How much have you played the deck? It doesn't look like there could be much consistency game to game, so try to figure out which games you did the best in, and how you found victory in those situations. Focus on those cards and try to strip out the ones that most often remain dead in your hand or are simply too situational.
Yeah, after my frustrated post about people taking to long to search your deck with Sphinx Ambassador I came to realize that it really has to do with player's familiarity with each other's decks, as well as their understanding of what cards they currently need.
It helps to have house guidelines - not rules - regarding tutoring and deck searches. We try to cast our tutors last so we can search/shuffle our decks while the next player starts their turn. Obviously this isn't always possible with primordials, but it helps to keep in mind how when the most optimal time is to cast a card that would allow you to save time while searching.
Uhm... Giving Phage to my opponent sounds pretty risky.
Doesn't it?
High Risk High Reward. You donate the Mimic'd Phage, they can't do much with her until their next turn, but during their upkeep a new Phage gets mimic'd into existence, thus triggering your Opponent to lose the game.
Endless Whispers would also work crazy with Progenitor Mimic, not even of Phage, but any legend, it would be a huge game of hot potato.
Well, he can only fling it for twenty if he has enough artifacts to sac. I'd say instead of focusing on the Atog you should focus on the artifacts.
If you're running black you should sideboard a set of Disciple of the Vault - usually these are included in Affinity decks as well, but they'd be a great way to play against your opponent sacking artifacts left and right, make them think twice.
BG gives you cards like Relic Crush, high cost by gets rid of 2 artifacts, and if you're playing affinity they could be lands.
the Cluestone is what I tried running before the Prism and I found it to be much weaker. Though cluestone ramps, it costs 3, and the card draw costs 2. Prism only costs 2, has a free card draw, and I can blink him for more cantrips.
So I'll go the Signet/Mulldrifter route, though I'm not sure I need that much card draw, and i do like the Body on the Vanguard... It's a tough decision, though I can recognize that mulldrifter as a card is a thousand times better...
You certainly don't need Halimar Depths in this deck, especially if you're running Spire Golems, you need to be hitting those islands quick.
You also don't need to be running quite so much card draw. You could lose the Fathom Seers and Sea Gate Oracles and add more spells to trigger the delvers. Look into blue combat tricks like Distortion Strike, or something like Hands of Binding so you don't have to worry about playing defense with your creatures.
The il-Kor has been a place holder, but also acts to add pressure to my opponent, and if not destroyed immediately can lay some some serious hurt.
The Prophetic Prism serves as mana fixing and should i need to, I can blink or bounce it for card draw.
I'm thinking about replacing the il-Kor with either 2 Mulldrifters or 2 Gryff Vanguard both of which have evasion and allow more card advantage when blinked - but that would require a lot more mana. If I make the replacement, I'm going to swap out the Prophetic Prisms for either 2 Azorius Signet or 2 Azorius Guildgates.
Actually what I left out of the story is that the middle iteration of this deck was built as a storm deck using Temporal Fissure, my problem with the deck being that it's a storm deck, and I don't like playing decks that are so linear or single-tracked.
I might build a separate storm deck some time, but I wanna keep this one different.
Pretty good list. My first question is: Why Infiltrator il-Kor? For the evasion and body? Also, how has it worked out so far? Upon first look I'd say you can find a few better options unless he's been working great.
Squadron Hawk can be good for ensuring creature drops and to get a shuffle if Brainstorm gives you a bad set up.
Raise the Alarm could find a home in this list. Gives you two activations on the Griffin like Attended Knight, but can also be an instant speed trick up your sleeve. Being able to pump the Griffin twice can really turn things around.
Yeah, Infiltrator il-Kor is in there simply because I wanted to give him a chance in a deck since he's very underplayed, possibly for a good reason. I like his body, the pseudo haste and the suspend cost. The unblockable 3 damage does add to the agression of the deck, and if my opponent has to choose between removing a pumpable griffin or a 3 power unblockable, I'd be content with either choice, but he's always open to change, I just wanted blue represented in the creatures. I took Delver of Secrets out (From the Original Aggro-Blue-Bounce deck) because the creature/spell ratio with the new build makes it harder to ensure flipping him soon enough.
