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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:19 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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--- description ---
See a monoblue deck giving opponents quite a headache, even in dual-loaded times! They’ll never know what hit’em!
--- end description ---
1. Introduction
It’s been a while since I wrote an article, due to the end of the semester in college, but I actually DREAMED of this deck, so I decided to try and make it, and it seems to work pretty fine, so I decided to "share my vision" with everyone, to see how we can make it better.
First off, this is a STANDARD deck, so criticism for this format is more than welcome, but refrain from comments like "Oh, Ancestral Recall would be PERFECT for this" (although, it WOULD  ). I’d also like to apologize in advance (although I’ll do it again in the end), because this article may be a long read, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!
2. The vision
I always thought one of the best "Hunted" creatures was the Hunted Phantasm, since the tokens he give away sure are numerous, but not THAT dangerous by themselves. Plus, he doesn’t fly, regenerate or trample, but he’s simply unblockable, so it doesn’t matter AT ALL if your opponent has a brick wall or a swarm of tokens on the other side (plus, it’s got pretty good stats for its cost)!
Now, his 4 power are not gonna win tough matches alone, so we need to make him stronger... Then, it came to my mind, as clear as can be: Umezawa’s Jitte! It’s more of an aggro card, yes, but why not? It could work. Actually, a Jitted Phantasm would take 3 turns to kill an opponent at 20 life, with almost nothing he can do about it! And not to mention, the Jitte can recover lost life points, AND kill some annoying creatures that still manage to hit the board, even with Leyline of Singularity and all your counter-power.
3. Making it happen
Ok, so we’ve got ourselves a win condition, which is Hunted Phantasm + Umezawa’s Jitte. So, all we have to do is find some ways to protect our combo, stay alive (since this is a rather costly and slow combo to set up in a monoblue deck) and we’re good to go!
3.1 Eliminating the drawback
The first card that IMMEDIATELY came to my mind was the best friend of all the Hunted creatures: Leyline of Singularity. It’s a win-win card, since it counters my Hunted Phantasm’s drawback, while ALSO killing token decks (Golgari, Orzhov and Azorius being the most popular ones with, respectively, Germination, Ghost Husk/Ghost Dad and Dovescape), and halting some aggro power, since they won’t be able to have multiple copies in play of, for instance, Kird Ape or Scab-Clan Mauler.
3.2 Speeding things up
Next, I had to find out a way of speeding up the deck, so the combo is out faster. No tutors for  , so I had to resort to Transmutable cards. Since I’m already using 4 Jittes and 4 Phantasms (they ARE the win conditions, after all), I needed transmutables with costs of 2 and 3 to improve my odds.
The first one I decided on (rather quickly, by the way) was Drift of Phantasms. I mean, why not? It transmutes for Hunted Phantasm, AND, if you need, it’s a fairly nice blocker to stop some aggro power, specially if Leyline of Singularity is out since their number of threats will be somewhat reduced, meaning you will probably have only one big guy on the field to stop, the other being 1 or 2 power, tops.
The next one was a bit harder to accept, since I don’t like this card very much, but I found Muddle the Mixture to be the best choice, since it counters, for instance, Cranial Extraction, which KILLS this deck, as well as any other type of creature removal I might face, except maybe for Nekrataal or cards like him (but I won’t be seeing a lot of them on standard right now, I guess...).
I need to actually deal damage in order to win, so I need the Phantasm really bad, but Jitte is not THAT important. Ok, Phantasm + Jitte = 3 turns to win, except when my opponent is using cards like Kami of False Hope or Holy Day, but even so, I decided to go with 8 Phantasms (4 Hunted Phantasm and 4 Drift of Phantasms) and 7 Jittes (4 Jittes and 3 Muddle the Mixture), also because the only creature (that can attack, that is) in the deck is the Phantasm, so a lonely Jitte on the field will do me no good.
I then moved to the next step, speeding things MORE. Blue excels on that, due to great card-drawing abilities, so I decided to go with Compulsive Research (which I can use Drift of Phantasms to transmute for), since I don’t really need that much lands out and can easily discard some, and Tidings, for giving me a lot of cards at once, great in late game, when my hand size is rather low.
3.3 Protecting the combo/my life points
This part was rather easy, since the answer is quite simple: counterspells! Blue has a wide variety of them, so all I had to do was pick the ones I liked the most. It came to this:
-Muddle the Mixture
-Hinder
-Rewind
-Spell Snare
-Remand
-Mana Leak
Due to lack of deck space, I had to narrow them down to, at most, 4 different counters, one of them being Muddle the Mixture. So, I chose Spell Snare, since denying their turn two drop (or some 2-drops) disrupts a lot of decks for some turns, and also because, if I go second, it’s the only counter I’ll be able to play on my opponent’s second turn; Mana Leak, which is one of the best counters we have now; and Remand, which may be a bit more dangerous than Hinder to me, but it’s also cheaper AND gives me card advantage.
