85-card Teachings Creatureless Control

Pauper Control Creatureless Pauper UB (Dimir)

sceptikal

Instant (36)

• 3x Brainstorm
• 1x Capsize
• 4x Counterspell
• 1x Crypt Incursion
• 1x Deprive
• 2x Diabolic Edict
• 2x Disfigure
• 1x Doom Blade
• 2x Echoing Decay
• 4x Exclude
• 2x False Summoning
• 2x Ghastly Demise
• 4x Mystical Teachings
• 2x Prohibit
• 4x Think Twice
• 1x Tragic Slip

Land (34)

• 4x Ash Barrens
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 4x Dimir Aqueduct
• 4x Dismal Backwater
• 9x Island
• 2x Lonely Sandbar
• 2x Radiant Fountain
• 4x Swamp
• 4x Terramorphic Expanse

Sorcery (11)

• 3x Chainer's Edict
• 3x Evincar's Justice
• 4x Innocent Blood
• 1x Preordain

Artifact (4)

• 4x Pristine Talisman

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Sideboard

Instant (9)

• 1x Complete Disregard
• 2x Dispel
• 4x Hydroblast
• 2x Unmake

Sorcery (4)

• 2x Duress
• 2x Shrivel

Artifact (2)

• 2x Nihil Spellbomb

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85-card Mystical Teachings-based UB creatureless control deck because 60 cards is just so mainstream. (though you can find my 60-card version here: No Creatures, No Problems)

Why Play 85 Cards?

The short answer is "because I feel like it." The long answer is that in my original 60-card version, Curse of the Bloody Tome and Devious Cover-Up are two of the (few) win conditions. The idea with this deck is to still plan on milling the opponent out, but without having to play either. Hence, 85 cards. Playing the full playset of Mystical Teachings (60-card version only plays 3) mitigates (but doesn't eliminate) the inherent inconsistency that comes with playing more than 60. We're also running other card-selection effects in the form of Preordain and Brainstorm, as well as a playset of Think Twice.

Win Conditions

• Evincar's Justice is here for when we need a slightly-faster-than-53-turn clock; Pristine Talisman and Crypt Incursion buffer our life total so we don't die in the process

• Capsize, not technically a win condition, but is far and away my preferred method of prompting a concession because I love the ability to deny my opponents fun of any kind; casting this with buyback twice per turn cycle is just ... filthy. I love it.

• And of course, good ol' decking is always a relevant option (unless we happen to be up against an 86-card deck...), because why include more win conditions when instead we can just ... Not Lose

Card Selection

• Mystical Teachings: the namesake card; tutor for any of 36 instants in the deck, essentially cherry-picking whatever we need from our deck at any given moment

• Think Twice: this slot used to be taken by Accumulated Knowledge, but Think Twice is better in the early game, where this deck needs the most help

• Brainstorm and Preordain provide more deck filtering so that we can be drawing what we need, when we need it; Ash Barrens and Terramorphic Expanse can be used to shuffle away cards we put back into our library with Brainstorm

Counter Suite

• Counterspell because duh

• Deprive: picking up a land is often actually a good thing in the cases of Radiant Fountain, Lonely Sandbar, or Ash Barrens

• Exclude: the value here is just too good to pass up, even at the cost of being 3 mana

• False Summoning because Essence Scatter is for scrubs and Remove Soul isn't nearly pretentious enough

• Prohibit because having 2-mana counter magic is so important

Removal Suite

• Chainer's Edict, Diabolic Edict, and Innocent Blood are our edict effects to get around hexproof

• Disfigure, Doom Blade, Echoing Decay, and Ghastly Demise are just good, efficient removal

• Tragic Slip will take down anything in the format for if morbid is triggered; it's especially fun to play after an edict effect when our opponent thinks they got away with only sacrificing their smaller creature

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Top Ranked	Achieved #9 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	W
Legality	This deck is Pauper legal.
Cards	85
Avg. CMC	2.22
Folders	pauper, Pauper Selection, Cool Decks, bbox, pauper, Nothing but teachings