Has Anybody tried to go all in on the combo? I think that instead of trying to go for a slower kill with the monastery mentor, we can try to go for a consistent turn 2 or 3 kill. The fundamental aspect of Cheeri0s is that it has a lot of "air" in it. By this i mean our 0 drop artifacts that do almost nothing. If we have a lot of useless cards, but abundant amounts of them, then I believe that it would be okay to use a little dredge staple to have a little more consistency in our deck. Yes, I am talking about serum powder. The powder seems like a great way to mulligan into a puresteel paladin and also to be able to get rid of some of the fluff that would normally keep us from mulling into a puresteel. The other advantage of using a package that involves the powder is using sideboard hate. Think of mulliganing into a leyline of the void against Grishoalbrand. Or what about mulliganning into a Chancellor of the Annex against a deck that can be just slightly faster than you. The point is, all this fluff in our deck means that we can utilize our sideboard and maindeck well if we have serum powder.
Using Spoils of the Vault together with Serum Powder might actually be enough to save your lifepoints and makes the deck more consistent. This "pure" Puresteel Combo is out there for a while though. I understand why people want to play it and especially this iteration you have there seems a bit more consistent. But those "all in" versions tend to have one big problem: they fold to interaction.
If you are playing this deck on MTGO it might be enough to win a league. You win game 1 and have some nice sideboard plan that wins you the second or third. People won leagues with it and will continue to do so.
It gets much harder if you play this deck in paper (which I do!) and play in weekly tournaments. I am known as "Lantern Guy" and "Paladin Guy". People will take mulligans for lightning bolts, paths, Spell Snare or Spell pierce to disrupt the combo. This is why I have build my deck as it is. Spoils and Serum Powder are really bad cards to topdeck in a pinch whereas my deck has cards that make it more resilient even after a combo attempt.
So if you want to build this deck: Do you want to play it on MTGO or in paper?
This deck is cheap if you have the lands already together. I hope you have fun with it! Feel the rush when you are in the the "play equipment, draw" phase and find the Mox Opal or the Retract exactly in the last possible draw.
For sideboard options there should be a list for your deck somewhere in here.
Thanks for the Advice Lantern Guy!
I am playing this deck currently in paper and online. However, I am not yet moved into the all in version in paper yet. I have tested the deck beforehand and I have consistently been able to turn 3 people about 80% of the time online with the all in version. Also, around 15% of the time (maybe a little less) i have even been able to turn 2 kill people. The interaction part is my main concern for this deck though just like you mentioned. I think that it can deal with a little bit but not much. I have tried different options involving the sideboard.
That is what I have so far. Also, in terms of the manabase, I am thinking of cutting a land for a Gemstone Caverns. This may be the shot of adrenaline that this deck needs when it is on the draw to get the combo going. The one problem is to keep the deck consistent while still having enough fluff in the deck that will cycle with the puresteel.
There also was a recent brew I thought of regarding this deck. Have any of you heard of quest for the holy relic? It is an interesting quest card that actually does have a fringe deck built around it. It uses stuff like ornithopter and memnite and bounce creatures to power out a batterskull or flying creature holding a batterskull or sword really fast. I think that we could fuse these decks together if we wanted to. It could be our way to have a super fast game closing combo while still having a plan B with the mentor and the Erayo package. I think that it could be a very interesting build to look into. Anyways, thanks for the help!
Has Anybody tried to go all in on the combo? I think that instead of trying to go for a slower kill with the monastery mentor, we can try to go for a consistent turn 2 or 3 kill. The fundamental aspect of Cheeri0s is that it has a lot of "air" in it. By this i mean our 0 drop artifacts that do almost nothing. If we have a lot of useless cards, but abundant amounts of them, then I believe that it would be okay to use a little dredge staple to have a little more consistency in our deck. Yes, I am talking about serum powder. The powder seems like a great way to mulligan into a puresteel paladin and also to be able to get rid of some of the fluff that would normally keep us from mulling into a puresteel. The other advantage of using a package that involves the powder is using sideboard hate. Think of mulliganing into a leyline of the void against Grishoalbrand. Or what about mulliganning into a Chancellor of the Annex against a deck that can be just slightly faster than you. The point is, all this fluff in our deck means that we can utilize our sideboard and maindeck well if we have serum powder.
Wow, I really like this deck. I have seen some painter's servant builds as anti eldrazi tech but this deck just takes the concept to a whole new level. I really like your innovation with this list and it seems pretty fun to play.
I think this deck could use a little work but still it seems pretty nice. For example Circle of Protection: Black may be a good enough card to run in here if you are going to name black. Also Teysa, Orzhov Scion is a removal spell on a stick.
I definitely am gonna make a list, thanks for throwing up the primer
I recently found this deck on MTGO results. The faeries master himself, Ozman Ozguney, has decided to play a blue black control shell. Although it is not close to the mono blue control shell, I do believe that it does have some relevance to this deck. Notice the power on a card like Tasigur, the Golden Fang. The 4 power on these delve creatures seems intriguing right? The list I have posted before about the white splash should give an idea to the types of advantages there are to white splashes. This list that I am going to show you will show some of the ideas for a black splash. I am going to convert this list to a more counterspell and blue heavy deck, and then I will see how it works. Targeted discard and spot removal definitely provide some good reasons for a black splash. Also, if you wish your plumeveil could attack, then you might want to go to black and switch over to tasigurs instead.
For starters, I am probably going to cut the Damnations and Victim of night. Also, Thoughtseize is going to get cut for me and I am going to cut down to 2 inquisitions and keep a small package in the sideboard of extra discard spells. Kalitas is also gonna get cut for now. Anything with double black should get cut if you want to convert it to a blue shackles build. Besides a counter suite, I am gonna add in think twice (my pet card), and also the shackles. Pact of negation is also getting added. Then, there needs to be one final thing to help power out delve spells. A playset of serum visions should work nicely here.
Here is a link to an interesting UW shackles list that I saw on mtg top 8. The white splash was very interesting and it may be the right direction to take this deck. In principle it is a different list though, so I am going to move around the counter suite a little bit and try to build off of this list.