Another thing that could be looked into, as to "staying alive", is utility land. Being a mono-colored deck, there won’t be a lot of trouble getting , which is the most "colored" cost in a single card, so a player’s set (4 copies) of a utility land (which generally only adds colorless mana) might come in handy. Since this deck depends A LOT on Leyline of Singularity for stalling a heavy beating, and blue is not exactly a color that excels in removal, it could get in trouble if Leyline is not on the opening hand, and take some severe beating before having some Drift of Phantasms to block whatever got past the counterspells. For this matter, a good idea given to me was to throw in some copies of Quicksand, for stalling early beating.
4. The Deck
Well, after all those explanations this is what the deck looks like:
Monoblue beats (60 cards):
22 Lands
18 Island
4 Quicksand
OR
21 Snow-covered Island
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge (see below)
4 Enchantments
4 Leyline of Singularity
8 Creatures
4 Hunted Phantasm
4 Drift of Phantasms
4 Artifacts
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
7 Sorceries
4 Compulsive Research
3 Tidings
15 Instants
3 Muddle the Mixture
4 Spell Snare
4 Mana Leak
4 Remand
5. Playing the deck
So, we’ve gone through how I came up with the idea, and how to turn it into a deck. The deck is pretty much straightforward, so I’ll just give some general tips on how to play it:
-This deck counts A LOT on having Leyline of Singularity out soon, to reduce the number of attackers, so unless you’ve got a hand with some counters and maybe a Drift of Phantasms, if it hasn’t got a Leyline, mulligan.
-Even if you DON’T have Leyline of Singularity out, NEVER play more than one Hunted Phantasm at a time, ’cause once Leyline hits the board, all creatures that have copies in play will be wiped out, including your own. If you need some beef, play the Drift of Phantasms, it’s ok to lose some of those!
-If your oponent is playing with some counterspells of his own, be sure to have 2 mana open when playing the Hunted Phantasm, so you can counter a possible counter or bounce. Jitte is not as important to this deck as the Phantasm, remember, he’s your ONLY win condition, so be careful!
-If your opponent’s deck is packed full of counterspells, it’ll probably not have a lot of creatures, so defend your Leyline at all costs, and refrain from playing a Hunted Phantasm, unless you’ve got 2-3 counters to make sure it’ll see play.
-When facing a deck with Cranial Extraction, ALWAYS make sure you have a counter ready, with mana open.
6. Sideboards
Now, sideboard depends mostly on your meta, so I won’t suggest ONE sideboard, but suggest SOME, to be used as guidelines to make your own (keeping in mind the monoblue theme).
6.1 Counter-spree
15 Instants
Hinder x4
Rewind x2
Rune Snag x4
Boomerang x3
Evacuation x2
This SB is pretty obvious, and might be good if your meta involves a lot of control decks (which make Mana Leaks less powerful, Rewind and Hinder being better) or some aggro decks (Boomerang and Evacuation work nicely against these, as does Rune Snag!)
6.2 Token switchboard
10 Creatures
Meloku the Clouded Mirror x3
Krovikan Mist x4
Keiga, the Tide Star x3
5 Instants
Telling Time x4
Muddle the Mixture x1
This is a switchboard, to fool an opponent into thinking he guessed your whole deck, making it possible to surprise him by dropping some bombs, while TURNIG Krovikan Mists into bombsthemselves AND building some defense (just make sure you board out Leyline of Singularity for this one). Telling Time is another nice way to get Meloku faster (since there’s no transmutables for her in the deck), while Muddle the Mixture can be transmuted for Krovikan Mist (which would then justify having 4 of them on the MD).
6.3 Control SB
7 Creatures
Heidar, Rimewind Master x3
Rimewind Taskmage x4
2 Enchantment
Threads of Disloyalty x2
6 Instants
Boomerang x4
Repeal x2
This is actually the sideboard that I use (and if this is the case, you have to use the secondary mana base for the Main Deck, which would be 21 Snow-Covered Island and 1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge). Threads "steal" some Kird Apes and Scab-Clan Maulers (if nothing else, they can shrugg off some damage), while Boomerang and Repeal can deal with rather annoying cards that slipped by your counters (while Repeal ALSO gives you card advantage). Taskmage can slow down opponents (and that’s why you need the snow lands), but he really shines when Heidar is out and you have Leyline of Singularity, letting you bounce two annoying permanents back. If you consider they are all legendary, you won’t be bothered for some time...
