I'd caution throwing out advice like this when you clearly haven't tested the deck at all. 4 Cryptics is not a lot in a deck with 15 cantrips and Snaps to recur those cantrips - you hit land drops very quickly because the velocity of the deck is much higher than other decks and is why we don't consider Mana Leak (doesn't cantrip). Without PLENTY of access to Cryptic this deck simply can't compete in the later game at all. Many games are won or lost over being able to abuse Cryptic's power.
Psionic Blast rules. It's unexpected, it's 4 damage as removal or to the dome, and it fits on curve at the 3cmc spot for shoal. SUPER important here.
4 Dimensional Infiltrators - and really having 14 creature based threats - is essential because the deck is so threat light. I've experimented with going lower than 14 and sometimes you just can't get damage in.
4 Snags are a lot. I'll go to three and cut for a probe at least to test for a while.
Where are the 15 cantrips you're talking about? Are you counting Cryptic Command, a spell that costs 4 CMC, as a cantrip? Seriously?
The 4th Git-Probe is tailor-made for this deck. I don't have to test it to know that because it's obvious. It's the most synergistic card with TITI in the entire deck, even more so than Snapcaster, since you actually have to flip TITI for Snaps to be super synergistic. It's just a no-brainer to play it. Sorry for being harsh, but it's the truth.
The rest of the deck is cool. I'd also note Dimensional Infiltrator's anti-synergy with Disrupting Shoal as another reason to cut 1. If you think it's so great, fine, but honestly I doubt a deck like this needs a full 14 threats if you're playing what you call "16 Cantrips". And is Dimensional Infiltrator even a real "threat"? Sort of, only.
I'd caution throwing out advice like this when you clearly haven't tested the deck at all. 4 Cryptics is not a lot in a deck with 15 cantrips and Snaps to recur those cantrips - you hit land drops very quickly because the velocity of the deck is much higher than other decks and is why we don't consider Mana Leak (doesn't cantrip). Without PLENTY of access to Cryptic this deck simply can't compete in the later game at all. Many games are won or lost over being able to abuse Cryptic's power.
Psionic Blast rules. It's unexpected, it's 4 damage as removal or to the dome, and it fits on curve at the 3cmc spot for shoal. SUPER important here.
4 Dimensional Infiltrators - and really having 14 creature based threats - is essential because the deck is so threat light. I've experimented with going lower than 14 and sometimes you just can't get damage in.
4 Snags are a lot. I'll go to three and cut for a probe at least to test for a while.
Where are the 15 cantrips you're talking about? Are you counting Cryptic Command, a spell that costs 4 CMC, as a cantrip? Seriously?
The 4th Git-Probe is tailor-made for this deck. I don't have to test it to know that because it's obvious. It's the most synergistic card with TITI in the entire deck, even more so than Snapcaster, since you actually have to flip TITI for Snaps to be super synergistic. It's just a no-brainer to play it. Sorry for being harsh, but it's the truth.
The rest of the deck is cool. I'd also note Dimensional Infiltrator's anti-synergy with Disrupting Shoal as another reason to cut 1. If you think it's so great, fine, but honestly I doubt a deck like this needs a full 14 threats if you're playing what you call "16 Cantrips". And is Dimensional Infiltrator even a real "threat"? Sort of, only.
Sorry for my comment as coming off as defensive - definitely didn't intend for it to sound hostile at all!
Are you counting Cryptic Command, a spell that costs 4 CMC, as a cantrip?
Yes. Yes I am. A cantrip is defined simply as any card with somewhere on the card a line that says 'draw a card'. Cantrips aren't just one mana instants/sorceries, they are any spell that replaces itself and adds to the overall velocity of the deck. So, yeah, I'd say it's definitely a cantrip. With 4 probes instead of 3 we're at 16, and if you count snapcaster recursion it's an effective 20 cantrips in the deck. The amount of cantrips matters and CAN support cryptic because of the math involved in drawing the 4th land.
Let's check out some numbers as this deck is effectively running 28 lands (a manabase that NO ONE would suggest being unable to support 4x 4 drops) so I feel that 4 Cryptics is most certainly the correct move. First - this article: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=12834 - The TLDR version is that basically for every 2 cantrips (of any kind!) being run in the deck you are effectively running 1 extra land. With our 1 cantrip number we're running '28' and comparing against this graph - http://imgur.com/a/ElUS7 - we're WELL within the ability to run a few higher cost spells as we can be reasonably assured that mathematically we're going to hit our 4th land drop by turn 5/6. Just some food for thought.
You're right though about Dimensional Infiltrator probably being the cut. As adding cantrips adds the effective amount of lands, it also adds your effective number of threats (it's probably not calculated quite the same but I'd venture to guess that it 'adds' like 1/4) so I'm going to try out the last probe in place of a DI. The anti-synergy between DI and probe luckily hasn't come up, and when I read your post I laughed that I hadn't realized it. Good call. As for it being a threat? Certainly. In a shell like this sometimes 2 power in the air is all you need while you remand and cryptic them out of the rest of the game. It's not a 'threat' in the same way a Tarmogoyf or Thing in the Ice are, but it DEFINITELY helps to pressure the opponent.
Really though, thanks for the input. I appreciate it. You've brought up great points!
Thanks for the nice post Niall. I just irks me sometimes that people will say, "Your feedback must be invalid because you haven't tested!" Of course testing is good. But you can still make (often) decent recommendations by just looking at a list. Of course, testing will have to back them up.
I hear what you're saying about Cantrips. I still think you're not quite correct. I remember reading stuff like 2 cantrip = 1 land back in the day, and I don't object to such a qualification. But, I think if you're trying to hit 4 CMC to play CCommand, you can't count the CCommands themselves as cantrips, at least for that purpose, because they won't help you do that. Remand is also a bit conditional, but overall probably consistent enough.
