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Everyone Loves Ice Breakers, V2

Modern Budget Control Midrange Mono-Blue Tribal

Legoman18


Sideboard


Maybeboard


This is my new and improved Thing in the Ice   deck, the original being Everyone Loves Ice Breakers. After a lot of playtesting I noticed that the original wasn't consistent and just didn't have the ability to produce relevant threats. This version is the result of lots of tweaking and playtesting.

Thing in the Ice  : This is the decks namesake and one of my favourite cards. With the high number of cheap instants and sorceries, it is very easy to flip.

Chasm Skulker: With the sheer amount of card draw available, this guy gets very big very fast. He also has the bonus of sprouting out a ton of little islandwalkers when he dies.

All of these cards help melt Thing in the Ice  , grow Chasm Skulker, and help sift through your deck to find the answers you need.

Opt: An all-around good card that let's you choose what you draw

Peek: Since the banning of Gitaxian Probe, this is the next best way to get a look into your opponet's hand when playing mono-blue.

Chart a Course: 2-mana for two cards is a pretty good deal, especially when considering it puts 2 counters on Chasm Skulker, can fuel your graveyard for Cryptic Serpent and Temporal Trespass, and in the late game will most likely get satisfy the "unless you attacked with a creature" effect.

Thought Scour: Can help fuel your graveyard or disrupt your opponent. It's also another cantrip to help flip Thing in the Ice   whenever needed.

Remand: A great control card that protects the horrors and draws a card.

Supreme Will: A useful counterspell that can also dig for a horror, land, or another counterspell

Negate: A 2-cmc hard counter for noncreature spells is perfect for protecting your board.

Mana Leak: An all-around great control card, and the only one in this deck that doesn't send the card back to your opponent's hand.

Spell Pierce: Amazing early game protection for your creatures, allowing a turn 3 Thing in the Ice   with 1 mana left to cast Spell Pierce.

Deprive: An excellent hard-counter for this deck. Returning a land to your hand is not a drawback at all 90% of the time, and the land can even provide a discard for Chart a Course if you haven't attacked with a creature that turn.

Remand: A counterspell that also draws a card. Can't get much better than that. It helps buy time, dig through the deck, grow Chasm Skulker and melt Thing in the Ice  .

Cryptic Serpent: A large beater that can usually be cast for 2 because of the high amounts of instant and sorceries we are running.

Temporal Trespass: An amazing game finisher that can easily be cast for 3 for the same reasons why Cryptic Serpent costs less, the sheer amount of cards being played. This card, paired with Thing in the Ice  , has won me more games than any other card in this deck. Casting temporal trespass to flip into Awoken Horror , then swinging for 14 can usually close out a game.

Field of Ruin: This is an excellent land in this deck because I can afford to go down a couple coloured sources without hurting my mana-base. Because this is a control deck, I often have the mana available at the end of my opponents turn (if I didn't spend it countering spells) to crack it and hurt my opponents mana base, especially in a format full of shocklands. I'm still playtesting with this card so the exact quantity isn't set in stone yet.

Halimar Depths: This has an interesting interaction with Deprive, letting me reorganize the top of my deck multiple times with the same land. Just like with Field of Ruin, I'm still playtesting and determining how many of these lands I should include.

The sideboard is a work in progress, and of course it entirely depends on you local game meta. When sideboarding, Temporal Trespass and Cryptic Serpent are usually the first cards that should be replaced, as they are useful but not essential to the main strategy.

Sentinel Totem: Not as good as Rest in Peace, but it still shuts down graveyard strategies. When you're playing mono-blue your options for graveyard hate are limited. I am considering trying something else, like Nihil Spellbomb or Tormod's Crypt, because I want to remove my opponents graveyard without sacrificing my own graveyard. (Currently trying out Grafdigger's Cage as it shuts off graveyard strategies without hurting my delving.)

Surgical Extraction: This is perfect for removing combo pieces. Once you've countered one piece, you can prevent that piece from being played all together. It's a great card in certain matchups, and it allows you to exile an important card from a graveyard without using Sentinel Totem to exile all cards from all graveyards.