I definitely like using this deck I will say. A turn 3 shackles is just beautiful when you land it. If you can take control of the game in turns 3-5 you can make sure your opponent never gets to use a relevant threat again. I really like that aspect of this deck and it's really nice to be able to be in the drivers seat once you take control of the game.
I haven't had much time recently to test with this deck but a list is still on the way. I think godhead of awe could be a mainboard card because if you tap out for it, your opponent either has to kill it or basically can't attack you. Most decks now if they do run creatures, run relatively big creatures. Could be a meta dependent option though. I love how you get to take control of the game indefinitely on turn 3 in some cases. Disrupting shoal just feels so good even if you do have to 2 for 1 yourself.
[quote from="unity24 »"
Godhead just seems like gold right here. Pure fun for you and absolute misery for your opponent. Being one CMC below guile is also pretty nice for it. I think that godhead could either replace guile or maybe add a bit more of a devotion type of strategy to this deck. I am personally continuing my testing with talrand and gigadrowse right now and they seem to be working okay. Slamming talrand with a disrupting shoal in hand is just plain rude. It is also plain funny when your opponents play into it. As for gigadrowse, I find it useful against combo mainly, but also it is good to buy time against aggro. There does seem to be a point where it is better to cryptic than gigadrowse and I find having both in hand can be quite awkward at some points.
However, I do have good news. Regarding the affinity matchup, it can actually be more winnable than we originally thought. The key is to steal their vault skirge and to aggressively counter some spells. The key targets are cranial plating, galvanic blast, a poorly sequenced mox opal, and any other two drop threat. As long as you can keep them off of the go wide plan you can eventually try to take control of the game. This is a matchup where gigadrowse had been great for me.
Snap caster is a tough call. I feel snaps is a better card when you have a wider variety of answers or bolt. We run lots of counters and don't run out very often. Also, the body just dies to every creature worth playing in modern and it doesn't kill much. Snap is just ineffective in this deck despite all the counters. Essentially we pay more mana to counter stuff.
Faerie conclave isn't an island and enters play tapped, and the upside just isn't worth it.
About cyclonic rift I think it could be okay, but I have mixed feelings about it.
Spellstutter doesn't seem like it fits in this deck of it has no faerie synergy in it. I am a bit leery of running Spellstutter in a non faerie deck.
However I do like the talrand idea for the deck. It is exactly the kind of win condition we want and i am going to get testing with him
I have began testing and will continue to test with this deck. I am having a lot of fun with it so far. Expect a list later today.
That's great that you like the deck. It is a riot when you can play it well enough. I have had a few tough games but i have also had some great draws with this deck that can just gas out my opponent. I am interested to see how this deck will continue to evolve and develop over time. I encourage all of you to get more people to take a look at this primer and I personally will make an effort to continue innovating with this deck list. As the metagame fluctuates, I will continue to post my list that I have tuned to the state of Modern.
Also I am excited to see that list you have unity, I hope it has my pet card in it (think twice in case you haven't figured it out)
i am testing dovescape right now in my lists, the possibility to make infinite birds with guile is hilarious. This deck definitely has a primitive feel to it. It reminds me of the original mono blue decks at the start of magic that jam as many counters into a deck as possible. It seems like a fun list to play that also has competitive potential. I think it needs work but I really like the theory of it. I encourage anybody who wants to test this list to explore janky possibilities and just test them. This deck already looks like a pile on the surface. We might as well keep it that way but we should try to make it a good pile at least. It definitely needs development and work and it has a few holes in it. But I believe it can be done.
Also I want to say thanks again for the support on this primer. I thought that most would dismiss it as a piece of garbage that got lucky on magic online one day but it actually has some people wanting to test it. Thanks for the support and good luck to all of you who want to build this deck.
Phone, I did mention a possible color splash in the primer, but its a pretty light one. I believe the most effective color splash is either black or white, because we have tango lands to add to the island count. This deck wants to actually be dropping an island every turn possible unless there is an emergency need for tectonic edge or ghost quarter. what you mainly want to consider when splashing with this deck is how it affects the use of shackles and what cost it has to your consistency. Black splashes might be great if you want more spot removal while white may be a good way to get some wrath effects in, not to mention Sphinx's revelation.
Also, rothgar I never even realized gigadrowse could be a thing here, I definitely have something I am going to test now.
Thanks for the input I'm glad to see this deck attracting some interest from players.
What is Mono Blue Control?
The idea of someone wanting to play mono blue control in modern may seem sort of dumb. In reality, merfolk is the only real mono blue deck with established consistent results. However, mono blue control is a deck that has potential in the upcoming metagame. If we see a return to a balance of creature based and spell based strategies, we need to be able to have an effective game plan for both lines of play. In my analysis, there are different advantages and disadvantages to actually playing creatures of your own and hoping for the best. Yes, you may have a few good creatures that are able to rumble with reality smashers or siege rhinos, but you might not be able to get them into play fast enough to deal with wild Nacatl or Death’s Shadow. Most decks answer it with more colors for wider range of things to put into play or a wider variety of answers. However, mono blue control may have a solution for this problem...
The theory behind this answer is actually quite simple. You can force your opponents to fight their own threats. If you are able to do this, you can actually create a situation where your opponent is playing a mirror match against themselves. Think about it, in eldrazi, the cards that usually clog up in their hands are the reality smashers. These smashers are some nice targets to steal. Imagine eldrazi, holding back their creatures because they are afraid to cast them into shackles and a bunch of islands. It sounds beautiful right?
Shackles is the driving force behind mono blue control. Why bounce creatures when you can steal them? Well, that’s why you play shackles. It lets you steal things you want and answer your opponent’s threats by using them for yourself. The only condition that shackles has in it is that you play lots of islands. This translates to either being mono blue, or near mono blue. I personally believe that you can splash either black or white by playing the corresponding ravnica dual land, 3 copies of the corresponding tango land, and 2 copies of the corresponding buddy land and cutting some utility lands. However, I am just giving you the base mono blue shell.