Point being, I don't think the mana here is bad, but I do think it's not 100% correct to say you play 16 cantrips, at least not when you're discussing getting to 4 mana to cast Cryptic Command. But maybe 12 is plenty for that anyways. Either way I think the 4th Git. Prob is a must.
I will test this deck this weekend when I am not working.
Thanks for the nice post Niall. I just irks me sometimes that people will say, "Your feedback must be invalid because you haven't tested!" Of course testing is good. But you can still make (often) decent recommendations by just looking at a list. Of course, testing will have to back them up.
I hear what you're saying about Cantrips. I still think you're not quite correct. I remember reading stuff like 2 cantrip = 1 land back in the day, and I don't object to such a qualification. But, I think if you're trying to hit 4 CMC to play CCommand, you can't count the CCommands themselves as cantrips, at least for that purpose, because they won't help you do that. Remand is also a bit conditional, but overall probably consistent enough.
Point being, I don't think the mana here is bad, but I do think it's not 100% correct to say you play 16 cantrips, at least not when you're discussing getting to 4 mana to cast Cryptic Command. But maybe 12 is plenty for that anyways. Either way I think the 4th Git. Prob is a must.
I will test this deck this weekend when I am not working.
I can meet you halfway on this as you're right that a cantrip at the 4cmc spot doesn't help you get to the 4cmc spot. Good call. I DO think that Cryptic helps you get to the critical 6 lands (snap + Cryptic) and it's certainly valuable there.
Also, I'm going to run the deck tonight with the 4th probe. I played a bit yesterday on cockatrice and it definitely felt correct.
Any changes to your deck design with the unbanning of ancestral vision?
I don't think so - it might be a great card to bring in post board for grindy matchups, but for the most part you need to look to aggressively establish tempo which AV is pretty poor about doing. I HAVE been thinking about changing up the counter/answer suite to diversify a little bit (including some spell pierce's main to deal with Thopter foundry, etc) but I'm not quite sure. More experimenting and looking at the new meta is required - if UWx becomes huge I'm pretty scared of Supreme Verdict, so I'm not quite sure what to do about that yet (Batterskull? Aetherling?).
Super stoked about this list. I love most mono-U decks and am currently playing U Merfolk. I played NBD at many FNMs and lost hard to U Turns. I'm still not sure how, or if NBD can beat it. I will definitely try this revamp out. Have you had any issues with cards in hand for Disrupting Shoal without Ninja of the Deep Hours drawing more cards? Also, has the Dimensional Infiltrator nombo with Disrupting Shoal been bad enough to switch over to 4 Rattlechains?
When playing NBD, I liked 2 Exhaustion at 3 CMC, or even a 3rd Vendilion Clique.
For the Burn and Jund matchup, Redirect will help you grind, and can be brought in against Infect.
This is more or less a port into my old NBD list. I figured if we don't normally get to activate Dimensional Infiltrator's activated ability, maybe Rattlechains might be the best call. Granted, exiling one of our few beaters is the last thing we want to do. The synergy with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner seems mediocre at best because Kira has to already be on the battlefield for creatures to benefit from her bubble.
I agree there is a dilemma with UWx Control and Supreme Verdict. All I can think of is Venser, Shaper Savant, and that dude is definitely not even good enough for the sideboard. Maybe someone else has a brilliant idea on how to use him.
Ninja of the Deep Hours was definitely sweet occasionally but it's SO dead late and if you can't get completely in front of the opponent then it just doesn't work at all. A 4cmc 2/2 is probably one of the worst topdecks in modern - also, you NEED an aggressive one drop to pair with it.. which leaves you with pretty much just bear, who is also awful. Delver is a nonbo with Ninja as flipping delvers in this format isn't easy, so returning one to your hand feels pretty awful.
Infiltrator is a rough non-bo, so much so that I am indeed going to switch into rattlechains. I've liked 3 of the 2/1 flash fliers as of late. When going all in on thing in the ice I'd rather have spell backup then more small threats. Energy and resources should be focused on soft disruption and protecting TitI or one of the fliers.
Exhaustion is sweet at the 3cmc spot - currently I've PBlast but I could see an argument for Exhaustion as well. A Time Walk you can snap back is always good.
As for the issue of Verdict - I've thought about running an Aetherling or Batterskull out of the side to go really long and just absorb verdicts. Ultimately though, I don't know how much play it will end up seeing, I don't know that UWx is necessarily going to be a huge go-to in the new meta. We'll have to wait and see.
Also, Redirect is pretty sweet tech. Definitely goes on the list for having potential.
aaskelaad - Narrow how? They're flying two power bodies with flash - you can leave up mana CONSTANTLY and still have a chance to get in with a 2 power threat or completely destroy combat math. VERY relevant. Quickling, while sweet, completely suffers from the self creature bounce clause. If you want to go deep on things like Spellstutter Sprite or Judge's Familiar then that definitely seems sweet, but I don't know how much you actually want to pick up any non-snapcaster creature in your list. I've dropped delver COMPLETELY because of his anti synergy with TitI and just how unreliable the flip is in modern.
I'd argue that the strongest thing that this deck can do is completely abuse other decks with shoal and go ridiculously deep on tempo - have you had a chance to try out Shoal? Most decks simply cannot kill thing in the ice through shoal protection and if they can then we make sure they completely exhaust their resources tot do so, at which point we chip away the last few points of damage with fliers. I DO agree with your assessment though that we need to be able to flip into control later as a good tempo deck should be able to do.. which you get to do by running snaps and cryptics together. The combination is VERY powerful and we don't get mana screwed out of cryptic - I'm not sure that there would be a better way to go deeper into the control route.
