Hey there, enby pals! Do you like telling your fellow players "no"? Do you want to be able to choose between locking down the game so you can watch your friends not play Magic, or generating huge amounts of value that nobody can keep up with? How about both at once? Do you want to do all of this on a budget, with relatively few expensive cards and plenty of flex room to make the deck as competitive or not as you like? Venser, Shaper Savant just might be for you!
It's worth noting that the list above represents the cards I currently have in my list, with the Maybeboard being cards I would like to own. There's a fair amount of flex room if there's cards you don't have, don't want, or do want. This deck is meant to be fairly competitive without being obscene, but can be easily tuned to match the competitiveness of your group (Although, at the lower end you might want to choose a different commander.)
The Commander
Before we get into the deck itself, let's examine our choice of commander in a vacuum for a bit, and what he can and cannot do for us...
Venser, Shaper Savant's biggest benefit (In my opinion) is that he's under the radar enough that not everyone understands completely how he works at first glance, nor is it necessarily apparent what we're doing with him. So, let's examine his abilities in detail.
Flash
When Venser, Shaper Savant enters the battlefield, return target spell or permanent to its owner's hand.
Fairly unassuming, at a glance. However, here's some noteworthy things he hits that most people don't catch at first:
= Any and all spells, including uncounterable spells =
There's been a couple of cards with this effect before - Unsubstantiate and Remand comes to mind - but it's not exactly commonplace, and so it catches people by surprise. Just like holding up a regular counterspell, Venser can bounce spells before they resolve. And, since he doesn't actually "counter" them, it gets around "This spell can't be countered" effects. Sure, it just goes back to their hand, but as anyone who's played Remand in Modern can tell you, that can make plenty of difference all on its own. This can also be used to skirt around hexproof, shroud, and protection, since strictly speaking spells don't typically have these effects until they become permanents. Speaking of which...
= Most permanents, including lands and Commanders =
Naturally, we can't hit things with hexproof, shroud, or protection, but I haven't seen this being a big deal that often, as we can (And will) include other things to help with those on the offchance that Venser can't catch it as a spell first or otherwise work around it somehow. But, this means that - if we need to or want to - we can let a spell resolve first, and then bounce it. Surprisingly flexible.
It's also noteworthy that Venser, unusually, does not specify "nonland permanents". We can absolutely bounce lands if we want, and in fact that is one possible win condition - but we can talk about that later. For now, it's enough to know that you can, and that most people (strangely) don't pick up on this fact until it's too late.
It's also worth noting: If you're in a casual playgroup, polite people will be sure to occasionally remind people when you inevitably bounce their Commanders that it goes to their hand - they can put it in the command zone, technically, but probably don't want to. On the other hand, if it's a more competitive game or a player you just really don't like for some reason, if you quietly say nothing they'll put it in the command zone without realizing, once in a great while. (If they try to put it anywhere else, however, then you're obligated to tell them.) Only jerkwads do that, though, so be sure to ask yourself if you're a jerkwad when contemplating this social tactic.
= Himself =
Since Venser's ability is an ability, and not part of the spell, it goes on the stack after he resolves. That means that he himself is a viable target for the effect. There's a couple of ways we can abuse this, and we'll get to those in a moment - it's worth pointing out here as something that doesn't occur to most people.
The Goal: Build-Your-Own Capsize
So, we've seen that Venser is a Pretty Good card to begin with, but he's not about to break the game on his own though. Capsize can, though, and Venser provides half of the broken-ness. ((Ironically, I'm not running Capsize itself - maybe I should be? Dunno.)) How do we get the Other Half of Capsize?
Deadeye Navigator + Venser, Shaper Savant
is the most straightforward way. For we can bounce a spell or permanent whenever we want. But mono-blue doesn't have a lot of consistent ways to find a particular creature, and I'd like to be able to do this effect on other stuff, too. So, what are we to do?
Panharmonicon, Naban, Dean of Iteration, and Tidespout Tyrant all let us do something similar by abusing Venser's ability to bounce himself. In the case of Naban or Panharmonicon + Venser, Shaper Savant
, we get two triggers (Three if we also have both!), so we can use one of them to bounce Venser himself, and the other for whatever it is that needs bounced, giving us The Other Half of Capsize that we're wanting. Tidespout Tyrant + Venser, Shaper Savant
accomplishes something similar in a more roundabout way - when we cast Venser, we use Tidespout's trigger to get whatever we want to get rid of. Then, when Venser resolves, we can have him bounce himself. We're definitely getting somewhere now, but what else could we do?
