Polymorph

[mamelon]

Hello, all. I decided to post my latest casual deck on this forum and see what everyone thought. The deck is called Polymorph, just as the title suggests. It is a monoblue deck that is focused on copying (and to a certain extent, stealing) and "transformation" effects. The deck "transforms" depending on what kind of deck I'm playing against, and I like that about it. This is the decklist:

Land - 21
17 Island
2 Dimir Aqueduct
2 Izzet Boilerworks

Artifacts - 2
2 Fellwar Stone

Creatures - 11
3 Shape Stealer
3 Clone
2 Izzet Guildmage
1 Sakashima, the Impostor
1 Uyo, Silent Prophet
1 Jushi Apprentice

Enchantments - 3
3 Followed Footsteps

Instants and Sorceries - 23
4 Hinder
4 Remand
4 Muddle the Mixture
4 Mimeofacture
4 Echoing Truth
3 Twincast

Sideboard - 15 (though since this is a casual deck, I'm not sure it can really be called a sideboard)
4 Annex
3 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Jushi Apprentice
2 Confiscate
2 Boomerang
1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
1 Kraken's Eye

Notes on the deck and how it plays
Originally, when I put this deck together, I had a control deck in mind. Of course it is monoblue, and there are control elements, but the more I play it, the more I feel it is appropriate to call it a "combo" deck (even though the only true "combo" in it is Clone or Mimeofacture with Followed Footsteps). The deck has changed a lot since I originally made it. At first I had Djinn Illuminatus to do Replicate/Splice onto Arcane tricks (I ran Reach Through Mists and Reweave - that was an interesting combination with the Djinn) but that diverged the focus of the deck too much, and neither card was particularly great without the Djinn in play. I decided to put the arcane aside.
The main themes of the deck now are copying (of course) and cheap instants to slow down opponents, most of which can be copied by Izzet Guildmage (only Mimeofacture and Hinder are more than converted mana cost 2).

Muddle the Mixture is an important card. It fetches Izzet Guildmage, Jushi Apprentice, and Fellwar Stone, and if I need to, I can use it to search for an Echoing Truth or something. For a while I had Telling Time in the deck, which the Guildmage would copy to let me search the top of my library for a number of cards. I really like Telling Time, and that was a nice trick, but I found that Remand was more helpful after a while. Tempo is a problem with me, and Remand helps slow it down. I just recently added the Clones, and I love them. I had Sakashima in from the beginning, and I had wished I could play more than one of him at a time - so I opted for Clone. They do raise the "mana-curve" some, but it hasn't been a problem.

There are only 21 actual lands - which is something I normally would never even dream of doing, but the Fellwar Stones really make a difference (more than I had anticipated), especially since I can tutor them with Muddle the Mixture. Also, Remand and Jushi Apprentice help me get lands faster. When I had 24 lands, I kept having problems with being mana-flooded. There were 4 Cloudpost at first (to enable multiple copies of Mimeofacture), but I kept only drawing one, having it sit in play and basically do nothing for me that an Island couldn't do better. I decided to give the Dimir Aqueducts and Izzet Boilerworks a chance - I was skeptical, but they turned out to be better than I expected. Also, they give me some off color mana should I clone a non-blue Guildmage or something like that (which is also why I chose Fellwar Stone).

The Muddle the Mixtures have become so important, I am thinking of dropping something to put in more Jushi Apprentices (from the "sideboard"). Cloning the Jushi has proven to be a great way to fill up my hand, but I need to get the Jushi early (which is why I need Muddle the Mixture). Thoughts?

I have been kind of considering altering some of the cards - dropping the Guildmages, putting in Threads of Disloyalty or Annex. It would make the deck much more enchantment heavy than instant heavy like it is now, and I can't say if that would be good or not. Anyone ever play a deck of this style before?

I really like the deck as it is, as I have always wanted to play one that has this theme. When Twincast and Followed Footsteps were printed, and Clone was put back in Ninth Edition, I thought "this is my chance." I've played it a number of times already, and it does pretty well. I don't always win, but it is fun to play even when I lose. It never does the same thing.

Any comments?

 

[Spiderman]

So... are you trying to keep this Standard only?

 

[mamelon]

So... are you trying to keep this Standard only?

No, not really. My comment about Clone was because it would be easier to get it from boosters now that it's in Ninth. Also, if you notice, there's Echoing Truth (if or when I would ever have to make this Standard legal, I'd replace these with Boomerang).

Why do you ask?

 

[Spiderman]

I'm actually not familiar with a lot of the recent cards, of which your deck seems mostly comprised of. I asked about the format so someone can make the appropriate suggestions

 

[Photon Eater]

The only thing I can think of that about this is as I've said before- it has some trouble with early game pressure, but Blue always does. Actually, with Remand it can deal with tempo better.

The other thing is that it is only as effective as your opponents deck, so it means that you need to be very clever and adaptable with your playstyle. You also have to be knowledgable of a variety of cards outside your deck, and how they work with the cards in your deck.

But I think you already knew that.

 

[mamelon]

I realize not very many people have looked at this thread, but I felt I might as well update on my experiments with the deck.

I took out the three Twincast and put in three Annex. I only got to try them in one game so far, but in that instance I found them useful. I drew two pretty early in the game, and stole a Forest and a Swamp. I later Cloned a Golgari Guilmage and tapped the Annexed lands to use its activated abilities. I appreciated the effective mana acceleration - though it terms of mana denial, removing one land from an opponent didn't make much of a difference in the long run (the game went pretty long). I've found that despite the deck's slight tendency to mana flood (at least before I cut out some land), I do need a lot of mana to perform a lot of my "combo" tricks. Gaining only one land a turn is of course the issue, and non-green decks always have to deal with it. As such, being able to spend 2UU to remove an opponent's land and gain one myself seems pretty appealing. In the game I used them in, they did end up helping a lot.

As a side note, I was wrong about Followed Footsteps + Clone being the only combination trick. There's a combo I've been able to pull with surprising frequency that is now just being called the "Remand trick." With Izzet Guildmage in play, I play a Remand, copy it twice for 4UU, have one copy target the spell to be Remanded, and have the second copy target my original spell. That way, the Remand returns to my hand, the opponent's spell is still countered, and I draw two cards. It takes eight mana, and it's not really something I count on, but I've been very surprised at how often I've been able to do it without ever regretting spending the mana. And Annex made it easier to do more often (both my giving me more mana faster, and by disabling some of the opponent's mana to prevent the countered spell from being replayed right away).