Just finished playing a few rounds with Exhaustion and it was completely insane. Exhaustion to remove a counter and then next turn snap-exhaustion to flip thing in the ice feels like one of the most broken things I've ever done in Magic. It's basically 14 unanswerable damage that puts a snapcaster back in my hand. COMPLETELY insane. More testing is definitely required but that was one of the coolest feels.
I'm considering trying out removing 1 Cryptic and replacing it with a Spell Pierce. 4 Cryptics has occasionally been too many and there have been plenty of times when a 1-of spell pierce seems like it might be great. I also think that it's not quite as necessary to run as many 4-ofs as some of the first versions of the deck because of the amount of cantripping and snapcasters both making 1 and 2 ofs much more potent.
The Flooded Strands are ONLY for a shuffle effect. Scrying something good late to the bottom of your library early is an awful awful feeling knowing that you can't shuffle anything.
Also, Rattlechains has been a pretty strict upgrade almost everywhere. I've also been fortunate enough to get to protect a mutavault with a rattlechains, which is something I never thought would happen. Hahahaha.
Nice work! I've played probably a thousand games with the Ninja-Delver shell, and I'll say that your assessment of the deck's weaknesses is fair and accurate. I can tell you've played that shell, a lot. I'm especially interested in your latest updates. Exhaustion looks, on paper, very good.
The arguments against 4 Cryptic Command in this shell aren't warranted. As you've already pointed out (and with nice analysis to boot), the amount of cantrips (and filtering in Serum Visions) this deck runs, makes hitting all your land drops relatively simple. It's not uncommon to play T1: Visions,Probe T2: Remand T3: Vendilion Clique at opponent's draw or EoT (no idea why T. Woo relegated this card to sideboard material, it's fantastic) T4: Cryptic or Snapcaster Mage/Remand. After turn six, you'll be ripping through your library with Snapcaster/Remand/Cryptic combos. The biggest c-c-c-combobreaker(I'll see myself out), I find, is actually hitting too many islands after you've been stalling and gaining incremental advantage with Cryptic/Snapcaster plays. Sometimes you feel flooded with 20 lands in this deck, and maybe Flooded Strand could help. The downside is that you're giving up life, which is an advantage to playing mono-blue, a painless manabase. Finally, the flexibility and card advantage (counter/draw) that CC gives you is unmatched. Auto-include four in this shell.
Meanwhile, in the old Delver shell, Delver often just sits there doing nothing until turn five. At that point it's too little too late for tempo. Phantasmal Bear is just awful. The whole thing just collapses to Darkblast.
Do you really prefer Exhaustion over Psionic Blast? I find the mono blue shell has trouble closing games. Four to the face seems like it might be more useful than more stalling effects.
Venser, Shaper Savant could be useful in this deck. I used to run him as a one-of instead of the fourth Vapor Snag. He does pretty good work against Tron, and he can stall Supreme Verdict and get 2 damage in before it comes back down next turn. Also, bouncing pain lands feels pretty good. Especially against Grixis, who plays a painful manabase, and can't really afford for things to come into play tapped.
The only other changes I might make are dropping a Hurkyl's Recall for either another Hibernation or an Annul depending on meta. Also, I'm not yet a fan of Commandeer. I'd just run Dispel instead.
Nice updates to a stale shell though. I'll try it out soon. I need copies of Thing in the Ice first.
Ok, so I sleeved up (digitally speaking, MTGO) something very close to your 75. The only difference was I started with 2 Psionic Blast in lieu of Exhaustion. I also ran the full 18 islands, and skipped the Flooded Strands. My thinking was I didn't want to be pinging myself in case I ran into Burn.
Overall the deck runs pretty good, but... I don't think Disrupting Shoal is what we want to be doing anymore. The card was great when it was in the original Ninja Bear Delver deck. We wanted to use it to save a flipped Delver of Secrets, or pitch Ninja of the Deep Hours to counter a Splinter Twin or Scapeshift. Since none of those lines of play are relevant anymore, (we don't have Ninja, we don't need to protect Delver, and Twin is banned) the card just doesn't seem as good. I mostly feel like I'm playing a 2-for-1 on myself for no reason. Something else needs to go in that slot, but I'm honestly not sure what yet. Maybe something like Anticipate or Think Twice to keep the cards flowing when the opponent doesn't play anything for a turn.
I need to get more reps with the deck to say for sure, but early on I feel like Rattlechains is just ok. The synergy with Mutavault sounds good, but it's really situational, and honestly hasn't come up yet in my games. Looking at the mana curve we have 19 two cost spells. I think that's way too many. We're no longer running an early threat with Delver, and we don't have the card draw engine with Ninja anymore. What often happens is I flip Thing in the Ice and it eats removal. Now we're deep in the game, and my top decks are not very good because they're all two drops that have defender and need four more spells to become a real threat.
Thinking about it now, if we're trying to develop TitI to be as competitive as possible, I'm not sure mono-blue is the right shell. It plays like it needs to be in a control shell with more rounded answers. Grixis comes to mind, and I know I'm headed off topic, but just a splash would shore up a lot of the weaknesses I see here. Red would upgrade Vapor Snag to Lightning Bolt. Black would let us run removal and hand disruption instead of bounce effects and counters. Both gives us access to cards like Kolaghan's Command. White brings us closer to the UW control archetype. An Esper draw/go could work. Green... I don't know. I don't play much green. Isn't green for Timmy?
I anyone's still here can I ask why delver of secrets doesn't flip till turn five?
