Kami the Mind Sculptor (competitive)

Tiny Leaders Competitive Mill Mono-Blue

EssTea

Instant (10)

• 1x Boomerang
• 1x Brain Freeze
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dampen Thought
• 1x Dream Twist
• 1x Echoing Truth
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Thought Scour
• 1x Vision Charm

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Increasing Confusion
• 1x Mind Sculpt
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Tome Scour

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Sphinx's Tutelage

Artifact (7)

• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Anvil of Bogardan
• 1x Grindclock
• 1x Howling Mine
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Shriekhorn
• 1x Vedalken Shackles

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace Beleren

Creature (5)

• 1x Hedron Crab
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x True-Name Nemesis

Land (18)

• 1x Flooded Strand
• 10x Island
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Wasteland

Commander (1)

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Sideboard

Instant (6)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Blue Elemental Blast
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Hibernation
• 1x Hurkyl's Recall
• 1x Kiora's Dismissal

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Extract

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Chill
• 1x Overburden

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''Your mind was a curious mix of madness and genius. I just took away the genius.''
-Jace Beleren

Kami of the Crescent Moon Deck Tech

Hello and welcome to this tiny leaders deck tech! There's just something utterly satisfying about beating rock decks with a crazy strategy, this is the premise to the deck's existence, but don't get it wrong, this deck is fully competitive and it beats the formats most played strategies pretty consistently (I'm looking at you Anafenza, Alesha and Shu Yun). If you like playing unique decks, if you like blue and your opponents hating you, then this is THE deck for you!
As always, a +1 upvote is greatly appreciated, simply click here, comment down below and I will gladly return the favor! Please let me know of cards you think would be great additions to the deck :).
Alright so this is a mill deck, and wins by making opponents draw into thin air. There are three mainlines as to how the deck does this, the most obvious is making the opponent put cards from his library into his graveyard a.k.a. mill them. Another tactic is to make both you and them draw additional cards, hence the choice of Kami of the Crescent Moon as the leader. Finally, the deck has to stay alive so it has a unique defense system to survive assaults. Lets take a look!

Milling

The math : 50 cards - leader - opening hand - fetching = approx. 40 cards to mill.

When it comes to milling, you either use ephemeral spells or permanents. Ephemeral spells usually mill for more on the spot, while permanent millers are like an investment and mill more down the road.

Permanent millers

Using permanents to mill is key since they usually do not require further mana investments. This way you can use your mana for setting up a defense while the permanents are doing the rest of the job, or mill even more with ephemeral spells.

Hedron Crab : This little crab is awesome and is usually a 1 mana mill 6 that your opponents need to destroy using a higher costed spell.

Jace's Archivist : The decks low curve paired with making opponents draw extra cards creates situations where you have 2-4 cards in hand and the opponent is jam packed with 7. The archivist combo's with Sphinx's Tutelage hard time and will scare the crap out of your opponents.

Altar of the Brood : A simple 1 mana permanent that will eventually have milled way more cards than they wouldve liked. Remember, lands are permanents and count towards triggering the altar!

Shriekhorn: 1 mana mill 6, or you can even get fancy and bounce it back to your hand.

Sphinx's Tutelage: This enchantment turns all draw spells and draw steps into mill spells. It can win the game in an instant if you've got some card draw permanents on the board!

Mesmeric Orb: Dont worry about milling yourself because your opponent will definitely run out of cards before you. The 2 mana investment pays off right away at your opponents untap step and will end up milling so much cards it's not even funny!

Grindclock : Here's how to use the card :
Stop at 1 if opponent has exactly 2 cards in library.
Stop at 2 if opponent has <= 10 cards in library.
Stop at 3 if opponent has 11-18 cards in library.
Stop at 4 if opponent has 19-33 cards in library
These numbers are based around you not milling them so you should definitely never go past 4 if you anticipate milling them to less than 20 cards while grindclocking you should probably stop at 3. Remember to calculate cards drawn when doing the math!

Ephemeral spells

In between setting up permanents and defending our life total, sorceries and instants act as a mana sink or as the finishers of the game.

Dampen Thought : A simple mill 4 for 2 mana.

Dream Twist : Mill 6 for a splitted 3 mana.

Thought Scour: Mills for 2 while replacing itself with a new card.

Vision Charm : A lot of interesting modes for a card you will 90% of the time use for a 1 mana mill 4. Usage of the land mode can be used against mono colored decks as a time walk effect, while the ''phase out'' mode can be used to buy time against Sword of Fire and Ice and company.

