dknight27

Boltwave, as if burn needed another 1-drop bolt effect option. Silly WOTC and their shenanigans.

Changes generally look solid. Only thing that comes to mind is Destructive Revelry looks good in theory but won't do much in the current meta because it only destroys rather than exiles, so you can't use it to deal with [[The One Ring]], which is nearly ubiquitous in modern.

Now, this is a double edged effect, as the Ring burns the player for using it, which is what this deck wants. But it also turbocharges the hand and will probably let opponent overwhelm you with sheer material, so it's worth considering on that fact alone. As it is, this deck can only hope to outrace an active Ring. One way to deal that would be to swap out Destructive Revelry for either [[Cast Into the Fire]], [[Exorcise]], or [[Haywire Mite]], each of which comes with its particularly good matchups with the various popular decks. Cast deals with the energy build, Mite keeps you alive another turn, Exorcise also deals with the big blue threats that can overwhelm this deck if landed (Murktide, Oculus, as well as some Eldrazi nonsense).

Personally, I'd go with Exorcise, as I think it has a remarkably deep coverage for this meta. I'm actually working on a bunch of stuff that utilizes it mainboard at the moment (I love anti-meta strategies).

Just my thoughts.

Solid idea (I love tinkering with mono blue), but I see a few areas that can be tweaked to help things out a bit.

As Andross says, the Manipulation combo is a cool idea, but isn't worth the cost/benefit ratio outside of stuff like commander where you're sure to have game-winning targets and lots of mana. In single player, especially legacy, you're not really likely to see the best return on investment, and the combo needs both pieces to hit with each piece being much, much less useful on its own. I also like the Thaumaturge and Icy Blast interaction, as in this build you would essentially pay U to double tap every critter opponent controls and buy yourself 2 turns. Very creative and cool interaction. However, since I'm advocating for no Mass Manipulation, it makes Thaumaturge only have 4 applicable targets, which essentially neuters the combo (as cool as it is), so I'd advise pulling both cards out as well. This frees up 12 spots (which I'll get to in a bit).

Baral's Expertise is a nice idea, but since it's a sorcery and a 5-drop, there are better versions of it that I'd recommend instead, particularly [[Engulf the Shore]], which is cheaper and faster and synergizes PERFECTLY with this build. You don't care about your own critters being bounced, as you can replay them for nothing anyway (if they get bounced at all), and it's basically a tempo nuke for 4.

Contingency Plan and Taigam's Scheming are great in theory, as they give you what you need in the grave and keep what you need on the topdeck, but they don't actually give you even material, and they're 2-drop sorceries, which are annoying to play turns 2 and 3, as you can't do anything else. I'd instead recommend [[Thought Scour]] and [[Preordain]], both of which give you what you need but cheaper and faster, and both retain material so you don't waste a turn and a card to make it happen. If you're got the budget, [[Mental Note]] would be good over Preordain (possibly), but they're 5 bucks a pop.

The Gifts potential is indeed good, but with mono blue budget, there's not a whole lot you can capitalize on beyond filling up your grave and fetching 4 good things and losing 2 of them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (I like using Gifts to find a second copy of Gifts for example), but when Gifts really becomes deadly is when it's used in combo with splashed other colors or double/triple color decks. For example, running [[Life From the Loam]], Raven's Crime, and some tech lands means you can basically make opponent discard his whole hand every turn, and opponent can't do much about it (besides grave hate stuff). While I won't advocate a complete recoloring of this build, I'll suggest a cool bit of synergy to run with Gifts that won't call for too big a rehash. If you're ok with splashing green, you can run a copy of Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, which you can pick up for like 3 bucks nowadays. You'll have to change your lands a bit (won't be difficult or expensive, I'll help), but it would force opponent to give you a beast of a card either way. Ideally you'd run 1 copy of Uro, 1 copy of [[Life From the Loam]], 1 copy of [[Lonely Sandbar]], and 1 copy of [[Tranquil Thicket]]. This will turn your deck into a self-milling machine that also nets you material every turn (4 mana turnaround gets you a minimum of +1 card and mill 3 with the Loam back in hand again (so you can keep doing it)). And the best part is, opponent can't stop the combo without grave hate, as it doesn't matter what he picks. Running that change will cost you about 10 bucks total (plus another 4 bucks to change the lands around a bit), added to the 5-10 bucks for the other changes, just to put that in perspective.