I run a similar build,use eleven creatures and four of those are delver.With remand, serum visions,gitaxian probe,sleight of hand and ancestral vision I have no problem flipping delver by turn three.I run a 17 landbase though with a single boseiju, who shelters all.Maybe cut a few lands since the cantrips make up for it.
Cryptic is a great card but it's heavy mana cost is hindering,i found I always need two mana held up every turn at bare minimum since I generally play 80% of the deck on opponents turn.
I'm past shoal as well,ive kept two commandeer in the main since it's a great late game card after AV hits. Magus of the future has been something I've been trying for a late game card,being able to play the top card is great but I found after turn 5 and usually back up to seven cards in hand. clone is something I've been testing too,its a rhino,its a goyf,its a flipped thing,you get the point,and at the cost of 4cmc it's not hard to stick it.
And I'm using a single,yes only one,snapcaster mage.Its one of my favorite cards in magic but I'm finding once I get one I always have it.I use thing and unsummon to continually bounce him back and fourth and I've always had counters to stop anything from happening to him.So I've gone to one.
I think with mono blue you have to run very few creatures and maximize the counters,and with using cantrips the deck can always maintain advantage that way.
Knowing how to manipulate your opponents game is the single most important gameplan to have,know what they need to do,let some stuff hit the board and expect them to have an answer to you so make sure you have a counter for their counter.
I also can't stress enough about cantrips,an opponent who always has a full hand is a huge threat,and mono blue has more draw capabilities than any other color,abuse it.
If anyone's still around I can post a list,SB needs work yet but mains coming along well.
I anyone's still here can I ask why delver of secrets doesn't flip till turn five?
I run a similar build,use eleven creatures and four of those are delver.With remand, serum visions,gitaxian probe,sleight of hand and ancestral vision I have no problem flipping delver by turn three.I run a 17 landbase though with a single boseiju, who shelters all.Maybe cut a few lands since the cantrips make up for it.
Cryptic is a great card but it's heavy mana cost is hindering,i found I always need two mana held up every turn at bare minimum since I generally play 80% of the deck on opponents turn.
I'm past shoal as well,ive kept two commandeer in the main since it's a great late game card after AV hits. Magus of the future has been something I've been trying for a late game card,being able to play the top card is great but I found after turn 5 and usually back up to seven cards in hand. clone is something I've been testing too,its a rhino,its a goyf,its a flipped thing,you get the point,and at the cost of 4cmc it's not hard to stick it.
And I'm using a single,yes only one,snapcaster mage.Its one of my favorite cards in magic but I'm finding once I get one I always have it.I use thing and unsummon to continually bounce him back and fourth and I've always had counters to stop anything from happening to him.So I've gone to one.
I think with mono blue you have to run very few creatures and maximize the counters,and with using cantrips the deck can always maintain advantage that way.
Knowing how to manipulate your opponents game is the single most important gameplan to have,know what they need to do,let some stuff hit the board and expect them to have an answer to you so make sure you have a counter for their counter.
I also can't stress enough about cantrips,an opponent who always has a full hand is a huge threat,and mono blue has more draw capabilities than any other color,abuse it.
If anyone's still around I can post a list,SB needs work yet but mains coming along well.
I haven't played this deck in a while but I'd be happy to check out a list!
Has EMN added to Thing's playability in Modern? Spell Queller looks to be another decent flash card that is fine to return to your hand, though jamming the 3-spot is a concern. It also doesn't save your Thing from Abrupt Decay since when Thing flips and returns Queller to your hand, they can re-cast Decay. That said, Unsubstantiate does to Abrupt Decay what Remand can't.
Has EMN added to Thing's playability in Modern? Spell Queller looks to be another decent flash card that is fine to return to your hand, though jamming the 3-spot is a concern. It also doesn't save your Thing from Abrupt Decay since when Thing flips and returns Queller to your hand, they can re-cast Decay. That said, Unsubstantiate does to Abrupt Decay what Remand can't.
Unsubstantiate almost CERTAINLY has a place in the 75 of this deck. Good call.
Neat list. Just popping in to throw out Summary Dismissal as a possible sideboard card against Supreme Verdict, which you mentioned was giving you trouble.
commandeer works good against decay as well other situations and with all the cantrips having a few blue cards to toss isn't hard and it doesn't hurt card advantage as much as one might think.Best part is you can tap out with it.Im running two atm.
For all those interested here's my deck.Its work in progress still and my SB needs needs to be redone from scratch as I have changed the deck.
commandeer works good against decay as well other situations and with all the cantrips having a few blue cards to toss isn't hard and it doesn't hurt card advantage as much as one might think.Best part is you can tap out with it.Im running two atm.
For all those interested here's my deck.Its work in progress still and my SB needs needs to be redone from scratch as I have changed the deck.
For ratchet bomb I always keep at three since I run nothing for three cmc.Also good to know when SB chalice of the void.
Very cool list with some things to think about - however, I feel that running Unsummon over Vapor Snag and Disperse over pretty much anything else is a mistake (Boomerang, Echoing Truth or the new card Unsubstantiate are HUGE improvements). I think I'd also like Cryptic over those 2 leylines, but hey, to each their own.
This is making me want to experiment with this again.
Ah, someone brewing with Thing! Oh! It's Nialls! Good stuff going on here.
I've been tinkering more with TitI now that WMCQ is over, and I can stop grinding Delver over and over.
Given what the deck wants to do, I've found that Green is actually the splash I like the most, and here are the cards that make me say so:
1. Vines of Vastwood
Our deck HATES Abrupt Decay. So much. But being able to protect our investment with G and potentially add 4 damage for GG? Sign me up.
2. Become Immense
Delve Fuel? Check. Fits the deck angle and velocity? Check. This isn't a 4-of, but 2 does quite nicely as a surprise finisher. Few people expect to die to a 8/7 Snapcaster mage.