People who have played enough Pauper likely recall the infamous Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker
combo. This lets us replicate Deadeye Navigator's effect, at the cost of being one mana more and being a two card combo. However, there is also the additional benefit of redundancy: Mnemonic Wall, Salvager of Secrets, and Scholar of the Ages are all similar to Archaeomancer. Meanwhile, Displace and Illusionist's Stratagem are both effective reprints of Ghostly Flicker. Baral's Expertise and Flood of Tears can also do a passable imitation while also providing additional value. (I seriously want to try Flood of Tears + Omniscience
one of these days...) Finally, Clone Legion is an excellent win-condition along this line of play by targeting ourselves, and using the new copy of Archeomancer to get back Clone Legion. while also getting clones of everything else we have - we'll talk about that more later on.
Making it an Actual Deck
At this stage, there's a pretty obvious theme going on, here - we very obviously want to have creatures with good Enters-The-Battlefield abilities, with Wizards being ideal (But it's frankly not a deal breaker if there's a good one that isn't). We also want a decent collection of good instants and sorceries to complement the Archeo-Squad, since we'll frequently be getting those back with them as well as our Ghostly Flickers. There's a surprising amount of flex room here for your favorites, but I do feel like there's at least a few guidelines I can provide, and I also want to talk about my personal choices for it.
= Staples, Mana, and Removal (Oh My!) =
This tends to be the boring part of deck building, so let's get it out of the way. I'm not going to tell you what mana ramp to use generally, except for High Tide, Solemn Simulacrum and your choice of one between Pilgrim's Eye, Skittering Surveyor, or Farfinder (My favorite fox!). While Sad Robot is obviously better, both of them still flicker gracefully, and filter lands out of your deck while also insuring that you can hit as many of your land drops as possible, which is absolutely essential for any Commander deck (But especially here). High Tide belongs in every mono-blue deck, but especially ours since we can easily recur it once we get going with Archaeomancer or use it as a leg-up early on as intended.
Counterspells and removal, on the other hand, I'm much more opinionated on. Venser can handle a lot, especially once we get going with the Other Half of Capsize, but we need some extra support until that happens. Familiar's Ruse and Disappearing Act are slam-dunks, as they can pick up a good ETB creature (Including Venser!) for additional value. Peel from Reality and Run Away Together work in a similar fashion, allowing us to replay one of our creatures and bounce an opponent's creature in the same go. Zndrsplt's Judgment is a fantastically versatile card, as we can name ourselves friend or foe and probably benefit from it, while also naming other friends or foes as table politics might dictate. Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep + Venser, Shaper Savant
creates a soft lock on most other creatures by bouncing each other, and Archaeomancer + Whelming Wave
accomplishes something very similar, either one giving us more value out of our other creatures. If you're feeling competitive, you can replace them with Kederekt Leviathan and Evacuation respectively, but I like the memes, okay? It's a great laugh when somebody actually does have a sea beast of some kind, and it's not like we can't deal with those too. Don't be afraid of staples like Counterspell or Rapid Hybridization as you deem appropriate, as well. I don't recommend Cyclonic Rift - if we're going to bounce a bunch of stuff, we actually typically want to bounce our stuff with it. I guess you can try it if you must, though.
= The Early Game =
The biggest weakness of this deck is that it's a bit difficult to get a strong start. We're ultimately trying to get to about five or six mana or so, while also trying to find The Other Half of Capsize - things start becoming a lot easier after that. My plan involves a combination cantrips like Brainstorm and scrying wizards like Faerie Seer or Sea Gate Oracle. The exact ones you choose to run is up to you, but generally you want to be trying to make land drops, play mana rocks, and fix your draws to insure that happens. Ideally you should be whistling innocently while you do it. Players not familiar with Venser as a commander will assume you're on some manner of control plan, which is technically true - let them think that, but don't overdo it. You want to be left alone right now, so try as hard as you can to not make any particular friends or enemies for now.
= The Middle Game =
By now you should have a decent amount of mana, and if you don't have The Other Half of Capsize you should at least have some manner of value engine. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling and/or Conjurer's Closet are good friends if you have them, letting you get extra value out of whatever your best creature at the moment might be. We also already talked about Whelming Wave and Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep. If you have Inventors' Fair, you probably want to get Panharmonicon first. If you already have it, Nyx Lotus, Spellbook, Altar of the Brood, and the aforementioned Conjurer's Closet are also good picks. If you have other tutors you want to run, go for it. My preference is Parallel Thoughts - it's a fun, affordable card and I like that it makes me think a bit. Just be sure not to put all your eggs in the Parallel Basket, just in case it gets removed before you can hatch them all.
