GatheringMagic.com recently (you know, like today) did a piece on mono-blue control and how it might actually be back as a result of Mana Leak in M11. It was a though-provoking piece, at least for me. In particular, it reminded me of a deck I used to play “back in the day,” which for me means my first go-round as a Magic player before my ten-year hiatus. One of the decks I used to play back then was a mono-blue control deck, called variously “DrawGo” and “CMU Blue” as a bunch of Team CMU guys played it at Worlds in 1998. For reference, here’s the “official” version of the deck:
CMU Blue (1998)
Artifacts
4 Nevinyrral’s Disk
Creatures
1 Rainbow Efreet
Other Spells
4 Force Spike
4 Counterspell
1 Memory Lapse
3 Mana Leak
3 Forbid
2 Dissipate
4 Dismiss
4 Impulse
4 Whispers of the Muse
Land
4 Stalking Stones
4 Quicksand
18 Island
Sideboard
4 Hyrdoblast
4 Sea Sprite
2 Capsize
4 Wasteland
1 Grindstone
Obviously, it’s almost creature-less. Basically, when you played it, you countered everything, blew up anything you didn’t counter with Nevy’s Disk, drew a lot of cards with Impulse and Whispers of the Muse and Dismiss, and your win condition was either the lone Rainbow Efreet (which survived Disk and was very hard to kill, in general) or with the Stalking Stones, which was the man-land of choice at the time.
We obviously don’t have most of these cards anymore. There’s no 1-drop counter like Force Spike, the only board-clearer for 4 is Day of Judgment, and there’s no recurrent instant-speed card draw like Whispers or kickass instant speed searchers like Impulse. However, I don’t think the archetype has to be completely dead.
I’d also like to point out that one of the fathers of this deck, Erik Lauer, was lead developer for Magic 2011 and fellow Team CMUer Aaron Forsythe was lead designer for Magic 2011. I actually played this deck against Aaron in a sanctioned tournament once, but he beat me with Finkel’s Sligh (mono-red) deck.
Now, Mike Flores has been advocating a UW control deck that tries to ramp into some big Eldrazi, and that’s an interesting concept, but it seems to me that you could do it almost entirely without the white now. So, let me present for your consideration, a deck idea:
DrawGo 2011
Creatures
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Artifacts
3 Everflowing Chalice
2 Crystal Ball
1 Brittle Effigy
Planeswalkers
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Other spells
4 Mana Leak
2 Negate
2 Essence Scatter
4 Deprive
4 Spreading Seas
2 Jace’s Ingenuity
2 Mind Spring
2 Into the Roil
3 All Is Dust
Land
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Eye of Ugin
4 Dread Statuary
15 Island
It’s the same general idea as the 1998 deck. All Is Dust is the new Disk, and your one beater survives it. Dread Statuary replaces Stalking Stones, your draw comes from Mind Spring and Jace’s Ingenuity, and you smooth your draws with Crystal Ball, which fortunately survives All Is Dust. The Leyline and Jace obviously don’t survive an All Is Dust but sometimes you have to give something up.
I’m sure it needs some tuning. It may well need 4 All Is Dust. I’m not actually sure how good the Into the Roil really is, and I’d consider taking them out in favor of more cheap card draw like Ponder or Preordain. I’d consider Mystifying Maze but the deck already seems pretty heavy on colorless land. Speaking of land, it might be worth replacing some of the Islands with fetchlands to thin the deck, but I’m not yet sure if that’s actually desirable. One or two Halimar Depths would also be worth considering.
The token Brittle Effigy is in case something slips through the wall of counters and you really need to get rid of it, like an opponent’s Eldrazi or an un-counterable like Great Sable Stag or Gaea’s Revenge. Probably something to consider in the sideboard, and I don’t have a sideboard sorted out in my head just yet.
It’s almost certainly soft to RDW, just as the original CMU Blue was a little soft to Sligh (which is what RDW was called back then), such that it devoted 8 sideboard slots to that matchup. I’d assume you’d board out the Deprives for Flashfreeze, but I’m not sure that’d be enough, so perhaps some Dragon’s Claws should end up in the sideboard as well. I’d even consider something really janky like Wall of Frost. Come on, CMU Blue ran Sea Sprite.
Vengevine could perhaps be a problem, but just counter them and make sure that they never cast a second creature on the same turn. That might be tough sometimes if they have a lot of small guys to cast all on the same turn, and of course there are cascades, but I don’t think it’s too unmanagable. If you can stay alive up to the first All Is Dust you should be good, since that’ll kill all the green mana dorks they have to try to cast multiple things on a turn. Maybe run a second Brittle Effigy in the sideboard for Vengevines.
Turn two Putrid Leech when you’re on the draw may also be a problem, but half the Jund players aren’t running the Leech anymore anyway, so you just counter whatever they do on turn 3 and go on your merry way. Otherwise you’ll probably have to Roil it, which doesn’t seem that strong a play, but it’s probably better than taking 4 every turn.
The UW control matchup may be kind of annoying, but this deck runs a lot more permission, so rely on that. Be selective about what you allow to resolve. Their man-lands are a little bit better because they fly, but they are slightly more expensive to activate. Try not to let a Baneslayer resolve, unless they have to tap out to do it and you have an All Is Dust ready to go. They will try to hit your man-lands and probably your Temples with their Spreading Seas, so bounce them clean with Deprive. You, of course, want to save your Seas for their Colonnades.
Finally, note there are only two cards that rotate out in the fall: Essence Scatter and Mind Spring. Losing Essence Scatter is pretty bad as Cancel seems a poor substitute. Losing Mind Spring is probably not quite as bad; running 4 Jace’s Ingenuity rather than 2 and 2 is not quite as good, but still likely acceptable. We’ll just have to see what Scars brings in. (I put my money down on some useful artifacts.)
Comments, questions, sideboard suggestions most welcome!