3. Simic Charm
A pump spell, or bounce, or protection. Becomes a bolt if you need it to; tempo if you need that instead, or thwarts Abrupt Decay when you need it most.
4. Strangleroot Geist
Its a pity he clashes at the 2 CMC slot, and his mana is a little tricky, but this fella works very well with TitI. Not only does he present a 2-for-1, you can bounce him using TitI in response to any impending death - and then he comes back fresh again. His Haste ensures he can come back and join the 7/8 following an Evac.
Hope you found that interesting. Keep brewing, guys. I'm sure we can make this giant ice cube work.
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unsummon is there for snappy.It helps to flip thing when combined with snappy and it can clear a blocker to push thing or delver through.
Magus is huge in this build,so much so I'd like to squeeze in another.
Teferi needs to be sided out against affinty,it was useless against them.Another magus I'd say.
Leyline is fantastic if you can get it out early,with clone it makes it better since you can copy a goyf or rhino.As for cryptic,it doesn't play for free your opening hand and it's to late by the time it hits to be overly effective,by then you've already won or are cantripping so much that your hands full of 1&2 cmc cards.cryptic doesn't flip thing fast at all. Clone also copies thing if leyline is not out.
Splashing color slows the deck down and destroys the pace.Ive tried immense and splashed all colors.
I suggest trying the deck first the way it is and learn how to pilot it,its not easy,i had to learn that it was the cantrips I need to dig for since it sets the pace. I also learned that turn five I want magus to hit th board and commandeer in hand.
Love the thought of making mono blue viable.
I don't get the point of Leyline of Singularity here and what is so good about Magus of the Future that justifies the 5cmc ? (You can play a Jace Planeswalker instead).
unsummon is there for snappy.It helps to flip thing when combined with snappy and it can clear a blocker to push thing or delver through.
I know why you play bounce spells, you're in the thread I created that focuses on bounce spells and tempo.
What we're trying to say is that you're using inefficient versions of cards. Vapor Snag is a strict upgrade over unsummon, and Phyrexian Metamorph is a strict upgrade over Clone.
I'm also not terribly sure that I'm understanding why you talk about Leyline and Clone in the same sentence there as they're completely unrelated. Leyline as a sideboard card could be neat against things like tokens, but the legend rule only effects your side of the board. If you have Leyline out and an opponent has a rhino and you clone the rhino.. you both still have a rhino.
Noticeable changes from previous versions:
- I'm trying out Delver again. Yes, it's a non-bo with Thing in the Ice, but if I'm flipping a TITI then I don't think it matters what happens to my 3/2 as I'm probably winning.
- I'm running 8 fetches for thinning purposes. I feel like with an all island manabase you can flood out REALLY hard. Running fetches should help thin a bit and shuffling scrys to the bottom back in is relevant (sending a cryptic to the bottom on a mulligan scry feels baddddd.
- New sideboard choices include Ancestral Vision for grindy and control matchups and summary dismissal against Supreme Verdict and Tron (exile an Ulamog AND it's triggers? Sure.).
Seems sweet. I'm pumped to try it out.
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Where are the 15 cantrips you're talking about? Are you counting Cryptic Command, a spell that costs 4 CMC, as a cantrip? Seriously?
The 4th Git-Probe is tailor-made for this deck. I don't have to test it to know that because it's obvious. It's the most synergistic card with TITI in the entire deck, even more so than Snapcaster, since you actually have to flip TITI for Snaps to be super synergistic. It's just a no-brainer to play it. Sorry for being harsh, but it's the truth.
The rest of the deck is cool. I'd also note Dimensional Infiltrator's anti-synergy with Disrupting Shoal as another reason to cut 1. If you think it's so great, fine, but honestly I doubt a deck like this needs a full 14 threats if you're playing what you call "16 Cantrips". And is Dimensional Infiltrator even a real "threat"? Sort of, only.
Sorry for my comment as coming off as defensive - definitely didn't intend for it to sound hostile at all!
Yes. Yes I am. A cantrip is defined simply as any card with somewhere on the card a line that says 'draw a card'. Cantrips aren't just one mana instants/sorceries, they are any spell that replaces itself and adds to the overall velocity of the deck. So, yeah, I'd say it's definitely a cantrip. With 4 probes instead of 3 we're at 16, and if you count snapcaster recursion it's an effective 20 cantrips in the deck. The amount of cantrips matters and CAN support cryptic because of the math involved in drawing the 4th land.
Let's check out some numbers as this deck is effectively running 28 lands (a manabase that NO ONE would suggest being unable to support 4x 4 drops) so I feel that 4 Cryptics is most certainly the correct move. First - this article: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=12834 - The TLDR version is that basically for every 2 cantrips (of any kind!) being run in the deck you are effectively running 1 extra land. With our 1 cantrip number we're running '28' and comparing against this graph - http://imgur.com/a/ElUS7 - we're WELL within the ability to run a few higher cost spells as we can be reasonably assured that mathematically we're going to hit our 4th land drop by turn 5/6. Just some food for thought.
You're right though about Dimensional Infiltrator probably being the cut. As adding cantrips adds the effective amount of lands, it also adds your effective number of threats (it's probably not calculated quite the same but I'd venture to guess that it 'adds' like 1/4) so I'm going to try out the last probe in place of a DI. The anti-synergy between DI and probe luckily hasn't come up, and when I read your post I laughed that I hadn't realized it. Good call. As for it being a threat? Certainly. In a shell like this sometimes 2 power in the air is all you need while you remand and cryptic them out of the rest of the game. It's not a 'threat' in the same way a Tarmogoyf or Thing in the Ice are, but it DEFINITELY helps to pressure the opponent.
