The core concepts of the deck don't have to be overly complicated since there's so much archetype support underneath these color banners. The mechanics Disturb, Haunt, and general typal support lords come to mind for a lot of the construction, but I'm hoping to keep the curve relatively low, and maybe splash some surprise cast members for shiggles, because.. yknow, ghosts will f@#$%k you up.
Disturb
Disturb is a great mechanic introduced relatively recently in regards to Crimson Vow and Midnight Hunt (I think this was 2022, maybe 2023..) and involves creatures/stuff that hits the graveyard and ends up being able to be cast again as different stuff. Very much like spirits, they start out as some ole sh@#$%t and get pissed off upon dying, so they come back all ready to have a fight about it.
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Brine Comber
is a beautiful card to me because of the way it functions within this list. It's amazing that essentially anytime we look at it or activate it or do a thing, we essentially are going to create another spirit. That was a specific design choice I made while creating the list, and is relevant here as in "make a token". I'll detail that again with other cards that do the same.
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Chaplain of Alms
is an amazing value within our colors as it can generate some gas early and late game scales to provide us with more protection.
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Dennick, Pious Apprentice
is another candidate for the commander slot and is one of three total creatures that I think could effectively be placed at the helm.
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Lantern Bearer
does what a one-drop spirit creature is meant to do and it's just nice to have the curve-relevant cards that hold up disturb ability present in the list. The presence of further cards that can do the thing increases the synergy of the overall deck.
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Malevolent Hermit
does a fantastic job of making themselves relevant and grumpy early on and making themselves gleefully burdening in the later stages of the game.
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Mischevious Catgeist is a beautiful creature, provides us with draw, and likewise provides us with draw again the next time we look at the kitty.
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Twinblade Geist
is another wedged card due to how awesome it is to have a bunch of cards holding up the disturb mechanic.
Draw
As with any and all EDH material builds, draw power and draw advantage are very key to success. In the colors of White and Blue there are no exceptions, so I'll detail below some of my favorite cast for accomplishing that. I don't think there's anything special about Dorothea using draw, but she herself provides no draw tactic so you'll have to count on a lot of that being represented here in the 99.
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Rhystic StudyGC is a stapled Blue card that provides us a bunch of draw, and everyone at your table is going to know about it. Expect some saltiness for including the card.
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Esper Sentinel can come down as early as turn 1 and provides us with a bad-removal-trade target for the person at your table who is using Gruul () colors, and wishes to prevent you from doing too much. Esper does have a small potential to scale within this list but it's flimsy inclusion was entirely for the draw.
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Mystic Remora is another card included for access to an unrealistic amount of draw-advantage. Still, don't feed the fish and use it for the intended purpose.
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Smuggler's Share while recently printed, seems incredibly effective in my opinion, and could serve to do a wholesome amount of resource development.
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Tocasia's Welcome is going into the list as a last minute choice over Reconnaissance Mission, because of the mana-curve situation. I'd rather dependably net one extra draw than eat up four mana to do nothing the turn it comes down, even if it replenishes my hand, it won't be that useful on the heels of a second main phase where all of my mana has been used.
Removal
In these colors I really so no need or reason to be over-explanatory about the inclusions here because the color shard is clean, concise, able to accomplish so much and to do so with this level of efficiency- kinda nuts. Like I said, don't f@#$%ck with Ghosts.
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Get Lost comes to us from the Lost Caverns of Ixalan (2024) and is a two-drop removal providing back to our opponents some useless map token that likely won't be very helpful.
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Pongify is a tried and true way to blow up some annoying stuff that definitely needs to disappear. The beautiful part being that the monkey they get to make does not having flying, and therefore is an inferior blocker against our deck's concepts.
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Rapid Hybridization is very similar to the card detailed above, and serves it's purpose dutifully.
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Path to Exile alongside Swords to Plowshares is a stapled way to keep relevant removal cards. If you can keep a hand full of cards, then we can keep their resources in check long enough to swing in with the bed-sheet brawlers.
Counterspells
This color shard is very popular for counterspell tactics and the control elements naturally printed into them. The grand part is how low that curve is for these spells, because you can do quite a lot with very little in terms of mana value. I'm excited to see how the end results shake out.
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No More Lies seems pretty cool to me, and is another way to create a pool of control-focused spells that play to the naturally printed benefits of our color choice.
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Dovin's Veto was a surprising keep for the deck, as it's inclusion is very stocky and serves us only as the pivotal inclusion, not because it provides an astronomical amount of value.
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Swan Song might be my favorite counterspell of all time due to it's artwork, theme, and usability. I think it's a mid-tier counterspell in the grand scheme of things and sees a spot here so that we can keep pumping up the number of control cards that are detailed with only 1 mana value.
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Force of WillGC and Force of Negation are both obvious slots for the deck that cares about what Blue can do to keep it's resources.
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Likewise from above, the cards Flawless Maneuver and Mana Drain seemed like they absolutely must make the list, for the purposes of who and what our commander is capable of within White and Blue.
Lords
A key part of a build focused on typal theme is having the creatures that naturally buff whatever creature type you happened to have chosen. In our case it is Spirits, so a lot of them are in fact falling into one category or the other (being white and/or blue). I don't think we're going to miss Strangleroot Geist because we're doing just fine without it. These guys will inherently buff Dorothea, which in turn makes the game that much shorter because they f@#$%cked with Ghosts.
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Patrician Geist is probably the best spirit lord available to us within the mono-blue capabilities, and it does simply so much for theme and practicality.
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Supreme Phantom is a cheaper lord that still provides enough value to sneak up on the opposition, considering how frequently we are creating 1/1s anyways.
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Drogskol Captain is an auto-include within this concept and I might have been beat to death or thrown down some stairs if I didn't include it.