The Concept
Okay, so we have shackles to answer creatures, but the rules of magic say that we can not have over four copies of any card that is not a basic land. So, we do have to have another way to deal with creatures or at least stem the bleeding from them. Thankfully for us, plumeveil is a great mono blue flash flying defender. It’s a 4/4 for 3 blue, and it can be a removal spell that sticks around for a bit longer when it is used most optimally. So now you have eight ways to deal with creatures that aren’t bounce spells. Seems okay but still not ideal. Keep in mind we are in mono blue and we are using counterspells, so there are always additional ways to deal with problem creatures before they can even hit the field.
That brings me to my next creative way of dealing with annoying spells. Any deck that wants to sling draw spells and get into counter wars can just go and cry in a corner, because we are running 4 stubborn denial mainboard to combo with plumeveil. Having a one mana force spike for non creature spells is alright on its own, but turning that into a negate later in the game is great.
Also, we use cards like disrupting shoal to add to our ability to counter spells when we need to. Also, pact of negation is another counter that can catch people off guard. In the end, you need to control what resolves and what you want to steal. Practice will make perfect and you can actually get very good at playing this deck
Sample lists
The original list started on magic online made by k_f_chicken. I am giving you his list as an example to build off of.
Note that I also Use the same sideboard as KFChicken's list
The Core of the Deck and Card Choices
Pact of negation - This card allows us to tap out for guile and catch our opponents trying to take that opportunity to resolve something relevant. The upkeep cost is not that bad considering we are a counterspell deck with a lot of really cheap efficient counters. I reccomend running 0-2 of these because they are dead in the early game
Disrupting Shoal - Shoal is our version of force of will for modern. It is tougher to get something by pitching a card to it, but it also is easier to hardcast than force of will. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE HARDCAST PART. I like it enough to run about 1-3.
Stubborn Denial - Arguably one of the best counters in this deck. It combos with our plumeveils and allow us to counter anything that isn't a creature for a mere 1 blue. run 3-4 of these, preferably 4.
Mana Leak - Our go to for 2 mana counters. Run 3-4
Cryptic Command - Who do you think i am, playing a mono blue control deck without 4 cryptics? Run 4 of these, you need them to help pull ahead in games
Win Conditions
Guile - Although he may be clunky and may cost SIX mana, guile makes this deck amazing when you can start rolling with him. Stealing spells that you just countered is too good to pass up, period. Running at least 2 is a must, but never run 4, you don't really want him in your opening hand.
Vedalken Shackles - running 19-20 Islands has never felt so good in life. You can steal anything you want eventually with shackles in this deck. It allows us to invest mana to steal our opponent's wincons, and even better, to use them to kill other wincons they have. I reccomend running 3-4 but preferably 4
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Other Cards
Think twice - my own key card draw engine, it's my pet card and is amazing in any control shell to draw cards. Because of the split cost of it to get the full two cards, you can safely wait to invest mana to get the full value off of it. Run 4 if you run it, think twice really is an all or nothing card.
Plumeveil- this guy is a fun one. If you invest 3 blue mana you have a flash flying 4/4. This is a brick wall for many decks. It can act as a removal spell then a wall afterwards. The best part is that it enables your stubborn denial to be a 1 mana negate. Run 3-4 but I'd run 4 if you have stubborn denial.
Blue sun's zenith- this card is the original draw engine. I sort of like it if you need to draw lots of cards. However it does clunk up for a while sitting in your hand. I would run another instant speed draw spell if I could think of one. 0-2 is recommended
Lands
Island - I have way too many things to say about the magic card: island. I love blue if you haven't realized. Despite that I have to keep this short and sweet for the sake of the server. Islands are the key component to this deck, allowing us to produce the critical blue mana that we need and turning on shackles. The recommendation I have is to run at least 18 islands, preferably 20.
Tectonic edge - this is a great way to answer big mana decks. It also is just a fine way to deal with opposing utility lands and manlands, as well as just blowing up some shock lands to keep our mana leaks in a better position to cast for a little longer. I reccomend either running 2 and splitting with ghost quarter or running 4 alltogether
Ghost quarter - see tectonic edge for details. Run 2 with 2 edge or 4
Gemstone caverns - it may seem strange to have a land like this in a deck that doesn't combo of need extra fixing or ramp. I know that you are thinking this is a strictly worse island half the time it's in your opening hand, but hear me out. Despite being able to have disrupting shoal to get some early game interaction you can't always consistently be able to stop your opponent from doing broken things on turn one. Gemstone cavern is not always going to show up in your opening hand. And even when it does, you won't always be in the draw. And you know what? That's fine. Because when it works you can stubborn denial those pesky turn one chalice of the voids from eldrazi and you can also start by having mana leak ready by your opponents turn 2 when you are on the draw. It lets you interact with your opponent on a level that keeps you in the game and let's you keep up mana wise. I would run 0-1. It's your decision in the end.
Halimar depths - depending on your preference, I think the depths may have some potential use to this deck, such as allowing us to set up the ability to curve into better and better counterspells. I'd stay away from them personally, but I have seen some people at my lgs run a few of them. I would reccomend 0-2
Nykthos, shrine to nyx - this is only if you want to go the devotion route with this deck. I feel like it can be okay because if you have a plumeveil out, you can use it to filter colorless mana from your tectonic edges and other colorless lands into blue mana, which is nice. Then again, oboro can do that too. I would recommend 0-1 depending on the amount of permanents in your deck.
Sideboard
Preface to side boarding with mono blue control:
Mono blue control will generally struggle to keep up with aggro decks and the pressure they apply. Using a deck that is built on counterspells is not optimal against decks with cheap threats to put in play. Because of this, a lot of your sideboard should be dedicated to these poor matchups. The optimal sideboard has about 7-8 aggro slots, 1-2 control slots, 4 leyline of sanctity and 1-2 flex slots that can also be used as "sweetness" slots.
Be wary of creatures as well, blue creature removal sucks, that's just life my friends.
Sideboard choices:
Gut shot - this is what makes affinity an okay matchup. We can shoot down their small stuff and other annoying threats from other decks. Snapcaster Mage beware, we can shoot you down, also good for shooting any stinkmoth nexus shenanigans. I usually don't like seeing them all the time and the amount I find myself boarding in varies depending on the matchup. Also note that dark confidant is very annoying, and it's nice to kill him. Even though i run 4 I never board all of them in, so I recommend about 2 of them maybe 3 in the side.