Winning The Game
Once we get into the late game, we should very definitely have The Other Half of Capsize, plenty of mana to use it, and plenty of other sources of value we can get out of it as well. At this point, we've essentially won - the world is our oyster, and now all we need to do is make it official.
= Bounce Literally Everything =
In the worst case scenario, throw your DIY Capsize around and start bouncing whatever looks threatening, whatever looks small and annoying, and then lands. Even if you don't have infinite mana (We'll get to it!) you'll probably eventually outpace everyone else's ability to keep up, at which point most sensible people will scoop.
= Infinite Mana =
Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake
is the classic method in mono-blue, and we have a lot of variations on that available to us - generally speaking, any of our Other Halves of Capsize will make infinite mana with Peregrine Drake or Palinchron, if you've got one. Variations of Cloud of Faeries + Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
or Deceiver Exarch + Nyx Lotus
can also work in a pinch, if you like. Recurring High Tide a bunch doesn't typically make infinite mana, but does make for some pretty big, stupid turns, and also makes things like Cloud of Faeries and Deceiver Exarch better at their jobs.
= Clone Legion =
Clone Legion is probably the biggest stand-alone haymaker in our deck. In the worst case scenario, we target whoever has the best creatures and use them to buy some time. If we're ahead, we can target ourselves, and use an Archaeomancer clone to get it back. Every time we use it, our board state grows exponentially. Typically, you want Venser to be in your hand when this happens, so you can cast him in response to what other people are doing. A judge told me that you can use Clone Legion's copy of Venser to bounce the original Venser, and then you get to continue making a copy of Venser every time you make a Clone Legion as well as holding him up like a counterspell. If we also have Infinite Mana, we pretty much automatically win, since we can probably just keep doing it Forever if we want.
= Milling =
Altar of the Brood mills our opponents whenever we play permanents, and Sage's Row Denizen mills somebody when we play blue creatures. Both are affected by Panharmonicon (In the case of playing artifacts or creatures) and Naban, Dean of Iteration (In the case of Wizards). Supporting this, we also have cards like Overwhelmed Apprentice (Who can do double-duty to find stuff for us) and Sphinx Mindbreaker (Who is sadly not a Wizard, but can do bigger chunks at once). Feel free to explore other creatures that do this, too.
Beware of graveyard based decks, however - if there's a lot of 'yard decks in your meta, consider having some cards just for them like maybe Tormod's Crypt. Be sure they don't interfere unduly with your own graveyard, however. If you find an ETB creature or an instant/sorcery that does it, even better, since that way you can recur it. (The best I've found so far is Learn from the Past, but I would love a creature for it...) If that doesn't seem to help, you might consider cutting this option altogether.
= Drawing Stupid Amounts of Cards =
Cards like Sea Gate Oracle or Pondering Mage can start digging deep at this stage to find whatever we're looking for. Alternatively, we can use Gadwick, the Wizened or Pull from Tomorrow to draw a huge amount of cards at once. Then we can assemble one of the above combos from there.
This deck doesn't really need a "lab man" win; typically, if we're drawing our whole deck, we have enough resources to do basically whatever we want anyways. If you're going to insist, though, Thassa's Oracle is the slam dunk pick: she's a Wizard with a good Enters-The-Battlefield ability, after all, and hers happens to be useful in just about every stage of the game. She can also make a good "lightning rod" - your opponents will focus on her, overlooking that we already have a myriad of other perfectly good wincons. I've included one because I have one, but don't feel obligated.
Other Commanders
If you're a more casual player, Venser, Shaper Savant is a card that makes people kinda salty once you start using him a bunch like our deck does. So, let's consider some alternatives to make the deck more casual.
Generally speaking, and blue legendary creature with a good ETB effect is about what we want to consider - anything too drastically different from that will require a fair amount of restructuring the deck. Not all of them are slam dunks, but this link is a good starting point. Alirios, Enraptured is probably my favorite: making a million Reflections seems to be pretty much exactly what he wants to do, so it's a solid flavor win, and it's hilarious with Clone Legion. Vendilion Clique can pick apart hands, and happens to be a Wizard, too! Alhammarret, High Arbiter could play a weird and interesting information game, and Syr Elenora, the Discerning can draw about a million cards while also providing the viable possibility of winning with commander damage. I'm not going to explore them here, but I'm sure there's plenty of U/X commanders with good ETB effects, as well. Feel free to explore that on your own time - examining a second or third color is outside the scope of this deck list page, but feel free to suggest your favorite U/X Commanders to me if you think they would fit this deck's stratagem.
