Naban - Dean of Insanity

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Segrus
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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

Background

Some months ago I posited a question in a different forum about casual, beginner mono-Blue decks. My first inclination had been to use Merfolk since they are iconic, have a wide range of abilities, and come with seemingly excellent support. Unfortunately, this just didn't pan out. Merfolk fell behind all of the other 'small' tribal beginner decks I'd built--Goblins, Elves, Zombies mainly--due to either being too slow or not having a fun/interesting strategy. I ended up switching it over to mono-Blue Thopters/artifacts and this works a lot better.

During the various conversations involved in trying to crack mono-Blue Merfolk, somebody brought up trying out mono-Blue Wizard mill. They had an awesome decklist I was really inspired by. While building other decks, I started casually pulling out cards to build something like it. This is what I've got so far.

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My first draft is obviously a bit rough. Primarily, the goal here is to use Naban to double up on Sage's Row Denizen triggers as well as other useful Wizard abilities. Some of the deck is meant to support this goal while other cards are just other mill-related stuff. Infinite Reflection seems exceedingly good in this regard, but I've somewhat limited the number of copy effects.

Aether Vial is a weird choice I think, but my hope with it is that a lot of my creatures are low and similarly costed so it'll help me play multiple creatures in a turn. Cryptic Gateway was one card I left out due to low-ish land count, but might need to find a place.

I know Thassa's Oracle is in here. I'm not really looking to turn this into a self-mill deck to combo out, just a casual mill deck.

Finding Sage's Row Denizen is possibly the weakest portion of the strategy, which is why I have a bunch of other mill effects. I wouldn't mind hearing some advice in this regard.

Lands are really suspect right now. Lots of Islands, not a lot of utility. I'm just stretched on lands currently, so I'll be needing to look into more.
Some cards I left out
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Training Grounds - I didn't feel like I had enough abilities to make this good.
Meekstone - goes well with Trinket Mage and could help delay, but I couldn't think of a great fit.
Meishin, the Mind Cage - mainly costs too much mana with my low curve.
Talrand, Sky Summoner - I don't know that I have enough instants/sorceries.
Magus of the Mind - big CMC, unlikely to cast enough spells in a turn.
High Tide - I'm not sure why I don't have this card in.
Hedron Crab - could be that I should find space to make some kind of landfall trigger combo with this guy, but otherwise didn't feel like it fit.
Psychic Surgery - has always been a hit-or-miss card for me.
Undead Alchemist - not a Wizard and doesn't mill, so trying to set it up to do this seemed sub-optimal.
Painter's Servant - I'm certain I'm wrong for not including this; I also don't currently have a Grindstone.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - big CMC too much big.
Dreamborn Muse - one of the last cuts I made, mainly on CMC. Help.
Galecaster Colossus - great with Wizards, but it doesn't exactly directly further my strategy.
Rite of Replication - I thought some of the other copy effects I have are better, although I'm beginning to doubt myself on Followed Footsteps.
Cryptic Gateway - this is probably better than Followed Footsteps. What have I done???

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

The mill plan feels............. kind of tacked on for this deck. I say that from the standpoint that the package is sort of small and its not self mill based effects. Milling opponents out is incredibly challanging in this format and if you don't kill someone with it its almost always an advantage to your opponents. I guess what I am getting at is that I would like to see it stepped up or scrapped.

Vedalken Aethermage seems like he would be some great toolboxing here. Wizardcycling is really nifty.

Thassa, Deep-Dwelling would probably be REALLY nice to add. I get that her price tag is a bit steep currently. I just thought if that wasn't holding you back that it would be a really nice add.

I like the concept of how this deck plays, I just hate how mono blue tends to win. I often dislike combo / Lab Man wincons which often makes mono blue be tricky for me. Master of Waves is probably my favorite possible wincon in here.
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Segrus
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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
The mill plan feels............. kind of tacked on for this deck. I say that from the standpoint that the package is sort of small and its not self mill based effects. Milling opponents out is incredibly challanging in this format and if you don't kill someone with it its almost always an advantage to your opponents. I guess what I am getting at is that I would like to see it stepped up or scrapped.

Vedalken Aethermage seems like he would be some great toolboxing here. Wizardcycling is really nifty.

Thassa, Deep-Dwelling would probably be REALLY nice to add. I get that her price tag is a bit steep currently. I just thought if that wasn't holding you back that it would be a really nice add.