The other major changes I'd suggest would be more classic blue staples, as you get the bonus of them being cheap and helping you do what you're trying to do. Running 4 [[Counterspell]] just makes perfect sense, as being able to say 'no' when you need to is basically never a bad thing. Instead of Thaumaturge, I'd recommend either [[Augur of Bolas]] or [[Hard Evidence]], which do nearly the same thing, but using slightly different timing and with slightly different benefits (immediate material and stronger blocker slower vs delayed material and weaker blocker immediately (+extra grave sorcery)). If you can afford it, running a few copies of Lorien Revealed would go a long way, as you can cycle it turn 1 at instant speed to fetch an island and fill your grave, and they make for good late game topdecks. [[Whelming Wave]] is another good pseudo-nuke option, although it's slower than [[Engulf the Shore]], it doesn't touch you at all, so that's always nice.

There are a few cards considered 'generally underpowered' that I sort of like for this build too. [[Hithlain Knots]], [[Remand]], and [[Startle]] are all useful for stalling critter builds while filling your grave, moving you through the deck, and keeping your material healthy. Remand in particular is worth considering, as it does everything this deck wants it to do, and can essentially be read as 'on turn 2, take an extra turn (sort of)', so when you get a Remand in the opening hand, things are looking up.

A lot of thoughts, I know. But I've got a soft spot for mono blue, especially since it can't really protect itself from anything that hits the field like every other color can.

This is actually getting close to my favorite type of build in magic, the instant control synergy. You are doing something slightly different than usual here, as you're going for big spells reduced in cost, but most of the principles remain the same.

There are a few problems that need to be sorted out though. Firstly, and unfortunately, Isochron Scepter doesn't let you pay the X cost on instants and sorceries, so you can't put Electrodominance on it. As such, you don't actually have any cards you can imprint directly onto isochron, and have to rely on the cost reduction effects to 'sneak' a Chaos Warp onto an Isochron, which is both very unlikely and ultimately not a great idea, as the math on it happening is minimal (2 copies of isochron, 3 copies of Warp, + needing a reductor). So, either drop Isochron or you'll have to add some instants to imprint on it.

Secondly, even though you're going for cost reduction on larger spells, you're only running 6 cost reductors and 20 total instants/sorceries (almost all of which require lots of mana), so you're much more likely to have a hand full of cards you can't use than being able to reduce and move quickly. You've also got a lot of [I need instant/sorcery cards to work] cards that aren't instants/sorceries, which ups the potential for hands full of nothing. I'd recommend cutting out some of the supported cards and upping the instant/sorcery count while also going for lower cost instants/sorceries (2-4 drops) so you can play things sooner and still take advantage of the cost reductors when you have them.

I'd also say swap out a few islands for [[Lorien Revealed]], as this deck has no 1-drops and it synergizes perfectly, but that's a $2.00 card, so not sure if it's in the budget.

Then there are a few cards that I'd say to cut entirely:

Mana Geyser is just a bad card in general (it's so conditional) and is really only viable in commander (where you have multiple opponents and can potentially harvest 10-20 mana per use). It also is a 5-drop, so by the time you can play it, you can play most of the cards you wanted to play anyway. That's a hard cut from my perspective.

Commence the Endgame isn't worth the 6-drop cost. I know you want the token as a damage clock, but for a 6-drop, you could be laying much more effective/damaging spells.

Just some thoughts. I've never made a deck exactly like this, I always opt for the lower cost instants/sorceries and triggering off of casting them a bunch instead.

I gotcha. So, to clarify, you want to basically deck everyone out? Or is the point just to survive and not do anything and inevitably lose based on your lack of pursuit of a win condition? I think the build could be pretty easily shifted into an elf pillow fort that could have a strange but fun angle of nonthreateningly surviving for the deckout strategy.

Are you going for budget casual here?

Let me know how she plays

I realize this is a gift and may already be purchased, but there are a few things I'd recommend checking out, as it's still a bit till christmas:

[[Campfire]], [[Candy Trail]], [[Cat Collector]], Ajani's Pridemate, [[Linden, the Steadfast Queen]]

All are budget, help lower the curve, and get done what the deck wants to get done. I'd consider some as replacements for a few cards that don't really fit the theme you've got going, such as Holy Mantle, since almost none of your critters are agro and the deck doesn't want to win by a slow damage clock.

I'd also recommend cutting the curve down on 4-drops and upping the 1 and 2-drops (and cutting the deck down to 60 in general), as you'd like to avoid games where you get mana screwed and sit with 2 mana and nothing to do, and this build is almost 1/3 4-drops or higher as is.

Just some thoughts.