Sorcerous Spyglass: Useful for shutting down planeswalkers or win-cons like Borborygmos Enraged

Clockspinning: A very versatile card that can remove 2 counters from Thing in the Ice  , add counters to Jace, Unraveler of Secrets and Chasm Skulker, and remove counters from opposing planewalkers. Clockspinning is most useful late-game when you can pay it's buy-back cost to use it over and over again. In all honesty, I would rather have a counterspell ready rather than clockspinning, which is why it's a useful sideboard card but does not have a spot in the mainboard. I am considering replacing this with 2x Field of Ruin in my sideboard.

Mizzium Skin: This is for when your opponent plays a too many 1-2 cmc burn spells to counter. Mizzium Skin allows you to protect your creature for an entire turn, rather than from only 1 spell. The best part is that it also has an overload ability, giving multiple creatures hexproof at the same time for just 1 extra mana.

Spreading Seas: It is often a good idea to have answers to pesky man-lands or urza lands (because a turn 3 Karn Liberated sucks). Enchanting an opponent's only source of a certain colour mana can also be devastating.

Duel Lands: Adding any lands that produce blue mana without having the land type "island" would be very useful additions. Cards like Boil and Choke can be devastating to our mana base, so having lands that are harder to get rid of could work wonders.

Dissipate/Void Shatter: I'm toying with the idea of either replacing Supreme Will in the mainboard or finding a way to squeeze it into the sideboard. Being able to counter a spell and then exile it can come in handy, especially against graveyard decks. It is also good against cards with flashback like Faithless Looting and Lingering Souls, countering the whole spell instead of just half of it like a regular counterspell. The disadvantage is that Supreme Will can either counter a spell or help me dig through my deck to find what I need, while Dissipate is strictly a counterspell. I can also cast Supreme Will whenever I want to flip Thing in the Ice   wheras a regular counterspell needs to target and therefore limits my ability to flip the thing

Other Counterspells: this is where things get tricky. Which counterspells work the best all depends on what your local meta runs. Playing against a lot of tron and affinity, Ceremonious Rejection. Lots of combo decks, Disallow. Again, the counterspells that work best depend on what you're playing against.

Torpor Orb: This an interesting card in regards to Thing in the Ice  . With it in play, the thing enters with no ice counters, so the first instant or sorcery cast will flip it. It can also shut off opposing Snapcaster Mages and other important etb effects that might be harmful to our strategy.

Spellskite: This is a powerful card in regards to protecting our few, but important, creatures. Being a horror just ups it's value when Thing in the Ice   flips.

Distortion Strike/Slip Through Space: These have the potential to be very powerful in this deck. Being able to flip and clear the board, then bypass any blockers your opponent may have tried to cast can be game-winning. The only problem is that are a limited number of non-counterspell in this deck. If I try to add too much else the control strategy gets diluted and the deck loses it's consistency.

I really want to add Jace, the Mind Sculptor now that's he's lega, but I just don't think I can afford to play him early game, and if I survive to late-game I've usually already won and he would just be overkill. I also need a minimum number of instant/sorceries to make sure I can flip Thing in the Ice  , so there is limited room to add anything else.

My sideboard is not too great, but that's because I play in several different locations, which each have different metas, making things much more difficult.

In its current iteration, this deck has been fairly effective in my local meta, consistently going 2-2 or better.

As I continue to play test and acquire more cards, I feel like I might have to remove the budget tag. Any tips and suggestions are greatly appreciated! Feel free to give your opinion on any cards I'm considering adding!

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Casual

97% Competitive

Top Ranked
  • Achieved #19 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

2 - 0 Mythic Rares

8 - 6 Rares

12 - 0 Uncommons

23 - 9 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.56
Tokens Squid 1/1 U
Folders budget, Control, Mtg decks, PotentialModernDecks, Ideas, Budget Midrange Decks, tribal maybes, Interesting Modern Decks, Potential Decks, sounds fun
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