I like the concept of how this deck plays, I just hate how mono blue tends to win. I often dislike combo / Lab Man wincons which often makes mono blue be tricky for me. Master of Waves is probably my favorite possible wincon in here.
Vedalken Aethermage...thank you. I was certain there was search effect for wizards I was missing, but it was completely slipping my mind on what it was.

So I also want to keep away from Lab Man related combos, which makes it a little weird to see you qualify what's in the deck already as insubstantial since it doesn't have self mill ("I say that from the standpoint...its not self mill based"). Maybe that's not exactly what you were meaning there. I do want to stick to having a mill win condition, and I'm happy to acknowledge it'll likely be weak and janky. Casual decks aren't a problem for me. I'm used to it.

I think I'm having trouble trying to decide how to juggle the number of wizards in the deck with non-wizard mill effects.

Oh, also Thassa. She could find a place one day, but getting enough mill in the deck first might be a better priority.

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Ok, I got intrigued enough by this commander I might be digging at a list myself lol. I figured I would mention a few things I was eyeing and see what you think of them.

Displace / Ghostly Flicker / Illusionist's Stratagem they are really silly with Archaeomancer / Salvager of Secrets but beyond that its a cheap way to retrigger two ETBs which you then multi trigger. It felt like a nice value grab. The cheaper single target flickers might even still be worth it in here but I figured at the least the flicker two effect cards were probably worthwhile.

Eternal Skylord hummmmm its 7/7 of stats for 5 and 4/4 of it flies. Beyond that if you flicker him he just stacks another 4/4 of stats onto that thing. I might be slightly obsessed with killing players the old combat route but I figured the stat value for the cost was actually quite interesting here. He also plays well with flicker effects which felt like a plus to me.

Watcher for Tomorrow holy cow this guy digs 8 cards deep and pulls two of them for us. Its not actually Dig through Time but....... it kinda feels like it. The fact that you draw the cards on leaving play puts him into flicker / bounce abuse too which just feels great.

Voidmage Prodigy - With a lot of this deck being ETB wizards it feels like free bodies to ship off as counterspells.

Cloudstone Curio - maybe a thing with cheap ETB value creatures.

Venser, Shaper Savant - How annoying would it be to bounce a spell on the stack and venser back to hand. Who wants to cast an X mana spell into that? That isn't his only option though you can also just bounce two things out. He just seems sooooo versatile.
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Segrus
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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
Ok, I got intrigued enough by this commander I might be digging at a list myself lol. I figured I would mention a few things I was eyeing and see what you think of them.
lol
What you build will likely be better than what I've got haha. Getting some aggro out of the wizards might be workable with what you're looking at, particularly Master of Waves. Eternal Skylord is going to be value town for aggro.

You're probably right about the blink effects. Which also makes me wonder if I shouldn't look into Gilded Lotus/Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (and technically Coveted Jewel) for infinite ETBs/mana. Kinda side note there.

I'm missing a few cards that I'll have to buy for this deck, and I think you're right Watcher for Tomorrow deserves to be in here. Straight upgrade from Augur of Bolas in my case. Cloudstone Curio is also one I don't own even though I keep looking through my collection as if I did. I do have a few Intruder Alarms though--I haven't seen a line of play for including it though.

And speaking of cards I forgot I probably need to order: Drowned Secrets. Altar of Dementia and Ambassador Laquatus seem like further possibilities.

Does Voidmage Prodigy just feel like moving more away from mill? I'm somewhat afraid including it does this. Definitely find a spot in your build.

Venser sounds super annoying lol.

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Maybe Supreme Inquisitor would be useful on your mill plan? I contemplated it a bit myself just from the standpoint of cutting people off from their wincons but I think its a lot better in your mill gameplan. Having five wizards is a bit of a demand but extracting the best 5 cards left in someone's deck is so much stronger than mill 5.
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 4 years ago

@ISBPathfinder
Inquisitor would be key in removing shufflers like the eldrazi titans too. It's too bad wizards don't reproduce like goblins
Responds well to spells and abilities

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Segrus
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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
Maybe Supreme Inquisitor would be useful on your mill plan? I contemplated it a bit myself just from the standpoint of cutting people off from their wincons but I think its a lot better in your mill gameplan. Having five wizards is a bit of a demand but extracting the best 5 cards left in someone's deck is so much stronger than mill 5.
It probably would be good for me to find a spot for it. I need to see if I can. I'm hoping I don't have to get too many higher CMC cards since I'm a little low on land count without virtually any ramp to offset that.

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