Here's why I find it interesting:

1- it slows down [[The One Ring]] for a turn, which essentially makes opponent lose an important turn and have less ammo for their protection turn

2- it slows down all the tiny artifacts that are/were popular in modern. Since Grinding Station and Belcher are now competitive decks apparently, this is mainboarded tempo hate against 2 major competitor decks that are largely immune from your mainboarded spot removal, which is nice

3- it completely nerfs one-turn critter bombs (but unfortunately won't do much but save some life against stuff like Goryo's Vengeance)



Is this enough to include it? Honestly, I have no idea. It's almost pointless to try to play outside the box in modern anymore, but I can't help but try to fit cards that have interesting ideas into a framework and see what's possible. High Noon will almost certainly be forgotten, but it intrigues me and I want to play around with it, and Blind Obedience seems to fit at least some portion of what the Noon strategy is trying to do, slow things down and transform a lack of tempo into an advantage. I'll keep digging I guess, and see what happens.

You know, that's honestly the most interesting suggestion I've heard in a long time. This deck will have dead mana anyway (hopefully) thanks to High Noon, so it wouldn't be an imposition like in decks with tight mana curves that can't afford the extra mana every turn. If all 3 enchantments are on the field, that's pretty much GG unless there's some mega-threat already fielded that can't be dealt with by the hand-buildup that's essentially guaranteed in this build. I will do a lot of thinking on this, as you could even cut Bitterblossom and just run High Noon and Blind Obedience on their own and potentially have a similar effect. Thank you kindly for the feedback.

Are you going for budget casual here?

This looks pretty sleek, can't really think of much I'd change in the mainboard. Nice work

I've been tooling around with a few things here and there, lots of concepts swirling around, not too many have been flushed all the way out just yet.

I love cards like [[Rise of the Dread Marn]] as an answer to nukes, especially since its foretell cost is so damn cheap. In a format that ran more nukes, I would absolutely think about running it, but (to my knowledge), the only decks running any are Murktide and Jeskai, and only Jeskai has any mainboarded (in most cases). In addition, I've sort of set things up so that (hopefully) while a nuke would set the build back, it could still recover, as it has all the death mechanics that profit from my zombies dying, etc. So maybe, but we'll have to see.

I've never really messed around with cards like In Oketra's Name, as I almost never play critter builds, and am far too chicken to play tempo critter builds that are ok tossing material for a big attack turn, but I do see the merit of essentially doubling the damage I'm doing in a turn for a 2-drop surprise in game 2 or 3 against something that needs time to build. Let me ponder.

Ghoulcaller's Chant is a terrific card that puts you at a potential +2 with tempo, but it's vulnerable to grave hate, and this build will be targeted by sided grave hate and will have to side in grave hate, so I'd probably have to stay away from it. I do love the idea of Village Rites + Ghoulcaller's Chant in response to a lightning bolt though, that's just a devastating turnaround, and one I might toy with in a different build.

Thanks for the feedback.

I've been toying around with some of it, nothing too concrete as of yet. I almost never play critter-heavy decks, so it's not as intuitive for me as it is normally.

I'm relatively positive of a good matchup against energy, amulet titan, and control, unclear about the combo decks (belcher, storm, grinding station), have no idea whatsoever with the new eldrazi nonsense, and probably have a problem against living end.

I'm a tremendous fan of Damping Sphere, one of the most interesting cards ever made in my book. It works against storm and land shenanigans, so you can side it in against tron, storm, eldrazi, and amulet titan. Plus, it slows everything down, so it inadvertently works against The One Ring and other such 'I can do more than you can' builds, all for 2 colorless mana. I can't really think of a reason not to side it, other than its slight interference with Gravecrawler in this build, but that's a more than acceptable loss. The only potential problem is that storm runs anti-artifact hate for this very reason, so I've been trying to find a way around it that they can't really do anything about. I'm a TREMENDOUS fan of the card [[High Noon]] (I've been trying to work multiple decks around it), and running it would shut down storm and living end completely, but wouldn't be much good against tron, eldrazi, or amulet titan, cause it hurts you as much as it hurts them. Still working on this dilemma.

Void Mirror is a hell of a counter to both tron and eldrazi and does nothing to this deck whatsoever, so that's a huge win. It also shuts down soft counters, which opponent might keep in to try to deal with your side options, so that's nice.

The real killer I've been looking at is running a full set of [[Pithing Needle]], as it shuts down [[The One Ring]], [[Psychic Frog]], the grinding station build, and the charbelcher build, and everyone and their mother wants to run most of that to some degree. Needless to say, it's still very much a work in progress.

Well, I can't say I was expecting that. Best of luck I guess

What format, budget, and level of competition are you going for here?

