Dirty Baral and the boys

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Control Mono-Blue Wizards

Stefan0620

Instant (29)

• 1x Aetherspouts
• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Commit / Memory
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Disappearing Act
• 1x Dissipate
• 1x Dissolve
• 1x Faerie Trickery
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Insidious Will
• 1x Last Word
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mindbreak Trap
• 1x Mission Briefing
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Negate
• 1x Overwhelming Denial
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Polymorphist's Jest
• 1x Rewind
• 1x Sinister Sabotage
• 1x Stifle
• 1x Summary Dismissal
• 1x Time Stop
• 1x Void Shatter
• 1x Wizard's Retort

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Metallurgic Summonings
• 1x Omniscience
• 1x Precognition Field
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip

Land (36)

• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Dark Depths
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Halimar Depths
• 17x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Soldevi Excavations
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Tolaria West

Artifact (8)

• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sky Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spellbook
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Thought Vessel

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Commander (1)

Creature (12)

• 1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1x Docent of Perfection  ^Flip
• 1x Kefnet the Mindful
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Murmuring Mystic
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Talrand, Sky Summoner
• 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1x Torrential Gearhulk
• 1x Vedalken AEthermage
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Enter the Infinite
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Show and Tell
• 1x Temporal Mastery

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Maybeboard

Instant (12)

• 1x Desertion
• 1x Devious Cover-Up
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Hinder
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Quicken
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Spell Crumple
• 1x Swan Song

Creature (6)

• 1x Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1x Guile
• 1x Nimble Obstructionist
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Thassa's Oracle

Artifact (2)

• 1x Knowledge Pool
• 1x The Magic Mirror

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Finale of Revelation
• 1x Paradigm Shift

Land (2)

• 1x Castle Vantress
• 1x Snow-Covered Island

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My current competitive Baral, Chief of Compliance deck. Lets get into it.

Mono Blue, and Baral

Baral is my favorite commander. I think getting a 1/3 body, with a spell casting discount and deck cycle mechanic is insane value. Blue is also my favorite color to play, and I like doing all the things blue is known for. Scrying, countering, bouncing, and drawing cards. If that's something you're interested in, consider Baral. This deck loses power the more players you add to the game. You can only counter so many things, before you start to run out of steam. This is not a stax deck, or an infinite turn deck, or super friends. This deck tries to prevent those players from achieving their wincons, while working towards it's own. "There's a finite amount of fun to have in any game of Magic... and I want to have all of it. - - Glen Jones, WoTC Editor, Magic R&D."

Win Con 1, The Lab Man

Just getting this out of the way. It's a pretty standard Win con for blue. Anyways, this is generally a Show and Tell play, resulting in cheating out Omniscience into Enter the Infinite with Laboratory Maniac. Then just play 2 draw effects to win. Easy Peasy.

Win Con 2, Marit Lage

Another easy one. A 20/20 indestructible flying creature is not a joke. Copy Dark Depths with Thespian's Stage or Mirage Mirror, get your 20/20, and beat people to death. Pressure can be applied every turn while using Minamo, School at Water's Edge to constantly untap.

Win Con 3, Go Wide Value town

Within blue spellsplinging decks, there is a lot of additional synergy you can build into the deck. Cards like Card:Metallurgic Summonings, Card:Talrand, Sky Summoner, Card:Docent of Perfection all produce additional value off of casting spells. In games where you can cast these early, you can build up a powerful board state.

Win Con 5, Teferi says no

This is a headlock control win. If Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Knowledge Pool are both on the board, you lock the opponent out of being able to cast spells from their hand. They can still cast from graveyard, library, and command zone though. Be careful that something already on the board can't interact with your permanents before deploying.

Counter Spells

You're playing Blue and Baral, you're here for counter spells. There are 24 in the deck, which in my experience leads to always having at least one in hand. I have avoided what I call "conditional" counterspells, with 2 exceptions. Card:Logic Knot + Card:Negate. Logic knot is cheap enough, and with delve, you can generally force it through, chewing through fetchlands, dead creatures, ect. This deck has no way to re-gas the graveyard and shuffle into the the library, but if you play in a group with a lot of Timetwister effects, or you want to run something like Elixir of Immortality to reload your deck with counterspells, I would probably cut this card. Negate is so cheap and only cuts creatures out, you'll still find a use for it. As for the rest, you can end a play outright with the uncounterable spells, or with several exile effects for harder to deal with spells.

Lands

While this is monoblue, we are running fetchlands, along with Card:Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse. This thins the deck out, getting 2 cards for 1, and can be used as shuffle effects if you're spinning Card:Sensei's Divining Top or Card:Precognition Field and you don't like what you're getting. We run on the high end of utility lands, which I've trimming slowly for more blue mana symbols.