6.4 Crazy control
This is a crazy switchboard, which also requires the use of the secondary mana base suggested, that most opponents will never see coming:
12 Creatures
Rimewind Taskmage x4
Heidar, Rimewind Master x3
Keiga, the Tide Star x3
Rimefeather Owl x2
3 Enchantments
3 Dovescape
This SB is just plain crazy. Play a Dovescape as soon as you can (but NEVER before a Leyline is out), and see what happens. Nobody will be getting any tokens AT ALL (due to the effects of Leyline), but that’ll be fine, since you’ll be bouncing permanents back to his hand, while "stealing" some creatures (or swinging heavily) with Keiga, and since almost every land is snow, if you get a Rimefeather Owl out, it’s gonna be HUGE. Just check it out!
7. Match-ups
7.1 Heartbeat combo
Actually an easy one, just use as many counters as you can to stop Heartbeat of Spring from seeing play and you should be fine.
7.2 Ghost Husk/Ghost Dad
This one is pretty much the same. Not letting the opponent have his tokens will slow them down, just watch out for Mortify, and you should be able to put up a nice fight. The kind of SB you’re using might be important on this one, I’d recomend using the Control SB (6.3), but you might do fine with the Token switchboard, if you think you can keep THEIR tokens (or their finishers) at bay (6.2).
7.3 Urzatron/Wildfire
This is an annoying match-up, but if you can counter their Izzet Signet, it’s pretty much game. Tough match if you can’t do it, however... Using Crazy Control (6.4) might make it a lot easier, just remember to protect Dovescape with a counter or two.
7.4 Burn decks
Another annoying match-up, but your counters should keep you alive long enough to be able to swing. Using Counter-spree (6.1) or Crazy Control (6.4) should be the key in this meta.
7.5 Aggro
Well, the deck itself SHOULD hold aggro at bay long enough. If it can’t, try using the Control SB (6.3), it should make your job easier.
7.6 Acceleration/Heavy Beating
This is probably your worst match-up, since you won’t be able to counter everything. Just make sure you counter Kodama of the North Tree (or stuff like him, which can’t be targeted) and use either the Control SB (6.3) or Crazy control (6.4) to survive on this meta, by bouncing back the most powerful creatures.
Thanks everyone for reading this far, I’m really sorry (again) for the long read, but I did put a lot of effort into writing it, so you can be sure you didn’t waste your time! 
And, as always, criticism is more than welcome!  |
| Last edited by Felipe Musco on Fri Aug 04, 2006 9:14 pm; edited 3 times in totalI don't like YOU. |
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| elf lvr |
![]() Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:37 pm |
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 3065
Location: Rivendell
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WOW 
I’m sorry if you guys feel like i’m invading your forums but i must say this article ROCKS! It is everything i would look for in a lotr article, its well written, good opening and conclusion, well orgainized, delves deeply into strategy, and even includes matchups! I love it!
just reading the stuff you guys put on here makes me want to start playing MTG...
good one! |
Happy Hunting! Elf Lvr
Winner of Best Personality in the FPCA. Thanks!
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 1:50 am |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Agreed, this is pretty much an ideal article in terms of presentation and organization. And even though I’ve never much liked playing , the deck looks pretty fun as well. Good job!
There’s one major flaw though -- you’re totally dependent on Leyline of Singularity. Without it on the table, your opponent could almost beat you without even resolving a spell, thanks to those five Goblin tokens. 
Even if you plan to mulligan two or three times or search of an opening-hand Leyline, you’ll spend about 1 in 5 games without it. Could some sort of backup plan, or else some faster card-drawing, be squeezed in? |
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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:31 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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Well, I could try and use transmutables for it, too, but I didn’t find one single 4-mana transmutable worth the trouble of squeezing it in the deck. As I said, if you don’t have Leyline of Singularity out, you most certainly will have some counters, so just be selective and counter the main menaces. Also, I’ve edited the article (actually before I read this, bit it fits well), pointing that a Jitted Phantasm will be able to, if nothing, nullify all the tokens hazard at once with one single swing, since the next turn you could simply block one of them and gain 4 life with the two tokens on the Jitte. You can also use the Jitte to KILL small creatures (and tokens) while waiting for a Leyline, ’cause once it hits the board, you will most likely wipe out A LOT of creatures at once (directed Wrath of God ), disrupting your opponent’s plans for a while.
And, if you’re playing a deck that’s REALLY giving you trouble, you can simply MD some cards from a sideboard, there’s a lot of potential on those! I playtested the deck a lot of times, and with the most horrible hand I’ve played Leyline of Singularity in 5 turns, and even in this situation (which happend only once), I had some SERIOUS counter power, and I DID manage to have a Jitted Phantasm to stall the severe beating I was taking long enough before I dropped the "bomb"...