Currently my set of Squadron Hawks has a home in my casual Birdemic deck, but I'll look into getting another set.
Right now I'm looking at these changes:
-4 Impulse
-4 brainstorm
+2 Snap
+4 Ponder
+2 Raise the Alarm
And I can swap Infiltrator for 2 of something, but Dunno what.
I prefer Ponder filter method over Brainstorm setting up my next draws.
So I finally decided to tear apart my Mono-Blue Bounce deck that had been having so much trouble for ages. It started when I decided to finally splash some white into it for the extra blink cards, but then started looking at what types of creatures that allowed me to play.
Cracking a booster of M13 I discovered Griffin Protector - by no means a great card, and when I got home I discovered I acually had about a half dozen of him already - HOWEVER, the card spoke to me somehow. Considering my deck had so many blink engines, and there were creatures entering the battlefield all the time, he seemed like he might have a place in the deck.
I began scrounging through my pile of discarded booster commons and threw together a new deck that focused on constantly having creatures enter the battlefield. I decided to add a lil' Faerie action to the fray and ended up with a Sugarplum Flurry. In all my goldfishing the deck has proven itself to be quite fast, finding a good balance between blue control shenanigans and some weenie swarm action, with the Griffin sometimes getting pumped to a 9/10 in a single turn.
The deck requires land drops. Surprisingly the core card is Griffin Protector, so you want one of those in your opening hand if possible, but then there's card draw and Ponders to dig through for it.
The deck plays like a weenie swarm at first, lots of evasive little guys, but once the griffin lands that's when the fun begins.
I've spent a lot of turns just thinking about the different combinations of blinking I can pull off, it becomes a game within itself trying to find which pattern can make you blink or cast the most creatures. Ghostly Flicker a Kor Skyfisher and Cloud of Faeries (+2/+2 Griffin) to return an Archaeomancer to your hand. Recast the archaeomancer (+3/+3) to bring a Snap back to your hand. Snap a Skyfisher to your hand to cast it (+4/+4) and bounce the Cloud of Faeries again, cast the faeries (+5/+5). And on and on and on. It's really fun.
I'm really glad Wizards is following through with their p/t shift in the different colors. Maro mentioned that Black is now going to focus on lower power higher toughness and it seems like that's sticking - huge boon for my Doran deck
What do you guys think about bloodrush cards like Slaughter Horn and Rubblebelt Maaka? 1 mana pseudo-giant growths that are uncounterable AND are safe against discard like Duress.
It helps to have house guidelines - not rules - regarding tutoring and deck searches. We try to cast our tutors last so we can search/shuffle our decks while the next player starts their turn. Obviously this isn't always possible with primordials, but it helps to keep in mind how when the most optimal time is to cast a card that would allow you to save time while searching.
High Risk High Reward. You donate the Mimic'd Phage, they can't do much with her until their next turn, but during their upkeep a new Phage gets mimic'd into existence, thus triggering your Opponent to lose the game.
Endless Whispers would also work crazy with Progenitor Mimic, not even of Phage, but any legend, it would be a huge game of hot potato.
If you're running black you should sideboard a set of Disciple of the Vault - usually these are included in Affinity decks as well, but they'd be a great way to play against your opponent sacking artifacts left and right, make them think twice.
BG gives you cards like Relic Crush, high cost by gets rid of 2 artifacts, and if you're playing affinity they could be lands.
So I'll go the Signet/Mulldrifter route, though I'm not sure I need that much card draw, and i do like the Body on the Vanguard... It's a tough decision, though I can recognize that mulldrifter as a card is a thousand times better...
You also don't need to be running quite so much card draw. You could lose the Fathom Seers and Sea Gate Oracles and add more spells to trigger the delvers. Look into blue combat tricks like Distortion Strike, or something like Hands of Binding so you don't have to worry about playing defense with your creatures.