Really though, thanks for the input. I appreciate it. You've brought up great points!
I hear what you're saying about Cantrips. I still think you're not quite correct. I remember reading stuff like 2 cantrip = 1 land back in the day, and I don't object to such a qualification. But, I think if you're trying to hit 4 CMC to play CCommand, you can't count the CCommands themselves as cantrips, at least for that purpose, because they won't help you do that. Remand is also a bit conditional, but overall probably consistent enough.
Point being, I don't think the mana here is bad, but I do think it's not 100% correct to say you play 16 cantrips, at least not when you're discussing getting to 4 mana to cast Cryptic Command. But maybe 12 is plenty for that anyways. Either way I think the 4th Git. Prob is a must.
I will test this deck this weekend when I am not working.
I can meet you halfway on this as you're right that a cantrip at the 4cmc spot doesn't help you get to the 4cmc spot. Good call. I DO think that Cryptic helps you get to the critical 6 lands (snap + Cryptic) and it's certainly valuable there.
Also, I'm going to run the deck tonight with the 4th probe. I played a bit yesterday on cockatrice and it definitely felt correct.
I don't think so - it might be a great card to bring in post board for grindy matchups, but for the most part you need to look to aggressively establish tempo which AV is pretty poor about doing. I HAVE been thinking about changing up the counter/answer suite to diversify a little bit (including some spell pierce's main to deal with Thopter foundry, etc) but I'm not quite sure. More experimenting and looking at the new meta is required - if UWx becomes huge I'm pretty scared of Supreme Verdict, so I'm not quite sure what to do about that yet (Batterskull? Aetherling?).
When playing NBD, I liked 2 Exhaustion at 3 CMC, or even a 3rd Vendilion Clique.
For the Burn and Jund matchup, Redirect will help you grind, and can be brought in against Infect.
1 Dimensional Infiltrator
4 Rattlechains
4 Thing in the Ice
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
Other Spells [25]
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Vapor Snag
4 Serum Visions
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Remand
2 Exhaustion
4 Cryptic Command
16 Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2 Mutavault
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Spell Pierce
1 Annul
1 Vapor Snag
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Redirect
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Hibernation
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
This is more or less a port into my old NBD list. I figured if we don't normally get to activate Dimensional Infiltrator's activated ability, maybe Rattlechains might be the best call. Granted, exiling one of our few beaters is the last thing we want to do. The synergy with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner seems mediocre at best because Kira has to already be on the battlefield for creatures to benefit from her bubble.
I agree there is a dilemma with UWx Control and Supreme Verdict. All I can think of is Venser, Shaper Savant, and that dude is definitely not even good enough for the sideboard. Maybe someone else has a brilliant idea on how to use him.
CETronC
WUBGRHumansWUBGR
UMerfolkU
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InfectGURBGx
DredgeRBGxNinja of the Deep Hours was definitely sweet occasionally but it's SO dead late and if you can't get completely in front of the opponent then it just doesn't work at all. A 4cmc 2/2 is probably one of the worst topdecks in modern - also, you NEED an aggressive one drop to pair with it.. which leaves you with pretty much just bear, who is also awful. Delver is a nonbo with Ninja as flipping delvers in this format isn't easy, so returning one to your hand feels pretty awful.
Infiltrator is a rough non-bo, so much so that I am indeed going to switch into rattlechains. I've liked 3 of the 2/1 flash fliers as of late. When going all in on thing in the ice I'd rather have spell backup then more small threats. Energy and resources should be focused on soft disruption and protecting TitI or one of the fliers.
Exhaustion is sweet at the 3cmc spot - currently I've PBlast but I could see an argument for Exhaustion as well. A Time Walk you can snap back is always good.
As for the issue of Verdict - I've thought about running an Aetherling or Batterskull out of the side to go really long and just absorb verdicts. Ultimately though, I don't know how much play it will end up seeing, I don't know that UWx is necessarily going to be a huge go-to in the new meta. We'll have to wait and see.
Also, Redirect is pretty sweet tech. Definitely goes on the list for having potential.
aaskelaad - Narrow how? They're flying two power bodies with flash - you can leave up mana CONSTANTLY and still have a chance to get in with a 2 power threat or completely destroy combat math. VERY relevant. Quickling, while sweet, completely suffers from the self creature bounce clause. If you want to go deep on things like Spellstutter Sprite or Judge's Familiar then that definitely seems sweet, but I don't know how much you actually want to pick up any non-snapcaster creature in your list. I've dropped delver COMPLETELY because of his anti synergy with TitI and just how unreliable the flip is in modern.
I'd argue that the strongest thing that this deck can do is completely abuse other decks with shoal and go ridiculously deep on tempo - have you had a chance to try out Shoal? Most decks simply cannot kill thing in the ice through shoal protection and if they can then we make sure they completely exhaust their resources tot do so, at which point we chip away the last few points of damage with fliers. I DO agree with your assessment though that we need to be able to flip into control later as a good tempo deck should be able to do.. which you get to do by running snaps and cryptics together. The combination is VERY powerful and we don't get mana screwed out of cryptic - I'm not sure that there would be a better way to go deeper into the control route.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mono-blue-delver-no-ninjas-no-bears/
4 Thing in the Ice
3 Rattlechains
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Cryptic Command
2 Exhaustion
4 Remand
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Serum Visions
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Vapor Snag
1 Spell Snare
14 Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Mutavault
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Hibernation
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Dispel
2 Echoing Truth
2 Mizzium Skin
2 Commandeer
1 Spell Snare
I'm considering trying out removing 1 Cryptic and replacing it with a Spell Pierce. 4 Cryptics has occasionally been too many and there have been plenty of times when a 1-of spell pierce seems like it might be great. I also think that it's not quite as necessary to run as many 4-ofs as some of the first versions of the deck because of the amount of cantripping and snapcasters both making 1 and 2 ofs much more potent.
