indicates whether the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 3

Artifacts are the main source of additional mana for this deck. As blue has no direct ramping, these cards are all of top priority in order to obtain success. I have included nine artifact mana sources, as well as two cards that will double my available blue mana and two resources that will allow me to cast blue spells cheaper.

Ramp: 1

This deck contains one ramp option.

Card Advantage: 5

The bread and butter of this deck. Divided by category, this deck contains eighteen direct draw engines, a filter- and draw mechanism and six tutors. In all, plenty of methods to keep a steady supply of resources coming my way.

Overall speed: 3

No ramp, but plenty of mana rocks and a whole lot of draw. Combined, this gives me an average measure of speed (provided that the additional draw allows me to get to the mana rocks and the deck’s land-base at the appropriate time).

Combo: 4

There are a number of different combos that will allow for infinite mana, infinite draw and most importantly; infinite mill. Well over twenty cards can be combined in a number of ways to provide the final push I need to keel over an opponent or two.

Army: 2

Out of the fifteen creatures within this deck, most of them present me with options for additional card advantage; draw, tutor and the milling of opposing libraries. In terms of pure combat power, the army does consist of a few heavy hitters; but mostly it is focused on utility.

Commander: 5

It seemed to make sense to me, to have a golden-oldy commander in terms of card-advantage lead the pack on this deck. However, considering the deck's many, many card advantage resources, Arcanis is definitely not indispensable for my winning strategy.

Interaction: 3

Messing with my opponents’ libraries is a fun bit of interaction this deck is pretty decent at. I have six means of doing this during opposing turns, along with six more during my own. Then there’s two options included to counter opposing spells (of which one can be repeated, free of charge!) along with a few bounce/destruction spells for removal and two resources for restricting opposing creature attacks.

Resilience: 1

This deck is not very dependent on the presence of many permanents on the battlefield, so wipes won’t affect it as much as permanent-rich decks. However, aside from an option to reshuffle my graveyard into my library, there’s not much else this deck offers to make the deck more sturdy.

Spellpower: 3

A couple of spells featured in this deck are truly titanic. However most are of medium or lesser power in terms of impact. Categories most used include draw spells, some bounce options and a respectable amount of mill spells.

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Total power score: 30

In terms of power, I score this deck as above average. Its speed slightly exceeds the average single color deck’s speed. Its offensive power is not particularly high, and it’s also not very apparent from the outset, but it is there and can hit hard in an instant without much prior warning.

General strategy

This deck aims to mill opposing decks as a result of me (and sometimes opponents) drawing lots of cards. It also contains some secondary and tertiary win conditions including methods to deal extensive (combat) damage and milling ourselves to victory. The deck needs to be played passively at first, reactionary if forced into it, while it builds up draw-resources and combos/synergies. Then it drops the heavy end of the hammer. Usually I try to execute three, simple phases:

1. Cast rocks and cheap draw spells to obtain early advantage.
2. Start looking for combo pieces while casting/using card-draw and mill permanents.
3. Casting combo’s that draw vast amounts of cards to close out games.

Since this deck contains a number of different win-conditions, I often choose to primarily use its counter-, bounce- and removal options against opposing win-conditions, in favor of protecting my own (though these are obviously of strong secondary priority).

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet or Sapphire Medallion). This is a must; I’m not going to start a game without this hand (even if I have to mulligan down to three cards). The ideal hand would also contain some additional ramp and/or draw options.

Early game

In order to mill extensively, I need the capability to draw extensively. The deck contains several permanents (and non-permanents) that will allow me to do that, but I need the resources to cast them. I also want to ensure that extensive draw and mill can be used combined. This can be accomplished by not exposing (casting) either side of the synergetic combination until both have become available to me. This reduces the timespan my opposition has to get rid of my combo cards.