Mirri, Cat warrior http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10108831&postcount=1
and Doran, The Siege Tower http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/blog.php?b=8773
Currently I'm running 2 Infiltrator il-Kor and 2 Prophetic Prism.
The il-Kor has been a place holder, but also acts to add pressure to my opponent, and if not destroyed immediately can lay some some serious hurt.
The Prophetic Prism serves as mana fixing and should i need to, I can blink or bounce it for card draw.
I'm thinking about replacing the il-Kor with either 2 Mulldrifters or 2 Gryff Vanguard both of which have evasion and allow more card advantage when blinked - but that would require a lot more mana. If I make the replacement, I'm going to swap out the Prophetic Prisms for either 2 Azorius Signet or 2 Azorius Guildgates.
What do people think?
I might build a separate storm deck some time, but I wanna keep this one different.
Yeah, Infiltrator il-Kor is in there simply because I wanted to give him a chance in a deck since he's very underplayed, possibly for a good reason. I like his body, the pseudo haste and the suspend cost. The unblockable 3 damage does add to the agression of the deck, and if my opponent has to choose between removing a pumpable griffin or a 3 power unblockable, I'd be content with either choice, but he's always open to change, I just wanted blue represented in the creatures. I took Delver of Secrets out (From the Original Aggro-Blue-Bounce deck) because the creature/spell ratio with the new build makes it harder to ensure flipping him soon enough.
Currently my set of Squadron Hawks has a home in my casual Birdemic deck, but I'll look into getting another set.
Right now I'm looking at these changes:
-4 Impulse
-4 brainstorm
+2 Snap
+4 Ponder
+2 Raise the Alarm
And I can swap Infiltrator for 2 of something, but Dunno what.
I prefer Ponder filter method over Brainstorm setting up my next draws.
Also Progenitor Mimic on Korona could get crazy.
Actually I think Progenitor Mimic is going to be the New Legendary Rule's best friend.
Cracking a booster of M13 I discovered Griffin Protector - by no means a great card, and when I got home I discovered I acually had about a half dozen of him already - HOWEVER, the card spoke to me somehow. Considering my deck had so many blink engines, and there were creatures entering the battlefield all the time, he seemed like he might have a place in the deck.
I began scrounging through my pile of discarded booster commons and threw together a new deck that focused on constantly having creatures enter the battlefield. I decided to add a lil' Faerie action to the fray and ended up with a Sugarplum Flurry. In all my goldfishing the deck has proven itself to be quite fast, finding a good balance between blue control shenanigans and some weenie swarm action, with the Griffin sometimes getting pumped to a 9/10 in a single turn.
creatures (22)
4 Griffin Protector
4 Kor Skyfisher
2 Attended Knight
2 Mulldrifter
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Archaeomancer
4 Ponder
2 Raise the Alarm
4 Ghostly Flicker
2 Momentary Blink
4 Snap
2 Prophetic Prism
lands (20)
10 Snow-Covered Island
6 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Azorius Chancery
CHANGES:
-4 brainstorm
+2 Snap
+4 Ponder
+2 Raise the Alarm
-2 Infiltrator il-Kor
+2 Mulldrifter
The deck requires land drops. Surprisingly the core card is Griffin Protector, so you want one of those in your opening hand if possible, but then there's card draw and Ponders to dig through for it.
The deck plays like a weenie swarm at first, lots of evasive little guys, but once the griffin lands that's when the fun begins.
I've spent a lot of turns just thinking about the different combinations of blinking I can pull off, it becomes a game within itself trying to find which pattern can make you blink or cast the most creatures. Ghostly Flicker a Kor Skyfisher and Cloud of Faeries (+2/+2 Griffin) to return an Archaeomancer to your hand. Recast the archaeomancer (+3/+3) to bring a Snap back to your hand. Snap a Skyfisher to your hand to cast it (+4/+4) and bounce the Cloud of Faeries again, cast the faeries (+5/+5). And on and on and on. It's really fun.