Dispel - great for hitting pesky lightning bolts and helixes, also boros charm, searing blaze, kolagahn's command, cryptic command, atarka's command, anything that is annoying and is cast at instant speed. Also I love using it in counterspell wars as stubborn denial 5-6. Run 0-2
Spellskite - for those who hate bogles; you can win with their enchantments, or stop them from doing anything relevant. Also it's great against infect, burn, anything with tiny creatures like affinity, and even some of the bigger creature decks. Run 2-4 of these
Fog bank - if you are on a budget, which let's face it, plenty of us are, you can split spellskite with this or even have it in the side on its own. I find this amazing for trolling infect decks, especially the black green infect. Any deck that tries to bash your skull in via creatures and doesn't use damage based removal or much removal at all, it is worth bringing in. Run 0-3 of these
Leyline of sanctity - although technically uncastable, this is a beautiful way to answer burn. Should you choose to run this, you must run 4 and bring in all 4 when necessary. It is very important to be able to mulligan into them when able because you need to be able to deal with any deck that will recklessly fling burn spells at your face, or poke you with discard until your hand is torn to shreds. Also, if you run nykthos in your list, you have one way to cast it thanks to plumeveil. Run 0 or 4, nothing in between.
Hurkyl's recall - this is how you can reset affinity. If you can navigate your way into a situation when you gut shot some small stuff, recall the majority of their board, and then afterwards counter their mana source that they need to get an explosive recovery, it may be worth having 0-2 in the side.
Flash freeze - red and green players are annoying, I get it. Use this if you are tired of demanding a lightning bolt only to have it recast. I run 0-1 depending on my local meta. If I see all the zoo players signing up for the modern tournament on Wednesday, I bump it up to 2.
What to do with your flex slots?
Note: it is my principle of sideboards that I always dedicate one slot to new innovations. I always leave one or two open slots in my sideboard to test out some card that I am not confident in maindecking just yet. I feel like using a card like bribery would be wonderful as it is in the original list. I always dedicate this slot to adding flexibility and a different angle of attack to my deck that I can always board in when I see fit. In the end, I always ask myself whether or not I am faster or slower than my opponent and I board in an additional angle of attack accordingly. Here you will see some of my innovations or potential experiments. So if you choose to do what I do, remember to be innovative and run 1-2 of whatever you pick in the sideboard
Potential contenders for flex slots:
Bribery - we steal creatures anyways so we might as well steal the biggest ones we can find. Let's be realistic, there's no way we are going to grab an ulamog with shackles, so we probably should use bribery if we want to do stuff like that.
Godhead of awe - if you want to make people cry, this card is perfect for you. It is disgusting against any deck that goes tall
Teferi Mage of zhalfir - if you want to win all the counterspell wars and have no interaction from your opponent whatsoever you could run teferi because why not
How to play the deck:
Generally when judging how to keep a hand, you want to think about how you can accumulate card advantage, and also how you can attack your opponent's game plan. I generally like either a stubborn denial or disrupting shoal in my starting hand as well as a remand or think twice. Whatever your hand is, it should have a balance between mana, counters and one miscellaneous spell. If a hand has a counter in it as well as think twice and shackles with a healthy amount of lands, I usually snap keep it. Or, if I boarded in the leyline playset, I aggressively mulligan into it.
The early stages of the game:
When your opponent leads with creatures, you generally want to answer them as soon as you can. You need to have a plan against creatures. Your counters are much more efficient against non creature spells so you should keep that in mind when using your more versatile counters in the early game. If you start off on gemstone caverns and you can stubborn denial their first spell, I would recommend it. If it is a serum visions and you have this opportunity, chances are their hand was kept on the power or serum visions and it would be a shame if they were to draw complete garbage for their next 3 turns.
How to close out games: mostly, I win games off of shackles. The guile win is also another way to close out games. When I go for killing them with guile, I usually set it up so that I have guile in hand ready to slam on the table once I have six mana
More on killing with guile:
With guile, information is the key thing that will contribute to your success when trying to catch them tapping mana freely for whatever they want. How I plan on casting guile usually depends on what I have shown my opponent in the match so far. If I have not shown them any zero mana counters, I will usually hold the sixth land in my hand if I also have guile and wait to cast it for a turn or 2 unless I have to get booking. Then I will pull the trigger once I have my free counter and they won't be thinking about having to bait the counterspell in my hand at all. If I have shown them zero mana counters, I will generally either try to slam guile and bluff the pact of negation, or I will wait a few more turns to get some mana to immediately have some backup for when I do cast guile. The whole premise of knowing how to use guile in this deck is to try to force your opponent to play around certain things and to force them to respect your counter magic along with your giant 6/6 beatstick that likes to steal things.
Matchups:
Favored matchups:
Any control deck - control just gets plain torn to shreds by our efficiency at fighting counterspell wars. We rarely ever need to board in much against control and going on the draw is always nice against them.
Combo decks like ad nauseam- we got the counters and the answers. We can deal with any cantrippy strange pile of non creature spells because we have a lot of ways to exchange counterspells with them and stop them from going off. Storm also fits in this category.
Even matchups:
Eldrazi - eldrazi is a fair matchup when it has it's fair draws because we can still try to fight them off with plumeveil and our counters. Chalice can be answered thanks to stubborn denial. We can use gut shots on the mimics and try to fight them off as best we can. The advantage of using counterspells opposed to spot removal is being able to stop the pesky ETB triggers and discard effects on eldrazi that trouble other decks.
Jund abzan and any midrange deck - you can deal with their value spells and save your generic counters for creatures which is ideal. It generally comes down to how well each person plays and you using think twice to recover from discard and counterspells to deal with their annoying threats. Tectonic edge also is a great card to have in this matchup.
Burn - although it is usually considered unfavorable, it can be even based on how much hate you pack in your sideboard. My sideboard is very hateful towards burn and against burn I board in around 6-8 cards.