So as always I start out by gathering resources. Mana rocks like Mana Vault, Jeweled Lotus, Sapphire Medallion, Arcane Signet, Sol Ring or Thought Vessel need to be dropped asap. Simultaneously, I aim to cast cheap draw/filter options like Brainstorm, Folio of Fancies, Gitaxian Probe, Ponder, Preordain and Sensei's Divining Top. The main objective of these is to scour the deck for win-conditions. I can also do that by making use of actual tutors like Archmage Ascension, Mystical Tutor, Tribute Mage and Trinket Mage.

The early game ends when I have the means to establish a draw/mill-based board-presence during the next phases. It also ends when opposing players start to deal with me in earnest and I have the means to react.

Mid game

On average, five or six turns into a game, all involved players will have gathered enough resources to start the first genuine aggression. For me, this means casting/using Arcanis the Omnipotent or other great card-draw options. These would include Blue Sun's Zenith, Consecrated Sphinx, Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Stroke of Genius, Teferi's Ageless Insight and Tolarian Winds. Ideally, any of these cards would then be combined with the milling power of Folio of Fancies, Jace's Erasure, Psychic Corrosion and Sphinx's Tutelage.

While busily casting the cards supporting my main game-plan, I need to keep protecting ourselves from being overrun by the opposition’s game-plan. Counters/removal like Mana Drain, Pongify and Reality Shift will be used for this purpose. There’s also permanent response available in the form of Counterbalance and Propaganda.

The mid-game ends either when a game-winning combo becomes available to me OR transitions into the end-game automatically because I manage to mill-out opponents before obtaining the game-winning combo.

End game

The deck contains a couple of ways to cause some infinite pain on the opposing side. For more information in these, see the column ‘Combos and synergies’ below. A win through combat damage can be accomplished too, but is far less likely.

Combos and synergies

• Arcanis the Omnipotent + Mind Over Matter: infinite card draw. Tap Arcanis to draw a card. Use Matter’s ability to discard one of the drawn cards and untap Arcanis; allowing me to draw three more cards. Rinse and repeat. Combined with Library of Leng, I can keep ‘tutoring’ for all cards I need while discarding what I do not need immediately back on top of my library.
• Arcanis the Omnipotent + Teferi's Ageless Insight + Sphinx's Tutelage: not a combo perse, but I have seen situations with these cards in play, in which opponents had to mill approximately 10-20% of their decks per turn. This got especially ridiculous when other powerful draw engines like Consecrated Sphinx were added OR when Arcanis could be used multiple times a turn.
• Enter the Infinite + Psychic Corrosion/Jace's Erasure/Sphinx's Tutelage: insta-mill the library of one or more opponents by drawing my deck.
• Enter the Infinite + Psychosis Crawler: insta-kill all opponents by drawing my deck.
• Bruvac the Grandiloquent + Traumatize/Fleet Swallower: insta-library mill.
• Rogue's Passage + Fleet Swallower: makes it easier to land a hit with Swallower, which in turn guarantees a lot of mill.
• Isochron Scepter imprinted with Tolarian Winds + Library of Leng: a repeatable way to mill opposing decks while I’m not losing any cards to the graveyard; especially fun when I can untap Scepter a few times a turn (with Tezzeret the Seeker/Mind Over Matter).
• Isochron Scepter imprinted with Dramatic Reversal + Gilded Lotus/Mana Vault/Nyx Lotus/Thran Dynamo: infinite colorless/colored mana. Tap any of the mentioned mana rocks for at least 3 mana. Use 2 of this mana to have Scepter cast a copy of Reversal. This will untap the mana rock and Scepter; netting me at least one mana per go. Rinse and repeat. The infinite mana can be used to:
  1. draw my deck with cards like Blue Sun's Zenith or Stroke of Genius.
  2. untap Arcanis an infinite amount of times with Pemmin's Aura.
  3. trigger Sphinx's Tutelage as often as I need to mill a library or two.