The Flooded Strands are ONLY for a shuffle effect. Scrying something good late to the bottom of your library early is an awful awful feeling knowing that you can't shuffle anything.
Also, Rattlechains has been a pretty strict upgrade almost everywhere. I've also been fortunate enough to get to protect a mutavault with a rattlechains, which is something I never thought would happen. Hahahaha.
Nice work! I've played probably a thousand games with the Ninja-Delver shell, and I'll say that your assessment of the deck's weaknesses is fair and accurate. I can tell you've played that shell, a lot. I'm especially interested in your latest updates. Exhaustion looks, on paper, very good.
The arguments against 4 Cryptic Command in this shell aren't warranted. As you've already pointed out (and with nice analysis to boot), the amount of cantrips (and filtering in Serum Visions) this deck runs, makes hitting all your land drops relatively simple. It's not uncommon to play T1: Visions,Probe T2: Remand T3: Vendilion Clique at opponent's draw or EoT (no idea why T. Woo relegated this card to sideboard material, it's fantastic) T4: Cryptic or Snapcaster Mage/Remand. After turn six, you'll be ripping through your library with Snapcaster/Remand/Cryptic combos. The biggest c-c-c-combobreaker(I'll see myself out), I find, is actually hitting too many islands after you've been stalling and gaining incremental advantage with Cryptic/Snapcaster plays. Sometimes you feel flooded with 20 lands in this deck, and maybe Flooded Strand could help. The downside is that you're giving up life, which is an advantage to playing mono-blue, a painless manabase. Finally, the flexibility and card advantage (counter/draw) that CC gives you is unmatched. Auto-include four in this shell.
Meanwhile, in the old Delver shell, Delver often just sits there doing nothing until turn five. At that point it's too little too late for tempo. Phantasmal Bear is just awful. The whole thing just collapses to Darkblast.
Do you really prefer Exhaustion over Psionic Blast? I find the mono blue shell has trouble closing games. Four to the face seems like it might be more useful than more stalling effects.
Venser, Shaper Savant could be useful in this deck. I used to run him as a one-of instead of the fourth Vapor Snag. He does pretty good work against Tron, and he can stall Supreme Verdict and get 2 damage in before it comes back down next turn. Also, bouncing pain lands feels pretty good. Especially against Grixis, who plays a painful manabase, and can't really afford for things to come into play tapped.
The only other changes I might make are dropping a Hurkyl's Recall for either another Hibernation or an Annul depending on meta. Also, I'm not yet a fan of Commandeer. I'd just run Dispel instead.
Nice updates to a stale shell though. I'll try it out soon. I need copies of Thing in the Ice first.
Overall the deck runs pretty good, but... I don't think Disrupting Shoal is what we want to be doing anymore. The card was great when it was in the original Ninja Bear Delver deck. We wanted to use it to save a flipped Delver of Secrets, or pitch Ninja of the Deep Hours to counter a Splinter Twin or Scapeshift. Since none of those lines of play are relevant anymore, (we don't have Ninja, we don't need to protect Delver, and Twin is banned) the card just doesn't seem as good. I mostly feel like I'm playing a 2-for-1 on myself for no reason. Something else needs to go in that slot, but I'm honestly not sure what yet. Maybe something like Anticipate or Think Twice to keep the cards flowing when the opponent doesn't play anything for a turn.
I need to get more reps with the deck to say for sure, but early on I feel like Rattlechains is just ok. The synergy with Mutavault sounds good, but it's really situational, and honestly hasn't come up yet in my games. Looking at the mana curve we have 19 two cost spells. I think that's way too many. We're no longer running an early threat with Delver, and we don't have the card draw engine with Ninja anymore. What often happens is I flip Thing in the Ice and it eats removal. Now we're deep in the game, and my top decks are not very good because they're all two drops that have defender and need four more spells to become a real threat.
Thinking about it now, if we're trying to develop TitI to be as competitive as possible, I'm not sure mono-blue is the right shell. It plays like it needs to be in a control shell with more rounded answers. Grixis comes to mind, and I know I'm headed off topic, but just a splash would shore up a lot of the weaknesses I see here. Red would upgrade Vapor Snag to Lightning Bolt. Black would let us run removal and hand disruption instead of bounce effects and counters. Both gives us access to cards like Kolaghan's Command. White brings us closer to the UW control archetype. An Esper draw/go could work. Green... I don't know. I don't play much green. Isn't green for Timmy?
I run a similar build,use eleven creatures and four of those are delver.With remand, serum visions,gitaxian probe,sleight of hand and ancestral vision I have no problem flipping delver by turn three.I run a 17 landbase though with a single boseiju, who shelters all.Maybe cut a few lands since the cantrips make up for it.
Cryptic is a great card but it's heavy mana cost is hindering,i found I always need two mana held up every turn at bare minimum since I generally play 80% of the deck on opponents turn.
I'm past shoal as well,ive kept two commandeer in the main since it's a great late game card after AV hits.
Magus of the future has been something I've been trying for a late game card,being able to play the top card is great but I found after turn 5 and usually back up to seven cards in hand.
clone is something I've been testing too,its a rhino,its a goyf,its a flipped thing,you get the point,and at the cost of 4cmc it's not hard to stick it.
And I'm using a single,yes only one,snapcaster mage.Its one of my favorite cards in magic but I'm finding once I get one I always have it.I use thing and unsummon to continually bounce him back and fourth and I've always had counters to stop anything from happening to him.So I've gone to one.
