Jokesin' with MonoBlue

Howard's brought you the aggressive Joros deck, now check out his spin on control.


Introducing: Jokesin' with MUC



I’ve been testing this deck for two weeks, and honestly the results have been good: 8-
8. You may look at that and go, psssh, not as good as the record of his last deck. Well
that deck was just an anomaly. Decks weren’t prepared against it...Mono-Blue Control
(MUC) is maybe not a very popular deck, but it does exist on most people’s radars as a
budgeter version of UW control. Also decks that go 50-50 against the field are rated as
average decks right? And if the deck is ~5 dollars, that just makes the deck even sweeter.

The original MUC deck works as such: basically bounce-spells and early game defense
are your friends, then you hopefully take control of the game with both Jaces and
Conundrum Sphinx, usually clearing the board with All is Dust (accelerated with
Eldrazi Temples). In short, disrupt tempo and rake in card advantage in the late game to
overwhelm the opponent.

My deck is this:

Jank MUC | The Rusty Machete

17 Creatures:  
3 Aether Adept
3 Air Servant
2 Enclave Cryptologist
4 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Sea Gate Oracle
2 Sharding Sphinx

19 Spells:  
2 Aether Tradewinds
1 Call to Mind
4 Cancel
1 Mind Control
2 Negate
3 Preordain
2 Rite of Replication
4 Spreading Seas

24 Lands:  
3 Bant Panorama
4 Esper Panorama
1 Gargoyle Castle
15 Island
1 Swamp

15 Sideboard:  
2 Aether Tradewinds
2 Convincing Mirage
1 Grim Discovery
2 Into the Roil
2 Foresee
1 Aether Adept
2 Mind Control
1 Sea Gate Oracle
2 Sleep

Basically the way I disrupt tempo is very similar, except that Mana Leaks and Deprives are
a tad too expensive for the budget. I also introduce cards like Pilgrim’s Eye, Sharding
Sphinx (got the idea because of Conundrum Sphinx), and last but not least, Rite of
Replication. The interaction with Eye and Sphinx are obvious; however, it’s their roles
independent of their synergy that’s truly important.

Pilgrim’s Eye provides two functions that any control deck should have: 1) Finding
lands so you can make land drops every turn—a key reason why 26 is USUALLY the
minimum number that any control deck will have (not this deck because of all the cards
that help obtain lands), and 2) improving, albeit in very minor way, the probability for
drawing quality cards in the late game. (Another creature that provides the same role
is Sea Gate Oracle, which is also played in the deck. But for this two-function role: the
more, the merrier.)

Sphinx is just amazing. It’s not about swinging for 4 and making a chump blocker,
though that will sometimes be your game plan in a tight race. It’s about card advantage
at its finest. Something that’s not immediately obvious is that even tokens can make
more tokens. This twist to the typical nontoken clauses in most creature-dependent
trigger abilities (for instance, Militia’s Pride’s ability) makes you think twice about not
attacking and just leaving chumpers for blocks. Though it would be a snap-decision to
just attack with all your artifacts just because you get a pseudo buy-one-get-one free deal,
there are some sneaky tricks you can walk into. The most common being: after attacks,
I destroy Sharding Sphinx, you enter scoop phase. Just be sure to always play tight, with
this deck especially, as it is fragile.

What it lacks in robustness to either bad plays or insane plays by opponents, it makes
up in some of the best Magic moments that you will ever have, period—brought to you
by Rite of Replications. Let’s just say Rite of Replications UNKICKED on a Sharding
Sphinx can be game-winning, and leave it at that. For those of you that are curious about
some insane plays, wait for my follow up article that has some very unreal plays in it.