Tron - using tectonic edge to keep them from running away with a game is ideal and stubborn denial is your best friend this game. If you pack a bribery in the side, bring it in, tron will give you a bribery gold mine.
Unfavorable matchups:
Zoo - creature based aggro decks are tough to beat, and I can't really imagine being able to beat this deck. Anything that runs Kird ape is just plain bad for you. All you can really do is board accordingly and pray for a chain of cryptic commands to be stacked on top of your deck and that you have the mana to cast them.
Infect - I hate infect. It is really tough to beat and I use fog bank for a reason.
Affinity - this deck is tough to beat, all you can do is hope for a slow hand to set up fast enough and counter whatever threats they top deck. Hate is a good thing to have against affinity
Where to go from here:
Now that we have a basis of everything that goes on with this deck, it is time to innovate. The original list from kfchicken is a bit primitive for my taste and I think that it is obvious. The concept of the deck is great and it is a very nice shell to have available but I think it needs some work in terms of efficiency. There definitely are some cards that have been forgotten that could be great in this list and would add another layer of depth to this deck.
So what possible routes could we take?
One route I am looking into is a blue devotion type route with teferi and master of waves. Also, if the deck is able to accumulate a lot of devotion then thassa's rebuff might be a good card to consider.
Another route we can go is ditch guile and instead go with tezzeret the seeker and use him to tutor up artifact based win conditions and goodies.
Another route I see available is to go with a bit more pitch cards like SnapBack and using them with mist hollow griffin to add more resiliency to our deck so that we don't 2 for 1 ourselves.
As a last word I would like to remind all of you that this list still is primitive but the theory behind it is definitely there. I hope you found this primer helpful in introducing you to this deck and I wish you luck should you choose to put this list together.
Think twice works beautifully in the blue white list or any control list at that, however I would keep it in those lists and not the storm list. If you want to build the storm variant you need visions because think twice is garbage in a storm deck.
Also the phage idea is hilarious and brutal. However, I think that ashiok is a dangerous prospect in that deck. It is tough to outrace an ashiok if your opponent even has a weak board state. Especially if you are up against a control deck that has near 0 win conditions. That can be a tough race to win.
I see the point there but would you rather lose 4 life to your dismembers or cast them at suboptimal efficiency? Or would you rather take a little more damage for better answers and more efficient removal in the form of path?
On another topic I have been finding that the esper lists of fae seem to perform slightly better against the eldrazi plague. I also found that the blue white spreading seas control with 3 maindeck seas seems to have some game thanks to that and path. It might be a good option to have a white splash right now.
Thanks for the Advice Lantern Guy!
I am playing this deck currently in paper and online. However, I am not yet moved into the all in version in paper yet. I have tested the deck beforehand and I have consistently been able to turn 3 people about 80% of the time online with the all in version. Also, around 15% of the time (maybe a little less) i have even been able to turn 2 kill people. The interaction part is my main concern for this deck though just like you mentioned. I think that it can deal with a little bit but not much. I have tried different options involving the sideboard.
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
3 something else
That is what I have so far. Also, in terms of the manabase, I am thinking of cutting a land for a Gemstone Caverns. This may be the shot of adrenaline that this deck needs when it is on the draw to get the combo going. The one problem is to keep the deck consistent while still having enough fluff in the deck that will cycle with the puresteel.
There also was a recent brew I thought of regarding this deck. Have any of you heard of quest for the holy relic? It is an interesting quest card that actually does have a fringe deck built around it. It uses stuff like ornithopter and memnite and bounce creatures to power out a batterskull or flying creature holding a batterskull or sword really fast. I think that we could fuse these decks together if we wanted to. It could be our way to have a super fast game closing combo while still having a plan B with the mentor and the Erayo package. I think that it could be a very interesting build to look into. Anyways, thanks for the help!
Here is a sample list of what I have in Mind
4 Puresteel Paladin
Other Pieces
4 Mox Opal
4 Retract
3 Grapeshot
4 Spoils of the Vault
2 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Serum Powder
20 0 drop equipment cards
I think this deck could use a little work but still it seems pretty nice. For example Circle of Protection: Black may be a good enough card to run in here if you are going to name black. Also Teysa, Orzhov Scion is a removal spell on a stick.
I definitely am gonna make a list, thanks for throwing up the primer
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/378069#online
There's the link.
For starters, I am probably going to cut the Damnations and Victim of night. Also, Thoughtseize is going to get cut for me and I am going to cut down to 2 inquisitions and keep a small package in the sideboard of extra discard spells. Kalitas is also gonna get cut for now. Anything with double black should get cut if you want to convert it to a blue shackles build. Besides a counter suite, I am gonna add in think twice (my pet card), and also the shackles. Pact of negation is also getting added. Then, there needs to be one final thing to help power out delve spells. A playset of serum visions should work nicely here.
Here is a link to an interesting UW shackles list that I saw on mtg top 8. The white splash was very interesting and it may be the right direction to take this deck. In principle it is a different list though, so I am going to move around the counter suite a little bit and try to build off of this list.
I definitely like using this deck I will say. A turn 3 shackles is just beautiful when you land it. If you can take control of the game in turns 3-5 you can make sure your opponent never gets to use a relevant threat again. I really like that aspect of this deck and it's really nice to be able to be in the drivers seat once you take control of the game.
Godhead just seems like gold right here. Pure fun for you and absolute misery for your opponent. Being one CMC below guile is also pretty nice for it. I think that godhead could either replace guile or maybe add a bit more of a devotion type of strategy to this deck. I am personally continuing my testing with talrand and gigadrowse right now and they seem to be working okay. Slamming talrand with a disrupting shoal in hand is just plain rude. It is also plain funny when your opponents play into it. As for gigadrowse, I find it useful against combo mainly, but also it is good to buy time against aggro. There does seem to be a point where it is better to cryptic than gigadrowse and I find having both in hand can be quite awkward at some points.
However, I do have good news. Regarding the affinity matchup, it can actually be more winnable than we originally thought. The key is to steal their vault skirge and to aggressively counter some spells. The key targets are cranial plating, galvanic blast, a poorly sequenced mox opal, and any other two drop threat. As long as you can keep them off of the go wide plan you can eventually try to take control of the game. This is a matchup where gigadrowse had been great for me.
