MTG Salvation

Hey guys. It's me.

Again.

Given the new jewel we've got with the new Expansion (Force of Negation) I am experimenting a bit to see which kind of deck it will fit the best. I'm focusing on Delver strategies, specifically. But, being a lover of monoblue, I thought about the old Standard-Extended times.

The ones who played it should remember the lovely MUC who was a thing for some time between Ravnica and Mirrodin cycles. Spell Snare, Engineered Explosives, Trinket Mage, fetchlands to provide Explosives a wide range of action. The problem with such strategy is tapping out during your own turn. Force of Negation helps fighting this issue.

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So... why mono blue?

It isn't exactly monoblue, due to duals used in conjunction with Explosives and Dismember in the sideboard. Still, I want to keep it monocolored because it rotates around colorless lands: Field of Ruin and Blast Zone. The first IS a colorless land... until we can ativate it. The second is a land which transforms herself into a removal (for either creatures or other permanents) and it's much, much more flexible compared to your usual Wrath of God package in UWx. It deals with planeswalkers in the Blue mirror, it fights things such as Lantern and similiar stuff.

The other reason is, as stated in the opening, Force of Negation. If we plan to run several artifacts maindeck, we can't really afford any splash if we want to make the card work.


Let's start with a list








Basically, Trinket Mage helps us in finding the right answer to the opponent's strategy. Relic of Progenitus is really good in the current metagame, with Dredge, Phoenix and recursions everywhere. Enginereed Explosives complements well with Blast Zone in dealing with creatures, and Walking Ballista has the double role of killing small creatures AND of being a decent finisher in the mid-late game. Chalice of the Void helps against Burn, Pact decks (Ad Nauseam, Titanshift, Amulet) and Living End. It fights Ancestral Vision, other than potentially locking the opponent (classic Affinity on two, Boogles on one, Cheerios on either zero and two...).

Vendilion Clique is preferred to Snapcaster Mage, here, because: a) we've got few cheap spells to flashback, b) we often want to interact with the opponent's hand before tapping out for Trinket, and Clique acts as a good Peek surrogate, c) it closes the game fast in the air, while we stall the board between Explosives, Blast Zone, Ballista, Jace bounce and Trinket chumps.

Obviously, it's still a draft. I playtested with this exact 75 for a pair of days, and I noticed it performs considerably well against the field, but has issues versus Burn. It probably needs more sideboard space.

I really like this list. Two thoughts I would offer, however. One, since this is a toolbox control list that leans hard into artifact removal and away from walkers, I would suggest dropping two Jaces and substituting for one Narset and one Ashiok; you'd be surprised at how many decks that combo basically hits the off switch on. While you're at it, maybe one Puzzle Box, just so that upon occasion you get to tell you're opponent that they don't get to play Magic. Two, this is from my days in the late 90s playing Draw-Go, you're always going to have a bad Burn matchup, but you will sometimes steal games; it's the price of playing Mono Blue.

Good luck, have fun, and inflict plenty of impotent rage.

Nice deck. But what's the purpose of using snow islands?

At a guess, it's deception. If I saw nothing but snow islands coming down, I'd think that he was playing the Merit Lage enchantment.

It’s pretty much free to use them, and the opponent could see something coming which isn’t going to happen.