Card Choices - mainboard

Lands

Our reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Academy Ruins: a great facilitator to recur the deck’s artifacts.
• Ancient Tomb: helps to get some important cards (like artifact mana rocks) onto the battlefield a little earlier.
• Boseiju, Who Shelters All: as some of the deck’s spells are game-winning, this will ensure their successful casting.
• Flooded Strand/Misty Rainforest/Polluted Delta/Scalding Tarn: in here as filters.
• Geier Reach Sanitarium: a draw option in case a turn is ended with some spare mana.
• Halimar Depths: acts as a one-time filter when it enters the battlefield.
• Homeward Path: added as a precaution to get back Arcanis the Omnipotent in case someone manages to steal him.
• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: staple land in a single-color, permanent-rich deck, in which it is easy to reach high levels of devotion to the deck’s color.
• Reliquary Tower: combines well with the card-advantage this deck can generate.
• Rogue's Passage: can be very useful to make some heavy hitters unblockable.
• Seat of the Synod: helps to obtain metalcraft for Mox Opal.
• Terrain Generator: the deck's single ramp card, though it can only use land cards that are already in my hand.

Rocks & Mana Acceleration

The cards I use to accelerate mana-availability:

• Arcane Signet: very nice rock for low-cost casting.
• Caged Sun: allows me to tap islands for {U}{U} and empowers my creatures to boot!
• Gilded Lotus: solid mana rock that can be tapped for {U}{U}{U}.
• Jeweled Lotus: CMC0 that gets me three blue mana to cast Arcanis very, very fast.
• Mana Vault: as this deck contains a number of ways to cheaply untap artifacts, this card becomes very useful.
• Nyx Lotus: a mana rock that works very well in a permanent-rich deck; offers even better returns than Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx as it doesn’t require mana to activate.
• Sapphire Medallion: cheapens every blue spell in this deck by 1.
• Sol Ring: a CMC1 artifact that comes into play untapped and grants 2 colorless when tapped; almost the best turn 1 start-up card anyone could wish for.
• Thought Vessel: not in here for the mana primarily, but for the unlimited hand-size it grants.
• Thran Dynamo: a solid mana-rock that can be tapped for three colorless mana.

Draw, Scry and Tutor

The mechanisms that provide me with card advantage:

• Ancient Silver Dragon: a very strong attacker with an even stronger draw potential; absolutely devastating when it connects.
• Blue Sun's Zenith/Stroke of Genius: expensive but dependable (recurring) draw instants. Can be used as an outlet for infinite mana, in case I manage it.
• Brainstorm: very versatile draw/filter card for just {U}.
• Consecrated Sphinx: the playgroup I play in usually consists of at least four players. That means that with this card on the table, I draw at least six cards extra each turn.
• Enter the Infinite: granted, it costs an ungodly amount of mana to cast, but in a lot of circumstances casting this spell ends the game in my favor.
• Fabricate: makes finding important artifacts a lot easier.
• Faerie Mastermind: its triggered ability, that it can trigger itself (but doesn't have to) is exceptionally effective.
• Gitaxian Probe: I get to peek at an opponents’ hand AND draw a card for a next-to-nothing CMC; deal!
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor: super-versatile planeswalker in this deck, I can use him every turn as a scry mechanism, a Brainstorm or a bouncer. His ult an an all out exiler is insane as well.
• Mystic Remora: no-one pays the taxes levied by this enchantment, so it’s guaranteed to generate a bunch of additional draw.
• Mystical Tutor/Spellseeker: great tools to search for instant/sorcery win-conditions.
• Nezahal, Primal Tide: excellent draw enabler and strong attacker.
• Opt: cheap scry and draw.
• Ponder/Preordain: neat little filtering/draw spells that are cheap to cast.
• Rhystic Study: people hate being taxed, and I are banking on that hate!
• Sensei's Divining Top: cheap filtering and draw in a single artifact; by far one of the most common cards to be seen in EDH and a staple in any draw-deck.
• Tolarian Winds: cheap to cast blue wheel.
• Toothy, Imaginary Friend: gets big when I draw and allows me to draw when it dies.
• Tribute Mage: gives me the chance to tutor for Isochron Scepter (which can be an important combo-piece) or Thought Vessel (which can be mighty handy in case I need an infinite hand-size).
• Trinket Mage: gives me the chance to tutor for some very handy artifacts like Library of Leng, Mana Vault and Sensei's Divining Top.

