Re: The Changing Tides

Commander / EDH Control Mono-Blue Theme/Gimmick

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Land (36)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
• 1x Detection Tower
• 1x Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
• 1x High Market
• 19x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Mirrorpool
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Tectonic Edge
• 1x War Room

Steal (9)

• 1x Acquire
• 1x Agent of Treachery
• 1x Bribery
• 1x Control Magic
• 1x Diluvian Primordial
• 1x Empress Galina
• 1x Master Thief
• 1x Steal Enchantment
• 1x Vedalken Plotter

Protect (4)

• 1x Crystal Shard
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Clone (15)

• 1x Blade of Shared Souls
• 1x Body Double
• 1x Cackling Counterpart
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Dance of Many
• 1x MImic Vat
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Mirror Mockery
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Quasiduplicate
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Sakashima's Will
• 1x Stolen Identity
• 1x Vizier of Many Faces

Ramp (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dragon's Hoard
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Palladium Myr
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Removal (5)

• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Relic of Progenitus

Commander (1)

Draw (10)

• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Trinket Mage

Counter (7)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Disdainful Stroke
• 1x Dissipate
• 1x Faerie Trickery
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Swan Song

Wipe (3)

• 1x AEtherize
• 1x Aetherspouts
• 1x Cyclonic Rift

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The History of the Deck

An updated list for my first real commander deck. Keiga stuck around with me longer than any other commander deck, and almost no two games will play out the same. This deck scales well to the strength of a playgroup (up to a certain point, although it can hang with fairly strong decks.

This list used to be budget, but the sands have time have filled the deck out a bit. A trade here, a spike there. Although $100-200 may not be much for some people, that price is higher than what I wanted to pay when I made this deck in the first place (around $60)

You can find the old list here.

Basic Gameplay

Keiga, the Tide Star runs off of the legend rule: If there's a clone of her, pick one and put the other into the graveyard. Playing a Clone of Keiga is essentially removing and playing the best creature on the battlefield at any time.

As Keiga is important to the plan of the deck, it's important to get her out early. Ideally, the deck wants the option to play her on turn 4 or 5, although it is somewhat rare that Keiga is played at the earliest opportunity. By turn 6-7, the idea is to be able to play the dragon and a clone or protection spell to pair with her. It doesn't take too many creatures to have the strongest board presence, especially when the deck takes the best of the best.

Winning the game often depends on who the opponents are. This deck requires an eye for value and on the fly planning. Stealing creatures often leaves a bad taste in other players mouths, so sharp political skills will help tremendously. That all said, a 5/5 flying dragon can kill with commander damage in 5 hits, or 4 if she gets a boost somehow. Sometimes cloning a large creature several times over to attack will win the game too.

Advanced Gameplay

Cards that establish card advantage can be problematic for the deck. This deck operates off of both card and mana advantage, paying less mana to both remove and create big threats than other decks. Save Counterspells for things that might tip card advantage away from you, and attempt to cast Keiga when she will be less likely to die, to preserve mana advantage. Watch out for combo decks, which don't need card advantage to win.

Avoid taking the first large threat of the game. Someone else has removal.

Key Features (Needs Update)

Board Wipes

Returning the creatures that you just stole is pretty bad, so most blue boardwipes are pretty bad.

Cyclonic Rift

AEtherize

Aetherspouts

These three are usually enough to do a decent board wipe impression. Because this deck is so good at dealing with problematic creatures, the biggest use of board wipes is to deal with aggressive decks. In that, Aetherize and Aetherspouts put in good work. Might consider getting Nevinyrral's Disk, but I'm not sure on that. I dislike the target it paints.

Also, a card that is sort of a boardwipe, Diluvian Primordial. In a pinch, it often comes down after the first board wipe, or can grab a removal spell or two.

Targeted Land Disruption

The primary reason for this to be in the deck is Homeward Path. That card just turns my deck off, and it comes up often enough that I'm willing to add cards like Tectonic Edge to my deck. These cards have turned out to be shockingly useful against many decks, as hitting a strong utility land is a strong winning play. More relevant now after Ixalan introduced the flip enchantments. Newest member of the team is Vedalken Plotter, who avoids that whole card disadvantage element of the land based ones, but is also sometimes a 3 mana 1/1 with irrelevant text. I still have faith, but need to play a few games with it.

Trinket Mage Package

Seat of the Synod

Mana Vault

Sol Ring

Relic of Progenitus

Expedition Map Package

Arcane Lighthouse

Maze of Ith

Mirrorpool

Reliquary Tower

Scavenger Grounds

Strip Mine

Tectonic Edge

Muddle the Mixture Package

Removal

Curse of the Swine

Cyclonic Rift

Reality Shift

Clones

Dance of Many

Phantasmal Image

Mirror Mockery

Protection

Ring of Evos Isle

Swiftfoot Boots

Other

Steal Enchantment

Pull from Tomorrow

the other 2 drops in this deck are mana ramp and counterspells, both not really where muddle shines.