I see your point too on the 6CMC Wincon we have, but most games are actually won on the back of Shackles
Faerie conclave isn't an island and enters play tapped, and the upside just isn't worth it.
About cyclonic rift I think it could be okay, but I have mixed feelings about it.
Spellstutter doesn't seem like it fits in this deck of it has no faerie synergy in it. I am a bit leery of running Spellstutter in a non faerie deck.
However I do like the talrand idea for the deck. It is exactly the kind of win condition we want and i am going to get testing with him
That's great that you like the deck. It is a riot when you can play it well enough. I have had a few tough games but i have also had some great draws with this deck that can just gas out my opponent. I am interested to see how this deck will continue to evolve and develop over time. I encourage all of you to get more people to take a look at this primer and I personally will make an effort to continue innovating with this deck list. As the metagame fluctuates, I will continue to post my list that I have tuned to the state of Modern.
Also I am excited to see that list you have unity, I hope it has my pet card in it (think twice in case you haven't figured it out)
Also I want to say thanks again for the support on this primer. I thought that most would dismiss it as a piece of garbage that got lucky on magic online one day but it actually has some people wanting to test it. Thanks for the support and good luck to all of you who want to build this deck.
Also, rothgar I never even realized gigadrowse could be a thing here, I definitely have something I am going to test now.
Thanks for the input I'm glad to see this deck attracting some interest from players.
What is Mono Blue Control?
The idea of someone wanting to play mono blue control in modern may seem sort of dumb. In reality, merfolk is the only real mono blue deck with established consistent results. However, mono blue control is a deck that has potential in the upcoming metagame. If we see a return to a balance of creature based and spell based strategies, we need to be able to have an effective game plan for both lines of play. In my analysis, there are different advantages and disadvantages to actually playing creatures of your own and hoping for the best. Yes, you may have a few good creatures that are able to rumble with reality smashers or siege rhinos, but you might not be able to get them into play fast enough to deal with wild Nacatl or Death’s Shadow. Most decks answer it with more colors for wider range of things to put into play or a wider variety of answers. However, mono blue control may have a solution for this problem...
The theory behind this answer is actually quite simple. You can force your opponents to fight their own threats. If you are able to do this, you can actually create a situation where your opponent is playing a mirror match against themselves. Think about it, in eldrazi, the cards that usually clog up in their hands are the reality smashers. These smashers are some nice targets to steal. Imagine eldrazi, holding back their creatures because they are afraid to cast them into shackles and a bunch of islands. It sounds beautiful right?
Shackles is the driving force behind mono blue control. Why bounce creatures when you can steal them? Well, that’s why you play shackles. It lets you steal things you want and answer your opponent’s threats by using them for yourself. The only condition that shackles has in it is that you play lots of islands. This translates to either being mono blue, or near mono blue. I personally believe that you can splash either black or white by playing the corresponding ravnica dual land, 3 copies of the corresponding tango land, and 2 copies of the corresponding buddy land and cutting some utility lands. However, I am just giving you the base mono blue shell.
The Concept
Okay, so we have shackles to answer creatures, but the rules of magic say that we can not have over four copies of any card that is not a basic land. So, we do have to have another way to deal with creatures or at least stem the bleeding from them. Thankfully for us, plumeveil is a great mono blue flash flying defender. It’s a 4/4 for 3 blue, and it can be a removal spell that sticks around for a bit longer when it is used most optimally. So now you have eight ways to deal with creatures that aren’t bounce spells. Seems okay but still not ideal. Keep in mind we are in mono blue and we are using counterspells, so there are always additional ways to deal with problem creatures before they can even hit the field.
That brings me to my next creative way of dealing with annoying spells. Any deck that wants to sling draw spells and get into counter wars can just go and cry in a corner, because we are running 4 stubborn denial mainboard to combo with plumeveil. Having a one mana force spike for non creature spells is alright on its own, but turning that into a negate later in the game is great.
Also, we use cards like disrupting shoal to add to our ability to counter spells when we need to. Also, pact of negation is another counter that can catch people off guard. In the end, you need to control what resolves and what you want to steal. Practice will make perfect and you can actually get very good at playing this deck
Sample lists
The original list started on magic online made by k_f_chicken. I am giving you his list as an example to build off of.
KFChicken's List
4 Plumeveil
2 Guile
Instants
2 Pact of Negation
4 Spell Snare
4 Stubborn Denial
2 Disrupting Shoal
4 Mana Leak
4 Remand
2 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Cryptic Command
4 Vedalken Shackles
Lands
20 Island
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Spellskite
4 Gut Shot
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Dispel
1 Bribery
Here is My Current List For Mono U Control
4 Plumeveil
2 Guile
Instants
1 Pact of Negation
1 spell Snare
4 Stubborn Denial
3 Disrupting shoal
3 Mana Leak
3 Remand
1 Blue Sun's zenith
4 Think Twice
4 Cryptic Command
2 Repeal
4 Vedalken Shackles
Lands
19 Island
1 Gemstone Cavern
4 Tectonic Edge
Note that I also Use the same sideboard as KFChicken's list
The Core of the Deck and Card Choices
Pact of negation - This card allows us to tap out for guile and catch our opponents trying to take that opportunity to resolve something relevant. The upkeep cost is not that bad considering we are a counterspell deck with a lot of really cheap efficient counters. I reccomend running 0-2 of these because they are dead in the early game
Disrupting Shoal - Shoal is our version of force of will for modern. It is tougher to get something by pitching a card to it, but it also is easier to hardcast than force of will. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE HARDCAST PART. I like it enough to run about 1-3.
Stubborn Denial - Arguably one of the best counters in this deck. It combos with our plumeveils and allow us to counter anything that isn't a creature for a mere 1 blue. run 3-4 of these, preferably 4.