Perhaps 1 copy of [[White Orchid Phantom]] over a Ghost Quarter, as you can fetch the Phantom with Recruiter of the Guard, which ostensibly brings up your land hate to 6 instead of just 4, and cuts out a potential dead draw, as Ghost Quarter isn't that helpful a topdeck against many decktypes popular in modern.

Other than some sideboard tweaks to deal with specific modern threats, this looks pretty tight and solid to me, and I see a lot of good synergy going on.

[[Extravagant Replication]] is one of the shenanigan cards you can play around with, as you can use Copy Enchantment on it, and the two copies can make copies of the other, ostensibly pumping out 4 copies of stuff each turn (unless you want to keep replicating). [[Mirage Mirror]] is wildly useful (and combos with Extravagant Replication the same way). If you just want to copy your own dragons, [[Mirror of the Forebears]] or any of the various iterations therein. I quite like [[The Everflowing Well//The Myriad Pools]] for this build, as it does everything you want (including incidental acceleration).

I'm still missing the "idea" of what this deck really is (for example, Amoeboid Changeling makes no sense to me whatsoever), but that's probably irrelevant. If you want copy shenanigans and don't want to just run the staple copy mechanics in EDH (such as Phyrexian Metamorph and Helm of the Host), the above will get it done.

I haven't played the deck yet, I typically map things out in theory quite a bit before committing to a playtest, but that's me.

Bitterblossom is the primary wincon, but in reality the deck tries to strangle opponent to death and then win with small bits of synergy built in. For example, each High Noon doubles as 5 incredibly inefficient damage to the face. In any regular build, this would be essentially useless, but in a build that wants to turn time into a win, paying 7 mana for 5 damage (broken into 2 and 5 mana) isn't that bad a deal. And since you control when High Noon gets sacked, you can plan out a turn where you dump 5 mana into sacking one, throw out a few other burn/removal/discard spells, then play a second High Noon, and you just basically got 2-3 meta-turns for free on top of burn damage. On top of this, spot removal is essentially useless against Bitterblossom, but with High Noon, spot removal becomes a complete negative, as drawing into one means you're forfeiting an entire turn of development just to ping me for 1 damage. In my mind, the two cards are best friends.

Then there are the little damage factors, like the possible token from Kaya's Guile, Hive of the Eye Tyrant, and Bolts/Helixes to the face. None of those will win on their own, but combine them with the other damage sources and (in theory) they should be enough synergy to push the build through to a slow damage win.

All of this being said, the Microwave concept is still very new, and I'm still messing around with it, so it's quite possible that more wincons need to be built in.

I've been toying around with the whole 'deal with the one ring' thing, and the best solution I've had so far is (hilariously) running [[Cast Into the Fire]], which not only deals with the big bad artifact of the day, it doubles as delightful removal against [[Ampred Raptor]] and [[Orcish Bowmasters]]. As a sidenote, I'm toying around with an anti-meta build to take advantage of this and a few other fun overlaps like [[Arc Trail]].

You're probably right about Damn, which makes me wonder if I just need to mainboard some Pyroclasm as well.

I'm still struggling with the discard element. I'm in love with a turn 1 discard disruption, especially when followed by turn 2 High Noon, but they do tend to turn into dead draws in lots of builds. My thinking on this one was that with a High Noon in play, you bottleneck opponent, who has to hold onto multiple solid cards, so when you topdeck a discard, you can trade it off for another potential threat. Not really sure what to do about this long term yet, other than to work in something like [[Blood Fountain]] and build synergy around that.

Vault of the Archangel could probably be swapped in over Hive of the Eye Tyrant or one of the Urborgs. Good potential option against big threats as well as anti-bleeding.

Proliferate isn't actually that effective for the Calendar, as it only gives you +1 counter. You can achieve that by just untapping something normally. The best way to get counters on the Calendar is via doubling effects or by its own ability. You also want to have a way to get to the Calendar as fast as possible, cause without one the deck essentially doesn't do anything. Ideally this would mean running Urza's Saga, but it's very expensive. Alternatively, you could run [[Trinket Mage]], which would also let you run [[Voltaic Key]] so you can reuse Calendar's doubling ability. You'd also want cards like Kiora's Follower (same reason), which not only lets you reuse the Calendar but gives you a tap that doesn't require an attack, putting more counters on the clock. [[Seedborn Muse]] works like a charm in the build, as it will untap all your stuff, giving you another full turn of tap shenanigans, which essentially halves the amount of time you need to build the Calendar to a win.