Counterspells in a pinch

Your opponent is casting a spell that can't be countered? We have some answers to that. Summary Dismissal will exile the spell right off the stack. Time Stop is a personal favorite, that will also crush a spell that can't be countered, or will stop a game ending attack or combo in it's tracks. And lastly, we have Venser, Shaper Savant who can return the spell to their hand off the stack.

Defensive spells

It's important to be able to defend ourselves from things we didn't or couldn't counter. We have a sizeable portion of spells and permanents who are going to try and keep us alive longer.AEtherspouts, Cyclonic Rift and Polymorphist's Jest are all powerful board wipes and clears. For Sorceries, we have Curse of the Swine to turn large threats into 2/2 boar, Imprisoned in the Moon to turn large threats into lands, and finally Propaganda to tax opponents for attacking us. In his second contribution to the team, we have Jace, Unraveler of Secrets who can bounce creatures.

Fast Mana

We're not green, so we can't ramp with spells, so we have to look other places to get extra mana. Extraplanar Lens doubles up our mana, along with every other island in the game. While helping other players is an issue, I value doubling the islands over accidentally giving another extraplanar blue player even more mana. Sol Ring, Thought Vessel are our colorless mana rocks, and Gilded Lotus is our blue one, but the card feels very clunky to play. While As Foretold, and Omniscience allow you to cheat out spells at will. We also have the lands Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx Minamo, School at Water's Edge which can generate a lot of blue mana.

Card Advantage

This can be the most challenging part of the deck, keeping enough cards in hand to deal with potential threats, however, we have tried to come up with a few options spread across multiple parts of the deck. We have three lands that can help in Geier Reach Sanitarium, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea to draw, and Minamo, School at Water's Edge to untap all our legendary permanents that allow us to draw cards. In the Enchantment section, we run Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora to draw cards, and Search for Azcanta   to filter them until we flip it. For Instants, we have Blue Sun's Zenith, Cryptic Command, and Fact or Fiction. And finally in the creature section, we run Arcanis the Omnipotent, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Kefnet the Mindful to draw, and Thassa, God of the Sea to help filter the draws. In his third and final contribution to the team, we have Jace, Unraveler of Secrets filtering draws. I used to run multiple clue effects, but I did not think they were worth the slots in the 99.

Flashy Boys

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Venser, Shaper Savant, Snapcaster Mage, and Torrential Gearhulk are all really strong cards. Riptide Laboratory can return 3/4 to your hand, and Disappearing Act can protect them as well. A snapcaster to flashback Disappearing act to return snapcaster to your hand will frustrate anyone. These guys are loaded with utility, and a more experienced magic player than I could probably write an entire thesis about how powerful these cards are. Trust me, if you're reading this and you've never played with them or against them, sleeve up some proxies and take them for a whirl.

Time is on my side

Here is where blue separates itself from the pack. Taking turns. We have some oppressively strong cards, like Expropriate where you will get another turn, and you put your opponents in the position of letting you take any one thing you want, or take a turn. We also have the classic Time Warp included because it does not exile itself when cast, like Temporal Mastery does. However, Karn's Temporal Sundering is currently being considered for one of these slots, as I do enjoy the art, and the bounce effect is nice. And lastly we have card:Lighthosue Chronologist which will run away with the game if left unattended.

Tutors

As we are not playing black, we do not have the vast selection of tutors that they do. However, we do have access to 2 very good ones. We have Mystical Tutor, which can get you a counterspell you need right now, or the pieces of a win con like Enter the Infinite or Show and Tell. We also have Tolaria West to tutor up lands like Dark Depths or Thespian's Stage that can put pressure on opponents (or Pact of Negation).

Sideboard + why

Cutting List

Cards that are up to be cut, ones I haven't been impressed with. Really everything that has to do with large hand size, as I struggle to keep cards in hand. Mystic Remora feels too slow early, and not important late. Primal Amulet   doesn't flip often, but when it does it's very powerful, as I'm getting double expropriates, or bounce effects. But it's also useless when I use it to double up on counter spells, so it's hit or miss, but the discount is nice. The pet cards are on the verge. SufferFromEDHD raises a good point, Leyline of Anticipation doesn't feel very strong either, but the added flexibility on casting the permanents when Teferi isn't out is certainly still nice, so that's lower on the list. I've made a number of changes, removing and changing 5 or 6 cards this week, and would like to play test it as is, before I make further changes.

Anyways, I'm always open to suggestions, comments, criticism, and discussion about how to make this deck better.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 44 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.62
Tokens	Bird Illusion 1/1 U, Boar 2/2 G, Construct X/X C, Drake 2/2 U, Emblem Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Human Wizard 1/1 U, Marit Lage