Mana Leak - Our go to for 2 mana counters. Run 3-4
Remand - Our other 2 mana go to. Run 3-4
Cryptic Command - Who do you think i am, playing a mono blue control deck without 4 cryptics? Run 4 of these, you need them to help pull ahead in games
Win Conditions
Guile - Although he may be clunky and may cost SIX mana, guile makes this deck amazing when you can start rolling with him. Stealing spells that you just countered is too good to pass up, period. Running at least 2 is a must, but never run 4, you don't really want him in your opening hand.
Vedalken Shackles - running 19-20 Islands has never felt so good in life. You can steal anything you want eventually with shackles in this deck. It allows us to invest mana to steal our opponent's wincons, and even better, to use them to kill other wincons they have. I reccomend running 3-4 but preferably 4
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Other Cards
Think twice - my own key card draw engine, it's my pet card and is amazing in any control shell to draw cards. Because of the split cost of it to get the full two cards, you can safely wait to invest mana to get the full value off of it. Run 4 if you run it, think twice really is an all or nothing card.
Plumeveil- this guy is a fun one. If you invest 3 blue mana you have a flash flying 4/4. This is a brick wall for many decks. It can act as a removal spell then a wall afterwards. The best part is that it enables your stubborn denial to be a 1 mana negate. Run 3-4 but I'd run 4 if you have stubborn denial.
Blue sun's zenith- this card is the original draw engine. I sort of like it if you need to draw lots of cards. However it does clunk up for a while sitting in your hand. I would run another instant speed draw spell if I could think of one. 0-2 is recommended
Lands
Island - I have way too many things to say about the magic card: island. I love blue if you haven't realized. Despite that I have to keep this short and sweet for the sake of the server. Islands are the key component to this deck, allowing us to produce the critical blue mana that we need and turning on shackles. The recommendation I have is to run at least 18 islands, preferably 20.
Tectonic edge - this is a great way to answer big mana decks. It also is just a fine way to deal with opposing utility lands and manlands, as well as just blowing up some shock lands to keep our mana leaks in a better position to cast for a little longer. I reccomend either running 2 and splitting with ghost quarter or running 4 alltogether
Ghost quarter - see tectonic edge for details. Run 2 with 2 edge or 4
Gemstone caverns - it may seem strange to have a land like this in a deck that doesn't combo of need extra fixing or ramp. I know that you are thinking this is a strictly worse island half the time it's in your opening hand, but hear me out. Despite being able to have disrupting shoal to get some early game interaction you can't always consistently be able to stop your opponent from doing broken things on turn one. Gemstone cavern is not always going to show up in your opening hand. And even when it does, you won't always be in the draw. And you know what? That's fine. Because when it works you can stubborn denial those pesky turn one chalice of the voids from eldrazi and you can also start by having mana leak ready by your opponents turn 2 when you are on the draw. It lets you interact with your opponent on a level that keeps you in the game and let's you keep up mana wise. I would run 0-1. It's your decision in the end.
Halimar depths - depending on your preference, I think the depths may have some potential use to this deck, such as allowing us to set up the ability to curve into better and better counterspells. I'd stay away from them personally, but I have seen some people at my lgs run a few of them. I would reccomend 0-2
Nykthos, shrine to nyx - this is only if you want to go the devotion route with this deck. I feel like it can be okay because if you have a plumeveil out, you can use it to filter colorless mana from your tectonic edges and other colorless lands into blue mana, which is nice. Then again, oboro can do that too. I would recommend 0-1 depending on the amount of permanents in your deck.
Sideboard
Preface to side boarding with mono blue control:
Mono blue control will generally struggle to keep up with aggro decks and the pressure they apply. Using a deck that is built on counterspells is not optimal against decks with cheap threats to put in play. Because of this, a lot of your sideboard should be dedicated to these poor matchups. The optimal sideboard has about 7-8 aggro slots, 1-2 control slots, 4 leyline of sanctity and 1-2 flex slots that can also be used as "sweetness" slots.
Be wary of creatures as well, blue creature removal sucks, that's just life my friends.
Sideboard choices:
Gut shot - this is what makes affinity an okay matchup. We can shoot down their small stuff and other annoying threats from other decks. Snapcaster Mage beware, we can shoot you down, also good for shooting any stinkmoth nexus shenanigans. I usually don't like seeing them all the time and the amount I find myself boarding in varies depending on the matchup. Also note that dark confidant is very annoying, and it's nice to kill him. Even though i run 4 I never board all of them in, so I recommend about 2 of them maybe 3 in the side.
Dispel - great for hitting pesky lightning bolts and helixes, also boros charm, searing blaze, kolagahn's command, cryptic command, atarka's command, anything that is annoying and is cast at instant speed. Also I love using it in counterspell wars as stubborn denial 5-6. Run 0-2
Spellskite - for those who hate bogles; you can win with their enchantments, or stop them from doing anything relevant. Also it's great against infect, burn, anything with tiny creatures like affinity, and even some of the bigger creature decks. Run 2-4 of these
Fog bank - if you are on a budget, which let's face it, plenty of us are, you can split spellskite with this or even have it in the side on its own. I find this amazing for trolling infect decks, especially the black green infect. Any deck that tries to bash your skull in via creatures and doesn't use damage based removal or much removal at all, it is worth bringing in. Run 0-3 of these
Leyline of sanctity - although technically uncastable, this is a beautiful way to answer burn. Should you choose to run this, you must run 4 and bring in all 4 when necessary. It is very important to be able to mulligan into them when able because you need to be able to deal with any deck that will recklessly fling burn spells at your face, or poke you with discard until your hand is torn to shreds. Also, if you run nykthos in your list, you have one way to cast it thanks to plumeveil. Run 0 or 4, nothing in between.
Hurkyl's recall - this is how you can reset affinity. If you can navigate your way into a situation when you gut shot some small stuff, recall the majority of their board, and then afterwards counter their mana source that they need to get an explosive recovery, it may be worth having 0-2 in the side.
Flash freeze - red and green players are annoying, I get it. Use this if you are tired of demanding a lightning bolt only to have it recast. I run 0-1 depending on my local meta. If I see all the zoo players signing up for the modern tournament on Wednesday, I bump it up to 2.
What to do with your flex slots?