I think with mono blue you have to run very few creatures and maximize the counters,and with using cantrips the deck can always maintain advantage that way.
Knowing how to manipulate your opponents game is the single most important gameplan to have,know what they need to do,let some stuff hit the board and expect them to have an answer to you so make sure you have a counter for their counter.
I also can't stress enough about cantrips,an opponent who always has a full hand is a huge threat,and mono blue has more draw capabilities than any other color,abuse it.
If anyone's still around I can post a list,SB needs work yet but mains coming along well.
I haven't played this deck in a while but I'd be happy to check out a list!
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Unsubstantiate almost CERTAINLY has a place in the 75 of this deck. Good call.
For all those interested here's my deck.Its work in progress still and my SB needs needs to be redone from scratch as I have changed the deck.
4 serum visions
4 sleight of hand
4 remand
3 mana leak
2 commandeer
2 vapor snag
2 disperse
2 unsummon
1 cyclonic rift
4 delver of secrets
3 thing in the ice
2 clone
1 snapcaster mage
1 magus of the future
1 teferi, mage of zhalfir
1 boseiju, who shelters all
16 island
For ratchet bomb I always keep at three since I run nothing for three cmc.Also good to know when SB chalice of the void.
Very cool list with some things to think about - however, I feel that running Unsummon over Vapor Snag and Disperse over pretty much anything else is a mistake (Boomerang, Echoing Truth or the new card Unsubstantiate are HUGE improvements). I think I'd also like Cryptic over those 2 leylines, but hey, to each their own.
This is making me want to experiment with this again.
I've been tinkering more with TitI now that WMCQ is over, and I can stop grinding Delver over and over.
Given what the deck wants to do, I've found that Green is actually the splash I like the most, and here are the cards that make me say so:
1. Vines of Vastwood
Our deck HATES Abrupt Decay. So much. But being able to protect our investment with G and potentially add 4 damage for GG? Sign me up.
2. Become Immense
Delve Fuel? Check. Fits the deck angle and velocity? Check. This isn't a 4-of, but 2 does quite nicely as a surprise finisher. Few people expect to die to a 8/7 Snapcaster mage.
3. Simic Charm
A pump spell, or bounce, or protection. Becomes a bolt if you need it to; tempo if you need that instead, or thwarts Abrupt Decay when you need it most.
4. Strangleroot Geist
Its a pity he clashes at the 2 CMC slot, and his mana is a little tricky, but this fella works very well with TitI. Not only does he present a 2-for-1, you can bounce him using TitI in response to any impending death - and then he comes back fresh again. His Haste ensures he can come back and join the 7/8 following an Evac.
Hope you found that interesting. Keep brewing, guys. I'm sure we can make this giant ice cube work.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Magus is huge in this build,so much so I'd like to squeeze in another.
Teferi needs to be sided out against affinty,it was useless against them.Another magus I'd say.
Leyline is fantastic if you can get it out early,with clone it makes it better since you can copy a goyf or rhino.As for cryptic,it doesn't play for free your opening hand and it's to late by the time it hits to be overly effective,by then you've already won or are cantripping so much that your hands full of 1&2 cmc cards.cryptic doesn't flip thing fast at all.
Clone also copies thing if leyline is not out.
Splashing color slows the deck down and destroys the pace.Ive tried immense and splashed all colors.
I suggest trying the deck first the way it is and learn how to pilot it,its not easy,i had to learn that it was the cantrips I need to dig for since it sets the pace. I also learned that turn five I want magus to hit th board and commandeer in hand.
Love the thought of making mono blue viable.
Phyrexian Metamorph is better than Clone.
I don't get the point of Leyline of Singularity here and what is so good about Magus of the Future that justifies the 5cmc ? (You can play a Jace Planeswalker instead).
As it has been already mentioned there are better cards than Disperse for the same use (Boomerang, Echoing Truth, Repeal, Unsubstantiate) and even they aren't that great for the mainboard imho.
Commandeer is way too costly (mana or cards), wouldn't something like Redirect do the almost the same thing ?
I know why you play bounce spells, you're in the thread I created that focuses on bounce spells and tempo.
What we're trying to say is that you're using inefficient versions of cards. Vapor Snag is a strict upgrade over unsummon, and Phyrexian Metamorph is a strict upgrade over Clone.
I'm also not terribly sure that I'm understanding why you talk about Leyline and Clone in the same sentence there as they're completely unrelated. Leyline as a sideboard card could be neat against things like tokens, but the legend rule only effects your side of the board. If you have Leyline out and an opponent has a rhino and you clone the rhino.. you both still have a rhino.
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Thing in the Ice
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Cryptic Command
3 Mana Leak
4 Remand
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Vapor Snag
2 Unsubstantiate
4 Serum Visions
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Ghost Quarter
10 Island
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Dispel
1 Hibernation
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Mizzium Skin
1 Spell Snare
2 Summary Dismissal
3 Ancestral Vision
Noticeable changes from previous versions:
- I'm trying out Delver again. Yes, it's a non-bo with Thing in the Ice, but if I'm flipping a TITI then I don't think it matters what happens to my 3/2 as I'm probably winning.
- I'm running 8 fetches for thinning purposes. I feel like with an all island manabase you can flood out REALLY hard. Running fetches should help thin a bit and shuffling scrys to the bottom back in is relevant (sending a cryptic to the bottom on a mulligan scry feels baddddd.
- New sideboard choices include Ancestral Vision for grindy and control matchups and summary dismissal against Supreme Verdict and Tron (exile an Ulamog AND it's triggers? Sure.).
Seems sweet. I'm pumped to try it out.