Before we get started, I can't take credit for this deck as being my own creation. This deck is a revision, or more so my own take, on Travis Woo's Dirt Cheap Dirty Blue (Channel Fireball).
This deck is the one and only time I have followed a decklist rather than homebrewing, it just looked like too much fun not to run it!
I've been playing this deck in Standard at FNMs and minor tournaments since Travis posted the deck back in May 2014 (I still run it now in Standard - January 2015). As someone who has never really played Blue or Control it took a bit of teething to get used to the playstyle of the deck.
What is the purpose? It's two-fold, but let's start with what surrounds it. The first thing we should look at is that we're running 12 counters in the main board. In the original format of the deck we were looking at 4 copies each of
Stymied Hopes
, Thassa's Rebuff and Dissolve. I've dropped the Dissolves to 3 as I found the cost a little high and have messed around with the remaining counters.
The "cheap" Merfolk base is kept completely. An unsung hero that I've found over many games to help swing the difference is
Dakra Mystic
. Look at it as a 1 cost counter with potential card draw. Like what you have revealed for yourself and don't care for your opponent - take to hand. Don't care for yet another Island and want to see that Hero's Downfall dissapear - drop them both in their respective graveyards.
The manabase is quite simple and really if you are getting up around 10 land out you should just be about to take the game. The deck can take a long grind but I guarantee if it does your opponent is feeling the pinch and stress of what you are doing.
Daring Thief+Springleaf Drum+Triton Tactics
So here's the main deal we're looking at; abusing Daring Thief. Why do we have all those 1/1 and 1/2 Merfolk? Because we don't want them! We want to use our Daring Thief's inspired trigger to take our opponents (normally) meaty and large creatures. There are a few ways we can do this. Attack with Daring Thief, and during your upkeep he untaps and you take what you like.
Want more subtle? Leave him untapped when you have a Springleaf Drum and then in your opponents end step use Springleaf to tap Daring Thief for one mana (say it's for some random colour, it just adds to the confusion) and then on your upkeep steal away.
Want to steal at instant speed? Using Springleaf to tap Daring in response to your opponent casting something you really want (some funnies have been Desecration Demon and Stormbreath Dragon), then all we do is throw our "free" Triton Tactics down to untap Daring straight away - paid for with the mana we just used Springleaf to create with Daring Thief.
Hypnotic Siren
So Daring Thief will end up with a big red bullseye painted on him through all the shenanigans and will make your opponent cautious around him, so we need another trick to stealing our opponent's creatures. Enter Hypnotic Siren! As tempting as it is to drop a 1/1 flyer for 1 Blue, we really don't want to do this unless we are desperate for a blocker or a body for other purposes yet to be explained.
We throw our Sirens out for 7 mana (2 Blue; 5 colourless) to Bestow an opponents creature, gain control of it adding +1/+1 and giving it flying. Yeah, that's Dirt Cheap for you. But we're not done yet...
Hour of Need
So when I said there were 12 counters I kind of lied. There are 16 in the deck. And this card certainly would not be changed from Travis Woo's list, I love it too much!
This card is just plain crazy - I mean seriously it's nuts! So those little bodies we have on our field can instill alot of confidence in our opponents, so we want to tear that down with grandeur and astonishment! For 3 mana (1 Blue, 2 Colourless) we can turn anything we control, at Instant speed, into a 4/4 Sphinx with Flying!
As if that isn't crazy enough, why not make the card more ridiculous by letting you pay a further 2 Colourless as much as you can afford with Strive to turn further creatures into more Sphinxes! Don't forget to use your Springleaf Drums to tap the soon-to-be-Sphinxes to help pay for strive and we can turn 7 mana into THREE 4/4 Flyers. Yep, that's fun!
Nullify
+Negate+
Void Snare
So these cards aren't ran in Travis's list at all. I found Stymied Hope was only useful on T2 & T3. After you play one or two your opponent will just play around them, so I dropped them altogether.
I replaced these with the same cost but circumstantially more effective Negate. Void Snare is a nice single-slot inclusion to send back things for a turn to give you some breathing space whilst Nullify is handy as a double.
Gainsay
+
Hubris
+Disdainful Stroke+
Neutralizing Blast
Our sideboard is just a bunch of 13 counters and 2 more bounces (Hubris). Our sideboard is used for replacing counters. Hour of Need, Springleaf Drum & all creatures should never be swapped out.
We want to board according to what we are facing, in most instances our replacement slots begin with Thassa's Rebuff, then Negate, then Nullify. You can tinker as you need, but this sideboard covers your cheap mana counters and lets you do what you need.