Another facet that might seem strange is the high number of panoramas for a mono-
colored deck. Those lands are just great for providing a way to include a greater land
count for higher early-game land consistency, and then higher spell density later game
after you crack all your panoramas. Also the fact you are one color and that they come
into play untapped means that they are almost always as good as playing another island,
except for draws where you need to cast cancel early. The panoramas also help you play
the sideboarded miser’s one-of Grim Discovery—yes, Grim Discovery...which ALSO is
a fine card due to panoramas being in your graveyard. Sometimes you find that you just
get locked out of the game by creature control and discard; this helps you basically have
another fine top deck to get back into the game and play your best creature in graveyard
in the late game and get a panorama for your troubles of paying 1B for the spell. Of
course, I could just have a terrible love/obsession with the card. Loyal readers will
remember that I also played one in the maindeck of Joros.

For those of you guys that are unfamiliar with control decks, I suggest you follow this
general rule if you try this deck out: Don’t be afraid to counter any early spell, no matter
how small it may seem. If you can’t do anything to advance your board, draw cards to
set up future turns, by all means don’t be shy about passing your turn and countering
any spell (because as bad as some spell can be at the current stage of the game, time
is a VERY important resource to this deck). They don’t call old style counter-control
decks Draw-Go for nothing. [Disclaimer: as you get better you can figure out how to
counter spells more effectively, but as a general rule it’s fine.] One last word of advice:
bluff the hell out of having either Deprives or Mana Leaks. People just expect these
cards, because honestly they are what helped nudge control decks firmly into Tier 1.

This deck will be a little more frustrating to play because you are playing control. But
remember folks, for every time this deck fails you and sputters out, there will be just as
many times where you are on the brink of death, tell your opponent that you were just
jokesin’, and finish off strong :). Please check out the sideboard guide below for some
simple sideboarding tips.

SIDEBOARD GUIDE:
Side-IN Strategy...
-Aether Tradewinds: Good for slowing down land drops of other decks (cast it on their
land when you have a non-land permanent in play), agro decks, decks that need counters
on stuff. You can also use it to reuse your seas/mirages on more important lands, or
replay creatures that have come into play (CIP) abilities.

-Convincing Mirage: Spreading Seas 5 and 6. They help to really mess up color-hungry
decks: these include decks that run 3 colors like Jund, have triple cost spells of one color,
have nonbasic lands that are important to game plan (man lands/Valakut), and Mono-
black decks (no real reasoning here except that most of their aggressive starts need two
drops cost BB or three drops that cost BBB—Gatekeeper of Malikir).

-Grim Discovery: As mentioned above, they help against discard or removal heavy decks
from controlling the game by taking out all your creatures and your win-cons like Sphinx.
It also is good for returning back a used Gargoyle Castle.

-Into the Roil: Very close in function to Aether Tradewinds. You would put in these
if you needed even more bounce than just 4 Tradewinds, or were playing against
a slower deck (such as ramp) so you could play it with kicker most of the time.

-Foresee: Good vs. control, which is a heavily card advantage-dependent match. Also
good if your only out in the match is a kicked Rite of Replication: basically just keep
sending cards to the bottom of your deck until you find the Rite.

-Aether Adept: Good against creature-based decks. The 2/2 body isn’t bad either.

-Mind Control: Good against mid-range decks. Taking Titans is a good thing.

-Sea Gate Oracle: Basically another way to slow down agro. Also good if a kicked Rite
is your only out.

-Sleep: The most budget version of Day Of Judgment I could think of in blue. Good if
your opponent has a lot of flyers so your Sphinx could still be relevent. Also if you try
to play a more creature/tempo-based build of the deck after your sideboarding, it really
works there too. It was the least sideboarded in card I had, so if you have a better idea,
use you idea in its place.

Side-OUT Strategy...
VS control/fewer-creature decks: All of your Aether Adepts and Mind Controls are
basically useless. I’d probably keep 1 Mind Control in case your opponent decides to be
spicy.

VS creature-heavy decks: Your Spreading Seas are most likely going to be weak here.
Negates need to go as well.

VS combo: Hardest to sideboard here. You might adopt a creature heavy build and try to
out-tempo his combo so you can play yours first and then win. I think that usually your
Pilgrim’s Eyes can go at this point. Also take out Aether Adept if the deck plays very
few creatures.

-HWU