Increasing Confusion : Double milling when flashbacked? Sign me in! Strangely enough, you will a lot of times be in positions where you dump the card into your graveyard by casting it for x=0 only to use it much later in the game.

Tome Scour : So simple yet so powerful, 1 mana mill 5 is a lot of mill for cost in this format.

Mind Sculpt : The card that mills the most as a one time usage!

Brain Freeze : Usually a mill 9 or 12 for 2 mana. You can pull off wins from nowhere with this card, and the look of dread on your opponents' faces when you say storm 1 is priceless!

Dual card-drawing

Heres the concept, if both you and your opponent draw more cards but you mill them, they logically run out of cards quicker than you, but its not only a matter of milling, its also a matter of tempo. The fact that this deck has a low curve compared to other decks makes it able to use the extra drawing more efficiently.

Kami of the Crescent Moon : Leader of the deck and for a good reason! He ensures the deck a turn two play geared towards its objective and hes also a good blocker in this tiny format.

Howling Mine : Extra card drawing, plain and simple.

Anvil of Bogardan : Extra card drawing but with a removed discard phase and an added discard before main phase 1.

Jace Beleren : This is his deck.

The Defense system

The way the deck survives is with a ''prison'' like style. It would be easy to throw in every good counterspells, however that would be neglecting the unique game state the deck creates. Opponents will be drawing extra cards to navigate and bait through counterspells, and eventually they will be casting multiple spells per turn. You need to slow them down and trading one for one is not a viable strategy for long.

The Bounce Defense : Echoing Truth, Cyclonic Rift and Boomerang take care of everything that has resolved. Boomerang can be used for a bad mannered land bounce when you're on the play. Echoing Truth is great against tokens and will come in handy more often than you'd think (Lingering Souls, White Sun's Zenith, goblins). Cyclonic rift is the only way to wipe a board so use it carefully.

Fogging and Stealing : True-Name Nemesis, Maze of Ith and Jace, Telepath Unbound   are three ways to fog assaults. Vedalken Shackles is a nightmare for opponents and will completely slow a game down.

Mana Restriction Defense : Propaganda is awesome, the extra cards the opponents are drawing become less useful since they have to commit mana to attacking rather than developing their board.

Card Advantage/Selection

The 4 Cantrips : Nothing too fancy Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain and Serum Visions offer great selection, less mulligans, triggers for Sphinx's Tutelage and easy storm counts for Brain Freeze.

Staples, Staples, Staples... : Again, nothing too out of the ordinary here, Snapcaster Mage and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy   are extremely good blue cards and are an excellent addition to the deck.

The Mana Base

The mana is made to be quick and no lands come into play tapped except Tolaria West which is usually treated as a second Maze of Ith or sometimes a Wasteland . Mikokoro, Center of the Sea fits this deck totally by making both you and your opponent draw cards. Finally, all blue fetches are played for their synergy with Hedron Crab and Altar of the Brood as well as for their shuffling effect with Brainstorm.

The Sideboard

My sideboard is geared towards my meta so you can inspire yourself from it but you should definitely also be making your own decisions!

Back to Basics : Comes in against any 3-color deck

Blue Elemental Blast and Chill : Comes in against mono-red and can be brought in against dual/triple colored decks if you saw a lot of red spells from the player.

Extract : Comes in every post-board games against decks that play green for three reasons: Gaea's Blessing, Choke and wheel of the sun and moon. You could consider bringing it to extract Elixir of Immortality too.

Counterspell : Much like Extract, Counterspell comes in every game two to make sure Gaea's Blessing, Choke, wheel of the sun and moon and Elixir of Immortality don't resolve. It is also brought in against blue decks as a weapon for counterwars.

Hibernation : Comes in against elves, obviously.

Overburden : Comes in against aggressive strategies.

Hurkyl's Recall : Comes in against Sydri Galvanic Genius or Glissa the traitor.

Kiora's Dismissal : Comes in against enchantress strategies, which one player plays in my meta.

Relic of Progenitus : Comes in against graveyard based strategies.

Thanks a lot for checking my deck out! As always a +1 is greatly appreciated and I'd love to hear your suggestions down below!

Peace!

EssTea

Top Ranked	Achieved #10 position overall 8 years ago
Date added	8 years
Last updated	8 years
Legality	This deck is Tiny Leaders legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 16 - 4 Rares 7 - 3 Uncommons 12 - 3 Commons
Cards	50
Avg. CMC	1.78
Tokens	Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Folders	Tiny Leaders, Fun Tiny Leaders, Clever Tiny Concepts, Tiny Leaders, Compare to.... , Interesting Deck Ideas, Watchlist, Decks, Expensive Want, Like to build