MTG Salvation

Hi everyone. So the other day I had this brilliant and hilarious idea for a deck that just MIGHT be good enough to play in a semi-competitive, semi-casual meta, and it is the Jund mono-blue control deck. The idea came to me after visiting the LGS and playing against my friend's Arcanis control/oombo deck, and wishing there was a way to do that without blue in an interesting and unique way. So, what are the least controlling colors? Jund!

Enter Xira Arien. She is the perfect mono-blue Jund commander because she is essentially a mini-Arcanis or a lame Azami. She's a wizard, so we have that going for us. AND she taps to draw cards? How much bluer can you get? The only problem with Jund is that it's really not a control shard. Rather, it's pretty aggro and pretty midrangey, but what counterspells does Jund have? Well, lots, apparently! Meet Deathgrip, Lifeforce, Red Elemental Blast, Stromgald Cabal, and friends! With these unlikely, off-color cards, we can form a pretty nifty control shell. The only problem arises when we notice that
A) they are VERY color dependent, and B) there is surprisingly little red-hate in Jund.

Anyway, below is the decklist. I'll describe what I was trying to do with it below.



In building this deck, I tried to make it as "blue" as possible. To a good blue control deck, I noted there are several important parts:

• Countermagic. This role is filled by Stromgald Cabal, Thrull Wizard, Deathgrip, Lifeforce, Artifact Blast, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, Withering Boon. There's not much here, unfortunately, and most of it is color-dependent. Also note the lack of red counterspells, which hurts this section a little.
• (Mass) Bounce. Jund has very little bounce (see Dead // Gone for the one spell). Instead, I decided to perform the role similarly, with instant speed damage-based wipes. They aren't as effective against some decks, but are much more effective against others. The cards used here are Inferno, Magmaquake, and Starstorm. I figure the typical blue deck runs around 3 mass-bounce spells, so I figured 3 would be good here.
• Draw. Like blue, black has a LOT of draw. Unfortunately, while it's typically more efficiently costed, it has built-in lifeloss and is also typically sorcery speed. The spells included here are Baleful Force (as a standin for Consecrated Sphinx), Lifeblood Hydra (as a standin for Blue Sun Zenith), Xira Arien, Necropotence, Erebos, God of the Dead, Skeletal Scrying, Ambition's Cost, Ancient Craving, Harmonize, Hoarder's Greed, Night's Whisper, Promise of Power, Read the Bones, and Sign in Blood. As you can see, I am not lacking draw. The only trouble is, with this much painful draw, I definitely need some life gain. I'll talk about what I use for that below this section.
• Mana Doublers. Blue doesn't have good ramp, so it typically makes use of Extraplanar Lens, Gauntlet of Power, and Caged Sun. Unfortunately, I am using 3 colors, so that's less efficient. I decided to just go with Mana Reflection as a standin for Caged Sun and Crypt Ghast for when I have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out.
• Stealy. Blue occasionally has a mind control effect in each deck, so I decided to add a few of those too. Here, we have Enslave and Willow Satyr. Note that the Satyr is basically Empress Galeena!
• Extra Turns. Now, I know there are a lot of "risky" extra turn cards in red that force you to lose the game after them. I didn't want that - too risky. Rather, I just decided to use Temporal Extortion. Either hits someone hard, or I get an extra turn, all for four mana! Not bad. There's also Seedtime, which is awesome anti-blue tech!
• Infinite Win Conditions. Most blue decks typically rely on some sort of infinite wincon for victory, usually involving infinite mana with Deadeye Navigator and Palinchron and then drawing the table out or something. Jund doesn't have a very easy time of generating infinite mana OR drawing the table out, however, so I decided to just include two 2-card combos in this deck as the "infinite finisher." Those are Exquisite Blood/Sanguine Bond combos and the Triskelion/Mikaeus, the Unhallowed combos. There are some tutors in the deck that can find these, but the goal really is to control the table and wait to draw them with all the draw in this deck.

Some other things that blue has typically is flash, in the form of Teferi or the Leyline, for which I use Vedalken Orrery, ways to return instants/sorceries to hand from the GY, like Snapcaster and Mnemonic Wall, for which I use Charmbreaker Devils, and the occasional removal, like Pongify. Instead, I use Murder, Krosan Grip, Vandalblast,

Now, there are some things in this deck not typical of blue decks: lifegain and land destruction.

• Lifegain. The lifegain in this deck is primarily used to offset beats that I take (I run very few creatures) and also offset the lifeloss from the draw in this deck. The cards involved here are Trading Post, Venser's Journal, Exquisite Blood, Grim Feast, Lifegift, Exsanguinate, and Primal Command (which can also act as non-creature permanent removal). Also, note all of the Refuge lands! Every extra life point helps!
• Land Destruction. Some people hate it, including me, in most cases. However, it's useful resource denial when it is targeted against that Maelstrom Wanderer player who keeps ramping out the wazoo with all of his Islands and dual Islands. So, I included a few color-specific hate, mostly focusing on blue (because we can't deal with their real counterspells!). These are Boil, Flashfires, Stench of Evil, and Tsunami. These can be particularly brutal plays when someone drops their fourth island or fourth plains, because they aren't likely to have any more in their hands. It's mean, but it'll slow them down and keep them off your back!

There are a few other things, but for the most part, that's about it.

There are also some things that I could have included but didn't, because they simply aren't blue! These include targeted removal for artifacts (with one exception), ramp (unless it's colorless or artifacty!), and sacrifice outlets. It makes the deck a bit worse, but I think it can be kept pretty okay even when keeping to the theme.

I have one idea as to improve this, though: use a sideboard. When playing against various commanders, it would be useful to sideboard out and in the various color hate, so I don't get dead-draws. I'm still trying to work out how to implement that though.

Now, why am I posting this? I want help! Anyone have any great ideas to make this better and/or more blue? I'd love to hear your opinions.

Thanks!

I love these "You can't do that" decks. While I don't have any real advice on playability, I did look up some cards that seem thematically blue:

Punisher style counters: Dash Hopes, Mages' Contest, Molten Influence
Not entirely blue, but counters nonetheless

Bad counters:Avoid Fate, Burnout, Guttural Response, Null Brooch, Ring of Immortals
If you are going to work with a sideboard, burnout and guttural response can be quite good.

Change target: Imp's Mischief, Muck Drubb, Reroute, Shunt, Ricochet Trap
Changing targets of spells and abilities has been a very blue thing to do for a long time

Morphling Ripoffs: Torchling, Thornling
Most iconic blue creature ever reimagined into two of your colors

Faux extra turns: Aggravated Assault, Breath of Fury, Savage Beating
While not quite extra turns, the extra combat phase cards can still give you quite a bang for your buck. And most of these even untap your creatures. Untapping/tapping is also a very blue thing to do.

Stealing: Helm of Possession, Helm of Obedience, Thought Dissector, Lord of the Void, Herald of Leshrac, Hivis of the Scale, Olivia Voldaren, Orcish Squatters, Ritual of the Machine, Scarwood Bandits, The Wretched

Bounce: Aether Membrane, Erratic Portal, Stingscourger,