Purposefully not included

Brainstorm: too few shuffle effects

Cryptoplasm: the clone takes too long

Mercurial Pretender: too much mana

Sacrifice effects: I do value the strength of sacrifice outlets, but more often than not this deck doesn't take very good advantage of them. There is no window to sacrifice a Keiga clone thanks to the legend rule, and I'm not running a robust enough delve or recursion package to make sacrificing my commander worthwhile. If I do end up adding some to this deck, it will either be the land based ones (High Market and friends) or ones that slot into the deck with relevant effects (something like Culling Dais? Helm of Possession? Blue doesn't really have great outlets outside the 3 altars, and none of those are effects that I want).

Graveyard Stuff: There are a few in blue, notably Fool's Demise, Treasure Cruise, and Hour of Eternity. I'm only running 1 delve spell to avoid the awkward interaction between Cruise and Dig Through Time. Fools demise and hour take too much setup for my taste, plus in the case of hour, I have a lot of creature token clones (around half of my clones are non-creature).

Fun Cards

Steal Enchantment: Who says mono blue can't answer enchantments?

Vedalken Plotter: I was curious to see how this card performs. Also, yet another way to defend against homeward path. I think its a pretty neat option though.

Crucible of the Spirit Dragon and Haven of the Spirit Dragon: Not actually good cards in the deck, but absolutely flavorful.

Propaganda: funny how no one wants to attack you for -2 mana. This card is excellent, especially in this deck that struggles in the early game.

Empress Galina: Gets better every time I cast her. New Planeswalker rule welcome by her.

General Future Goals

This deck is pretty inactive in the first 3 or so turns in a game, and has trouble blocking early creatures. I want to find more things to play early in the game, but I don't want to sacrifice the strength that I have in the late game with bad topdecks.

Cards that I'm thinking about adding:

More cantrips: Preordain, Opt, Spreading Seas, Portent. This would probably be the best solution to the "do-nothing early" problem, but doesn't really solve the whole "gets attacked easily" problem.

Lower CMC counterspells: I really do like the hard counter that doesn't give card advantage to opponents. Maybe Deprive and Logic Knot. They're both a bit limited, but 1 fewer mana is a big deal. Logic knot has the additional downside of I usually want the low cost counters before I have a significant graveyard, and it fights with Dig Through Time

Nevinyrral's Disk: another boardwipe would be nice, but the disk can draw some pretty substantial hate

Blade of Selves: Almost bought it, but the store was out. Still not sold entirely on the "attacking clones" (like Mirror Mockery), but if I like that card going forward I'll probably make an effort to add this one.

Academy Ruins: I have one hanging about. If I were to add it, I would change up the deck to include a few more self-sacrificing artifacts. Right now, there aren't a ton of great artifacts in the deck to recur. Mirage Mirror, Expedition Map and Hedron Archive are it. I usually try to get around 6+ elements for a package, and prefer 8+. Cards that would likely make it in with this are Nevinyrral's Disk and Phyrexian Metamorph. Still feel like I would need more to make it good.

Pact of Negation: free counterspell. mmmm. But also not particularly efficient. But, still... mmmm.

Tolaria West: Would probably accompany the above as a way to extent the reach of my various packages. If I added these two cards, I could find pact off of trinket mage for 9 mana (3+1+2+3 (not to mention the 5 at the next upkeep))

Spellskite: I do have one lying around, but I'm not convinced that it is an actually good commander card, or even a good early play.

Snapcaster Mage: If I ever bought it dear goodness. But this would probably usher in a fair number of cantrips

Lay Claim: I do want this catch all steal permanent spell in the deck, but most are generally pretty expensive. Lay claim helps mitigate that with cycling, but I'm not sure how often I would really cast it over cycle it.

Relevant Comprehensive Rules Show

704.5j If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.”

700.4. The term dies means “is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.”

ex: A clone enters the battlefield as a copy of Keiga the tide star. When state based actions are checked, the game makes you choose one to keep and to put the other into the graveyard. That puts the Clone "Keiga" ability trigger on the stack.

903.9. If a commander would be exiled from anywhere or put into its owner’s hand, graveyard, or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event. This is an exception to rule 614.5.

ex: When the real Keiga dies, if she is sent to the command zone, will not trigger her effects

800.4a When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the game and any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end. Then, if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist. Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects are exiled. This is not a state-based action. It happens as soon as the player leaves the game. If the player who left the game had priority at the time he or she left, priority passes to the next player in turn order who’s still in the game.

ex: You lose the game and control one creature from each other player thanks to Keiga. Each player gets their own card back.

ex: You lose the game and control a sol ring from another player thanks to Acquire. The sol ring will be exiled (as no static effect dictates that the card is under your control).

ex: You gained control a permanent from a player who just lost the game earlier. The card is exiled, then ceases to exist.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	9 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 27 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.25
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Boar 2/2 G, Copy Clone, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Manifest 2/2 C, Rebel 2/2 R, Vizier of Many Faces 0/0 W