The deck plays a very tight control game of 1-for-1 (or 1-for-0 in the case of hitting fetches) while denying mana. In the late game, the constant filtering and cantripping leads to a significant advantage in card quality, and the mana denial plan makes it trivial to protect your few wincons.
For those unfamiliar, "Xerox" refers to an old blue deck that ran lots of 1 and 2 mana cantrips and very few lands. Every 4 cantrips allows you to cut two lands, and with a draw-go style and a low curve it allows for greater card quality, selection, and tempo. This is essentially how very aggressive Death's Shadow decks functioned before the Probe ban, although they were proactive instead of reactive.
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Slowly breaking.
Any more of this, and Team Troll will be more than just a name.
This won't work, not even tighter decks like Death's Shadow which have a much lower mana curve can play with 16x-lands.
This deck is mana hungry with cards like: Frost Titan, Snapcaster Mage, Vendillion Clique, Archmage's Charm and Cryptic Command therefor can't function on such a low land count despite the cantrips here (which aren't even very good at setting up lands without Serum Visions to scry deeper into the deck).
I'd up the land count to at least 20x (if not more than that) and not play GQ in the deck since you can't really afford to lose lands and it doesn't help you cast your Charm/Command anyway.
Some card choices seem particularly odd to me:
# Frost Titan - is very slow and unlikely to ever be cast in this deck (unless you miraculously reach 6-mana and decide to tap out leaving yourself vulnerable).
With enough mana in the deck a card like Torrential Gearhulk could be a far better option as a flash threat.
# Visions of Beyond - this inclusion is very odd to me since this isn't a "Mill" deck so it is just a bad cantrip here.
A good alternative imho would be Hieroglyphic Illumination which can be cycled early to draw a card and later in the game can be cast to draw 2-cards.
The sorcery speed Serum Visions is also a much better option.
# Squelch - is an extremely narrow card, a more flexible option can be Nimble Obstructionist which can hit triggered abilities as well as serve as a flash threat in the air like Clique.
# I'd probably prefer Anticipate to Thought Scour + Peek despite the extra mana as it digs deeper.
I saw a mono blue list 5-0 a league that was similar except it had thing in the ice instead of the frost titan. frost titan costs too much, especially in a fast format like modern. your cantrip-style deck would love to have thing in the ice. i like archmage's charm and I think it makes me want to build a mono-U list as well.
Agreed with the above posters that titan is too much mana and then not enough payoff. Also the boomerangs feels bad. Probably go with more control for those slots. Logic knot or thing or maybe more lands in those spots.
Xerox decks work in Vintage and nowhere else because of the free Mana Rocks; not only are you not down on mana, you're actually accelerating it. It's entirely possible to play Mono Blue Control in Modern, but the list would more resemble the Draw-Go lists of the late 90s and early 00s.
One characteristic of the deck is that it must necessarily be low to the ground; my own list has 6 three drops and 5 four drops, with the rest of the spells being one and two drops.
The other major characteristic is that there are a ton of draw and card selection spells, roughly 1/3 of the non-land cards. They might also do something else, in fact the best ones do, but card advantage is the most important thing.
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Frost Titan
4 Opt
4 Visions of Beyond
1 Thought Scour
1 Peek
4 Shadow of Doubt
2 Squelch
2 Dismember
4 Archmage's Charm
3 Mana Leak
3 Spell Snare
2 Cryptic Command
1 Remand
1 Force of Negation
2 Ghost Quarter
The deck plays a very tight control game of 1-for-1 (or 1-for-0 in the case of hitting fetches) while denying mana. In the late game, the constant filtering and cantripping leads to a significant advantage in card quality, and the mana denial plan makes it trivial to protect your few wincons.
For those unfamiliar, "Xerox" refers to an old blue deck that ran lots of 1 and 2 mana cantrips and very few lands. Every 4 cantrips allows you to cut two lands, and with a draw-go style and a low curve it allows for greater card quality, selection, and tempo. This is essentially how very aggressive Death's Shadow decks functioned before the Probe ban, although they were proactive instead of reactive.
Any more of this, and Team Troll will be more than just a name.
I know where you post.
This deck is mana hungry with cards like: Frost Titan, Snapcaster Mage, Vendillion Clique, Archmage's Charm and Cryptic Command therefor can't function on such a low land count despite the cantrips here (which aren't even very good at setting up lands without Serum Visions to scry deeper into the deck).
I'd up the land count to at least 20x (if not more than that) and not play GQ in the deck since you can't really afford to lose lands and it doesn't help you cast your Charm/Command anyway.
Some card choices seem particularly odd to me:
# Frost Titan - is very slow and unlikely to ever be cast in this deck (unless you miraculously reach 6-mana and decide to tap out leaving yourself vulnerable).
With enough mana in the deck a card like Torrential Gearhulk could be a far better option as a flash threat.
# Visions of Beyond - this inclusion is very odd to me since this isn't a "Mill" deck so it is just a bad cantrip here.
A good alternative imho would be Hieroglyphic Illumination which can be cycled early to draw a card and later in the game can be cast to draw 2-cards.
The sorcery speed Serum Visions is also a much better option.
# Squelch - is an extremely narrow card, a more flexible option can be Nimble Obstructionist which can hit triggered abilities as well as serve as a flash threat in the air like Clique.
# I'd probably prefer Anticipate to Thought Scour + Peek despite the extra mana as it digs deeper.
One characteristic of the deck is that it must necessarily be low to the ground; my own list has 6 three drops and 5 four drops, with the rest of the spells being one and two drops.
The other major characteristic is that there are a ton of draw and card selection spells, roughly 1/3 of the non-land cards. They might also do something else, in fact the best ones do, but card advantage is the most important thing.