Note: it is my principle of sideboards that I always dedicate one slot to new innovations. I always leave one or two open slots in my sideboard to test out some card that I am not confident in maindecking just yet. I feel like using a card like bribery would be wonderful as it is in the original list. I always dedicate this slot to adding flexibility and a different angle of attack to my deck that I can always board in when I see fit. In the end, I always ask myself whether or not I am faster or slower than my opponent and I board in an additional angle of attack accordingly. Here you will see some of my innovations or potential experiments. So if you choose to do what I do, remember to be innovative and run 1-2 of whatever you pick in the sideboard
Potential contenders for flex slots:
Bribery - we steal creatures anyways so we might as well steal the biggest ones we can find. Let's be realistic, there's no way we are going to grab an ulamog with shackles, so we probably should use bribery if we want to do stuff like that.
Godhead of awe - if you want to make people cry, this card is perfect for you. It is disgusting against any deck that goes tall
Teferi Mage of zhalfir - if you want to win all the counterspell wars and have no interaction from your opponent whatsoever you could run teferi because why not
How to play the deck:
Generally when judging how to keep a hand, you want to think about how you can accumulate card advantage, and also how you can attack your opponent's game plan. I generally like either a stubborn denial or disrupting shoal in my starting hand as well as a remand or think twice. Whatever your hand is, it should have a balance between mana, counters and one miscellaneous spell. If a hand has a counter in it as well as think twice and shackles with a healthy amount of lands, I usually snap keep it. Or, if I boarded in the leyline playset, I aggressively mulligan into it.
The early stages of the game:
When your opponent leads with creatures, you generally want to answer them as soon as you can. You need to have a plan against creatures. Your counters are much more efficient against non creature spells so you should keep that in mind when using your more versatile counters in the early game. If you start off on gemstone caverns and you can stubborn denial their first spell, I would recommend it. If it is a serum visions and you have this opportunity, chances are their hand was kept on the power or serum visions and it would be a shame if they were to draw complete garbage for their next 3 turns.
How to close out games: mostly, I win games off of shackles. The guile win is also another way to close out games. When I go for killing them with guile, I usually set it up so that I have guile in hand ready to slam on the table once I have six mana
More on killing with guile:
With guile, information is the key thing that will contribute to your success when trying to catch them tapping mana freely for whatever they want. How I plan on casting guile usually depends on what I have shown my opponent in the match so far. If I have not shown them any zero mana counters, I will usually hold the sixth land in my hand if I also have guile and wait to cast it for a turn or 2 unless I have to get booking. Then I will pull the trigger once I have my free counter and they won't be thinking about having to bait the counterspell in my hand at all. If I have shown them zero mana counters, I will generally either try to slam guile and bluff the pact of negation, or I will wait a few more turns to get some mana to immediately have some backup for when I do cast guile. The whole premise of knowing how to use guile in this deck is to try to force your opponent to play around certain things and to force them to respect your counter magic along with your giant 6/6 beatstick that likes to steal things.
Matchups:
Favored matchups:
Any control deck - control just gets plain torn to shreds by our efficiency at fighting counterspell wars. We rarely ever need to board in much against control and going on the draw is always nice against them.
Combo decks like ad nauseam- we got the counters and the answers. We can deal with any cantrippy strange pile of non creature spells because we have a lot of ways to exchange counterspells with them and stop them from going off. Storm also fits in this category.
Even matchups:
Eldrazi - eldrazi is a fair matchup when it has it's fair draws because we can still try to fight them off with plumeveil and our counters. Chalice can be answered thanks to stubborn denial. We can use gut shots on the mimics and try to fight them off as best we can. The advantage of using counterspells opposed to spot removal is being able to stop the pesky ETB triggers and discard effects on eldrazi that trouble other decks.
Jund abzan and any midrange deck - you can deal with their value spells and save your generic counters for creatures which is ideal. It generally comes down to how well each person plays and you using think twice to recover from discard and counterspells to deal with their annoying threats. Tectonic edge also is a great card to have in this matchup.
Burn - although it is usually considered unfavorable, it can be even based on how much hate you pack in your sideboard. My sideboard is very hateful towards burn and against burn I board in around 6-8 cards.
Tron - using tectonic edge to keep them from running away with a game is ideal and stubborn denial is your best friend this game. If you pack a bribery in the side, bring it in, tron will give you a bribery gold mine.
Unfavorable matchups:
Zoo - creature based aggro decks are tough to beat, and I can't really imagine being able to beat this deck. Anything that runs Kird ape is just plain bad for you. All you can really do is board accordingly and pray for a chain of cryptic commands to be stacked on top of your deck and that you have the mana to cast them.
Infect - I hate infect. It is really tough to beat and I use fog bank for a reason.
Affinity - this deck is tough to beat, all you can do is hope for a slow hand to set up fast enough and counter whatever threats they top deck. Hate is a good thing to have against affinity
Where to go from here:
Now that we have a basis of everything that goes on with this deck, it is time to innovate. The original list from kfchicken is a bit primitive for my taste and I think that it is obvious. The concept of the deck is great and it is a very nice shell to have available but I think it needs some work in terms of efficiency. There definitely are some cards that have been forgotten that could be great in this list and would add another layer of depth to this deck.
So what possible routes could we take?
One route I am looking into is a blue devotion type route with teferi and master of waves. Also, if the deck is able to accumulate a lot of devotion then thassa's rebuff might be a good card to consider.
Another route we can go is ditch guile and instead go with tezzeret the seeker and use him to tutor up artifact based win conditions and goodies.
Another route I see available is to go with a bit more pitch cards like SnapBack and using them with mist hollow griffin to add more resiliency to our deck so that we don't 2 for 1 ourselves.
As a last word I would like to remind all of you that this list still is primitive but the theory behind it is definitely there. I hope you found this primer helpful in introducing you to this deck and I wish you luck should you choose to put this list together.
Also the phage idea is hilarious and brutal. However, I think that ashiok is a dangerous prospect in that deck. It is tough to outrace an ashiok if your opponent even has a weak board state. Especially if you are up against a control deck that has near 0 win conditions. That can be a tough race to win.