Milling

When I draw, others lose library content:

• Bruvac the Grandiloquent: multiplies the effect of all milling in this deck by two.
• Fleet Swallower: basically Traumatize imprinted onto a powerful creature’s damage dealing capabilities.
• Fractured Sanity: wow, an amazingly powerful mill card for only CMC3.
• Folio of Fancies: draw (for everyone) and mill in one; the perfect card for this deck.
• Jace, Memory Adept: combination of draw and excellent milling planeswalker.
• Jace, Wielder of Mysteries: forces milling and allows me some additional draw.
• Jace's Erasure: mill on draw that affects a single opponent.
• Maddening Cacophony: lots and lots of mill in a single go.
• Memory Erosion: you want to cast something? It’s going to cost you!
• Mindcrank: the opponents lose life AND library.
• Psychic Corrosion: mill on draw that affects every opponent.
• Sphinx's Tutelage: one of the best mill cards of all time (when combined with extensive draw). Especially deadly against single-color decks.
• Traumatize: target opponent loses half his/her library.

Bouncing, countering and destruction

The deck’s supply of cards that reduces the value of my opponents’ field:

• Counterbalance: makes casting spells a bit of a gamble; has potential to counter spells practically for free.
• Counterspell: are there blue decks without this spell.
• Cyclonic Rift: the best bounce-spell ever in MTG; I use this it defensively.
• Pongify: cheap removal.
• Psychosis Crawler: combined with the deck’s card-advantage mechanisms, this is the deck’s most deadly creature.
• Reality Shift: cheap exile.

Utility

Trinkets that enhance my strategic capabilities.

• Clever Impersonator: I often try to save this one to copy one of the deck’s mill enchantments (like card:Spinx’s Tutelage, but it has great other utility use.
• Crawlspace/Propaganda/Chasm Skulker: the ultimate defense against a deck that tries to go wide.
• Dramatic Reversal: can be used to untap mana rocks and creatures to great effect.
• Elixir of Immortality: my library reset button; mostly in here to recur permanents I have lost due to opposing removal (or my own milling).
• Freed from the Real/Pemmin's Aura/Thousand-Year Elixir: both in here for untapping Arcanis.
• Isochron Scepter: an artifact that can have so many uses; my favorite imprints include Dramatic Reversal, Counterspell, Reality Shift and Mystical Tutor.
• Laboratory Maniac: I win if I mill ourselves out.
• Mind Over Matter: if used to untap Arcanis, this card will most likely end the game.

Card Choices – sideboard

Our meta allows for a sideboard in the EDH format (maximum 10). These are the cards that are in there at the moment, giving me a better measure of control. More ideas are of course appreciated:

• Burnished Hart/Solemn Simulacrum: sometimes I use these if my meta is a bit speedier than I are used to, in order to increase early ramp.
• Curse of the Swine: when my meta includes decks that use many large creatures/cheat large creatures onto the field, I tend to include this.
• Phyrexian Metamorph: on occasion I include this to copy handy artifacts (like Isochron Scepter).

Notable exclusions

This deck is still evolving. The following cards were considered but not added (yet):

• Back to Basics: this causes some fun disruption but it causes some problems with my own land-base too.
• Fact or Fiction: was in this deck for a while, but replaced with more direct artifact tutors.
• Jace's Archivist: works very well combined with many of the deck’s cards, but has the unfortunate side-effect of milling ourselves. The deck has only limited means available to recover from this.
• Kami of the Crescent Moon/Temple Bell: cheap draw mechanisms but I do not want my opponents drawing many cards; just me.
• The Magic Mirror: not a bad draw card but very expensive to cast for what it does (even when taking cost-reduction into account).
• Omniscience: not all that useful in this deck and very expensive to cast.
• Venser's Journal: I never experienced that much gain from this card’s lifegain potential, and I already have cheaper, more useful cards included to max my hand-size.

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate the time you took to read my primer. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Manifest 2/2 C, Squid 1/1 U