Oh, btw, THANKS A LOT, elf lvr, for the compliment! I feel flattered for having a reader from the LotR Forums coming here to read my article! |
| Last edited by Felipe Musco on Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:52 pm; edited 2 times in totalI don't like YOU. |
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| BrianBoitano |
![]() Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:49 pm |
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Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 124
Location: Houston, TX
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 Well done, Felipe! I must say, it is a magnificent article.
I like the theme, and I think you’ve done it well, which is frankly frustrating. I want to put in my two cents, but everything I think of seems like a step in the wrong direction!
I recently read a mono-blue deck idea on Wizards, and I think his build has some things to offer you. I’m sure you have room in your mana base for some utility land, and Quicksand fits oh so well. It’s colorless mana won’t be a problem in a mono-colored deck, and it helps stall your opponent or even get rid of a token in a pinch.
Also in the article was the powerhorse that is blue bounce. He built his deck on land bounce and steal, which ended up putting his opponents way behind while accelerating himself into a Muse Vessel frenzy. This made the deck no fun at all to play against, but very very effective.
The problem with countermagic is that your key turns will be 2nd for jitte, and 3rd for phantasm, which means you will be tapped out leaving your opponent a lot of leeway to do as they please. I’d say even the horrible-looking Commandeer might do you well during these two turns to help protect your combo. The next turn you can equip and still have enough to Remand or Leak, so I don’t think throwing away a Muddle the Mixture, Tidings, or Drift of Phantasms would hurt you. I’d say Commandeer would be better suited in the slot that Spell Snare is in. I realize that the Snare takes out many key threats, but it is really diminished in usefulness after turn 1.
I hope I could help, again the reason these suggestions are so weak is that the deck looks great! Let us know what downfalls you see as you playtest, so we can try to work through them. |
"Not again" -Hans
Hello kind Sir or Madam, I am a polite sig virus. Please put me into your fine and dandy signature so that I might continue to replicate. Thank you for your time. |
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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 2:56 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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I’m at work right now, but Quicksand was a VERY nice suggestion... 
About bouncing, I don’t want to alter the deck’s theme so much, but I had thought about a switchboard for bounce, however, it lacks, as you may figure, the space to actually make the deck a bouncer, so I made a "different" one using only Heidar, Rimewind Master (which is listed in the article), that is pretty nice, actually. However, I AM working on a bounce deck, believe it or not, and Muse Vessel was a simply FANTASTIC idea! (Once the article’s up you’ll be given full credit for it, be sure! )
Well, I’ll test out quicksand for quantities sake tonight, and alter the article accordingly. Again, VERY GOOD suggestion, and thanks A LOT for the compliments! Don’t forget to rate me after I alter the article accordingly, making the deck more powerful!  |
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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 9:16 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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| Altered the article structure, adding Quicksand to it! Worked pretty nicely most of the times, but it’s rather dangerous when using the secondary mana base, which depends on having 4 Snow Lands out as soo as possible. You could try and, maybe, add in 2-3 copies of Quicksand, but I find it to be rather risky, and not that necessary. |
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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 11:26 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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I tried using Commandeer in some playtests, but it turned out to be less effective than Spell Snare, or any other card, which was frankly frustrating, since it required A LOT of matches to come to this conclusion...  If opponents are giving you trouble keeping the combo alive in your meta, or you’re being swarmed, the best suggestion I have is to simply remove Jitte and add either 4 Hinder, so you can protect the Phantasm for the two extra turns it will need to swing; or Counsel of the Soratami, if Jitte is not enough to stall early beating from a creature swarm. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 10:25 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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Anything with blue and beats in it needs ninja of deep hours... Um. Yeah.
I see why jitte is run, but I don’t think it will make a difference unless you have a hunted thingy.
Before I suggest splashing green, I’d just like to mention that mana acceleration is important when you have a combo. MAna acceleration allows you to live long enough to combo away. That’s why cards like heartbeat of spring were printed, also the reason the biggest mana costing creatures are in green (see panglacial wurm, Krosan Cloudscraper, Child of Gaea, and Tooth and Nail).
If you splashed for birds of paradise and even llanowar elves, you could throw down a ninja of deep hours turn two, setting you up for card draw powers, or play a turn two hunted phantasm. Both of these situations I find highly... good. Also, I’d be in favor of cutting some muddles for hinders, seeing as you already have eight counters at the 2 mana-counter slot. |
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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:22 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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Yeah, but Muddle transmutes for Jitte, so I won’t need card-drawing. Also, the Ninja is more of a one-time thing only, don’t like it very much. And, in this build, I don’t see room for splashes...
This deck is not about combo’ing quickly, but keeping the damage you sustain under control long enough to turn the table, and it fares quite well this way, althoug I think it may be possible to splash  in my other article’s deck... |
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